I guess flexibility is the key in survival situations! And you get to practice it already.
I notice you already call Alabama ‘home’ ;)
We’ve planted numerous trees on numerous properties to separate us from neighbors and have always gotten the little ones in 1 gallon containers. With a fast-growing tree, it’ll just take a year or so to catch up. (Our current crop is California Pepper trees and the new baby planted last summer is already half the size of the more mature ones.) I’m frugal first and foremost ;)
I’d love to get some info on Alabama when you have the time. We are looking into retirement/bug out places back east and are considering anywhere with relatively cheap houses on acreage and that’s pretty.
“I notice you already call Alabama ‘home’ ;)”
oops! My reference to “Alabama” was to a song by the singing group named “Alabama”. I’m not headed quite that far south. :)
Born and raised in West “by God” Virginny; 100% “hillbilly” who married a “damn Yankee” and moved “up north” (the Mason-Dixon line defines these things for us :)
So yes, I’m heading “home” at last. At least for me, it’s a truism that while “you can take the girl out of the hills, you can’t take *the hills* out of the girl”. At first, I tried to like it here and make friends, but I’ve never understood the, I guess you’d call it “underlying negativity” of the attitudes I encounter here. Having been raised to ask “How *can* we do it?” when encountering a problem, I just don’t *get* the “the first word out of their mouth is NO!, followed by the 47,438 reasons “why not” attitude that’s caused this area to literally die.
Personally, I’m so happy about leaving that I feel like jumping up and down. I refrain because this is a hard move for my husband, as his family has been in this area since 1840. But the bottom line is that this area has been “dying” for nearly 30 years; our children have moved away and are *not* coming back; and our original “compromise” was that we would stay here for as long as he had this particular job, but “when the job goes, we go”. That time has come and while I know he’ll love it down there, I try to understand that it’s not easy for him to leave. :)