This is a gratitude story about surviving the hardships of making the leap from a suburban life to rural and remote. I wrote this post in 2015 to celebrate a decade out here at Wild Ozark, and these are all things I’m still grateful for after 20 years. Updates to the post will be text in italics.

Many would consider us STILL roughing it. Life is a lot more comfortable here now, but I learned a lot about survival since we moved to these wild Ozark hills.

‘Survival’ might be an extreme word to use. Maybe ‘persist’ is a better choice. Because I could have packed us all up and moved back to a life with more comfort if that’s what I’d wanted to do. Which only reinforces the possibility that maybe I’m not a ‘normal’ person, lol.

Nothing about what I had imagined life out here would be has gone as planned. But I’m a stubborn woman and I stayed the course
long after most people would have quit. And so far, I’m still happier than I was before taking this leap into the wild Ozarks.

Mad Rox’s 2025 Summary

 

Our Wild Ozark Origins

When I first moved here to the Ozarks from south Louisiana, we moved into a very old house. We were a family of five who’d moved from a 2500 sq ft home to less than 1000 sq ft. This old house was not what most would consider “livable”. It would very likely have been condemned as unfit in most civilized places.

However, even as poor as conditions were for us, it was still far more comfortable than it must have been when the early settlers to our area built it. Others who came after added onto it. By the time we’d moved into the old house, there were bedrooms and a kitchen. Oh, and a bathroom. Sort of. The bathroom had a toilet and sink, but no bath or shower. And all of the plumbing was shot.

At the time, I was married to my ex-husband and he, unfortunately for him, decided to chase this crazy dream with me (he stayed a few years until he roughed in the new house to replace the old settler house). He did a tremendous amount of work to clean up junk and trash all over the place, repaired the atrocious plumping in the old house and put in a kiddie pool rigged to a hose, with a spray nozzle for the shower.

Living this way was definitely not for the faint of heart! It was cold in the winter time, but at least we did have a propane hot water heater which was on the outside of the house.

The house was originally a 1-room cabin. If you look underneath and in the attic, hand-hewn beams of red oak mark the oldest part. Those old beams are so dried out and hardened that a nail will bend before penetrating if you try to hammer it in.

Cold Winters

That old house was cold in the winter, even with the modern wood stove burning full-blast. The wood-stove was the only thing that kept the house warm enough for wintertime survival. There were so many holes in the floors and cracks in the walls that running an electric heater was an exercise in futility and expense. We still did it anyway in an attempt to supplement the heat in corners where the fire didn’t seem to reach.

Oh, and there were plenty of holes in the roof, too, so there was always an assortment of pots and buckets on standby to catch the rain or snowmelt.

In winter, we’d close the door to the kitchen so we didn’t have to heat a room not in use, so at least the living room and bedrooms would stay a little warmer. We’d leave the sink running a little so the water lines didn’t freeze up. One year, it got so cold in the kitchen at night, the next morning I had stalagmites in the sink. We had to keep food in the refrigerator so it wouldn’t freeze on the counters or shelves.

Staying Warm

Once, when the kids and husband had traveled south to visit family near the warmer gulf coast for a couple of weeks in December, I stayed behind for work. There was a winter storm during that time and I couldn’t get the fire lit because of back-draft. That night I slept in my coat and hat and pants and socks in a 0*F sleeping bag. As long as I didn’t get out of it, I was pretty toasty and comfy. How hardy the settlers who first lived in this house must have been! I can’t even imagine sleeping in relative warmth without the modern conveniences of at least a warm sleeping bag.

I guess the point of this story is that even though it was rough at times, I’ve been thankful to be here the entire time I’ve been here. Although I lived in suburban comfort before the move to the Ozarks, I was unhappy there. Something burned in my heart to live in a remote area of the world, where water flowed clear and the seasons were easily marked.

I needed to tap the soul of the wilderness.

Adapting to a harder life

I’m not going to lie. My children suffered for a while during our transition up here. I think they’ve recovered now, ten years later. Twenty years later now, and they all have children of their own now. I think they’ve more than recovered. Maybe they even forgive me now, even if they’re not yet telling gratitude stories about it.

No sane mother would have taken the measures I had taken to follow that “follow your bliss” call. Much comfort was sacrificed and lost during what seemed to most a selfish pursuit of a selfish dream.

But I never claimed to be sane. And perhaps I wasn’t always a good mother, either. But I made the choices I made and in spite of the difficulty, I still think moving and going through the hardship was the right one to make.

The Gratitude Story

It wasn’t all hard times. There were fun times for them, too.

Unusual experience was gained, too. The boys, in particular, really took to roughing it and the rural life and enjoyed learning to hunt and trap. My daughter is now quite proficient at cooking real food made from real ingredients grown in real gardens. And she’s doing a great job of raising her kids to know country life survival, without having thrown them into a crash course in a run-down shack of a house the way I did with them.

I can’t imagine how my life would be today without having made the choices I made before. The kids are all grown now and have remained in the state that became their adopted home. Since moving here I’ve been divorced, and then remarried to a man who also loves this life in the wild Ozark hills. My ex needed to take the path of sanity back to the urban life, and I don’t begrudge him for that. This life is certainly not one for everyone.

All in all, in spite of the rocky path it took to arrive, I’m still thankful I made the crazy and sometimes excruciatingly difficult choices I made to get us here.

Old Blog at Blogger.com

When we first moved up here I was blogging at Blogger. I can’t access it anymore, but it’s still there if you want to take a trip back in time: https://ozarkmusings.blogspot.com/

Happy Thanksgiving from Wild Ozark!

I hope all of you out there reading this have plans for a pleasant Thanksgiving day (if you’re in the US). I hope you have things to be thankful for.

Gratitude is a good practice for every day. It’s easy to take the little things for granted. Keep overlooking them, and it becomes easy to fall into a habit of complaining about everything that makes life harder. The past two years have been hard ones for me on a personal level. I’m thankful there have been all of those little things to focus on to remember gratitude. There’s always little things to be grateful for, even if the big picture looks dim.

If you have a homestead origin or gratitude story to share, I’d love to hear it.