Dear Friends:

In 1972, we were looking for a new home.  In addition to this new home being the residence for our family, we also wanted a natural environment for running our personal growth workshops.  

Anne had always been fascinated by old farm houses.  So we continually checked the real estate ads only to discover that in our community, all the farms were surrounded by potato fields, and not much of Mother Nature. 

Realizing we would have to start from scratch and build our own home, we began checking ads for acreage.  One caught our eye.

30 acres of rolling hills, stream and cedar swamp.  Land contract available $10,000.

The next day, we met the real estate agent at the site and climbed through the snow of January to the top of the hill.   We stood there for a few moments catching the magnificence of the valley below us.  

Anne & Jenn, our daughter experiencing the view on that 1972 January day.

We could see a snow enclosed lake and stream wandering through a cedar swamp, stretching out in a wide panorama.  It reminded us of a secluded setting in a forgotten space somewhere in Canada, and here it was in the middle of  Michigan.

Kaleb, Jenn's son standing at the same location 30 years later.

That expansive view fed our fantasies.  The reality was that we were standing on overgrazed pasture land.  Poor conservation had washed the hillsides into the swamp leaving deep wounded ravines in their sides.

Anne responded, "I don't care how much it costs, we are going to buy it".  Her statement threw us into a life changing situation, and the ramifications of her decision are still wonderfully ringing in our lives   30 years later.  

A few days later, we were in the lawyer's office signing the land contract with no more of an idea of the future than our fantasies.  

With tools left over from a junior high drafting class, we began to design our dream dwelling.  We wanted to make it as big as possible in order to accommodate large groups for our personal growth sessions while keeping in mind our shoestring finances. 

Little did we know how many connections were already in place to begin our dream.  A client of mine from the mental health center had a son who was in the earth moving business, and as soon as the frost was out of the ground, he was preparing the building site.

One of Anne's fellow teachers had a husband who was a licensed builder.  With his help and guidance and our labor, we had framed in our new home by the middle of the summer.

The barren hillside in those early years.

However, we were caught right in the middle of a recession, and we could not find a buyer for our old home.  

Not having a source of money for building expenses, our new home was boarded up and left sitting for the winter.

The following spring, we were finally able to sell our old house, and two weeks later, we moved into our new structure, extremely unfinished (there are still unfinished rooms today).  We took our showers under a hose outside and used an outhouse.  We did have a    roof, walls, and doors, and that's all we needed with our excitement to separate us from Mother Nature.  

Our home, garden, and fruit trees  during those early years.

For several years, we continued our full-time jobs, and as the seasons would change, we would offer weekend personal growth sessions.  Labor from us and friends was continuously applied to finishing our home.

Through the years, we grew more and more self-sufficient.  We often talked about our "free dinners" of fish from the lake and "vegies" from the garden.  We raised rabbits as our meat source, and our daughter, Jenn continually lamented about what it would be like to live in "a real house".  

The healing of the land in process

(Continued at: HOMESTEAD, RECENT YEARS)

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