What to Do When an Unexpected Adventure Calls You

Posted on Jul 25, 2023 Topic : Inspirational/Devotional, Women's Christian Living
Posted by : Kathi Lipp

“What do you think about moving to the mountains full-time?”

If only I’d known that with that one question, our whole lives would change.

Actually, I take that back, because if I’d known all the hard stuff we were going to face, I would have never signed up for this particular adventure. And I would have missed all the good stuff.

At this point, you might be thinking, I could never be a homesteader! I got you, girl.

Let’s get it straight from the start: Being a country girl was never an aspiration of mine. I was not the girl glued to Little House on the Prairie on Monday nights while I was growing up. I have never longed to be outside or described myself as “outdoorsy.”

I assumed I never could be a homesteader because

I didn’t grow up in a homestead-y family,
I thought I would die without Starbucks a minimum of three times a week.
I spent way more money at HomeGoods than Home Depot.
I felt like a pioneer if I made dinner five times a week.
I’ve never lived in “weather.” (In the Bay Area, if it dips below sixty-four degrees, people start layering with scarves and multiple jackets.)
I basically gave up gardening because I couldn’t keep the squirrels out of my four-pot salsa garden.
Roger has severe environmental allergies.
I shop in the plus-size section of the store (and you don’t see a lot of plus-size people featured in Mother Earth magazine).
I’m highly allergic to mosquitos. Like, one side of my face blows up if I get attacked by a mosquito.
I hurt my back 25 years ago helping my parents move a box (yes, one box), and I’ve never fully recovered.
At our age, Roger and I should be looking at retirement plans, not plans to build a new, expanded chicken house.
I am decidedly “indoorsy.”
Touching animals besides dogs and cats has always freaked me out.

But I rallied and thought, Hey, we’ve lived in the mountains part-time for a year. How different could it be to live there full-time? What I didn’t realize was the difference between visiting the cabin and living at the cabin. Visiting the cabin means you can head back to town when you know there is a storm coming and you don’t want to get stuck in the mountains. Living at the cabin means you have to dig a snow tunnel to the chickens so you can chip the ice off their water. That’s a big difference.

Living at the cabin means you can’t just run to the store for a loaf of bread. It’s easier to make one yourself (or let’s be honest—just decide bread isn’t that important and crackers with jam is a perfectly acceptable lunch).

Every day up here on the mountain is a day I’m tempted to doubt I have what it takes to make it work. Here, we are surrounded by “mountain people.” You know, people who think nothing of spending all day chopping wood or clearing land. While I sometimes debate whether I have the emotional energy to load the dishwasher.

But miracles abound. My certified, citified husband has made the adjustment. When I first knew him, long before we were married, and he was looking for a house, he told me the one criterion was that it couldn’t have a lawn to mow. He hated the idea of mowing a lawn every week. So sure—let’s buy thirty-three wooded acres and call it a day. But Roger reminds me that there’s a difference: Mowing the lawn is a chore, but managing a forest is an adventure.

So here the two of us are, on the adventure of a lifetime. Because if not now, when? And if not you, who?

Moving to the mountains? Best not-thought-through decision I’ve ever made in my life.