From the City to the Country | Our Journey to Slow Living
in December 2016, shortly after the passing of our dear friend we started to consider making a move to the country. their farmhouse was on the market for sale. this place being one of the first places that felt like home for aj throughout his college years, and where I had experienced my first taste of the driftless, its rolling hillside and remarkably kind + welcoming people. it was a wild idea, to ask Aj’s boss if he could work remotely, to sell our house in the city and make the move with a two year old and six month old. but we called our realtor and he came over that week to “discuss”
rewind a bit, aj + i met in california where we both studied at the university of California Davis. I had been studying climate change and working at a non profit that did research on water resources. I had a deep knowing that changes in the climate, how our societies use resources, public health and liveablitiy were going to if not already shifting. that year, I had been doing a research piece of adaptation to climate change, that is how are cities, states, government, and people going to shift to the range of issues with climate and have the capacity to do so. AJ grew up in Wisconsin, a smaller, less populated state than California. A small town boy growing up in a community of 4,000 versus my being raised in a city of no less than a 100,000 people. We had different experiences, but he wanted to show me his. That fall we visited Wisconsin, stayed in a small cabin on a lake, kayaked under the Milky Way, and it was there we started dreaming.
I was so shocked when driving through the state farmers didn’t use drip irrigation on their crops, they barely watered them, which was so unlike California, the Midwest had the Great Lakes (access to large freshwater sources), living was less expensive, it would be easier for us to start a family, not work as much and have a slower pace of life. After some consideration. we decided to make the move to the midwest after our wedding.
AJ had always loved this tiny town in the Driftless, while I wanted to make the move to the city, Milwaukee first to get acclimated to Midwest living, it was always a dream in his heart to live in the countryside. So when the old farmhouse went on the market, it was our chance. After a lot of twists and turns, we decided not to buy the old farmhouse. It was quite close to conventionally grown and sprayed corn, and this was a problem for me. I emailed my old environmental toxicology professor from college, asking him about pesticide drift,, issues with well water, the list went on. something didn’t sit right with me about my kiddos playing right next to fields that were sprayed. I only fed them organic food and stopped using chemicals in my body care products, made sure they had less exposure in our home, yet we were going to have a home right next to it all.
After connecting with my friend Liz about our dilemma, she pulled my first tarot card for guidance. Her advice was to listen to my intuition and so I did. We decided to pass on the farmhouse yet still put our “dream bungalow” in Milwaukee on the market and continue on the path we had started to the country. Our house had three offers on the first day, so we had to find a home and fast.