Our latest profile is of Patrice Lewis, who works as a freelance writer and runs a woodworking business with her husband from their homestead in Idaho.

Tell us a bit about who you are and what you do

We have been married 18 years. Shortly after our wedding in 1990, we were living in a suburb of Sacramento, California. We became aware that we really didn’t want to raise any future children in the city. Through the doors and windows of our rented house, we could hear the constant sound of traffic. Often we heard the whomp-whomp-whomp of a helicopter going overhead, searching for a criminal. Sacramento’s murder rate was on the rise. In fact, for the three-month period preceding our departure, there was a murder a day (unusual for Sacramento, but it underscored our desire to leave). We were newly-wed and anxious to get out. On the excuse of sending me to graduate school, we found a school in southwest Oregon near the town of Medford.

We had no debt and a few thousand dollars saved up. We figured we could always find a job. When a cheap house and four acres of land became available in the small town of Gold Hill (just north of Medford), we bit the bullet and bought it. We closed down our lives in Sacramento and moved.

Well, the job market wasn’t quite what we anticipated in SW Oregon. I was in grad school full time and working part-time in the campus library. My husband, unable to find a job in his field (he was a projects geologist), decided to take his woodworking hobby and turn it into a business. He finalized a design for a style of hardwood drinking tankard (like a beer stein, made of wood – http://donlewisdesigns.com), and in May 1993 we went to our first show to try selling our product. We sold well, and knew that we had found a niche. However, it took us a long, long, long time to figure out how to successfully run a business – what shows to do, how to bill customers, how to streamline our production techniques, etc. We spent years on the road, peddling our products, which was a hard life that made us put off the decision to have children or get livestock or even grow a garden. On the advice of some friends, we slowly made the transition from a retail to a wholesale business. This kept us home (off the road), and it was during this time that our two daughters were born.

It was a very, very precarious existence financially, but we learned to be extraordinarily frugal and we pulled through. After I graduated with my master’s degree, I worked nights as a field biologist (surveying owls, for anyone who wonders what a field biologist does at night) while my husband worked days in the shop. This way we avoided daycare for our babies. Seasonally we would hire someone to help my husband in the shop. Gradually we realized that all of my outside salary (plus some extra) was going to pay the temporary worker. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that if I quit my job and shared the work in the shop, we would come out ahead. I did so, and our home business truly became a family affair.It has slowly grown over the years, and now it is the sole support for our family of four. It also allowed us the unique freedom to move anywhere we wished, independent of a city. In 2003, we sold our beloved Oregon home and moved to a forty-acre farm in northern Idaho, a location much more remote (by U.S. standards) than our place in Oregon.

While we were in Oregon, we developed an interest in self-sufficiency and homesteading. The property had mature fruit trees (apple, pear, plum). I planted a huge garden and taught myself how to can. We got chickens and I learned to butcher them. We got a Dexter cow and calf, and I learned to milk. As our skills increased, we knew we needed more land in order to get more cattle and expand our homesteading opportunities. Now in Idaho, we have a bull, two mature cows, two calves, and two yearling calves. We harvest grass hay off a nearby parcel to feed our cattle through the winter. We steer any bull calves that are born and butcher them at two years of age to put in the freezer. I milk the two cows every morning and make yogurt, butter, mozzarella and cheddar cheese, and ice cream. We have chickens too. Pigs are next on our list . We’ve planted a startup orchard and this is the first year we have fruit on our trees (peaches, pears, apples). We have a garden and berry patch as well.

Where do you live?

We live four miles outside a town called Plummer, in the panhandle of Idaho, U.S.A. We’re about three hours’ drive south of the Canadian border. Winters here can be harsh, and since we’re almost two miles off-road (meaning, an unplowed dirt road) we are often snowed in during the winter. Therefore we’ve learned to prepare extensively in the fall. We heat exclusively with a woodstove.

Tell us how you ended up where you are today

In 2002, when we decided to move, we searched for two years in Oregon but were unable to find anything within our price range and property requirements. Since we had the freedom to move anywhere, we expanded our search to include Washington, Oregon, and Montana. Believe it or not, the reason we settled on Idaho was because of its excellent homeschooling laws. We homeschool our girls and didn’t want a place that had too much government intrusion. Idaho is ideal for that.

In March 2003 I came up alone to Idaho (husband stayed home with the kids and animals) and looked at about thirty properties between Lewiston and the Canadian border. I narrowed it down to two places. A week later, after I got home, my husband came up and did a careful inspection of both choices, and we settled on our current home.

What do you love most about country life?

That’s hard to answer, because frankly there isn’t a whole lot we dislike. We love the privacy, the wide-open spaces, the safety for our children, the space to increase our livestock. We don’t mind the weather at all. Neither of us are hot-weather people, so the cold winters and mild summers of north Idaho suit us just fine. We don’t have traffic, noise, pollution, or people (well, we have neighbors of course, but you know what I mean). The vistas are gorgeous. The stars are brilliant. And – here’s an unexpected bonus – we don’t get television reception. We are thrilled that our girls are growing up without watching junk on TV.

The one thing that concerns us is that our area has been “discovered” by other folks escaping the city. Plummer is about the last town in this direction within reasonable commuting distance from either Spokane, Washington or Coeur d’Alene, Idaho (the closest cities), and in the next few years a four-lane highway may come through. If that’s the case, we’ll wait until our girls are grown and out of the house, and then my husband and I will sell and move deeper into the mountains.

What do you miss about being in a city?

We’ve lived in cities, and don’t miss them at ALL. About the only thing we “miss” are the rare opportunities that our girls might miss by being so rural. My oldest daughter, for example, has an interest in learning gymnastics. Out here, there’s no way. It takes an hour to drive to the nearest city (where there is gymnastics instruction), and with gas prices being what they are, we can’t afford it. On the other hand, you never know what talents you’ll find in the country. Our daughters take piano and violin lessons from talented teachers that are close by.

We definitely don’t miss shopping or movies or restaurants or anything like that. I’ve always hated shopping anyway, and all movies eventually come out on DVD and we can rent them. If we have a huge and unexpected longing for a decent restaurant meal (happens about once a year), then we make an excursion to the city and really enjoy ourselves. It’s much more of a treat because it’s rare.

Once a year, in mid-October or so (when our busy season is over), my husband and I go on a “date night.” The kids spend the night with friends, we bed the livestock down for the night, and we take off for an evening in the city. Our favorite date a few years ago was a nice dinner followed by a live performance of Riverdance (the Irish musical extravaganza) that was in Spokane. Fabulous! Sometimes there’s nothing “special” going on (like Riverdance) so we browse a favorite bookstore and walk around downtown, windowshopping.

What do you definitely not miss about being in the city?

Oh sheesh, where do I start? Do I start with the crowds, the traffic, the pollution, the prices, the crime, the noise, or all of the above? I cannot ever imagine moving back to the city. Our girls are being raised in a way that was common a century ago but rare nowadays. They know the source of all their food – fruit, vegetables, milk products, eggs, meat, even wheat (we’re working on developing a wheat patch). They help us do things like make cheese, chase the livestock back inside the fences (we’ve concluded that most fences are merely decorative), and gather eggs. They see how hard we work both on the farm and on our business. They see birth and death. Because they have little exposure to the negative peer pressure in public schools, they are polite, mature children who respect us as their parents. They are not interested in fashion or, in the case of our 12-year-old, boys (at least, not yet!). Most of their friends are also homeschooled, and so these wholesome, family-oriented values are reinforced by their peers. Our girls often feel sorry for city kids, who never get to see a calf born and whose interests seem limited to fashion and makeup (for girls, that is). I hope we’re not raising a couple of rural snobs (smile).

What do you do to stay in touch with friends and family?

That’s what email and phones are for. Once every couple of years the girls and I take a trip to Oregon to visit friends. We have also become a popular “vacation” destination for a number of friends, who have discovered that we live in a place so beautiful that people come here on vacation. My parents and brothers make trips up to see us as often as they can.

Describe a typical working day in the country

Because my husband and I work together 24/7, we’ve found it’s essential for us to have our “alone” time. Since my husband is a night owl and I’m a morning bird, I go to bed about the time the kids do and my husband stays up late and gets his quiet time. I wake up very early (usually around 4 am) and that’s my quiet time. Works beautifully.

First thing in the morning, I milk the cows and release the chickens from their coop, and water all the animals. After breakfast, my husband starts his work in the shop and the girls and I settle to our schoolbooks. Schooling usually takes no more than a couple of hours. With one-on-one tutoring and no distractions from other classmates, we get a lot done in a concentrated amount of time. Our study subjects include math and English (which might include spelling, grammar, or writing), on which the girls work at different grade levels. We also study science, history, and geography, and on these subjects the girls work on the same level. Other subjects come and go as interests develop and wane, but these are our core areas.

After lunch, we’re free to do whatever needs to be done. I might join my husband in working on the tankards – there are a lot of steps we do in the house instead of the shop – or I might do household chores such as dishes, laundry, or vacuuming. Depending on the time of year, there might be garden work (summer), canning (fall), or feeding the livestock (winter). The kids usually play with friends in the afternoon. If it’s our busy season (July-October), we often work late into the evening. I don’t have to milk the cows in the evening because the calves are on the mother and that takes care of her milk. I lock the calves away in the morning so I only have to milk in the morning.We mostly have dinner together. As mentioned, we have no TV reception and with few exceptions, no one watches movies during the day – that’s reserved for after-dinner relaxing. We own over 3000 books, so obviously reading is a priority in our home.

Describe a typical non-working day in the country

Hard to do. Work blends with everything. I always say that the trouble with a home business is that it’s at home – there’s no escaping it. And the livestock always need care, though the amount of care varies depending on the time of year (not much to do in the summer, lots to do in the winter).

If it’s leisure activities you’re interested in hearing, that’s a different story. As mentioned, we’ve voracious readers. Depending on the time of year, the kids might go sledding or swimming in our pond or in nearby Lake Coeur d’Alene. We have a 70+ mile bike trail that is close by, so the girls and I might go hit the trail for a few hours. We visit neighbors. We walk to the mailboxes (1 1/2 miles away) or hike around some of the areas near our house.

The thing about life on a homestead is that the work is enjoyable, so we don’t mind doing it. Believe it or not, I love hanging laundry on the line, weeding the garden, watering the orchard, milking cows, making cheese, etc. I do an enormous amount of writing, of course (see http://patricelewis.com). I’m not into crafts or anything like that – my interests lie elsewhere.

Patrice added her own question: “What advice would you give to someone wanting to move to the country?”

Two pieces of advice, both of which are extraordinarily difficult to do but will seriously increase the chances of succeeding in country life. 1. Get out of debt. No matter how long it takes or how hard you have to work, moving to a rural area without debt drastically increases the chances of success. 2. Develop a home business. Whether you tele-commute or have a home craft business or whatever, it’s a lot better if you don’t have to commute to the city for your income. Plus, working from home gives you more freedom to move wherever you want, away from the umbilical cord of city proximity.