A journey of 200 miles begins with a chicken

It’s a story, may not be the most remarkable one, but it’s ours.

Katie and John were married in 2016, in their back yard garden,  surrounded by family, friends, a dog, and chickens… lots of chickens.  I know it sounds odd to have lives changed by chickens, but in this case, it’s truly so.  Ok, maybe the chickens didn’t change their lives, but they were certainly a conduit to change, and anyone who has met their chickens, or rather seen them interact, can attest to the change underwent.

You know how you walk in to a room where a halfway interesting show is on tv, and you wish you could rewind a bit and get the back story?  The hope is that you feel a bit of that right now, because like it or not, we’re going to give it to you.

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(John): This journey for me really had it’s roots in my deployment to Iraq with the U.S. Navy in 2006.  It wasn’t the distance from home or family, I’d deployed to the Pacific rim, Central America, and the Caribbean, I was used to being away.  It wasn’t the horrors of war, PTSD, or loss of shipmates, I didn’t experience horror, or PTSD, but my brothers and sisters who were with my shipmates when they were taken, may have.  War might be tough, but contrary to popular media opinion, the American fighting force is way more resilient than CNN or Fox News would lead you to believe.  No, it was more simple.  It was time, or rather the thought that it seemed to be moving faster.  I looked at my life and all that I had done and seen and asked myself what I wanted to do when I got home.

In 2006 I was living on a postage stamp lot in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota.  I had neighbors 10 feet away, and even though I’m a social creature, that was too close for comfort.  I was in a marriage with a gal who, for lack of a better term, was a city girl, and that’s all she ever wanted to be.  I was in for the long haul, but there was certainly part of me who wanted to spend that quickly fleeting time away from the confines of the city.  I loved the outdoors, the disconnect, the slower pace.  In the late fall of 2012, I was informed that I would be free to pursue other ventures (and relationships) in life.  Out of financial necessity (I was broke), I intruded on my bachelor nephew who lived by himself in a 3 bedroom house in Elk River, Minnesota.

Most if not all of my conversations with God, asking for answers, have been predicated with “make it simple and easy to see”.  I’m sure he knows both the extent of my laziness, as well as intelligence (or lack of), but I’ve been blessed with many simple answers.  Not long after moving in with my nephew, I was introduced, through a co-worker, to a woman who also had been living through a difficult divorce.

(Katie):  My journey began with my childhood.  I grew up in the suburbs.  We were at the end of a cul-de-sac, overlooking a farm field with woods surrounding it. The farmer also had pigs.  Even though I never saw them, I was terrified.  When I was a young child, there was a faded sign on the edge of the farm field.  My parents, knowing I couldn’t read yet, asked me what it said.  “Watch out, or the pigs will eat you!!”, I replied.  My childhood was incredibly happy.  I use to run through the field, wearing a skirt, and pretend I was Laura Ingalls, and Ma and Pa would watch me through their kitchen window.  My brother and I would run through the woods and play cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers (PS, I was always the good guy).  I had boundless amounts of energy..ok, not really.  My mom would frequently find me asleep in our lawn, right next to the road.  I often wonder how many times she had to check on me to make sure I hadn’t been hit by a car.

I have moved several times over the years.  Even though I have always maintained my moms love of gardening and followed suit wherever I have lived, I have always felt constricted by my surroundings.  When I have stressful days, there is nothing better than coming home, digging in the dirt while listening to birds chirp and sing me their songs, while unwinding and creating a beautiful garden, or growing vegetables.  Almost nothing makes me happier.  The problem?  Half the time I worry that my neighbors are staring at me, or I am interrupted by cars wizzing by, disrupting my zen.

Many years ago, I started making an annual trip up to the North Shore of Minnesota.  My ex and I went every Thanksgiving, and it became a tradition.  I loved everything about it.  We would start driving, and half way there, I would feel myself breathe…all of my city worries faded away, the stress from my job fell to the wayside, and life began to slow down.  Soon, I wanted to go during other seasons.  I took my parents there, and they also loved the slower pace.  I have often said that when I am up by the North shore, I am at home.

Obviously, I am no longer with my ex.  I suddenly became single, and I wanted to live by my parents, someplace that felt somewhat like home.  I moved into a townhouse a few short miles away…and I was miserable.  Townhouse living may be awesome for some people, but it was not for me, at all!  One of my co-workers started talking about a man, also divorced, who shared quite a few similarities as me.  Here I was, a 40 year old woman, who had no clue how to meet someone, let alone date again.  I could write a whole separate blog, just on our first date alone.  Thankfully, it turned out better then I could have possibly dreamed, and I could not have known how my life was about to change in a very major, and incredibly good way.

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After we met, John felt he needed a place of his own, so we began the hunt.  Loan secured, real estate agent called, listings compiled, and driving… lots of driving.  John knew the constraints of urban living, and there was no way he was going to fit within the cookie cutter rigors of the suburbs, so there was only one answer; land. Ultimately, he purchased a three acre property on the outskirts of Elk River, just a 1/4 mile from his nephew.  A good mix of open yard and mature trees.  The place felt like a park.  (Hang in there, the chickens are about to come into the picture).

That fall, while on his way home from work one afternoon, John stopped at the local farm and garden store… and left with a half a dozen fuzzy little chicks.  And that’s where the story really begins.  Katie had of course, been spending most of her time with John.  Her beagle, Sami, had started to adjust to open space for running, and being off the leash.  At this point, the chicks were kept in an over sized Rubbermaid tub on the kitchen floor (Yes, in a later post, we’ll cover why you shouldn’t keep live chickens in the kitchen).  At some point, John decided that he better get busy building the coop.  It was a frigid sub-zero January day, when John bundled up and headed out to the shed that would become the chicken Taj Mahal.  He began by laying out the space and taking measurements for the floor joists.  Roughly five minutes into thought and calculation, John thought he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye.  He figured it was Katie, bringing him coffee, or asking if he needed anything.  What he saw changed his life forever.

There in the door, stood Katie, bundled up like Nanook of the north, complete with pigtail beanie, holding another tape measure, and my cordless drill.  She wasn’t smiling.  She had this serious look on her face, like she belonged somewhere in the process, and demanded to know what her tasks were.  Little did she know, but it was this very moment, that John finally learned what a partner was supposed to be.  The next fall, he would ask her to be his partner for life.

Time passed, and many projects were started, some of them even completed.  Katie and John now have eighteen of the most spoiled chickens in the state.  Katie has progressed to the point where she no longer names new chickens, and may even one day let John slaughter a chicken for dinner.  They both came to realize that life can be more simple. No. Life MUST be more simple.  There is nothing wrong, with the hustle and bustle of living in the modern world, but for them, they developed a dream to both expand and retract.  The chicken experience hatched dreams of goats, pigs, and open spaces.  They began to fantasize about owning a farm.  Katie has a love for cooking and crafts, John, a long time carpenter, had a love for teaching his skills to others, combined, an idea started to form.  Originally, they thought of buying an old farmstead, and creating a destination bed and breakfast, not just a place you lay your head while visiting other places, but a place where you seek to learn and experience the things they found to be useful in life.

Sometimes, life gets in the way.  The winter before John and Katie were to wed, Katie received some harsh news.  Her job as a human resources professional for a Fortune 500 corporation, had required her expertise in laying off near 100 employees that she had come to know and love over the past fifteen years.  It took a toll, and soured her love of her job.  This event, however negative and difficult, was instrumental in making a dream a reality.  It was during this process that John and Katie had decided to make the move and start looking for their farm.  A side note about being thrifty and dealing with farmers.  It’s an oxymoron, you cannot both be thrifty and financially deal with a farmer.  Katie and John soon learned that a farm was out of reach and pondered what other venture might fit the bill.  While staying in a fantastic log cabin resort over their honeymoon, they determined that owning a resort would work nicely.  Did I mention that buying a resort, even a modest one requires ten of thousands of dollars just for the down payment?  If I didn’t, let me reiterate… you better have money… period.  Dismayed, but undeterred, they set their sights on raw land.  Determined to literally build their dream from scratch, Katie and John began the search for the perfect property.  On one of their scouting trips north, they came across a great property.  It was somewhat established, power, well, and an outhouse, this twenty acre parcel nestled just outside Embarrass, Minnesota, the lower 48’s location of coldest recorded temperature, seemed perfect.  Yes, I did say “coldest recorded temperature”.  Life quickly got in the way again, as the day before they were to make an offer, John got the news that his place of employment, was closing down.  It looked like life was to be put on hold.

Through the process of being laid off, finding work, returning to his former employer, and being laid off again, John & Katie realized, that there is no “perfect time” to pursue your dreams, only the present time.  So with that, they set out in search of other properties.  Katie mentioned her love of Lake Superior’s North Shore, so it seemed a natural place to look, not to mention the region is Minnesota’s premier vacation destination.  Amazingly enough, with a short search, we found a great property, with good topography (much of the region’s affordable land is either inaccessible, or low land).  It’s location was just over a half an hour from Duluth, just 200 miles from our back door, but a world away at the same time.  Near the end of a dirt road, surrounded on 3-1/2 sides by Superior National Forest, and offered for a reasonable price, our forty acre dream would become a reality.

What follows is the rest of our story.