Life Sneaks Up On You

Just after I graduated college in the summer of 1971, instead of going to Law School, I headed off to Nova Scotia. I was part of the generation that felt strongly about getting back to the land and understanding a lot of things that modern society was hiding from us.

A decision like that is possible when you are young, I believe that as age and life will sneak up on you, it gets much harder to go off on your own in a wild adventure as you age. How older people have done it, remains a mystery to me.

Eventually, I got married and my wife and I moved to what I considered a real farm or at least one that I believed that I could make into a modern farm. We never really gave up all modern conveniences like many back-to-the-landers. One of the first things that I installed in our Nova Scotia farmhouse was a dishwasher. I also put one in our home in New Brunswick. I plowed my garden with a John Deere tractor not a horse.

The road in the picture ran 20 miles back to Fredericton, the capital of New Brunswick. We were lucky to have schools, churches, a couple of general stores and medical services in our little community of Tay Creek. Forty years after we left, the churches and general stores are gone. If you want to buy gasoline or a nail, you have to go to Fredericton.

Taking on building a home for your family in an isolated spot which at the time was subject to amazing snow storms is something you only do when you are young and your body can take on almost any challenge. In my twenties and thirties, I never doubted that I could do everything for my family aside from medical care and schooling. Plumbing, electrical wiring, installing appliances, those were expected of the folks who lived beyond the city. There was no one to hire to mow a yard or even change faucet. While we had an oil furnace, most of our heat came from a wood stove. The furnace would come on during the early morning hours as the house cooled. Our water came from a spring. Our food came from our garden, our milk cow, chickens and cattle herd.

As nice as the life on your own in the hardwood hills of New Brunswick was, it was non-stop work. It was ten years before we went on a real vacation. After we left the farm, we mostly lived in suburbs. Seven years after leaving the farm we were in subdivision on the side of a mountain in SW Virginia. For many years I kept the steep slope behind the house clear of brush and small trees. It meant working with a chainsaw on a hill where I could barely stand. Fortunately, I never got injured. It was another activity reserved for youth.

By the time we got to our next house twenty-four years after leaving the farm, the strenuous work was down to mowing the yard, keeping our skiff running, and hurricane preparation. Good preparation for a hurricane often meant the cleanup afterwards was relatively easy. A storm like Hurricane Florence meant extra cleanup for everyone in the area no matter how much you prepared. The older you get, the harder all that is. Polywood outdoor furniture is nice until you have to haul it all into the garage.

When we moved from the coast in 2021, my wife and I were both over seventy. We were far from our children and family. Our house had too many steps and we were both tired of the hurricane routine in spite of never having any real damage to our house.

My wife had almost five acres of raw farmland which was a hayfield in Surry County. We briefly considered building a home there, but quickly decided that we were too old for all the work needed to build a home so we found a great subdivision with public sewer, water, and fiber Internet. Moving to North Carolina Piedmont close to where I grew up has turned out to be a wise decision.

We are glad that we moved when we did. We have friends our age that would like to move from the coast but have decided that they are too old to try. I can relate to their feelings. Getting our coastal home ready to sell and moving with our four kittens was not the easiest thing that I have ever done. I am pretty sure that three years later, I would be reluctant to move again unless I just had to move.

You don’t think about these things when you are young and can handle anything. Life can sneak up on you. It is good to plan a little for the time when you can no longer take on the world with one arm tied behind your back.