Our lives change every day! One minute you are on top of the world shining like a star and in the next moment, you are sliding into home plate for the winning run of the camo only to come up two inches short and get tagged out. Feeling unstoppable and then feeling defeated. Everyone has those moments, but we don’t always see it on social media. So, we decided to share our journey of living a dream we both have had since we could remember. We will be sharing our bad days and good days and how we dealt with each moment.
When we first met, my kids were grown and moved on with their lives. My partner in crime had one in college and one in high school still. This meant we still had responsibilities as parents. Not that we ever stop being parents, but you get what I mean. No more cereal or popcorn or adult beverages for dinner! We had minds, souls and mouths besides our own to nurture, grow and feed. Thankfully we have amazing people to co-parent with, celebrate with, cry with and grow with!
My partner in crime had purchased another property a few years before we met. It was the dream lot! Apple trees, wildlife, and no traffic up on a mountain. Nothing but the sound of silence! “Heaven’s Best” describes that little lot. We started working on our vacation home the very first weekend I was there. Little things like removing the old insulation, clearing small trees and working the old flower beds. It wasn’t much of a camp, but it was our place to ground ourselves and meditate in tranquility. The best medicine for the soul is getting grounded with mother nature. Cooking over an open fire even when it rained, it didn’t seem as daunting as all the traffic, hustle and bustle of our main house. It was a breath of fresh air for us. We couldn’t wait to hit the road for a retreat that had no shower, toilet, electricity or running water. Agai, life was good. We were free spirits dancing in the rain, jumping in puddles like little kids loving every minute of it.
Soon after we moved into the family’s 1820’s farmhouse that had three apartments and good tenants and started managing the property. This was a huge house, and we were excited about taking it over and being homeowners together. We started going to conventions to learn about restoring historical homes. Yard sales for antique furniture were a favorite past time for us and still is to this day. We were enjoying every moment of this adventure. Repairs and the restorations were coming along nicely. Big family dinners and decorations for the holidays felt like we were living just like the photos in the country magazine. Flower beds were weeded and replanted, field was rototilled, and vegetables were planted. We even bought a dozen hens! It was wat we dreamed of.
With lots of elbow grease, a fresh coat of paint our home was becoming ours. All that Space gave us plenty of room to decorate. We had enamel ware, blee glass, copper pots, pewter, cast iron toys and frying pans to find a room for and hutches to fill. It looked great and felt like ours.
Our gardens were growing; blackberries and red raspberries were thriving! The hens, on the other hand, seemed to have become the main meal for the local wildlife. Even in broad daylight! Watching a bear eating one of the chickens and then drinking the water out of the kiddy pool was more than we could handle. We decided that maybe we should wait a while before trying the free-range thing again.
Our major repair and first hiccup happened when the roof started leading. We knew about it but as always putting a band aid on it only carries you so far. Stress was building up on the roof and in our lives. Not only was the roof leaking it was leaking on the tenant’s side. Where were we coming up with over six grand to fix it? One way or another it had to be done. Then a miracle happened! I just finished filling out my application to finish my degree and I had applied for every scholarship on the web. The congratulations letters started flowing in along with some nice checks! Scaping metal became a new/old hobby for us as well. We also practice “The Secret” and we came up with the money and that project was completed! We survived! We had battle scars and our pride sort of intact, and we pushed on manifesting and believing in each other! Life was good again.
It wasn’t long after that our septic system started to fail. That was an understatement! Our garden was right over the leech field and boy did it grow! The ground became saturated, not smelly, just wet! As the summer passed by it was really wet. As our luck would have it our band aid approach failed us again. Hmmm, you would have thought we learned from the first band aid application for the roof! Having the tank pumped did not solve the issue. The dreadful call came from the tenant one winter morning telling us there was septic debris coming up through their shower. We pumped it out again! A very close relative came and dug up the septic tank cover up and located the junction box. It was just a pile of cement debris. The junction box collapsed. We pumped it out again (band aid) hoping it would last until spring!
Spring came, the contactor came out, low and behold we needed a new system. A major system. We did not have that kind of cash in hand and we were only managing the family property. So with a quick-claim deed in hand we went to the bank and purchased our first house together and a new septic system. If you have ever bought a home, you know the stress we went through to get that mortgage. We survived that process. We were ready to move forward with our dream!
Then Covid hit. The floor dropped out from underneath us! I don’t think I have to go into details here. It’s like beating a dead horse. Like most small business owners, we went through stress levels beyond our body’s limits. We thought we were the lucky ones as were both still had our jobs. It turned out if you were unemployed and renting, you were the lucky ones. With our health failing, our wallets empty, and the creditors were calling every day we decided to make a change. We moved from the five-bedroom apartment (the main house) into the freshly renovated studio apartment.
At first, we thought this was a good idea, after all the good tenant we had agreed to do all the maintenance on the property, we didn’t have to worry about that anymore. We could come and go as we pleased. But as time went along it just kept reminding us of how small we really are. No longer were we living our dream. With some long conversations and deep soul searching, it was time to keep moving forward with our new physical, emotional and financial limitations and recreate our dream. We did have the passion to start anew but no longer had the stamina. This was not going to be a walk in the park like it was prior to covid.
This is where our story to change our lifestyle begins. From a ten-bedroom farmhouse with a barn and outbuildings to four hundred square feet of living space, no water, limited electricity, no septic and only 2×4 walls to look at. The kids graduated and were living on their own, my degree was completed it was just us and our dogs. We accepted this challenge after all it is our dream just on a much smaller scale, with less stress, more grounding, more healing and more living.
Stay positive, stay focused and remember with challenge comes change and change is good!
The Bacchus Homestead 
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