Nailsbeats
Addicted to ArboristSite
This is a little long, so don't read it if that's a problem.
It's been 37 years since my wife/best friend and I packed up and moved to the sticks in the Ouachita foothills here in west central Arkansas. All the work, worry, blood sweat and tears were worth it. We heat with wood, have chickens, I kill deer on the place and we live the simple life we so love. If I could pick up the whole place and move it 50 miles further out I would.
When we first moved out here I dug our septic tank hole and field lines with a pick and shovel. We brought groceries home on a tractor when the river got over the road. We've even brought groceries home in a flat bottom boat down the flooded road.
I can see for 40 miles from my front porch and have 10feet of front yard. It's 100 feet down to the river bottom. I'm an independent hermit type and love living up in the woods. We worked like dogs to get our place but if it wasn't for God helping us we would never have made it. We bought and lived on our first ten acres,then got 20 more then another 2.5 acres. Paid for it a little at a time and ate a lot of peanut butter.
Many city dwellers make the mistake of thinking only ignorant red necks live in the country. Too bad for them. You can find a way to get by in the country. We plant a garden, put up venison and fish. We have learned how to survive. I've made a lot of money and I've made a little money, but hard work and a simple life is the best.
Work + fervent prayer is an unbeatable combination. We home schooled our children here and I had a small business here for nearly 19 years. We buried our beautiful 15 year old daughter that was killed due to the drinking of a driver. With God's help and grace we go on and you can too. Try checking in with him. I'm not talking religion - I'm taking about life and a real person.
With God nothing is impossible.
God gave us this view from our front porch. I pray that you put your life in his hands. All the rest will OK. I'm 64 years old and my wife is 65. This year I put a new roof on our house with absolutely no help. My wife suffered a heart attack and has chronic arthritis. I've felled, cut and split wood for the winter and am still cutting for next year. We have no insurance at all. I have gout, need surgery on at least one shoulder, have two fingers missing on one hand an artery got sheared out of the other one. I lost 20% vision in my right eye from an inflamed optic nerve, but love hard work. It's amazing what a man - or woman - can accomplish when they really take hold.
With God nothing is impossible.
Oh yeah, I hold down a full time job in Hot Springs and have to pay the bankruptcy court $2300 every month before we buy a piece of bread. I've been doing this for about 6 years and have paid well over $100,000 to cover past business debts. We are made of different stuff than those Wall street slicks and crooked politicians that run the majority of the country. I have a good job now designing equipment for an engineering company, but in the past I've been a journeyman tool & die maker, finished concrete, a carpenter, furniture refinisher, roofer.
Back in the old days people headed west to get away from the politicians and Wall street types. There's no more west now, but you can ferret out a place in the hills or mountains or remote bottoms somewhere.
The government didn't show up to bail me out and I didn't ask them. If God allows, I will be free from this in October of 2010.
The hardest thing is usually what you have to do, so just go on and do it. Work at something you may not like too much so that you can finally work at what you really want to do. I wouldn't tell you this if I hadn't done it myself. Many people would not have done what we have had to do - especially the women.
With God nothing is impossible. If you really really want land then get waaaaay out from the big cities, prices go way down. Here in Arkansas there are lots of acres of reasonably priced land in the Ozarks, and I'm certain that in rural Georgia you can find some of the same. Get work somewhere and save for what you want. I didn't like working away from my family in strange places but knew I had to for awhile. Set your face and determination and work for what you dream. My son is 28, works a full time job and is also a full time college student. His grades? Two A's and three B's. He's doing what he wants and so can you.
Draw a mental line and say to yourself "I'm starting right here, right now."
With God absolutely nothing is impossible, and with God all things are possible. Work and go to it!
Don't ask anyone if you can do it - most of them will say you can't. They will judge you by their own lack of determination and purpose. Just do it.
Two years before we moved to the country we were living in a mobile home park and being awakened at 3am by squeeling tires
and breaking beer bottles. It was like a prison to us. While living there I wrote this:
A Mountain Home
By Frank Lee Jennings
©2008 All Copyrights remain with the author
Someday I’ll have a mountain home
With forests all around
And through the hollows I will roam
With gun and baying hounds
To hunt the mountain game, all wild
Turkey, deer and Squirrels
Land not yet by man defiled
Best land in the world
The beauty of an autumn’s day
Or winter’s stark delight
Chipmunks on the ridge at play
A flock of Crows in flight
A long day’s hunt, a pleasant one
The tires hounds all close by
The evening chill, a winter’s sun
Sets in a cloud streaked sky
Then homeward trail at twilight time
Lest darkness come too soon
And we must wend through Oak and Pine
By light of winter moon
Crispy leaves crunch neath’ my tread
This frosty winter night
The hounds, all anxious to be fed
And fight their daily fight
Then through the branches shafts of light
All softened by the fog
A guiding beacon in the night
For huntsman and his dogs
The kenneled dogs howl for their bone
And feeding them a trial
Each thinks the grub is his alone
And fights from pile to pile
Once more the hunt is over
And ended where began
A home out on the mountain
In a whispering White Oak stand.
Did it come to pass? You bet! Was it worth it? ........What do you think?
This is the best post I've ever read on this site IMO. I think me and you could see eye to eye on about anything.
I especially like it because I have and do spend time in the Ozarks. I go to a friends place that made it all up from nothing. He runs a free church camp, and rely's on others for his income. He is a man's man and humble. We helped him build his house, cabins, kithchen, chapel and make firewood. We also built and donated a trailer to him and many other fab projects. I have killed deer and hog down there too. The rivers are pure blue, and winters are like fall around here. We pack heat wherever we go, with miles and miles of land to hunt. I could go on and on, but I won't.
I love your post and philosophy. Seems that people that live off the land are deeply rooted in reality and spiritually. God bless brother.
Edit: You must be close to him, he has the Oklahoma/Arkansas boarder running right through his yard. He told me we were in the foothills connected to the Ozarks I believe. He is 10 miles from the nearest Arkansas town which is Grannis and has no power. He is up here as we speak, I haven't seen him cause I've been in the hospital with my baby, but he might come over today, I will show him this post!
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