Whenever we buy land somewhere, I want a small hobby farm. Nothing too big, but I do want a vegetable garden, some chickens, goats and maybe a couple of cows. But the animals won’t be for eating; as a vegetarian since 1989, I love animals too much to eat them.
But, since landing here at White Rabbit, it’s become clear to me that if I want farm animals, I’m not going to be able to hide from the cycle of life and death that comes with them, even if my animals aren’t there for meat.
Whew, what a relief. I just crunched our trip expenses from June to December, and found that we actually came in under budget by almost $12,000! How did we do it? By over budgeting, being ultra careful about things we chose to see and do, and Workamping. Now, this nice little savings is going to allow us to continue our journey even longer than we originally planned, by at least 6 months or so.
Now, let’s talk money. Pay attention; here are some important lessons we learned:
When you go to a Farmer’s Market, have you ever thought about the amount of work it takes for a farmer to get there every week, so you can have the freshest farm fresh produce available? I never gave it much thought, until we started hawking White Rabbit’s wares at the Fort Pierce Farmer’s Market.
For three weeks, we’ve been getting up at 5:30 am every Saturday to sell a variety of organic produce, nuts and grains. The market is only four hours long, but it takes an entire day to set up, tear down, clean up and take stock back at the Farm. By the time we’re done, it’s usually around 3pm and we are exhausted.
When Jim and I told friends that we were staying on a farm with people we’d never met before, more than one person asked, “How do you know they’re not total psychos?” Well, my response to that is, “How do they know that we aren’t psychos?”
After 7 months of fulltiming, Jim and I have gotten into the groove of doing whatever we want, whenever we want. Sure, there are a few occasions when work-like commitments require us to stay inside and bang away on our keyboards for a few hours. But overall, our life is seriously lacking in any routines.
Sadly though, this trip isn’t about sitting on our butts indefinitely. Now that we have reached the midway point of our year-off, it’s time to test the waters in business choices that we’ve always been interested in, but never had the time to pursue. A “vocation vacation” if you will.
I’ve determined that if I don’t write something short and quick with first impressions about new places we see, I never will.
There is so much to see and do on this journey – as I told a Canuck fulltimer yesterday – we could stay on the road for the rest of our lives and never see the entire country. And if I don’t jot down some basic observations about where we’ve been soon after we arrive, I will forget if there is any reason to return when the time comes to plant some roots again.
With that said, I go Pogo … we have made it to Okefenoke Swamp. And we have officially reached the South.
A while back, one of our readers declared that the RVer’s National Anthem should be Hank Snow’s I’ve Been Everywhere. While some of you may think this is a Johnny Cash original, it’s not.
“I’ve been everywhere, man
I’ve been everywhere, man
Crossed the deserts bare, man
I’ve breathed the mountain air, man
Of travel I’ve had my share, man
I’ve been everywhere“
Well, I finally got around to adding this to our cross country road trip soundtrack of travel tunes. While I was at it, I put some elbow grease into the page and added an interactive slideshow of CDs available from Amazon that include the songs we’ve added to our list. This way we’ll be able to update our soundtrack easier and more often. (more…)
A while back, we were dreaming about what kind of business we would operate next, and came across an ad for this nifty dog kennel business for sale, just north of the Saugerties / Woodstock area in New York. Recently, we stopped by to check it out. The owners were kind enough to give us a tour. But as much as we’d love to stop everything and start working with dogs full time, we kept our promise to hold off on decisions for the next few months. Meanwhile, if you’re interested in a great home based business in a rural area, check it out:
When we started fulltiming, we knew that we wanted to look for a “Workamper” arrangement. Workamping is generally a situation where a person or couple gets to assist in campground or RV park duties, hosting, etc., in exchange for a great campsite where they can park their rig. The work can be as challenging as one wants; from 12 hours a week greeting visitors, to being full time and working on a construction or maintenance team. Along with perks like free propane, hookups or laundry room access, sometimes an hourly wage or stipend is also included.
Since our schedule is wide open for the next year, we have begun our Workamper campaign. Here is our resume that we are sending to prospective employers:
Come September, scenes like this put a wide smile on campground owner’s faces.
We have often considered buying a campground when this trip is over. So whenever we can find an owner who has time to chat about what it’s like to run one, we love to listen and hear about what it’s really like. When we arrived at one resort in Maine, it was a quiet weekday, and the owner was happy to share some advice about the realities of running a campground.
Whenever we buy land somewhere, I want a small hobby farm. Nothing too big, but I do want a vegetable garden, some chickens, goats and maybe a couple of cows. But the animals won’t be for eating; as a vegetarian since 1989, I love animals too much to eat them.
. While some of you may think this is a Johnny Cash original, it’s not.
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