Our Dream Comes True

I'm a Little-House-on-the-Prairie-girl at heart. I love the idea of living off the land - homesteading. In a strange way, it seems like worship unto the Lord to me - using what He provided in nature for our livelihood.

I lived in the country as a child, but we never had animals or gardens or anything. Yet, as an adult, I've always wanted to try my hand at a small family farm. I have bought books about it, I've researched it on the internet, I've watched documentaries about it. I just love the adventure of it! It's work that, to me, seems so fun, it hardly could be work.

My children have caught the country-bug as well. They learned a lot about farm work when a family friend took them to a horse ranch for a month, and they moved hay, shoveled poop, and cleaned hooves. They loved EVERY SINGLE minute of it! They would beg to know when they could go again.

We currently rent, and with the strange housing market in Northern California, buying a home is now cheaper than renting. We have talked many times with my in-laws about buying land together that we would share. We've been shopping for months now, but in the difficult market, we just kept being met with disappointment. We prayed and prayed for the Lord to direct our steps, and open and close doors as He saw fit. That He did!

Last week, a property came back on the market after it had been pending, but fell out of escrow. It is a newer, four bedroom, beautiful farm house with a huge front porch and a circular driveway. It's absolutely adorable! It sits on five acres at the end of a court in a town ten minutes north of us. It's just about three to four minutes off the freeway. We made an offer, and much to our surprise, it was accepted on Monday. Contracts and papers have been signed, and we're thinking we'll get our keys by mid to late June. It's so amazing, it hardly seems real yet!

On our visits out to the property so far, my boys have already done a ton of exploring, caught a frog, and one boy sat and studied a ladybug on a blade of grass for almost 30 minutes - homeschooling at it's finest, in my opinion. We've had a dream planning meeting as a family to make a list of all we eventually would like to do with the acreage. We have plans for goats, chickens, rabbits, places to play baseball, basketball, and football, and even a go-cart track. We will take our time, learning about one thing at a time, but we couldn't be more excited.

So, our family is busy at work, collecting boxes, packing, purging, planning for a move in 4-6 weeks. Agh! It's craziness right now. My brain is so full of things I'm trying to remember. But we believe the Lord is ordering our steps, and I am in constant communion with Him, as I don't want to do this without His help.

We'll keep you posted on how things progress for us. Stay tuned...