Country Life Lessons
My own geekery aside, I still had to be a mother. This was a job I'd not had a role model for, so I flew by the seat of my pants. My daughter went to school, skipped a grade, and then turned into a homeschooler. Why? Because Public School bored her, and while she never got into trouble, she'd pick up every other child's rude mannerisms and bad habits (which irked me to no end as bad attitudes, nasty gossip, and racism was NOT part of her home life).
Together we learned to plant a garden, raise chickens, turkeys and ducks, bid on livestock at the farm auctions, make bread and applesauce, be poor but still manage to pay the bills, and the magic of muffler tape (I was notorious for driving us around in beat up, last legs, vehicles).
Yes, we definitely learned many more skills, and grew to be best friends in the process, the latter being the biggest step for me as I had spent the first 30 years of life floating around, never trusting anyone enough to truly open my heart to them.
And not to air dirty laundry here, but my distrust of humanity was well founded.
- A father who abandoned me at the age of 7,
- a neglectful alcoholic mother,
- boyfriends who cheated and one who threatened my very life more than once.
Then, the first country family I fell in love with, spent two years getting to know, only to later discover that they had sneaky plans to take my liitle farm when I broke up with their deadbeat, alcoholic son!
- The farm that I had paid for with cashed out RRSPs.
- The farm that I carried with my limited income while he sat on his ass!
Because I was a “work-from-home” entrepreneur, banks didn’t want to give me a mortgage even though I had a decen down payment and two years of steady income to prove! These people co-signed on my mortgage, and because of that they thought they had the right to take the farm.
What kind of people do shit like that? They were making moves to force my daughter and I into homelessness with zero assets just because they legally could? Yet one more reason for me to harden my heart.
At any rate, my pure-hearted child, my sidekick, helped me learn to love and to trust again. Sure that trust still casts me on the losing end from time-to-time, but I still give all I can to those who enter my world. I just do so with a little more wariness.
...and then, the House Fire
Not a topic I like to discuss, but the house fire was a major catalyst in the next phase of my professional life and the life of the farm. So here goes: everything burned.
I lost everything I'd worked for, made, art that I'd painted, memories tied up in stuff, shelves of favorite books, photos and other favorite items, etc. We were under-insured so couldn't even replace most 'things' much less the house.
And as a result of all that, deep depression came.
And we were forever changed.
- I stopped painting and was no longer "Laura Childs, artist".
- I stopped designing websites and was no longer "Laura Childs, designer".
- I stopped coding and was no longer "Laura Childs, geek."
Later, when my websites crashed and I hadn't backed them up, I didn't care. I just let them die.
But just before that, GoodbyeCityLife was rocking with sales and visitors. I recommended products, sold some ebooks, ran some advertisements, and was making a decent monthly income. Twice, emails came challenging me to take my writing up a notch. I was asked to write full length books on homesteading, country living, or raising farm animals in general. My editor allowed me to suggest the topic.
That's how the real "Laura Childs, author" designation began and also the early days of "The Joy of..." series at Skyhorse Publishing.
Laura Childs Today
Over a decade has now passed.
- I've studied and received many certifications.
- I've written too many books to list. Perhaps 30 books now? Some under psydonyms.
- We have moved too many times away from my litttle farm.
I long to return to that life - with a big garden again, chickens, turkeys, goats, ducks, pigs and a few cows - but it's never been in the cards for me financially since the house fire. I am happy, but also very sad.
Perhaps all this is why, 25 years later, I am longing to rebuild my little site - GOODBYECITYLIFE - on hobby farming; hoping that somehow it will lead me back "home".
Please use the Contact Laura Childs page if you need to contact me.
