I have a home to take care of.  A home that includes 4 kids, 1 husband and 3 dogs.  I homeschool, which means part of the day is spent on school work and planning homeschool related activities.  I also spend time searching real estate listings for a home in the country.  Something that is the right size and the right price.  It feels like trying to find a needle in a haystack around here.  I also have some family stuff, outside my immediate family, that needs some of my attention.  And the list seems to go on and on.

Suddenly I realize I haven’t planned out my garden for this spring.  Maybe, subconsciously, I have been hoping that my garden will be on our homestead.

A few weeks ago we looked at a 4 bedroom, 2 bath home on 10 acres.  There is a small barn on the property and there were a lot of things we liked about the property.  Except for one thing.

THE CREEK!!!

Not that having a creek on your property is a bad thing, but this creek splits the property and the creek apparently floods.  Over 1/2 the property sits in a flood zone.  Not the house or the barn, but the rest of the property does.  The land where we would put in the orchard and garden.  The land where the animals would graze.  All this could be under water in heavy rains or a year with a lot of snow melt.

So I looked thru listing again and found a very nice home on 5 acres.  Lots of updates, a very nice horse barn and other out buildings, 4 gardens and fruit trees.  Everything there and ready for us to move into and get started right away.  A good price, but only 2 bedrooms and we need a minimum of 3 bedrooms.  Unless it sells first, we’ll likely go look at the house just to see if there is a way to add another bedroom, but after my conversation with the realtor over the weekend, I’m not hopeful.

And that is all I have found that is within our price range, the preferred location(s), and the acreage we desire.

I can’t keep putting so much time into home searches.  I need to focus and begin planning out our garden here this year.  I need to grow where we’re planted and although we may not be planted in the preferred location, I still need to grow produce for my family.

Tomatoes, peppers, onions, zucchini, but what else should we grow this year?  It is almost time to get seedlings started, so I need to get busy planning.

Maybe, instead of focusing so much on where I want to be, I should turn this into a celebration.  A celebration of one more planting here.  One more time in my garden at the home, that almost 19 years ago was a new beginning for us.