Onward. March. Forward he goes. Too young to recognize possible dangers …this brave grandson is not strangled with the fears from sometimes-paralyzing-adult logic.

I’ve always smiled at this picture of my (now) 8 1/2 year old grandson. His vibrant personality shines through still. I’m 56 years older than him and once again I’m reminding myself that I need to be more like him as I’m gearing up to make a huge life change.

I’m making mental and physical steps towards selling and leaving the home and property that Loren and I pioneered, built and enjoyed. This move will be bigger than my selling the business property and closing out a business after his death. This move will mean parting with some personal and farm things. Basically down-sizing, foremostly because I’m feeling my age…plus I don’t want to be so tied down.

Since 2015 I’ve known that this upcoming point in time could be very grievous and painful with Loren having passed away and making a move alone. Until March 2024, when I was in Florida at my brother’s place, I still could not look straight in to the eyes of moving and down-sizing. When flying home to Oregon in early April… I realized the potential of physical freedom that I could feel by not having the property and its duties dictating what I must do.

From the day that Loren passed there’s been his huge void in doing repairs, upkeep, and also his guidance and input in making the big seasonal decisions in management. I thankfully have had my own logic with knowledge and have had people I could hire to assist me….friends of Loren who knew his methods and approach towards decisions.

To review….on my Birthday in late April I made the decision that enough is enough. Even though my four children have always given me their blessing and freedoms to do what I see best, it was in April that I received definite confirmations from two of them that now seems a good time for me to stop:

• stop physically wearing myself out with the huge amounts of upkeep on the buildings and land
• stop tapping in to future retirement monies to maintain the land that, now without Loren selling and custom-milling his milled lumber, no longer brings in consistent annual income.
• stop hoping that I’d be able to one day be able to produce a farm supplemental income ….what he had produced with his skilled milling and knowledge of wood.
• facing the facts that the possibilities of future raising live stock will never again be a desired way of life for me.
• facing the fact that working full-time and trying to keep up with the 12 hours of weekly mowing and spraying required becomes less easy each year.
• facing the truth that my cherished joy of living on the property has drastically decreased in the past few years.
• facing the truth that I went two years without riding the trails in the forested area (that speaks volumes!) Riding the trails only brought frustration…reminding me of the urgent and future projects I needed to hop to.

MAYBE my slowness to look-at-leaving-the-ranch was more than just dreading the heightened layer of grief that I’d face once more. Maybe it was:

• accepting the truth that I no longer have the energy I did 30 years ago or even 3 years ago

I definitely know this farm girl will find it exceedingly hard to no longer live on a property where I can’t see any other property from my house, where I’ve been able to 100% control my surroundings. I’ve loved the privacy.

God help me! I’m going to joyfully need to become just like the picture of my young grandson.