A story about buying our dream property, trusting the process and the wisdom of teenagers
A little over a year ago, my husband Shawn and I saw a listing online for a 10-acre property with a horse barn in Cheney, WA. We felt drawn to check it out in person even though we weren’t ready to buy property right away. In fact, the dream was to go on a road trip for at least a year to look for a place to sink our roots. We told ourselves that once we were done adventuring, we would buy land to make our homesteading dreams come true.
But when we got here on this land in Cheney, WA we knew we were home. This is where our bones wanted to rest.
A love affair begins
We canceled our travel plans and parked our trailer. Shawn got a job in town and I hunkered down for a big push in my business. We focused on squirreling away a down payment, all the while praying that this land would stay on the market long enough for us to save up.
“Do your best and stay unattached to the results.” For years, I've whispered this to myself when my hands have wanted to grasp.
This year invited me into yet another spiral in my life-long, love-hate lesson of surrender. So I decided to trust. Even if things didn’t turn out the way I wanted, I knew that I needed to trust. What is meant for us will land in an open palm.
I’ve visited this land every month this year like a clandestine lover, wondering what the neighbours are thinking as my truck pulled up the driveway. I’ve watched the land expand and contract with the seasons. I’ve tied offerings of my hair on infant pines. I’ve prayed to my grandfather here and he has spoken back to me in the language of yellow butterflies. I’ve shared my tea with the lichen.
I’ve been building a relationship with this soil, with this soul.
If this isn't a love language, I don't know what is.
Shawn worked extra hours. I had the most easeful non-launch launch of my life with several people telling me they’ve been eyeing my program for over a year now. But while we put all our intentions into the things we could control, the economy has been a bit cattywampus. And when we finally had enough squirreled away for what would have been a sizable down payment, land loans skyrocketed to 9.5% interest rates.
So I let go. Because as much as I wanted this, when my husband outlined what those numbers looked like, I knew that a relationship cannot thrive when it is entangled with conditional knots like this.
But here’s what I didn’t realize.
My mother had been watching me this year. My father had been listening. And when I told them that we were going to wait until interest rates settled back down, they offered us an interest-free loan to bridge the gap. And then…Shawn’s father stepped in with a gift. Shawn’s grandmother had an envelope of cash hidden in a drawer she was saving for just this occasion. The timing was just right.
And with all that we’ve collected, we were able to put in a cash offer which was accepted on last month’s full moon. This week was our first week as stewards of this land. Which also happens to coincide with Shawn’s 39th birthday, a new moon and a solar eclipse.
A portal in receiving has opened. We are drinking from a well mixed from the springs of my family, his family, and us.
Even when I panicked about the timing, we were right on time.
I am realizing dreams I’ve had since high school when I was in FFA (Future Farmers of America Club). This week, we started our hugelkulture garden bed. We cleared a path to put our well in. My horses will be arriving soon. We have plans for fruit trees, horse training clinics, chickens, rabbits and a milk cow. Sure, converting a tack room into a bedroom to spend our first winter living out of a barn wasn’t in the original plans, but I’m excited for the learning and the adventure of it all.
Oh god how I wish I could show you how nerdy I was showing my prized lambs and heifers at the county fair. But alas, those photos are in storage. This is the closest approximation I have. Here I am at 17 but imagine if you will - instead of a fiberglass tiger, I am riding my heifer through the high school grounds after hours because yeah, I used to do that.
And I couldn’t dream up a better partner to hold these dreams with. We know we are signing up for a hard life, especially these first few years. But I see it as a good hard. The kind of hard that when we look back on it decades from now, we will wonder how we ever did it.
Honestly, teenage Kat had some shit figured out. She already knew she wanted to be a farmer when she grew up and she had a massive crush on this guy who you know, she ended up marrying.
I willingly choose this hard because the things I have learned the most from and value the most in my life were built on that good hard. My curriculum has been in my most intimate friendships, in my business, in my marriage, and now, my new teacher, this land…
There is a reason that trust, surrender and receiving are lessons that I need to actively learn year after year.
Journal with Curiosity
Where are you in your relational flow of timing right now?How do you deepen into trust and surrender?
What are you doing now that your teenage self would be stoked on?
I’d love to hear what this sparks for you. Shoot me an email at hello@kathosoolee.com or DM me on Instagram @kat.hosoo.lee to share your reflections.