This was to be a recap of the week....
But I think it's time to introduce myself...
What to say….I’ve been somewhat reluctant to write anything about myself here up until now. But it seems now that I feel people are beginning to take me serious here on the internet it’s time to open up a little….
I bounce back and forth between using “We” and “I” when I describe myself and my life. I’d been a “We” for about 20 plus years so it’s habit as much as anything. Plus even though I’m single I can’t take credit for building this place alone. I did have a long time partner/husband in this adventure I call my life.
I really can’t even say I’m a farmer at this point. I’m a supporter of other farmers now actually. Having been born in Indiana in 1966 I guess I’m a hoosier. But that part of my life is pretty hazy. I have no memory of that time. My first real memories started in North Carolina. It was the early 1970’s when my parents lived in Wilmington. I have some of my best memories from there. I remember a beautiful boat, I remember awesome friends and neighbors and lots of seafood.
After those memories come a very activity filled childhood in Upton Massachusetts. My father was a Navy recruiter working out of Boston and my mother was a homemaker. I was lucky enough to be given the responsibility of owning animals at a very young age. My Mom loved horses and she was the person that encouraged me to love them also.
She had bought a young “grade mare” but she really must have been more Morgan than anything. That became my sister Samantha’s horse “Misty”. My parents then purchased a retired barrel racing horse for me. Her name was “Rosie” and I loved her with all of my heart. I don’t really remember being all that close to people when I was young but I was close to Rosie. I remember going on amazing rides all over our little town. We had this pond not far from my house and I would ride my horse across the pond. It was amazing to feel her legs stir the water. It’s a feeling I’ll never forget. It was like the churning of a huge ship.
Rosie had so many issues I see now but to me she was perfect. She later developed what they called “Navicular” in those days. I know we worked hard to ease her pain but eventually she had to be put to sleep.
As a young adult involved in animals it was only natural that I do something in the animal husbandry field. In Massachusetts farming wasn’t really an option. I didn’t know any farmers nor did it interest me. I had decided I wanted to be a Marine biologist. I’d been accepted to University of New England. But my parents had made plans to move to Illinois. I’d thought that I was ready to be on my own and stay in Massachusetts. But when I graduated from high school and the plans were being made to move I decided I wasn’t ready to be “on my own”. So I loaded up my 1976 Honda Civic and my doberman and followed the caravan to the Land Of Lincoln.
I remember my parents subscribed to the Pana Palladium and the Breeze Courier. Both local papers from towns close to where my parents were moving. I also remember the fear in my sister’s eyes when she saw the results of the local “Chicken Judging Contest” at the Christian County Fair. She was such a smart girl and she was so afraid she was going to school with hillbillies and rednecks...I chuckle now. I love these hillbillies and rednecks now!
Once I got here I was lucky enough to have a Grandpa that put me to work. He let me come to work for his road construction company. That was in the days when there were no women on road crews. Equal opportunities for women made it so every federal construction job had to have a certain number of minorities working on each job. I soon got on with the Teamsters local and spent the next 4 years traveling all over Illinois working road construction.
Road construction here in Illinois was not a year round job at that point. So I was laid off in the winter. It was a pretty nice life. I soon was able (with the help of my Parents and Grandparents)to buy my very first house. I’d found a house in Owaneco. It wasn’t very far from my parents so it was perfect. It was such a beautiful house. I remember my boyfriend at the time and myself working hard to fix it up. I drive by that house today and am reminded of such great times.
I was no longer driving a truck I’d been given a small house cleaning business from a family friend that was retiring. She trained me and introduced me to all of her customers. She had been doing it here for about 20 years so she had put together a great client list. I was happily employed and loving life. I was still only 22 at the time. I’d been cleaning the house of one of the executives of ADM trucking and he’d offered me a gravy job cleaning the offices at the trucking terminal. I was able to do my regular cleaning jobs and then go to work from 4 p.m until midnight. Life was pretty good.
I was now a single, gainfully employed home owner. What more could I ask for? And that’s when it happened folks. Love...it does it to us all of the time doesn’t it ladies?
I met a wonderful man. He was a driver at ADM. He was single, good looking and he liked me. What more could anyone ask for?
I’d met him in October of 1988 and by July 1989 I’d graduated from Truck Driving School and hit the road. My parents sold my house for me and I was off traveling the country. We had a great run I must say. I have such amazing memories from those years. I worked for what is now known as “The Ghost Fleet” . In those days we delivered Patriot Missiles to support what was called Desert Shield. We then delivered more varied ordinance for Desert Storm. And after the war was over we then delivered lots of nuclear waste, nuclear fuel rods,etc. When the war was over and the military bases were closing we’d gotten on with Emerson Electric out of Bridgeton Missouri. That was one of those jobs that someone had to die for you to get on. They were the perfect trucking company to work for. It was like we died and went to truck driver heaven.
We then were no longer staying out on the road for months at a time. We were working 4 or 5 days a week and then we were home on the weekends. This doesn’t sound like it should be a problem but it was. Because we’d been driving the loads we had we just weren’t able to come home. We’d sold our little house to our daughter and her new husband. So we were essentially “homeless”. We bought a HUGE 5th wheel camper and moved it to the local lake. We were living the dream. Working all week and camping all weekend.
When spent all summer riding our motorcycles on the weekends all around Illinois looking for a place to build our dream home. For those looking for their perfect piece of land you know how tough it is to find. You see open fields all around you and you think how tough could it be to find a place? It’s tough! Really tough. We’d see farmers out in the field and we’d stop and ask if they knew of any small acreage for sale. There wasn’t any...NONE!
It was just a miracle that we were at my parents place visiting before heading out on a motorcycle trip. We headed the opposite way we normally would and not 4 miles from my parents home there was a hand lettered sign painted on a piece of plywood reading “House and 10 acres for sale” with an arrow facing down a country lane. It was a homesteaders dream come true. Surrounded by nothing but flat farmland we’d driven our motorcycles up a hill that we hadn’t even known was here. There at the top of the tree lined road was our dream home...okay. Maybe it wasn’t a dream home but it was LAND! It was a fallow bean field with NOTHING on it but dry beans and a small elderly but well taken care of double wide house trailer.
Not only was there one creek running through it but there were two! This was perfect and we could afford it! They were asking $48,000. We didn’t even bother to negotiate. We told them we’d take it on the spot. It was a steel! We’d shaken hands with the nicest couple we’d ever met and we had a deal! I’d called my parents from our friends home that we were visiting and asked to borrow $2,500 for the earnest money. My parents didn’t even question it. My Dad had the money that evening for us. The deal took over 2 months to be worked through but the couple stayed true to their word. The house was ours.
For the next 12 years we built this place on weekends while we were driving during the week. It was exhausting but it was definitely worth it to me. In 2005 I decided it was time to retire and do this fulltime. That was also about the time when I decided I just couldn’t drive anymore. The traffic became horrendous. The construction became a constant annoyance and I really felt I could kill someone out there. I had someone say “One slip of the wrist and I could kill someone”. Knowing that and being angry isn’t a great combination.
People have no idea what it is like in a Semi. It worked out because Emerson was closing it’s trucking division and they were outsourcing all of their loads to the cheaper companies. My husband stayed on during the transition. He’s known no other jobs since 1973 so it was just me here in the country. I’d decided I wanted to groom dogs for a new profession. It was something I had done on and off all of my life so it only seemed natural this is what I should do. We built a beautiful shop and I started building a very good business. We then expanded into boarding dogs also.
We had a beautiful manicured place in the country. Mowing the lawn was my ex-husbands therapy from a long week of dealing with traffic and people. We’d bought a big Kubota tractor with all of the attachments and kept building the place. By then I’d been bitten by the homesteading bug and I spent all week making up a list of the improvements my husband could make to the place on the weekends. I met an amazing woman that was raising dairy goats and making homemade bread and homeschooling her children. I wanted all of that (except the kids) so I’d gotten online and started researching the best dairy breeds of goats….
I’m going to continue this later.
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