How It All Began...

It all started when Bethany found this real estate ad online. No, actually it started before that when the kids decided they’d like to raise their families together. But even before that, Jim and Adele were looking for acreage for the two of them. Wait, before that, we lived on a couple of acres in Colorado…and you know, long before that we loved living on our five acres near Snohomish. But many years before that, it really started when Jim and Adele were just kids.

Jim grew up hearing about his dad’s life on the Nebraska farm homesteaded by Jim’s grandparents, immigrants from Germany. (Is that where it all really started?) Meanwhile, one of Adele’s favorite places to be as a child was her cousins’ dairy farm in Fall City, Washington. (Maybe it started then and there?) As a teenager, Jim helped his parents garden and raise ducks and guinea hens. Adele’s family home had fruit trees and a garden, and she learned to preserve fruit and vegetables and to smoke fish.

In the small back yard of our first home as a married couple, we tore up grass and planted a nice vegetable garden. A mid-1970s Christmas gift of Carla Emery’s first (mimeographed) version of Encyclopedia of Country Living and its supplements whetted our appetites, and we dreamed of living "closer to the earth."

In 1981, married seven years and parents of three kids, we purchased 5 acres between Snohomish and Monroe. There we began to establish a “gentleman’s farm,” starting with a large vegetable garden and fruit trees. Soon we had a Black Angus cow with a steer calf and another calf on the way. With the adjoining land owned by two other families, the kids were on Cloud 9 with 15 acres to play on with cousins and close friends. While Jim worked in commercial construction management, Adele handled the home and kids, chasing cows and mending fences when necessary. She canned and froze produce and made the family’s bread, peanut butter, yogurt, granola, and mayonnaise. A flock of chickens for fresh eggs was to be the next step in the plan.

Expecting to stay there for many years if not forever, we were surprised to be called to go overseas to serve as missionaries. But no mistake, it was to be, and in February, 1986, we sold our home and our family of five packed up and moved to the Netherlands and later to Germany. Living in urban and suburban settings where it was challenging to find many natural foods or grow our own, we went back to buying all of our food, though still cooking and baking from scratch. During that time were blessed with one more child, bringing our family head count to six.

After returning to the U.S. in 1992, we lived in suburban neighborhoods without gardens. Adele did a little food preservation of produce purchased at local farms and farmers’ markets. The urge to have land was always there, but with three teenagers and a mom sharing one car, it was advantageous to live near schools, library, and shopping areas. We thought we’d move back to acreage when the oldest three kids were out of the nest.

In 2003, a job move to Colorado led to progress in the “acreage” direction. Wanting a reasonable commute, we purchased a small place, two level acres in a small-acreage development. We began to develop a place for our horses and a vegetable garden. But once again, our plans for raising animals and produce were suspended, and we returned to Washington and another suburban home. The yard was big enough to grow some veggies and fruit. Comically, the ancient covenants allow for one horse stall in the small back yard, though we would never confine a horse there and current city regulations prohibit horses. The lone horse we brought back from Colorado moved into a boarding barn in Snohomish.

Fast forward to 2006. Jim and Adele were thinking about where to retire. We agreed that we have found ourselves most content with homes on acreage, with room to roam and many projects to keep ourselves active. We’ve looked at 10-20-acre pieces of land in western and central Washington, within a 3-hour drive of our current suburban home for easy weekend access during the transition phase.

Then out of nowhere came the beginning of an interchange between Jeremy, Sarah, and Bethany. We all loved living on acreage when we were little. It was great to share our huge playground with our cousins. Why don’t we try to find a place where our kids can grow up together? And… we all enjoy being with Dad and Mom, so why don’t we see if we can all find land together?
Jeremy started looking at property online. Wyoming? Montana? Western Washington? Then Bethany got into it with fervor and sent us one link after another to look at. Though it was fun to look, none of the properties were quite right for us.

Then in January, 2007, Bethany sent us an e-mail that said, “I know I’ve been sending you too many to look at, but you HAVE to look at this one!” Beautiful scenic photos graced an ad for 120 acres near a small town in NE Washington. Uh…120 acres? A little—-no, a lot—-more land than we’d planned on. Five hours away? A little—-no, a lot--farther away than we’d planned on. But then…some of our kids and most of our grandkids were already in eastern Washington, an hour away from the piece of property. We had really enjoyed a four-season climate while we lived in Colorado. We thought we’d at least take a look at that 120 acres for sale.

We called. We journeyed east. We looked. We liked. We tromped around. We looked again. We liked even more. Then we bought. We had enough land for each family unit to end up with a 20-acre parcel. The land has about 25 acres of pasture, 25 acres of virgin timber, 60 acres of lightly-forested timberland, and a 3-acre pond. The panoramic views are gorgeous. The altitude is about 2000 feet, and most of the land slopes gently to the south. The land had been farmed decades earlier, but all that remained were an overgrown pasture, an old orchard, several fenceposts, and the crumbled foundation of a house built long ago.