thoughts

Thinking of moving

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No, I don’t mean moving off the farm. For all the issues we’re having, I hope to live here for many more years!

No, I mean this blog.

This blog is a very photo heavy blog. Early on, we ran out of media storage with the free WP account, so we forked over the dollars to pay for an upgraded account, with our domain name, that gave us 13gigs of storage.

Which did tide us over for a while, but we are at 98.9% full right now.

Some things, I’ve been posting on Instagram and embedding here. Which doesn’t always works, and sometimes requires people to click through to Instagram to see the images, and I think you need to have an account to see anything there. There are some things, however, that I won’t post on The Re-Farmer Instagram account – like our stock up shopping photos. I also upload photos to Word Press using my phone only, because it automatically compresses the images into a smaller file. Something it does not seem to do when I upload using my computer. Even images I’ve resized significantly are larger files than ones I upload from my phone.

A while back, I started going through old posts to try and free up storage space. I got rid of a lot of “photos of the day” and “critter of the day” posts that basically had a photo and little else. With others where the photos were relevant to the post, I checked and, if the files were full size, I would remove the original image, resize it, and repost it.

It was enough to tide us over for a while longer but it is incredibly tedious and time heavy to do it, and I don’t even know if I managed to get all the posts I could. I’ve been making pretty much daily posts – sometimes several a day – for years, so there is a lot to go through. I have to first open a post and check the images separately. If it’s a full size image, I then have to find it in the media storage area. Which you’d think would be easy, since I could just copy and past the file name into the search field, but it turns out that WP changes the file names somehow, adding _ in spots within the file name, for example. So I would have to figure out how to find the image using parts of the file name, instead. Once I found an image that I wanted to keep, I would then resize it, upload the new file, input the new image file into the old post, then delete the original, large file. Or, if it was a photo only post, I would simply find and delete the old image file, and then the original post.

There’s only so much of that I can do, before there’s nothing left to change, and it’s not saving enough storage space to be worth it anymore. I hate making posts without at least some sort of image in it (like this one!). Most of my posts are about things we are doing that I want to share. The whole point of this blog is to document what we are doing here.

So I’ve been trying to figure out alternatives. The plan I have with WP right now isn’t available anymore, so if I upgrade, there’s no going back. Their plans go from 6gb of storage space to 50gb of storage space, and the plan I have now gives me 13gb.

Upgrading, however, is to a business plan I don’t want or need, just to get some extra storage space. There is an option to buy storage space as an add on, but it would need to be paid for annually (though the prices lists are monthly), and the cost for 50gb is more than twice as the cost of the next plan up, which comes with the same amount of storage space. They’re basically charging more than a dollar a gig (Canadian $), whether you’re buying an extra 50, 100, 150 or more gb.

Which is ridiculous.

Alternatives include starting another free WP account and using it just for storage space and embedding the images into posts here. Which becomes a logistical nightmare (I already have trouble keeping track of my personal accounts and this blog’s accounts). I had opened a Flickr account and use that to store images to embed here, but they limit by the number of files, not storage space, so that didn’t take long to fill up. I haven’t found another place to store files that can be embedded here that I like.

Another alternative is to move to another blogging platform. Since I use a gmail account for this blog’s email, I would have access to a Blogger account already. As far as I know, I haven’t seen any limit on how many images can be stores on a free account, but for all its problems, I like the editing functions on WP better than Blogger.

I tested out Medium, but that isn’t so much a platform for blogging as a space for far left extremist hive minds.

I considered doing YouTube videos, instead, but 1) it takes a lot more time to edit and upload a video and 2) there are only so many things I would want to take video of, and I’m not the sort that can just talk into a camera. I prefer writing. Plus, I also would avoid anything that shows our faces. There are reasons this blog remains anonymous.

I ended up getting a personal Substack account some time ago, mostly because I wanted to follow other Substacks. I haven’t tried writing anything there, but I noticed that you can transfer entire blogs over fairly easily to the platform.

So here’s the thing.

This blog now has just over 900 subscribers, including email subscribers, after 7 years of blogging. I really don’t make any effort to promote this blog. Again, our need to remain anonymous prevents us from trying to create the next, great viral blog. 😄 WP does make it easy to follow other WP blogs – or at least it does, when it’s actually working.

I turned ads on in 2020 and only recently got enough ad revenue for an actual payout, and that amount doesn’t even cover the cost of the plan we’re on. Not that this blog can be used as an income generator (I cannot have an income, as it would negatively effect my husband’s disability payments), but it can be used to raise donations for the cats.

From what I’ve seen, Substack might be a good place to move to. For anyone already using it, can you tell me what the limits are for storage space on a free account? I can’t find any information for that at all. Of course, I’d have to pay to keep our domain name, but that shouldn’t be an issue.

Substack also has other options that seem to make it easier to collect donations for the kitties. Substack would take a cut, but since the account is otherwise free, that beats how much we’re paying per year for our WP plan. With WP, I’d have to upgrade plans to be able to use a donation widget, and we just can’t afford that. I have a Ko-fi account, but have never been able to get anything more than a donation button to work here, and I keep forgetting to post updates there.

If I do move to Substack, and you subscribe to this blog, would you follow us over?

For those using Substack now, how to you find it? How would you compare the two platforms?

Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated!

The Re-Farmer

Pretty poser, possible new addition, still making space, and feedback request

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Look who followed me this morning!

This photo really highlights that mix of white and black fur he has! When the light doesn’t get these stark contrasts, he looks like a grey old man. 😄

Also, the poor bugger has SO many burrs hiding in the long fur. Every chance I got to pet him, I’d try to pull some more out, but I keep finding more. He’s got a big clump on his chest, and I found an even bigger one at the back of his belly. There’s another big one behind one of his ears, though I’m not sure if that’s a burr, or a matt of fur. We’re going to have to take scissors to this poor guy!

Speaking of poor guys. Or gals.

The girls can hear stuff outside from upstairs much better than on the ground floor, so when my younger daughter went flying out of the house, I figured it was to break up another cat fight. It was over by the time I joined her, but it was not what I expected. I figured The Distinguished Guest and Shop Towel were at it again, but nope. It was Rolando Moon…

And another orange cat.

A long haired orange cat.

Rolando Moon was in the tree in front of the kitchen window, with a tuft of long orange fur stuck in her teeth.

I got it out for her.

The cat had run away behind the storage house and, as we watched, I spotted it crossing the snow behind the pump shack. I realize I have seen this cat before. About a week or so ago, as I head up the driveway while doing my morning rounds, a cat exploded out from under the garage door and went running across the old hay yard, disappearing behind the shed and barn. With the sun rise behind it, I wasn’t sure if it was an orange cat, or a grey one, but I was leaning towards orange. All I knew for sure is that this was not a cat I’d seen before. Seeing the long haired orange walking across the snow in better light yesterday evening, I think it’s the same cat I saw before.

We’ve had long haired orange cats here before, and I have old pictures and video of one particularly mean bugger from the last time we visited the farm before my father passed away. It’s been a few years, though. Since moving here, we’ve gone from having almost all orange yard cats to only one – Rolando Moon, who is also among those photos I took so many years ago.

So it’s possible we might get a new addition to the yard cats (I counted 23 or 24 this morning). That’s assuming Rolando Moon doesn’t drive it away!

On another note, I was able to spend some more time cleaning up old blog posts to free up media storage space. I completely forgot just how many photo posts I made over the years! For a while, I was doing both Critter of the Day and Photo of the Day posts at the same time. While a lot of these posts are basically just a picture with maybe a line of text, some of them had four or five photos each.

No wonder I’ve been running out of storage space!

As I go further back, though, a lot more are full blog posts that also have a whole lot of critter photos added in. I’ve been leaving those. I also left the ones where the images are stored on Flickr. I still have more to go through, but I did manage to free up more storage space. As the seasons progress this year, the photo heavy gardening and progress posts I used to do will be a thing of the past, or I’m going to be facing the same problem in a very short time. I’ll be putting things together into videos, instead. As far as I can tell, YouTube and Rumble don’t have any storage limits.

It was a bit nostalgic going through those old photos before deleting them off of WordPress. There was one really good photo of Nicky the Nose’s face, looking directly at the camera. Gosh, Nosencrantz looks so much like him! No DNA test needed to confirm paternity! We haven’t seen Nicky the Nose for a couple of years, now. I found some old photos of Shop Towel, looking younger and less beat up, along with other toms that used to visit, but no longer do. Quite a few of our own yard cats that have disappeared in there, too. Seeing pictures of Keith as a kitten brought back memories. We sure miss him.

There are so many good photos. I can see why I posted them, and hate to have to remove them. I want to find some way to bring them back.

Hhmmm… What are your thoughts on this idea. If we were to use some of these photos on a site like Red Bubble, where they could be printed on demand on things like mugs, clothing, journals, clocks, stickers, etc., with all proceeds of sales going towards the care and feeding of the cats, how do you think that would go over? Would you buy, say, a cell phone case with beautiful bird picture on it? Or a notebook with a picture of a deer sticking its tongue out? Or a t-shirt with a cat photo?

Or maybe you have some other idea for these photos to suggest?

The Re-Farmer

Looking back – a year ago today

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Well, here it is.

A year ago today was the last day of getting ready for the movers to arrive.  My husband and younger daughter were already out here for several weeks.  My older daughter and I spent those weeks continuing to purge and pack and get ready for the movers.

We were exhausted.  In pain.  Ready to drop.

cost-benefit-analysiscba-3-638Thinking about the past year, I sat down and crunched some numbers.  When we were deciding whether or not to accept my mother’s request to move out there, with her offer to pay for the movers, I sat down with our budget at the time, and tried to compare it with what we might expect to be paying out here.  I thought I was erring on the side of caution as much as I reasonably could.  Basically, we had to decide if the increased costs out here would be made up for by not paying over $1400 in housing charges.  Living on a fixed income while expenses kept increasing meant we were slowly falling behind.  Being overly cautious with the numbers, we felt we would be ahead of the game by about $450 a month.

Now, a year later, I can look at our actual expenses and compare.

Keep in mind, I am just looking at our regular budgeted expenses, since there’s no way to account for things like the hot water tank dying, or the van suddenly needing hundreds of dollars of work done on it.

In the end, we are ahead of the game by just over $320 a month.

Some things are not quite reflective of actual costs.  For example, we are paying $20 a month more for our vehicle insurance and registration, but before the move we were only paying for the insurance; the registration was paid for annually, and we could shop around for private carriers.  Here, there’s no choice.  Just the public insurance company, and both are paid for together.

Then… there’s the rest.

Our electricity bill has tripled.  In my previous comparison, I had expected it to quadruple.  Still; painful.  At least now we’re on an equalized payment plan, so starting this month, the payments will be the same, and we won’t be getting any more almost $600 electricity bills!

Before the move, our TV and internet were bundled.  Out here, the only way to get internet was by satellite.  It took a while, but with the new satellite the company has available, we now have internet speeds and reliability, as well as a data package, comparable to what we had in the city.

At triple the cost.

We also have to have a land line now, since we’re in a cell phone signal dead zone, so that is a completely new expense.  With a long distance plan added to it, it ended up higher than I had worked it out to be when we first tried to do a comparison.

Our cell phones, on the other hand, are now combined in a bundle with one company, and that’s one bill that is actually lower by over $100.  Our grocery budget has gone up by $400 (note that this includes not just food, but personal care items, household needs, pet supplies and bird/deer feed).

Our gas budget has stayed the same, but only because we ration our trips as much as we can.  Our prescription budget had to go up, but our content insurance went down.

Now, normally this would mean that we’re ahead of the game.  But when we start taking into account the things we need to do here, and how much it will cost, we’ve not actually gained anything financially by moving out here.

It’s a good thing finances were not the only reason we agreed to move. :-/

The Re-Farmer

A Good Day – and critters!

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Before I go into today’s events, I wanted to share this photo from a few days back.

2018-10-robinsI had been watching the birds at the feeder and noticed some much bigger birds under the apple tree.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many robins, all together (there were several more that I was unable to get in a photo) .  I also didn’t know robins like to eat crab apples!

Between the birds and the deer, any fallen apples get cleaned up, real quick! Continue reading →

A bit of manual labour

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When I started clearing out at the spruce grove, my husband was able to get a picture from the living room, as I was dragging the downed tree top out of the bush.

So here is me, in my grubbies.  A decidedly unflattering picture, but then, this kind of work isn’t pretty, either! :-D

2018-08-20.clearing.tree.top

The difficulty was maneuvering it between two trees, when its branches were wider than the space.  Most broke off, but I did have to cut one larger branch to get it through.

Since starting an Instagram account connected to this blog, I’ve been following a number of farm and country related accounts.  Most heavily feature farming equipment (swoon!) or cute animals.  Then there are the hashtag “women farmers” ones.  The usual pictures of people holding armfuls of vegetables, or adorable baby livestock, except focusing on pretty women.  I do have to admit to giggling a bit over some of them that feature conventionally beautiful, thin women in painted on jeans, perfect hair, coordinated outfits, and not a bit of dirt or sweat, anywhere.  Then there’s me; short, fat, burly, wearing the sweats I stole from my much taller husband (they have elastics around the ankles; keeps the bugs out), twigs stuck in my braid, and dirt accumulated in the sweat of my neck and elbows.  But I do have my sparkly, sequined, dollar store baseball cap!

I realize that, for a lot of people, their Instagram accounts are a branding tool, so they’re not going to show the grungy side of country life.  Not going to gain a big following doing that!

Me?  I couldn’t post pictures like that if I wanted to!  LOL

The Re-Farmer

Deer Thoughts

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As I had hoped, some deer did show up today.  Hungry Girl and Barbecue came by, though Hungry Girl never came to the feeding area.  She disappeared somewhere behind the house, then I saw her again walking by in the background to go through the garden, and that’s it.

Barbecue came to feed on what the birds had left behind, though she got startled away a couple of times, before finally running off completely.  Not before gracing me with some silly faces, though! :-D

2018-04-22.deer1

At this time of day, in the shadow of the house, they can probably see quite well into the living room.

2018-04-22.deer2

She would run off towards the opening to the garden, stay there a while, then come back to feed.  I don’t usually get pictures of her from this side.  As I was going through the photos, I noticed something.

2018-04-22.deer3

I had commented previously about the marks in the fur on her neck, and that my conclusion is that they are from scarring.  It looks like she’s got even more scarring beside her mouth.

I think this girl has had quite a history!

The Re-Farmer

Thinking Ahead

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As we are settling in to our new home and going over the immediate property to see what needs to be done, we’ve been having discussions about what we want to do over the next few years.

Gardening isn’t likely to happen this year, unless my daughters do some planting.  At least not any deliberate gardening on our part.  Come spring, we’ll see what my mother has planted that will come up.

I’m really hoping the asparagus is still there.  And the rhubarb and horseradish.

We’ve talked about making raised bed gardens for accessibility, and what sort of vegetables we’d plant.  We’ll have to see what the status is of the raspberry bushes, how the apples do this year, and any other fruit trees that might still be productive around the yard.

We’ve also talked about getting chickens, and how many we would need to provide an adequate amount of eggs.  There’s the possibility of getting goats, though more about getting angora goats for their fibre.  A couple of goats for their milk would not be a bad idea.  I’m the only person in the family that isn’t lactose intolerant, and goat milk is something they can drink.  It’s just too flippin’ expensive to buy.  They love milk, so they put up with the discomfort of drinking it.  It would be nice for that not to be a thing.  Plus, I’d like to try making cheeses.  The friend I ran into at the clinic with my husband raises goats for meat, plus milk for their own use.  She told me that you can raise 10 goats on the resources of one cow, plus they give birth in twins and triplets, so they are a good return on investment for food production.  I’ve never actually eaten goat, though, so I don’t know if I’d like it.

Looking just at the size of our yard, I’m realizing that we could do most, if not all, of what we want to do, just in our fenced yard/garden area, and not even need to beyond the yard itself, once we’ve taken care of the overgrowth.

Along with those ideas, I’ve also started looking at other options.  Specifically, I was looking into fruit and nut trees.

It’s surprising, how many food trees will actually grow in our planting zone.  Here is a map from the federal government.

Canada.zones

We fall solidly into the 3a zone, so any fruit or nut trees we plant have to be quite hardy, and able to withstand some pretty chill temperatures.

extreme.lows.map

Unlike a vegetable garden, any trees or shrubs we plant have to be able to survive lows into the -40C range in the winter and survive, even if we do work out micro-climates to facilitate their growth and production.  It’d be nice to actually have some of that global warming that’s supposed to be happening.

Here is a wish list I’ve started.

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Kiwi.  Yes, kiwi!  Turns out they can handle zone 3 quite well.  We would need at least 3 plants, including 1 male pollinator.

Seedless grapes.  Yes, grapes grow on the prairies, and there are native varieties, but I am interested in red and green seedless hybrids.

Saskatoon.  These actually grow wild in the bush, though I no longer remember where.  It would be nice to have some in the yard.  The fruit looks similar to blueberries, but they are related to apples.

Raspberry varieties; I’d like to have three varieties that mature at different times, so we have raspberries available for a much longer season.

Cherry.  We may have some cherry trees in the yard already, but I don’t know that they are a hardy enough variety to provide much fruit.  There are varieties of cherries that can handle our zone 3 quite well.  Later in the year, I want to check out an area where I remember we had pin cherries.  These are very tiny and tart; more seed than berry, but I remember eating them by the handful, anyhow, and my father made wine with them.  It would be cool if they’re still around, too.

Haskap.  This is a hybrid I’ve been learning about that looks a bit like a long, somewhat misshapen blueberry.  They can be used the same as blueberries, too.

Sunberry.  This is another berry that can be used just like blueberries, though they look quite different.

Plums.  We might have plum trees, still.  They were little, hard bright red plums, not the soft purple or red ones you buy at the grocery store.  We didn’t really eat them, but like the pin cherries, my dad would make wine with them.  I think my mom might have made jam with them, but I never liked jam, so I don’t remember.

Pine nuts (Korean pine).  Yes!  They can grow here!  Pine nuts are so expensive, it would be awesome to have our own trees.

Buartnut.  This is a hybrid walnut.  They are also fast growing shade trees that get huge, so we’d have to be careful where we plant them.  Black walnut is a native Canadian variety, but after reading up a bit, I think I’d rather try the hybrid.

Butternut.  This is another Canadian native that I’d like to try.

Beaked hazel nut.  This variety, I remember picking with my mother once, as a child.  I don’t know how she found the bush, because I remember having to go deep into the bushes to get to it, well away from any cow paths – and loosing my sandal in some muck we had to cross in the process!  I think this would be a good thing to plant along the edge of our spruce grove or along a fence line.

Gooseberries.  Mostly for sentimental reasons.  I have such fond, delicious memories of the one we had when I was a child.

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So that’s my list so far.  Some of these require a lot more work than others – the grape vines, for example, need to be trained and pruned over several years.

What we actually end up doing over the years, who knows.  I’d be excited even if we manage just a few of them.

If you’ve got any sort of experience or knowledge about some of these – or suggestions to make – I’d be thrilled to hear it!

The Re-Farmer

 

Critter Pictures

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I hope you have been able to take time out this first Sunday of Lent for focus and reflection.

With all the crud that accompanies a major move, I find it’s always a good thing to pause and look at WHY certain choices were made.

Unfortunately, in our case, the why of things is more a matter of “getting away from” rather than “going to.”  Such is life, of course, and we take the good with the bad and focus on the important things, rather than the things that threaten to drag us down.

At least, that’s the theory.  LOL  Reality is much messier.

However, among the things I do appreciate with this move is our daily critter visits outside the window.  As the stresses of the day begin to add up, there is something very healing about looking out our window and finding a deer looking back.

Or a cat.  Whatever. :-D

With that calming influence in mind, I will first share with you an image from yesterday.

2018-02-17.whitetail.deer

Hungry Girl, checking out… something.  I can never quite see what it is that they’re looking at when they stare down the length of the house.  There usually isn’t anything but birds.

Especially these guys…

2018-02-18.redpoll

I love getting accidental pictures!  This redpoll was flitting around among the twigs so much, I’m fortunate to have gotten any shots at all, but getting one in a fun position like this is always rewarding.

2018-02-18.chickadee

I finally had a chickadee stay still long enough to get a decent shot!  :-D

2018-02-18.two.whitetail.deer

Once again, something alongside the house has their full attention!

The physical differences between Hungry Girl in the foreground, and Barbecue in the back, are still quite striking.

2018-02-18.cute.whitetail.deer

I’m thinking that this time, there must have been a cat walking along the house that they were watching, because later on I saw…

2018-02-18.cat

… Trüllbus the Crime Eater.

He was in the bushes when I first spotted him.  Then he spotted me in the window, taking his picture.  He was accommodating enough to move out of the bushes and pose for me in the feeding area.

I love that intent gaze!

The Re-Farmer

 

 

 

Looking Forward

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Now that we’ve been here for a couple of months, I’ve looked back at some things.  Now I want to look forward.

I had some idea of what would need to be done here before we moved in, and not a lot has changed.  Continue reading →

The Trade Off – things we are gaining

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Deciding to move involved weighing the positive and negatives, and figuring out if it was worth giving up so much.  Here are a few of the things we will be gaining by moving out.

Family.

This was a big one for me.  Though the farm itself belongs to my own family, and my siblings all live within a couple of hours of it, my husband also has immediate family in The City, and we’ll be closer to family in yet another province.  In the last few years, the only trips we’ve been able to make to see family has been for funerals.  My husband hadn’t seen his family in years, and with his condition deteriorating, the road trips we used to make in the past were no longer an option.  Being at the farm means that my husband will be able to see his father more often.  With the medical emergency that had him flying out a week earlier than planned, that aspect of it really hit home.  So this one is a HUGE gain.

Quiet.

I’d made a couple of trips out over the years and stayed at the farm with my father.  Despite the fact that I was there for funereal reasons, the peace and quiet of the farm was soul healing.  I spent much valued time just sitting at the table with my father over a cup of tea, enjoying the peace.  I slept better there than I had in years.  I hadn’t even realized how bad my sleep had become until I finally got some good sleep.  My younger daughter, who has had constant sleep problems, has also found huge improvements while at the farm.  Even my husband, who is sleeping on a makeshift bed until the movers bring our stuff over, and is in constant pain, has mentioned being able to get better sleep.

Space.

While the house itself is smaller, we will have so much more space.  The main yard is huge.  There is the spruce grove that has prevented our getting internet.  A maple grove.  Fruit trees.  A huge garden area (we don’t plan to garden right away, but it’ll be an option), plus several smaller gardens closer to the house.  When we do reach the point of being able to garden, I intend to go with raised bed gardening for accessibility.  There is even a second house in the yard.  It wasn’t supposed to stay there, but my parents never got around to moving it to a more permanent location.  All that, and still lots of open space in the yard!

There are the usual outbuildings; barn, cattle pens and hay yards.  All of which are basically used for storage right now.  The land itself is rented out, so it’s not like we’ll be doing any actual farming, though there is enough land around the house and main yard that we could still probably get a few chickens.  My daughter will finally be able to get a dog, and we might even get some alpacas or angora goats at some point, for their fibre.  We would have the space to set up bee hives, if we wanted.  We shall see, after we’ve settled in.  We’ll have the land and space for it.  Heck, just being able to light up the fire pit and have a wiener roast, as I remember we did quite often when I was a child, is something we look forward to!

Financial.

This one is still a bit in the air.  The farm is my mother’s, but she can’t live there anymore.  We will be living there “rent free” in exchange for taking over the expenses.  The problem is, we’re only guessing at what those will be.  So while theoretically, we’ll save a lot of money by not having to pay housing charges (the housing co-op equivalent to rent or mortgage), there will be extra expenses that come from being so isolated, plus having to drive so far out for medical care. Personally, as long as we can stop slowly falling behind, as we have been in the city, I’ll consider it a win.  Plus, we’ll be saving my mother the expense, so it’s win-win for her and us.

No neighbours.

Introverts will understand this one. LOL

We will have neighbours.  There is actually someone living across the road from the farm.  I think.  The family that lived there when I was growing up are long gone, and I am pretty sure there is someone living there now.  I don’t imagine we’d ever cross paths unless we go out of our way to do so.  Plus, I have a brother that lives nearby.  “Nearby” in farm-speak, is about a quarter of a mile away.  All other neighbours are about a mile away or more.

Basically, it means we’ll only see people if we really want to.  I will certainly miss the friendships I’ve developed here; it’s the first time we’ve lived anywhere long enough for that to even happen.  But we will no longer have that ever present population of people around, whether we want to see them or not.  And it’s people that have been the major source of stress in my life.  Toxic people that I just haven’t been able to get away from, for various reasons.  It’ll mean getting away from threats and intimidation and manipulation.  It’ll mean those people will no longer have any say over our lives anymore.

Freedom.

This one is a bit harder to quantify.  We’ll have more freedom to make choices in our lives, simply because we won’t be in a housing co-op anymore (which are run by a board, committees and voting), and we won’t be renting (which means the owner makes all the decisions).  So we don’t have other people telling us what we can or can’t do within our own home.  We’ll be able to leave the curtains open and not worry about who can see in.  We can do things on the property without having to get permission from someone else, first.  Sure, we won’t actually own the farm, but the house needs work, and we’ll be a direct part of the process, rather than having to go along with whatever some board committee or landlord has decided we can have.  No more politicking to get improvements, and being fought or sabotaged every step of the way.

It’s all of that, and yet there is something more, that just doesn’t translate well into words.