Pastoral Plunge
Meet a couple that said goodbye to commuting and the cubicle, and hello to life on the farm.
By Michelle Leise
Photo by Alex steinberg
But it wasn’t long before the “Farm Reports” became less frequent, and eventually stopped all together. “The things I was writing about just started seeming normal,” Tim says. “Our perspective changed and what jumped out as stories before became everyday situations. I just didn’t see the need to write them down and send them to people anymore.” That’s when Tim realized it had really happened—he had shed his suit-wearing, sales-director life and replaced it with the one of his dreams. Now, he answers to his own schedule, not a Blackberry’s; he wakes up to the sun, not an alarm clock; and he eats fresh eggs more often than Thai takeout (though he has learned to cook dishes that sate his spicy cravings).
It all started five years ago when Tim began perusing newspaper ads each morning for hobby farms. Though he never really intended to move, he daydreamed a lot; but that’s where the fantasy stopped. He and Lisa had good-paying jobs, had recently moved to a new neighborhood, and loved their urban lifestyle of operas and chic restaurants.
All that changed one winter morning when Tim spotted an ad he just couldn’t forget. He and Lisa called to inquire and soon had pictures of a 65-acre property in Spring Grove, located in the bluffs of southeastern Minnesota. They let the photos sit on the kitchen table for two months, occasionally stopping to look at shots of the century-old brick house and barn, the chicken house, the machine shed, the post-and-beam granary, the garage, and the garden brimming with old-fashioned perennials.
Then one spring day, they decided to drive south and take a peek. “We walked around for two hours, then looked at each other and said, ‘Are we making an offer tonight or tomorrow?’” Tim remembers. It actually took them a week. “We thought, What’s the worst that can happen? The worst is we sell the farm and end up doing just what we’re doing now. If that’s it, then why don’t we do it?”
That August, they spent their first night at the farm. Tim and Lisa sat on the porch, shared a glass of wine, and listened to the crickets. They didn’t dare go inside. The bathroom was grimy, the kitchen drain was plugged, and all the appliances were broken, gone, or ancient. Still, they looked across the rolling fields and couldn’t believe their luck. “We were so starry-eyed about the change of pace,” Tim says. “Months went by before we realized what had happened.”
Photo by Alex Steinberg
The couple’s new business of building wooden birdhouses and other small items wasn’t taking off as they had expected, and the money they had saved before moving went toward buying tools and machines to keep up the farm. “After that first year, the money was gone and we ended up lying awake at night trying to figure out how to make things work,” Tim says.
That’s when he and Lisa started looking at the role models in their midst. Their neighbors and close friends Larry and Sharon operate a dairy farm, while Larry also installs fences and digs graves for extra cash. Fellow garden-club member Jan, who welcomed them with a pickup full of garden peonies, runs a flower shop and co-owns the local service station and eatery. “Most people here work for themselves, work hard, and do multiple things to pay the bills,” Lisa says.
The couple rethought their plans. Though Lisa had no desire to go back to her computer job in the Twin Cities, she liked the idea of freelancing. These days, she creates and maintains websites from the farm. “As a project manager in the city, I was in meetings all day and I never saw natural light,” she says. “Now I have more control and balance in my life, and a lot less stress. If I want to feed the horses in the middle of the morning, I can.”
In the same spirit, Tim began using his skills to make salvaged wood into elegant, rustic furniture such as beds and dining tables that he sells to high-end buyers. Tim gets wood by scavenging the forest or by taking down barns destined for burning. (He’s even a regular in the local classifieds he once mocked.) Then, using the pine, maple, burr oak, elm, cotton wood, box elder, or black walnut he finds, he slowly strips and sands to create his one-of-a-kind pieces. “I’m lucky because this is something I love to do,” Tim says. “Many people concentrate on counting down to retirement or trying to retire early, but all this has changed the retirement picture for me. Now I have a craft I’ll have for the rest of my life, and I’m happy to do it for a long time.”
Tim and Lisa are still technically the new folks in town, but from the beginning they’ve been welcomed with friendship and generosity. Neighbors have taught them how to milk cows the modern way and to host a wedding the old-fashioned way. They’ve been patiently instructed on how to butcher chickens, operate a combine, and use milk jugs to keep blackbirds out of the vegetable garden. (Before that lesson, the birds annihilated Lisa’s plants. Thankfully, neighbors stepped in to help and overloaded her with vegetables from their own gardens for months.) “We are learning things all the time here from these kind, wonderful people—positive things that make life fulfilling and nourishing,” Lisa says. “I no longer wonder what I’m working for because this is the life we want, and it’s worth the effort.”
Michelle Leise is a Red Wing freelance writer.
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6 ISSUES (1 YEAR)
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