Lifestyles, contentment and thankfulness....

Leigh's post over at 5acresandadream.com has got me thinking, about  lifestyles, thankfulness and contentment.

Over 5 years ago, we retired from our jobs, packed up and moved here, to the hill. After a couple of years of fruitless searching, we found this property on-line, came to see it, and knew.

We downsized our living space from a 2 and ½ story house

with basement, dining room, living room, kitchen, back porch, verandah, (I loved that verandah!!)

and 3 bedrooms, to a square log cabin with no basement, unheated back porch, a bigger verandah, and the Battery House.

August 2017

It involved absolutely getting rid of 40 years of stuff we wouldn't need. We were never on the consumer bandwagon, but one does acquire stuff, especially as members of one's family pass on, and there are important family things one cannot bear to dispose of. I don't know how many truck loads of stuff we hauled to the auction barn. We filled two storage units, one small and one regular sized one, with the stuff we were keeping. Knowing that we were going off grid also contributed to the clear out...how many electrical appliances does one own, griddles, mixers, blankets, etc.? I knew how small the kitchen was, and what little cupboard space there was. When all was said and done, I don't really miss any of it, really, (although on recently making Christmas fruit cake, I wish I'd kept those cake tins with the removable bottoms!!)...but, bread pans work. A cake is still a cake, no matter it's shape, and the fruit cake pans, bundt pans, angel cake pans etc. all went. (can you see that I like to bake?)

It was very strange to lock the back door on the way out (oops, almost missed the kitchen clock on the wall), the last time, and be homeless for a week until the sale closed. We lived in a tent with a screened dining tent alongside it, on a friend's acreage for that week, no bills, no commitments...it was very freeing...just let the lawyers do their thing.

Our house is small, there is a place for everything we need, and mostly, everything is in it's place. The bonus is all the space we have outside, to watch the changing seasons, and the surprises that Mother Nature dishes out. To have free sight lines (within our treed boundaries) to the sky, to the morning and evening sun, the moon rise and set, to see the clear swathe of Milky Way across the night sky, to watch the sun throughout the seasons on its inexorable journey along the horizon, to the south in winter, and (yeah!) after December, head north again.

My garden THEN

Only part of my gardens NOW

I am content. We have our good health, food I can grow, heat from the wood we harvested, electricity from our panels and battery bank, and a source of good water. What else does one need? I am so thankful that we live in a country where this is possible.