The Life and Times of an Average Person: Sometimes I Get Homesick

There are times when I get very nostalgic and sometimes a little sad when I look at pictures from the past of great times with friends and family, when I am missing the parts of the farm that I actually enjoyed. Don't get me wrong...I don't want to go back to the farm or Montana. I love living in Roseburg and I love my house. Sometimes though, I really miss the farm. I miss my chickens and milk cow. I miss living really simple. I miss my big garden. I just get a little homesick.

Eastern Montana

Living here with all the hustle and bustle (I know Roseburg is considered a town, but it feels like a city to me after living in rural Montana for so many years), traffic, things to do, work, sometimes I miss the quietness of the farm, the stillness of the early mornings before we get going on our day, the solitude, the wide open space.

Then I look out my living room window and see the beautiful trees lining the streets, I turn a little and there is Mount Nebo. As I sit here writing it is quiet and still in the house and outside, it so peaceful and beautiful it takes my breath away and I just have to say a prayer of gratitude that God would bless me so abundantly with such beauty. I truly am thankful every day that God has brought me to such a beautiful place.

View from my living room window.

We recently had the opportunity to become caretakers of a Ranch 50 miles East of Roseburg. It was beautiful. The drive to the ranch is beautiful. We would have had chickens and a garden and could have gone back to a simpler way of life. It didn't work out financially for us but I am okay with that because if I am honest with myself, all the things I am missing about the farm in Montana are what made us want to leave. The wonderful stillness and solitude really translates to lonliness and isolation and I don't want to go back to that.

Drive along Hwy 38 to the ranch we had an opportunity to be caretakers of.

We actually have more family time now than we did on the farm. We go hiking together, we go to the coast together, we walk around our neighborhood together. Yet, we still find time to be alone and have our quiet time, to recover from the busyness of life. My house is small, my yard is small, but I do have a garden, I know people who raise chickens, beef, pork, lamb and have bigger gardens where I can buy fresh local produce and meat. To me this is the perfect place.

Fall Creek Falls hike

Oregon Coast Lighthouse

I said I miss living simply, I guess just because I live in town doesn't mean I have to have a complicated life. I can still live simply. I can bake my own bread and make simple, good meals with the fresh ingredients I buy from local farmers. I can spend time alone in the early mornings with my Bible and a pot of tea in my backyard and enjoy the stillness of the day and the view. This really is the best of both worlds.