2011 has been explosively transformative for me. It started as an exercise in exhaustion, working fulltime, renovating two houses, preparing one of them to sell and one of them to live in. We lived the city with five dogs and four cats, took public transit to work, shopped at Safeway and Home Depot and exercised our collies with a Chuckit in a paved alley.
We now live on a farm, have two additional dogs (yeah, our goofy maremmas), four Dexter cows, and a shed full of chickens. I have started my own business and have quit my fulltime job. We shop at the dinky grocery and hardware stores in town where, surprisingly, they have everything we need plus the tellers know our names. Oh, and I exercise our collies by sending them out to chase the deer out of my garden.
I feel a bit like a bunkerless survivalist. Or, I guess, a Thoreauvian ruralist. I’m now a non-hippie, nearly off-the-grid, nearly-self-sufficient artist dude who will be happy doing this till my meat wheels fall off. Or my ‘net connection goes down. Whichever comes first.
