Report From Due West, South Carolina

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Then a final problem came up at the last minute, when the previous owner wanted to sell us her kitchen appliances and oil heater separately . . . and tried to give us two dogs as part of the deal. We were learning firsthand that the purchase of country property has ins and outs all its own. (A book on that same subject was one of our numerous investments, and has paid for itself many times over. Nevertheless, we're still looking for a freezer and we have a very affectionate, lazy dog to trade!)

The months between our first sight of the homestead and the actual move were jammed full of new experiences, meetings with new friends, and lots of hard-to-the-threshold-of-pain work. Quite often during that time we found ourselves leafing through back issues of MOTHER (we'd bought as many as we could afford as part of our early homesteading research effort) . . . and one of our big breaks turned up late one July night, in the form of a P & S notice from our own little patch of South Carolina. The offer just suited us: A couple was wanted to help out on a large farm, in return for the free use of 10 acres and a nearly new 3-bedroom mobile home.

Even though the issue was almost a year old by the time we read it, we had an airmail letter on its way next morning to tell the advertisers—Lynn and Joe—about our situation . . . on the thin chance that maybe, just maybe, the deal was for some reason still open. Back came a quick reply: The offer stood, since Lynn was expecting a baby that winter and Joe was having to work as an industrial sales engineer every day from 8 to 5 to make ends meet on their 400-acre homestead.

Two weeks later we rolled off in a rented moving van stuffed to the padded roof with Florida duplex apartment furniture, many boxes of research materials and books we couldn't part with, my grandfather's legacy of his own homesteading tools (and some that had been his father's), three tranquilized city cats, and the VW somehow sandwiched in almost sideways. We weren't sure South Carolina was ready for us, but after 11 draining hours of trucking the busy Interstates—plus that last hour of "country roads takin' us home to the land where we belong"—well, we were ready. (Thanks to John Denver for the borrowed line.)

Early that evening we met Lynn and Joe (who seemed like long-lost friends). Eating a "welcome back to the land" dinner from their organic garden, drinking my first of many glasses of milk fresh from their cow . . . it was almost too perfect, but that's the way things happen sometimes.

Later that same evening, another couple who were friends of Lynn and Joe's—knowing we'd be tired and yet would have to do some unpacking before we could sleep that night—dropped by to meet us and help us get our van unloaded. Other folks came calling later in the week to fill us in on town and college happenings and job possibilities . . . and to fill the refrigerator with fresh produce from their gardens. Wow! Why hadn't we made our move earlier?

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