Downsizing, garden and all

Dear friends,

Husband and I have decided to downsize our....well, everything. Our current house is large-ish for two adults, and we have seven acres of rock with a little section of green that's taken me almost twelve years to develop and nurture. We'll probably be moving to a much smaller (1/4 acre) property in town, in a smaller house. A blank canvas, so to speak.

Of course, it's heart wrenching to leave this property, but it's time, I think. Many people long to live in the country, but they have no clue about how much extra work doing that entails. Some weekends we spend the whole time doing "chores" around here..whacking the native grasses that never die back from the road front and around the house and garden, maintaining the rainwater collection system, whacking back trees or cutting firewood from our own property, and more.

Of course, the trade-offs are being able to live around wildlife, marveling at the numbers of new birds that stop by here every year, having room to plant new things to see what will "take" and what won't in our very hot, humid, frequently drought-ridden climate.

When I told my mother that we were moving, she said with dismay "You'll never be able to have a garden like that anywhere else." I said "Well, who do you think planted this garden in the first place? Who made an earthly garden of Eden out of a slab of rock with no topsoil? I did! and I can do it again!" Maybe I said it a little braver than I felt, actually.

Of course, in some ways she's right. I'll never have this same garden anywhere else. In town, we won't need the seven foot deer fence that's rusted to a wonderful shade of red. And of course, in town, there are rules against such "improvements" anyway. We won't have the raccoons popping over that fence to sample our peaches, taking one bite and dropping the fruit on the ground if it doesn't meet their standards of approval for taste.

The new house, however, probably has some real dirt in the yard, instead of a slab of rock. Since it's smaller, the maintenance will be less, and Husband will have time to spend on launching his second career. And I'll have a brand new piece of land to turn into another little earthly Eden.

And that's what I have to hold onto when thoughts of leaving this garden and land flit across my mind.

Peace and harmony,

bobbi c.
In the Texas Hill Country