A Miller Dream...West Virginia - Almost Heaven (Part 2)

In April of 2004 I read an article in Mother Earth News magazine about an extended family in Louisiana that went together and purchased 30 acres of land. The parents moved into the existing house and the children builts houses for thier families. They had a farm they shared. They had a few animals. Enough to make cheese, have eggs and meat for the 3 families. They shared one community garden. I was sold. I wanted to do this too. My parents live in Tennessee. Jake and I talked about moving closer to them and buying a farm. We toyed with the idea of starting a program where troubled youth would come and work on the farm. It really is theraputic. Either way, one Sunday afternoon, the Millers were all at our house for lunch. I didn't mention it before but we Millers also like to eat. Before all the moving we used to get together (all 13 of us) and have a lunch each Sunday. After each meal, we would sit in our living room and chat about stuff (all leading to sex, poop or SC - see previous posts). The particular Sunday I am talking about I shared with everyone the article I read and told them I thought we should do it. I think everyone jumped on board immediately. Paul & Linda were working in North Carolina, at the time, with 8 girls living with them. They were already thinking about retiring from the houseparenting field. And remember Paul has the Amish Way deep in his soul (you can't get rid of that)...he was happy. Linda really just wanted the family all together again. Tim & Stephanie were living in a rather shady part of Akron. Tim wasn't happy with his job and to make it worse he was looking for a second job to make ends meet. They liked the idea but said it would probably be 5 years or so before they would move. We were feeling unhappy with our job at the time and were ready to go ASAP.
Everyone agreed we wanted to go South. We had two guidelines to meet. 1. To be closer to Tennessee and my parents. 2. Keep Eric within the same distance of his kids that live south of Columbus. We were talking about Kentucky. Well, when we started looking Paul found land was much cheaper in West Virginia. Paul and Linda went back to North Carolina the next day. They stopped and looked at a property on the way home. The next trip up they looked at another. That is were they live today. Paul took the idea and ran with it. That is what we love about him. He is a mover. By July, 100 acres of West Virginia hills belonged to the Millers. We went out and hiked the land several times. After a trip or two we were camping on it. There were no existing buildings on the land. There never had been. There was a logging road into the property but it wasn't a good road. They neighbors let us use a road from their property to get to a more place we could drive in. I remember the first time Paul took out the chain saw and started cutting logs that were laying across the lane, so we could drive back. I had never seen him like that...truely in his glory. It still wasn't a good road by any standards. During one of the first camping trips we decided to get up on Sunday morning and go to church. There wasn't running water. To go to the bathroom we had to sit on this bucket covering a hole in the gound. The rule was, if you went poop you had to cover the hole with some dirt. When the hole is filled up you dig a new hole for the 5 gallon bucket (with the bottom cut out) to sit over. Our "bathroom" was just over the hill...out in the open but away from camp. We didn't have a shower so Paul hung a tarp up by the canopy where we ate, etc... That morning while Linda cooked breakfast we took turns going behind the tarp and sponge bathed. No one could see you but I will admit, it was weird to be naked and cleaning my body while I talked to the others. It is awful to be that so exposed but there is probably some life lesson in trust/ honesty in a situation like that. Either way we piled into 2 vehicles and off we went to church. I can't recall for sure but I think it was Tim & Steph's van and Paul & Linda's brown van (the nicer of their two vans). I was in the 2nd van. So as we are driving the van bottoms out (we had A LOT of people crammed in the van) and the road was rough. It broke the brake line. That same trip the blue van had a tire popped down the lane. It is always something with the Millers. We did make it to church. I think we all pooped while we were there. It was nice to have a real bathroom with seats and running water. That church will probably shut the doors if they see us coming again.
Since the beginning things have progressed nicely. Paul and Linda moved to West Virginia last spring. They bought a mobile home that was just moved to the land last week. Tim and Steph moved in August. They live in a double wide mobile home (it's nicer than where we live now). Tim got a job that suits him well. The kids are happy to play outside (most of the time). Eric lives there part of the time. After his 3 week long bad marriage, he moved in with Paul and Linda to "get away". He still works in Akron but looking for something closer. The land has a driveway (almost a mile long...a work in progress - trust me) and electricity (a lot of trees and one crushed chain saw later). Linda tried to burn the forest down once (we have a few black trees to proove it). They do have running water (we will talk about that tommorow). Paul has some very big toys; an excavator, tractor, bull dozer & dump truck. He bought most or all of them on e-bay. Linda works for the power company and Paul digs holes.
Tommorow I am going to tell you about our Thanksgiving with the Millers. It's gonna be a good one. See you then!