A Wee Boost.

I met a 71 year old neighbour today.

The trees out front of the house haven't been worried about keeping up appearances and have continued to drop their "stuff" all over the front porch and walk-way regardless of the For Sale sign stuck in the front yard.
And although our house is mostly sold, (we are just waiting on the notice of removal of financing, which we are assured is coming) I want to keep things tidy for the new buyers.
So this morning before the heat of the day kicked in I was out sweeping up all the orange, dusty, tree stuff.

Along comes a spunky, little, seventy-one-years-young gal out for her daily power walk.

"Hello, says she, don't mean to be nosy but heard from a neighbour that you're moving out East?"

"Yep", says I, "bought us a hobby farm."

"Can I tell you about my son?" she asks.

And she launches into a story that for me was a God-sent tale of encouragement.
Because just last night, after hearing the farm water needs work (failed the water test) and that our house was sold (mostly) I had a moment of doubt and said "That's OK we don't need to move".

I felt tired and overwhelmed and quite frankly wondered "What the lollipop do we think we're doing?!?"

But back to this lady's son and his wife.

A year and a half ago they quit his twenty year long job, sold her business, packed it all up and moved to New Brunswick where they bought a 100 acre organic apple orchard. Son is 56, daughter-in-law 40.  And they are LOVING their new life.  Out pruning trees, picking apples, making cider and vinegar, making and selling stuff at market, and totally not looking back!!

Well, talk about a God moment. I thanked her for stopping to encourage me, told her I have my moments where I wonder whether we have lost-our-cotton-pickin'-mind....I mean at our age!!!

And she blurted out....."Dear, you aren't old! Pack it all up and get the H-E-double-hockey-sticks outta here! " (Gasp! Grandma, watch your language please!) "Get going!" she said and "Enjoy this adventure!!"

Well, maybe we will do just that. I mean we are a tad younger then the Organic Apple Farmer. :) If he can do it, what's stopping us!

Ok. Up-date on the sale of our house and our up-and-coming move.
The condition of financing has been met and they are asking to extend the closing date. This works out perfectly since the owners of the farm are still needing to find a place to down-size too. Three weeks was feeling a little cramped for all of us.  I don't have the exact date yet, but it will be some time near the end of August.  I can live with that. It still gets us there a couple of months before winter to wrap things up as tight as we can get it BUT .....

I'm thinking that we will miss blueberry season. Sigh.

Oh well, we'll get some of those little balls of wild blue goodness next year. :)