The Bacchus Homestead

Late spring and early summer is the best time up here. Everyone is opening their camps, stopping by to say hi and full of excitement. This year proved no different. We usually open up way before everyone else does. Our end of the road dries up faster than above us. While we are sitting back enjoying our weekend everyone else is raking and cleaning and opening up camps. Plus someone always has an opening weekend BBQ to be invited to.

All provisions and supplies have been delivered for our place and a new work opportunity presented for my spouse. Very exciting one at that. Working a Christmas tree farm for the summer meant full time living at our homestead. As planned I, became the “weekend spouse”! I would come up on Fridays go home on Sunday’s repeat. The long weekends was a blessing! More time for me to stay up here. Trips up were planned carefully. Afterall one cannot simply load lumber, insulation and other construction materials in a sedan!

By June, we had scored a sweet deal! One of the neighbors put in a septic and artisian well at their place and sold us their two water storage tanks and pump. We already had the gutter system up for the rainwater so the set up was breeze. By the end of that week we had one tank full! The shower house was an easy build a pallet and what ever scrap wood we had. The trusses were recycled from an old shed we tore down from the old farmhouse. The roofing was clear polycarbinate sheets that we acquired from the local dump. What a find that was! Perfection! We still had to heat the water manually and use a five gallon bucket but it was better than lugging water from the spring! Nothing like stored water for baths and dishes. One less to do on the long list!

Things were moving along nicely! Then we had a medical emergency. Two months in an a surgical unit at the hospital meant everything came to a screeching halt. By the time we were able to come back up it was late fall. We closed up shop for the season early. Money was a major issue. Only one income coming in and still had lots of future medical appointments schedule. We spent the rest of that year filling out forms, getting extensions on our vehicle loans to keep from being reposessed, and praying there was relief in sight.

The blessing in all this is we learned how to live on next to nothing. Making meals with two beans and a lentil was our new motto. Depending on each other more than ever. Six months of penny pinching.

Relief did come and we started the long climb up to get back on our feet and maybe we can try again next spring. But can we? How can we? Failure does not mean the end of the dream it just means you get to fix what didn’t work the other times and try again. Afterall it’s our dream.

As always, stay positive, stay focused, and remember with challenge comes change and change is good!