We tried. We really tried. But ultimately, Minnesota just isn't going to work for us. The people here are, for the most part, some of the nicest people I've met anywhere we've lived. They are very welcoming folks. We also love our little homestead. It has, just about, everything we desire in a homestead. Except for the fact that it's in Minnesota, it would be perfect.
The house is charming, a small Victorian farmhouse (2050 square feet), with 3 bedrooms, one of which is downstairs, and 2 baths, one upstairs and one downstairs. The farmhouse kitchen we installed is perfect with it's walk in pantry and 3/4 bath along with a laundry room right off the kitchen. The formal dining room is small enough to be cozy, but big enough to fit my family sized table, china hutch and small buffet. The living room is enormous and the bedrooms are all cozy, but not small. There's even a basement that does triple duty as a mechanical room, food storage room and storm shelter. There's a full size garage attached, 2 pole barns and wooden barn on the 5 acres, a hay field and a pasture a well. Yes, it's nearly perfect. But, it's in Minnesota.
No, it's not the winters, although the winters ARE colder and windier (the wind here is nearly relentless), than we're used to, the snowfall is a fraction of what we're used to. We love winter, we love it far more than we love summer, although we do enjoy the delights of summer like grilling outdoors, canoeing and fishing and gardening. There's just something about winter that we love. Ice fishing, fruit tree grafting and maple sugaring are just some of the outdoor activities we enjoy in winter. We also love the fact that it just gets dark earlier in the winter, making it likely that you'll find us snuggled indoors in front of the fire together, just enjoying the fruits of our labors. During the summer, we're usually working outside until the last possible moment before bed.
For us, a couple of mountain-raised people, we simply can't get used to the flat of southern Minnesota. There are no mountains in Minnesota, although there are bluffs along the Mississippi river. We really miss our mountains. We also miss having a good 4 seasons climate. Our part of Minnesota simply doesn't have a good 4 season climate. It has a long, cold, windy winter, a very short spring, a long, hot, humid summer and an autumn that if you blink, you'll miss it. We're used to a long, cold and snowy winter, a long slowly unfolding spring full of flowers, a hot and humid, but not overly long summer, and a beautiful and never long enough, yet surprisingly long (if that makes any sense at all) Fall. We miss the colors of fall, the scent of fall and springtime. I think those "change" seasons, fall and spring, are our favorite seasons, followed by winter and then summer. We simply don't have that in Minnesota, at least not this part of Minnesota.
So many folks here, when we say we want to move back to New England, can't understand why, and it's something nearly impossible to explain to someone who has never been there. The place pulls at you once you've lived there with it's charm, beauty and culture. We simply miss it. We miss it a lot. We tried to ignore the feelings when they'd pop up in either one of us, but we feel like we're dying a little bit inside all the time. We're pretending to be happy, when we aren't.
Hubby has a great job here and he loves the people he works with and for. The Rochester office has been one of the best shops he's been associated with in his nearly 3 decades with Davey Tree. But he's ready to go home. We're ready to go home. He's talked with his manager about it, and although he's sorry to see him go, he says he understands. So we're trying to get hubby a sales position within Davey somewhere in northern New England. He was approached about a transfer to a sales position in Massachusetts, but ultimately turned it down as our desire is to be in the north of New England, i.e.., New Hampshire, Maine or Vermont. Hubby has been working with the regional manager up there and they have something in the works for him. So, it looks like we'll be moving again, hopefully this time, for good.
I'm tired of starting homesteads and then selling them to other people. I want a homestead where I can live and die at. I want to plant apple trees and actually get to pick apples from my trees. I want to feel some permanence and be home. Hubby wants that too. So we'll sell this place, and likely stay in an Airbnb for a few months until we find THE place we want to call home. We want to take our time and find a place that fits in with our lifestyle and our plans and dreams and goals. Goodness knows we aren't afraid of hard work so we're willing to do the work needed to make it ours but it has to be the right place. We need at least 5 acres with at least 3 acres fairly flat. We don't want a total rehab this time around, but we don't mind replacing a kitchen, a couple of bathrooms and flooring, and paint, but we don't want to gut and rebuild the whole thing. A barn is nice, but we're willing to build one. A basement or cellar is a must-have and a garage is high on the list too. We'll hold out until we find our place.
We just don't know where we're going at this point. Its a mysterious adventure at this point. We have decided to sell everything that isn't vital. Hubby has all but sold his sawmill and he's only had it a year. We've sold the baler and will sell the rest of the hay equipment soon. We're selling most of our outdoor power equipment. We're selling our canoe even. We'll take our meat processing equipment with us along with most of hubby's woodworking tools. We'll sell all of our furnishings except our dining room set, our box spring and mattress, and our freezers. Although I love our kitchen wood range, it will likely go with the house as its just too heavy to move. We are keeping our new Mahindra tractor and will upgrade our utility trailer to a dual axle one so we can haul it across the country when we move. We'll likely let our daughter in Iowa use it for however many months we're in the Airbnb and then come back out and pick it up when we have found a place. This is truly going to be starting over!
We'll take you all along with us on this adventure to find the right homestead wherever it is that we land.
In the meantime, we still have a lot of work to do on this homestead. We have the upstairs bath to finish, the upper hall to finish, trim to put up in all the downstairs rooms and I'll need to pain nearly every room still. We then have to put up new siding and paint the exterior and do a few repairs on the deck and paint that. We also need to take down a couple of dead ash trees that had the emerald ash borer in them when we moved in.
We have our piglets we're raising for the freezer and a couple of lambs along with about 20 turkeys and a few meat rabbits. We're hoping to be able to get these grown out and put away before the move. We have 2 piglets and we're hoping to sell one and put the other in the freezer. Our daughter is taking our sheep to their farm in Iowa and potentially our silver fox rabbits as well. Our plan is to move well stocked with food because most likely we won't be raising anything in 2025, so this is going to have to get us through. We planted an extra large garden this year, like we used to grow when the kids were home, and it will be processed to last a couple of years. Our apple trees are loaded so we'll hopefully get a good crop.
They are talking about wanting hubby there (wherever there is. They are keeping it all close to their vests right now.) in early Fall, so we're trying to get everything done that we possibly can get done before they want him. Can we do it? Can we finish this place and sell it? We shall see!
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