It’s been fifteen years. Since we packed up the boxes and started moving from the city to the country.
So much has happened. Natural disasters. Family crises. Medical setbacks. Still, I have to say. Leaving Columbia for a kinder gentler life was definitely worth it.
We came here so my husband could have towers for his radio hobby. So I could have a garden. Things we couldn’t do when constrained by HOA’s.
I really can’t believe we have been here so long.
Some highlights. Putting up that tower.
It used to be hidden from sight before the trees were toppled by the tornado. Now, it is visible from my kitchen and from the highway behind our neighbors.
The landscape has changed. We are adapting. I am planning a new garden since my yard is clear of tall conifers. I don’t want to give up my community plot because I love it, particularly the deer fence and the large stand of asparagus. Can I maintain two gardens? Time will tell.
I want to put in a large area of onions and I want to plant the most tomatoes I have ever attempted. They will go in the community plot.
Here, where it is most convenient, I want cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, herbs, and flowers.
Hopefully, there will be a couple of the tromboncino vines running through the dirt and producing those large unique squash which make perfect fritters.
I want to fill the freezer again with jars of sauce and roasted tomatoes. With caramelized onions. Zucchini fritters. Roasted peppers. This winter I am missing all those delicacies. That pesky tornado which ruined our summer and appropriated all my time meant I didn’t have my winter reserves. I miss it. Not much preserved at all in 2019.
My New Year’s resolution? Get back to those things that made me happy. Gardening. Canning. Birding. Cooking. Baking. Simple pleasures.
my garden haul one day in 2014
I will get there. There are many more milestones I want to make. Here’s to years more in my happy place. The oasis on the edge of the cities but far enough away to still be peaceful and quiet.
This is 2020.
AnnieRie Unplugged 
I am still a faithful follower thru all your pitfalls, triumphs, good bad etc. You may not know this, but you have been an inspiration to me .Get up and do something, that is what I get from you.
Now, after the 6th back surgery, I finally think I am cured and ready to get out and do something.