Personal Eden: Moving Back to the Land

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Before they decided to move back to the land, the author and her husband lived in this house.
Before they decided to move back to the land, the author and her husband lived in this house.
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Snow blankets the countryside of Eden.
Snow blankets the countryside of Eden.
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The new homestead was 125 years old and needed more than a little work.
The new homestead was 125 years old and needed more than a little work.
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This growing wood pile provided backup heat to the home's propane furnace.
This growing wood pile provided backup heat to the home's propane furnace.

Two years ago I won $50,000 in one of those through-the-mail promotional contests. (Yes, it does really happen to plain folks!) And–as you can probably imagine–my husband Jerry and I were delighted beyond belief. We immediately thought of hundreds of different ways to spend our bonanza. In fact, in the first rush of excitement, it seemed as if we could buy the world!

The Difficult Decision

My husband and I had been married only a few years at that time and had just bought our first home: a small cottage in a suburban neighborhood in western New York. We’d purchased it because the price was right and because the owner had agreed to hold the mortgage. However, there was really nothing about the house (or the area) that we cared for.

Perhaps as a result of that dissatisfaction, we managed to remain calm and levelheaded about the sweepstakes winnings …and to be careful to choose what was best for us rather than take the well-meant advice of friends and relatives who urged us to invest, travel, or remodel our present house. Our decision was to leave suburbia, move back to the land, and tackle our goal of achieving a modest level of self-sufficiency.

Home at Last

  • Published on Sep 1, 1981
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