Country Living

a more thoughtful kind of life

One of our neighbours is always telling us "your in the bush now, everything always goes wrong and it costs you more then you thought"

I guess in some ways that could be true as we have had our fair share of miss adventures, bogged vehicles, blown up the gear box, spending all of winter in a muddy quagmire, new bearings for the trailer, blowing up our first gas shower (frost is very deadly to pipes), Betty's breaks were so bad they were wearing away the metal disks and not to mention the latest mishap, a crashed furniture truck. 

Spread out over the last 9 months it doesn't seem all that bad, mostly it has been a learning curve for both of us.

Andrew stresses and worries more than i do, mostly i just take it in stride, things go wrong and there is nothing you can do about it, you just have to keep moving forward.

Acquiring new skills, making friends and learning to work together can be quite difficult at times, especially the new friends thing, sometimes i feel like i'm over loaded and just want to hide away and not interact with other people. I don't do well with too many social engagements, Andrew on the other hand who never liked social stuff is now loving it.

Mostly its been about slowing down and taking each day as it comes, not running on any sort of scheduled for the first time in our lives is very rewarding.

There is nowhere we have to be and nothing so urgent it has to be done today.

Some mornings we wake to a beautiful sunny day and decide to go to the beach even if the night before we thought we might start the fencing or one of the other 100 jobs there are to do.

Now we run on country living time and the living really is easy.

Not many people our age have that freedom, they are so bogged down with stuff that they cant see the big picture, life is short don't spend it killing yourself working to pay for stuff you don't need and mostly deep down you don't want.

In March this year i wrote about why we were selling up and Moving to the Country and we are very happy that we did. 

We wanted to slow down but it took a quite a while to get the hang of it, especially as there are so many things that need to be chopped, built, dug, planted, fenced, moved...... that it can be very overwhelming at times.

This type of life isn't for every body, the no power, water, phone, flushing toilet and the being so far from town. 

It is very different, you have to think about what your going to turn on or charge, the sun my provide the energy but its limited not like just flipping a switch or pressing a button on a remote.

The same goes for water, it's not an endless supply every time you turn a tap or take a shower you think about how much you use and if you can reuse it for something else like the fruit trees or seedlings.

The phone and internet, well it all comes down to the weather and we know how unpredictable that can be at times.

As some of you know we live 40 mins from town and all but about the last few km's into Bombala is dirt. 

You have to watch for cows, sheep, kangaroos and wallaby's (who all seem to have joey's), wombats and echidna's on the road plus all the pot holes and not to mention the 9 cattle grids, oh and yesterday there was a pig and a couple of wild goats, we are lucky it only takes 40 mins.

It's definitely not a boring trip as there is always something to see.

When you do go into town its never for just one thing, you have to have at least 3 things to make the trip worth it. Like collect the mail, go to the library, go to the food works, going to the tip, getting fuel etc.... the days of nipping down the shop are over. On the bright side you spend a lot less money so that's pretty good.

 We miss all our family and friends and i guess when you move nearly 6 hours away you can't expect too many drop ins, lucky everyone is just a phone call away.
We have however made some new friends and making friends is not an easy thing to do so we are pretty lucky.

For the time being with just the two of us and Sally Girl, we can come and go as we please with not a worry about being back at a certain time.
In the new year we will be looking seriously at the stock we want to keep and then things will change as we will then be responsible for more than just us.
The goal for the next year or two is to try and grow and raise as much of our food as we can and share with our neighbours any extras.
Hopefully along the way we will work out some sort of small business to keep us afloat.

Any one who has any ideas for a small business, just leave us a comment below.
 

Happy Adventures Nicole, Andrew & Sally Girl

PS. to our beautiful niece Belladonna, thank you for your wonderful letter that you wrote, i was very impressed. I will make some time this week and write you and Talon a letter.

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