Our Land

Chapter 1 - Kristen Moves

           It was a beautiful morning! Kristen walked out to the field and plopped down into the tall grass. This was her favorite part of leaving the city. She could feel the breeze moving the grass above her and hear the sheep in the pasture heading out to where she was sitting. This was her morning ritual now. To move her flock to a new field, she opened the gate and sat out in the tall grass.

            Working on wall street was fun at first, and making her first million was exciting, but after 15 years of busting her butt, she was tired. Kristen had decided 6 months ago that she was done with everything city and had purchased 1,500 acres in Northern Maine. Since money wasn’t a concern, she had someone build her a big arena with multiple little stalls, and she had 20 acres cleared and fenced into 10 smaller pastures. She was very interested in the idea of farming and sustainability. Her new life was going to focus on this, her old life was all about high rise buildings, condos, and beach front villas.

              This was the first time she wasn’t living in a building with other people and her first thought after buying this land was what she wanted to live in. She had read a lot online about living in a yurt and so she commissioned a large one to be built on a raised platform in the middle of the field just outside of her sheep pastures. Now instead of walking among the wolves every day, she was lying with the sheep. Nothing would have prepared her for the quiet and the calm.

              Kristen could feel the sheep approaching where she was sitting. She was ready to greet them with a pocket full of animal cracker cookies. She wasn’t sure if this was how normal people raised sheep and moved them around, but it was working well for her. She stood as the sheep reached her and all their little excited faces made her smile. They almost danced as each one waited for their turn to get a cookie. Once she was out of cookies, she hugged the closest lamb and sent them all running off into the field. Kristen laughed as she headed to the gate to close it up.

              After closing the gate, Kristen headed back towards the arena. She was going to clean up where the sheep had slept and get their troughs of food ready for when she called them in at night. She filled the water buckets and topped off the mineral buckets and sat down on the large pile of hay. The sheep had a water bucket out in each of the little fields, and the rain kept them pretty full right now. When she talked to her old friends from the city, they were blown away by her new life. They also wondered why she still didn’t have a man.

              This marked her 4th week living on the farm and it was time she headed into town to pick-up supplies and meet some of her neighbors. The only locals she had been in contact with to this point were the contractors. She also needed to buy a more economical vehicle since her city life had her driving a Prius, and that was not working out well with her ½ mile driveway full of ruts. Finishing her chores, she decided that her first stop would be to the car dealership.