Almost 9 years ago, we began looking for retirement property. I wanted a cabin in the woods and for Christmases, I received a picture of a cabin in the woods by a lake, a cabin birdhouse with a sign in it’s yard that read “Cabin in the Woods” as my wish list always started with Cabin in the woods as item 1. We began internet searches for about 10 acres, originally looking in the Charlottesville, Harrisonburg, or upper Shenandoah areas of Virginia. Those areas were getting much more per acre than we wanted to spend. The summer before our search, we spent a 4 day weekend at Rocky Knob CCC cabins on the Blue Ridge Parkway in the south west part of the state and we loved the area. Land was more reasonable and it seemed plentiful, but often in plots much larger than the 10 acres we sought. We spent a December weekend, many, many hours being driven around several counties and nearly every plot was 30 or more acres. This piece of heaven was one of the earlier plots we viewed and we fell in love, though it is 30 acres, not 10 and mostly hay fields, not woods. We have large trees in the hay fields and woods surrounding us. The 10 acre lots we saw, we realized put us closer to neighbors than we had envisioned. It would have been plenty for the house, gardens, orchard, even a few farm animals if the area permitted. That is not an issue here. We are surrounded by mountains, woods, and farms. Our fledgling homestead had no house on it, no well, no electricity, and had been perked for septic, but too many years prior to still be valid. We made the purchase and started a new experience, building a house from 5 hours away. You see, we still lived in the home that we had raised our children in, in Virginia Beach. Our eldest son and his family moved to this area so that he could be the general contractor and he with a patched together crew, did all the finish carpentry, stone work, built all my kitchen cabinets, did all the tile work, and made all of our interior doors. We sold the coastal home, moved into a rental for a year, then I moved to an apartment in the mountains and unretired for 3 1/2 years and hubby stayed in an apartment in Virginia Beach with youngest son and started a 3 year process of winding down and selling his law practice.
It took a few years to work out the kinks of how to homestead. Son had put in a large garden, that helped get me going. I learned to can and bulk freeze produce. We forage for berries to make jam. This year, we added chickens for eggs and meat. Feeling the need to start small and learn farm management and animal husbandry a bit at a time. A year ago, we began horseback riding lessons and joined a Horsemaster’s club to gain more experience. We chat up our farmer neighbors every chance we get regarding beef cattle. We certainly have the space for horses and cows and the grazing will help reduce the area that must be mowed. We will likely still have a neighbor hay for us for a hay split, as adding that much farm equipment seems unwise. Each spring, it is hayed for us, each fall, we brush hog all 30 acres. That process has been on going all week and was finally completed today for the season. There may be one or two lawn mowings before the frost.
I am ever thankful to my husband for making this life change possible and to our eldest son for his skills and ability to run the crew; to his life partner for her work on our home and for mothering our firstborn grandchild; to our beautiful daughter and her family and our youngest son and his family for sharing their children with us and including us in their lives.
Life is good on our mountain farm.
Cabin Crafted 
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