To Milk A Goat

I want to learn to milk a goat.  I want to learn all kinds of things.  I want to experience new ways of living.  I want to see different parts of the country and imagine myself living there.  I want to find a place that speaks to my soul in a way that somehow Hawaii never has.  This is the great motivation behind our uprooting - it is our quest.  Yes, we want to see amazing places and meet new people.  We want to have time for ourselves and be able to relax, but more than that we want to figure out what comes next - where we will land and how we will live.

The last few years of Gary's life in politics brought great rewards and even greater sacrifices and made us both realize that there had to be a better way to live.  We just didn't know what that way was.  Our solution was to quit our jobs, sell our house, put our belongings in storage and give ourselves time to wander and think and figure things out.  The problem is that this could take a while.

So, in the interest of extending our time on the road, stretching our limited resources, and possibly even expanding our minds, we have joined two different virtual communities.  The first one is devoted to house-sitting.  It is called Trusted Housesitters.  There is a pretty hefty yearly fee of $95, but we decided it was worth it and plunged in.  We rounded up some good samaritans to write character references.  We sat down one night about midnight, after only minimal amounts of wine, and created our profile.  The very next day I received the first of the now daily email updates on new house-sits available throughout the world.  When one popped up for a month in Portland I applied immediately.  In just a few hours the homeowner had stopped accepting applications.  Several weeks later we received the news that somehow we were the chosen ones.  Yesterday the signed contract arrived in the mail confirming that we have indeed landed our first house-sit.  It is now official - we will be spending the month of March living in a house in N.E. Portland caring for a cat and a Rat Terrier.

Cats are easy.

This is Manao helping me wrap presents yesterday.

This is a Rat Terrier.  

I looked them up to see what we were getting ourselves into.

I think we can handle this.

If this house-sitting thing works out it will literally open up the world to us.  The listings in today's email included house-sits in London, Costa Rica, New Zealand, Australia, Los Angeles, Vienna and Canada.  I have seen listings for a month in a castle in France, 6 months on a horse farm in Ireland and 2 weeks in New York City.  The possibilities are endless.

So house-sitting is good for the thinking and figuring out part of our quest, but what about the learning new things part?  The seeing how other people live part?  For that we have joined another online community called Helpx.  It is a website where people looking for help on their farms or in their homes create a profile describing exactly who they are and what they need.  There are all kinds of situations listed.  There are a lot of organic farmstays.  There are B&B owners that are looking for someone to help change sheets.  There are old ladies that just want someone to help them paint a room or clear out some of their junk.  There are people with goats that need milking and Llamas that need feeding and bees that need tending.  There are listings all over the world.  Access to all of this information comes at the bargain price of $25 for 2 years.

In general, Helpx-ers put in about 5-6 hours of work a day, 5 days a week, in exchange for room and board.  One needs to read carefully to find out exactly what the hosts mean by 'room and board', but overall it seems like a pretty sweet deal.  I already have about 20 places bookmarked in Idaho, Montana, Utah, South Dakota, Colorado, Washington and Wyoming.  Places that look like they have decent accommodations and interesting hosts.  Places that look like the tasks required are within our capabilities.  Places that are in beautiful, awe-inspiring areas of the country.  And I haven't even started looking east of the Mississippi yet.  The possibilities are endless.

Of course any and all of this could be disastrous in so many ways.  But that is okay.  We know how to deal with disasters.  We have lived through quite a few.  If there are issues we will reassess and move on.  I think it is the moving that matters more.  The moving and the seeking.  I have no ambition to sit on a beach in the sun for the rest of my days.  I want projects and purpose.  I want to be curious and open and alive to new ideas.  I want to be out of my comfort zone.  I know that the holy grail of the perfect life in the perfect place does not exist, but that doesn't mean we can't go looking for it anyway.  And maybe milk a few goats along the way.