Haven’t you always wanted to live on a FARM?? Yeah, neither had we…until about 5 years ago. It all started when we began really looking at our health and the food we ate. We were, by no means, unhealthy eaters…however, when we dug a little deeper and found out how the chicken we were eating had been raised, the pesticides that were being sprayed on our produce, and the hormones that had been pumped into our meat, we said “Oh hell no!”
After many nights of long talks over beer and wine we decided “Let’s just start a small farm and grow the food ourselves.” Ohh how ambitious {and naive} we were. Sooo…
We sold our house in Phoenix and began looking at property in Cornville, Arizona.
Cornville, Arizona??? Huh? Where is that?
Oh folks let me tell you…It is this cute little unincorporated community south of Sedona where we had been camping at Lolo Mai Springs for years. It has beautiful vineyards, horse properties, and Oak Creek running right through it. Boom! Paradise! Right?!
OMG, yes, but for a very expensive price tag!
We were thinking…Ohh we’ll live off Page Springs Road (the community where all the vineyards are with the beautiful land) and have our little farm and live happily ever after.
Umm…no. We were in for a rude awakening when we saw how much these properties were selling for. To make this short, we couldn’t afford “our dream.”
We ended up living at Eric’s aunt’s house for 6 months and then at his grandmother’s house for another year. All in the mean time looking at property in the area that we liked and could afford.
Now you have to understand, Eric is a computer programmer and can work from home… I am a teacher and had to look for job opportunities in the Cornville region to pay the bills…which was another hurdle in the process of things.
Well’p, sure enough, a 1st grade position opened up at the local school…it was a SIGN. I applied and interviewed. They offered me the job BUT we didn’t own any property!
Ahhhh….sweating…must find a place to live NOW! I couldn’t commute an hour and a half to work everyday. Nope not happening.
Just as luck would have it…within a week, a property popped up on Realtor.com and it looked pretty amazing…PLUS it was in our price range. Next to the creek, had an irrigation ditch, lots of huge trees, BEAUTIFUL…but no house!
After a lot of discussion we decided to buy the property, buy a trailer, and live in the trailer while we BUILT a home. Built!
SPOILER ALERT! My dad is a custom homebuilder and wanted us to find vacant land all along so he could build us a home…ohhh dad…so sweet!
And you know what?! It was sweet!!!
We lived in our trailer for 15 months (oh the stories we have), built our home…and now, our farmstead journey has begun!