I did something funny.
A few weeks after moving to our teeny tiny town I made a little poster with my email stating that we were a young family new to the area hoping to meet other homesteading, homeschooling families. I honestly didn't know what to expect and I felt like a bit of a boob as I waited for our post office to clear out before I sheepishly pinned the posters up, but I figured I had nothing to lose.
I can tell you I wasn't overwhelmed with emails, but I did receive one response. From another young family living on 25 acres 10 minutes away with four year old Auren and 2 year old Fern (expecting another in late fall), many chickens, 5 pigs, 4 cats, a gentle dog, and big plans. The kids play really well together while their sweet mama and I laugh and chat easily.
The above photos were taken at their home when we met up for our second
I wanted to share this lesson in stepping outside of the box and tapping into the community in your own backyard. I encourage you to try it.
Feel free to share your stories of how you are creating your own community.
go gently + be wonderful
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It's so wonderful to be able to find other like-minded families, not just over the internet, but living pretty close by. So worth the effort to reach out. I did a couple of years ago. Searched the message boards all over, looking for locals and putting up online ads. I did manage to find a handful of wonderful people and remain close friends with a couple of them still.
ReplyDeletesuch a wonderful idea! i ought to try it...we are definitely having an extremely hard time making friends where we're at. especially friends with children our son could buddy-up with. *sigh* i think our next attempt will be attending church and seeing if we can make some magic happen there. cute pictures!
ReplyDeleteHehe, now that's quite the flock! And I thought my 7 were neat all grouped up together!!
ReplyDeleteGood for you! Putting yourself out there!
ReplyDeleteWhen we moved, back, to Chicago it was a whole different ball of wax. This time I came with kids and none of our old friends had kids. I was alone and lonely.
While I've found a bunch of mama friends, we are in a super-dense urban area after all, I haven't necessarily found my tribe yet. Still working on that. Trying to find the people that just "get" me. Sigh...
what a bold idea, to put up a poster at the post office! i love that :) i am happy that you are able to find another family in your community to connect with. i wish i was half as ballsy as you!
ReplyDeleteBravo! What a good idea. I kinda like that only one person responded. That says that the poster was meant to find maybe just her. Good enough reason it sounds like. Knowing nobody when we moved to our wee town in Quebec, we were nervous about being the odd 'organic' farmer types but we have found our place in the homes of many and feel very lucky to have met some great kindred folks. We've turned a few annoyed and confused heads as well, but that's to be expected :) Happy get-togethers for you!
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