30 days from now I will retire. We will close on the house we sold. I will couple the trailer to my truck and make another trek to Eastern Tennessee where our new lives begin. In doing so I'll leave behind my elderly and frail parents, most of my extended family, a 40 year client list, who have for the most part, become dear friends. My best friend of over 40 years will remain in Utah. Our late son's widow and their children have moved on with life and will stay put too. It is the end of an era.
I say this with a degree of sadness. I loved my life in Utah. However, Mrs. DF and I are not blind to what is happening here. For a decade we have seen our rural life become crowded and frenzied. Combined with the inevitable competition for resources should things go bad economically, we could see that it's time to leave. Utah is desert living with a few rain shadowed areas that while beautiful and bountiful in the spring/summer, are severe in the winter. There are things we've come to learn about water resources and government control that are alarming.
So as Sam Kinison shouted, we moved where the water is. North East Tennessee fit all of our needs so we bought property and a temporary house there almost two years ago. We are building a family compound and a homestead on it for what we call provident living. Sort of like high tech Amish. The plans are extensive and in a vocation I am mostly unfamiliar with. So I'm retiring from one career into another, simpler career. I look forward to it with cautious optimism and a nostalgic eye to what we are leaving.
Geronimo!
You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier
Posts: 29943 | Location: Norris Lake, TN | Registered: May 07, 2008
Good luck! I grew up in middle TN; east TN is gorgeous.
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-- Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past me I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. --
Posts: 17699 | Location: New Mexico | Registered: October 14, 2005
Best wishes Darth and good luck. I am going to be in that boat in a couple of years. Not sure why you're moving south but for me I have to get out of the No Utah winters. Tennessee is on our short list.
I made a similar move from CA to CO 30 years ago. Colorado hasn't fared as well as I would have liked, but over 20 years ago, the wife and I saw the writing on the wall, and went off grid in rural CO.
Good luck to you and the Mrs, I am certain you'll enjoy it.
Mike
You can run, but you cannot hide.
If you won't stand behind our troops, feel free to stand in front of them.
My in law's moved to North Eastern Tennessee several years ago from NJ when they retired. While visiting them several years ago we fell in love with the area. It was calm and still rural compared to the area in Central Florida we live in. We ended up buying 3 1/2 acres on the side of a mountain with the hopes of some day moving from Florida and building our retirement home.
The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
As ratified by the States and authenticated by Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State
NRA Life Member
Posts: 2650 | Location: Central Florida, south of the mouse | Registered: March 08, 2010
Originally posted by Bytes: Best wishes Darth and good luck. I am going to be in that boat in a couple of years. Not sure why you're moving south but for me I have to get out of the No Utah winters. Tennessee is on our short list.
In short, DF#2 is super analytical. He determined that Eastern Tennessee was right in the center of a moderate climate, long growing seasons, 3” average water a month, like minded neighbors, plentiful land at a good price and Tennessee has been a free State historically. For us, having lived in a desert culture, water is the paramount factor. When we took a trailer load out in June, we built a couple of hugel culture grow boxes as an experiment. We planted various things from seed but provided no irrigation. I trained a web cam on the boxes to watch what might happen. Were this done in Utah, if the seeds sprouted at all they’d have died shortly. That has been my experience for the past many decades. Always worrying about water. To my pleasure I began to see plants growing. DF #2 was there last week and he harvested some vegetables. That is what I hoped would happen. So that’s what took us there.
I do wish my parents could come with us. They are both from farm stock and had we done this ten years ago, they would have come along. Today they are not physically able. Dad has Alzheimers and mom is swinging through the jungle on the vines of this ailment and that, in and out of the hospital. So I have to slip away knowing our farewell may be the last. That’s rough and part of the Sadness.
You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier
Posts: 29943 | Location: Norris Lake, TN | Registered: May 07, 2008
