The Dream

Like authors Frances Mayes and Peter Mayle whose works were the inspiration for the title of this blog, we had a dream - to get away from the 'rat race' and find a simpler life in the countryside.  On a sunny seventy degree day in mid-December of 2001, we finally made that dream a reality.  We packed up two children, two dogs and all our worldly possessions into a U-Haul, three cars and a pickup truck and headed off into the country...specifically Powhatan County.

So much has happened during the past decade and more.  We suffered our daily commute to the city as the price of gas skyrocketed from 99 cents per gallon to $4.29 and back to the current price of $3.26.  Our ten acre private woodland evolved to pasture and eventually market gardens, orchard and - someday soon - vineyard.  Livestock too had their seasons;  horses and a mini-donkey came and went, followed by goats and sheep.  Chickens have been a constant.  At every stage we learned new skills, mostly by trial and error and more often than not, with comic results.   Though they didn't seem so at the time, the memories make us laugh now.  And we are far from done.