THE ACCIDENTAL HOMESTEADERS

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Nevertheless, before December we'd planted an orchard of 18 dwarf fruit trees, the house was half torn apart and half rebuilt, and Herb was all set to settle down and discuss our future plans.

"After all," he stated, "if we're going to stay here permanently" (permanently?) ". . . we should fertilize and rototill the garden, possibly even expand it. We should clear more land in order to grow feed corn, too, and maybe we could get a little goat this spring . . . .

Permanently? My first reaction was pure panic. My second reaction was pure panic. But the more I thought about our new lifestyle — and about all we had accomplished — the more I realized I truly enjoyed the fresh eggs, the sunshine, and my peaceful mornings and evenings in the garden. I began to recognize that I even derived a certain artistic pleasure in pruning the fruit trees!

The truth was that our whole family had been so busy no one had really missed the city's museums and concerts. In fact, I'd grown accustomed to all the construction activities around the house . . . and realized I was eagerly awaiting the final result. Best of all, our nearly grown children had become Herb's and my companions in work and play . . . and our adult daughters were bringing their families around for longer and more frequent visits.

Quite unaware of what was happening to us, we had accidentally become smallacreage homesteaders ... actually supplying much of our own food in the form of produce from our garden and eggs from our hens. We had come back to the earth and a simple life without conscious intent and — having done so — we were reluctant to give up what we'd found.

As I write this, we are preparing for our second spring on the land, and we have flats of little seedlings ready to plant outdoors. We're excitedly anticipating the first green shoots of new growth on our fruit trees. We can hardly wait to carefully choose the young goat that we hope to raise. In short, we're planning and we're preparing. From now on we won't be accidental homesteaders ... because we're completely at home!

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