At that point we were viewing the goings-on from the root cellar, hanging out until the storm passed. We had no chubby pensions and killer 401ks our friends were getting but we figured we'd be alright if we just hung on.
What lit the fire for us was a layoff for me that lasted 15 months, and a six month 40% scale back for him that also unearthed the difficulty of finding work in your late 50s. It came on like the flu, the realization that we probably wouldn't have the choice on when to retire, or how, and that near-seniors were losing jobs in record numbers. And it was likely we would not even be able to keep what we had. The desire for sustainability came up more as a reaction to disappointing governmental intrusion, but as we got deeper into the idea, we noticed similar conversations reverberating around the dinner tables of our friends. There seemed to be a groundswell of similarly-interested boomers going back to our roots. Literally.
A year of unprecedented change has deposited us here, a native San Franciscan and Silicon Valley girl with no real farming experience in search of a simpler, more affordable, growable, raiseable, and satisfying life that we can call our own.Simple Abundance, Step One.
Out: the city house with the mile high mortgage, pool, hot tub and gourmet kitchen, big city neighborhoods, conveniences and water/sewer/wifi.
In: the century farmhouse with a modest payment, an acre of land, septic/well/propane, no outbuildings or fences, just-slightly-better-than dial up, and a population of 61 (well, 63 including us).
