Confessions of an Oklahoma Transplant

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  • How Did We Get Here, Part 2: Finishing the Moving Story

    Apparently, you can expect to hear from me only once every few months for the foreseeable future! I swear, I want to write more, but it’s just been a struggle to manage it all! Maybe it’s because I’m working full-time, building our property up from scratch, and doing regular life things… I don’t know. Sounds like a good excuse, right?

    I guess I didn’t even start the story of actually getting to Oklahoma yet, so let’s roll back a bit to just before Christmas in my storytelling. We had been slowly packing and getting things organized for the move. But of course, with the holidays, we also struggled to find time with family. Then my grandma came to visit. This was supposed to be fun, but she ended up having a major medical event that completely refocused our energy. Now, on top of packing, working, and the holidays, we had daily hospital visits. Honestly, I was a bit of a wreck!

    Even with packed schedules, we managed to get our camper loaded with a good amount of stuff for an initial trip to Oklahoma. Our planned leave date got postponed a little bit as we were managing life things, but we finally took off. For those who don’t know much about Colorado winters, they can be super snowy/icy and unsafe to travel, depending on what you’re driving, pulling, and how you’re going. We decided the safest way for us to go was through the lower passes via Utah. This made that initial trip a planned 19-hour drive for folks not towing heavy loads. Obviously, we had a heavy load, so we knew it would take a little longer…

    We planned to leave around 4 AM, but due to unforeseen circumstances (because, of course), we weren’t on the road until about 7 AM. Our plan was to drive to Edmond, OK, and stay the night at my uncle’s before leaving in the morning to finish the trip. I had hoped to have dinner with my uncle, but slow driving and almost running out of gas in the middle of nowhere made that an impossibility. It’s amazing how much gas you can burn when hauling a heavy load and fighting the wind! We were about an hour outside of Oklahoma City when we were desperately looking for a gas station, watching the gauge move to empty. Thankfully, we found a station before getting stranded, but not before having to take back roads to cut down on fuel loss and then having to find another station because the one we’d found earlier had been closed for a while (Darn Google Maps and its outdated info!).

    It was a VERY early morning on New Year’s Eve when we finally got to my uncle’s house. We then had to get going early that same morning, as we were planning on meeting at the property with the previous owner. On our way there, about an hour from the property, I decided we needed to stop for gas. We were just below ½ a tank, and I was not okay with getting stranded in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma. I am so thankful that I had anxiety because we lost an entire brand-new tire off the camper somewhere… yep… No clue where that bad boy went. We were now faced with a dilemma. There were no tire shops in the town we stopped in, and we had a meeting with the previous owner in an hour, while we were an hour away. Oh, and we couldn’t move the trailer from the gas pump because losing the tire sheared off the studs that were needed for the spare. Axel on the ground, and nothing nearby to help, I was getting a little panicked. It was by the grace of God that my new favorite guardian angels were at the gas station. They took J to the tiny hardware store just up the road to get some strapping to tie the axle up so we could move from the pump. They helped us get situated, and we left the trailer in the back parking lot of the gas station while we ran to the property for the meeting.

    When I say that the property is beautiful… I mean it! Green trees even in the winter, lush grasses, and a flowing creek! We spent some time there, walking around, checking out what we had bought, basically sight unseen up until that point. After having gotten our fill, we had to figure out our next steps. On the way back to the gas station, we decided that we needed to get to the property a different way than we were planning, as there was a pass that was a little steeper than we were comfortable with for the heavy trailer on a spare. We knew that meant a one-day delay, as it was getting late, and with the holiday, we felt like there wasn’t a good way for us to get the tire fixed and back on the road to a decent place to stop. We took a short trip to the next biggest town to find an auto parts store, grab some dinner, and then decided it was time for bed. We spent the night in our camper, crammed in with all our stuff, no heat, no power, behind the gas station. Not a glamorous way to spend the New Year, but I think we were too exhausted to care.

    The next morning was another relatively early start. Three trips to two different towns and more hours later, we were fixed and on the road for our four-hour detour. When we finally got to the property, it was once again getting dark, so we dropped the camper where we thought we wanted it to be and decided that heat, power, and showers sounded way preferable to another tight, cold night. Our closest “big” town is about 35 minutes away, so we trekked there, grabbed a room, some decent Chinese food, and crashed hard! The following day, we got up a little later so we could run our errands to establish an address, get some security lights for the camper, and then start the trek back to Colorado. Thankfully, we had way fewer issues on the way home. A huge shout-out to my uncle for once again hosting us and lending us his stock trailer to help us get animals and more stuff on the way back!

    Once in Colorado, we spent the next week furiously packing while I worked, visited with my grandma, and generally tried to get out of there. The coordination of the stock trailer, trash trailer, and general selling of items went relatively smoothly. Then, at the two-days-before-leaving mark, my son came in after morning chores saying, “I think we have a baby goat!” Really?? Now, there was no intention of breeding our only doe we had left, but before we sold the buck we had, he had gotten out a few times, and well, life does what life does. Now we had to adjust our plans and hope for the best in moving a day-old baby.

    The official moving day arrived, and I was SICK. Sore throat, coughing uncontrollably, exhaustion, the works. BUT we couldn’t afford to stay another day, so off we went. Again, leaving MUCH later than we wanted, but hey, at least we’re consistent! One of my absolute best friends and her spouse followed with some of our stuff. We did opt to go a different way and over a pass to “save” a little more time. I couldn’t even get across the state line before I had to tap out and sleep in the car. It was a restless night, and the next morning I felt even worse. You know that frustrating moment you’re trying to express how terrible you feel but just can’t do it justice? And really, it doesn’t matter because you have to just keep going? Yeah… I had that. That day’s trip was SO slow, with tons of stops, all because I felt like poop. Only a few hours after getting on the road again, we had another tire issue! A tire stem valve on the truck broke, and we had to find a tire shop that could fix that. This time it was only another two-hour delay. I think I might officially have PTSD because of tires (this is not my last tire story, sadly). We were so slow, but I still had to stop just outside of Oklahoma City for me to take a nap because I was not okay and starting to get dangerous on the road. J never fully understood how bad it was until talking about that day much later when he was all, “Oh! That’s why you had to keep stopping? I just thought you were being whiny and not used to long drives.” It was about 1 AM when we FINALLY made it to our new home. Once again, an uncomfortable night in the trailer was ordered, but we made it.

    The next few days were spent setting everything up, getting the camper situated, the animal “barn” put together, and making sure I had a space to work. I slowly started to feel better, but recovered slower than usual, thanks to the sheer stress of moving.

    So now that we’re here in the story, I can start to go through the excitement of being “Oakies” and how life is going here in later posts.

    Rowan the offending brand new baby in her new environment.

  • How Did We Get Here? Part 1

    How is it early March and stores are bursting with plants, not just seeds?! For this Colorado girl, it’s practically unheard of! Not to mention, I can stroll around outside without a coat, let alone long sleeves! Oklahoma has been a delightful series of surprises. I’ve been in a near-constant state of amazement at the differences between my new home and the previous one. No paying for bags, no constant worry about wildfires devouring thousands of acres in a few hours (though I’m sure it’s still possible), and the general cost of everything!

    We’ve been settling in quite nicely so far. We’ve survived our first tornado warning, a nearby wildfire, and the kiddo getting his driving permit. The adventures have only just begun, I know, but this week I’ve been reflecting on those who got us this far. I figured we might as well share more of the backstory for those of you who are tagging along.

    In January 2023, J and I started to feel that our living situation was becoming unsustainable. Our mortgage was higher than we’d like, and the garden we planned on using to offset rising living costs had just continued to fail year after year. That’s when we really started to discuss and pray over what the best situation for us would be—not just to survive, but to thrive. Almost immediately, we got the sense that Colorado could no longer be our home. I was NOT ready to accept that, as I had only ever lived in Colorado, and moving out of state was incredibly intimidating. Honestly, I refused to consider it initially. I also refused to consider moving at all, as I was happy where we were and in denial that we couldn’t make our property work.

    While I lived in my happy state of denial and delusion, J really started to investigate what it would take to move, where would be a good fit, and prayed for more direction. We’d have discussions about where we could go, and what that would look like, and it was always a vague ‘maybe’ in my mind. But after a year of this, the pull to move got stronger. I finally got on board with the need to move and started talking about what I would need to be comfortable with moving. My must-haves initially led me to believe we would NEVER leave Colorado, but that man of mine insisted we needed to go elsewhere.

    My list of requirements included mountains, no major weather such as tornadoes, flooding, and snowstorms, water for the garden and animals, and the ability to have acreage and not be too close to others. If we could get off-grid living, that would be great too, but not a requirement. I also wanted to be fairly close to some form of support system, be it my family or his, as I didn’t want to move so far away and have no one we could call for help should we need it. And so began his search for areas that met my criteria and his as well. During this time, I still lived in a state of denial that this would really be happening. I told two trusted individuals of our plans because I needed to say it out loud before we left. I wasn’t sure it would happen, but if people I trusted knew and supported it, then surely it was going to be an okay situation. And boy howdy, did they approve!

    While I was now on board with moving, it was still a long way off in my mind. J kept pushing me, telling me we needed to find something soon. I wasn’t truly on board until October. Things were just so hard, another garden failed, groceries were going up in price, and there was going to be political unrest. I was ready. We told our families and started prepping the house for selling. Honestly, it was so slow, I still don’t think we were truly ready to go. But again, God had a different plan for us, and dragging our feet wasn’t an option. We were approached by a property management company in late November to see if we would be interested in selling our property to them. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. We closed in mid-December and were able to finish living in the house until after the holidays! On January 1st, we started the job of moving stuff to Oklahoma.

    The actual process of moving was another adventure that I’m going to address later, but that’s where a surprise baby goat days before loading up animals, and my newly developed fear of running out of gas come from.

    I promise to try and get the next part of our story out sooner than this part. I also hope to include more pictures as we go on! 

    The garden in CO… May is very unimpressed that it was just to dry again.

  • Welcome to the middle of nowhere.

    Hello there, and welcome!

    If you’ve stumbled upon this little corner of the internet, you likely fall into one of a few categories:

    1. You’re a dear friend or family member, probably checking in on my sanity (which, admittedly, is still up for debate!) or just reading about what we are up to. Thanks for humoring me!
    2. You’re searching for content related to off-grid living, homesteading, or simple living, and the algorithms led you here. Welcome! I hope I can offer some insights and inspiration for your own journey.
    3. (And this is the dream, of course!) My content has gone viral, and everyone’s sharing it! Okay, maybe not yet, but a girl can dream, right? And if that day comes, I’m sure my writing will be much more polished…but bear with me until then!

    For those of you in categories two and three, let me introduce myself. I’m Heather, an Oklahoma transplant with Colorado roots. Colorado will always hold a special place in my heart, but my family felt a calling to move to, well, the middle of nowhere in Oklahoma. It sounds a little crazy, I know. But if you’ve ever felt a similar pull, you understand. And if you don’t, another key thing to know about me is that I’m a follower of Christ. For several years before our move, God was nudging us in this direction. It took some time (and perhaps a bit of stubbornness on my part!), but we finally listened. So now, my husband, son, our menagerie of animals, and I are here, building a home with our own hands and living off the land as much as possible.

    This blog will be a sort of journal documenting our adventure. I’ll share the story of our journey to Oklahoma (which included a surprise baby just two days before we left!), the process of building our off-grid home, and the inevitable trials and tribulations we encounter. Of course, there will be plenty of animal stories because who doesn’t love those? Gardening, foraging, and sustainable living will be frequent topics of discussion, dissection, and probably a little bit of bemoaning. And knowing me, there will likely be some yarn, crochet, and book talk thrown in for good measure. A girl’s got to have her passions, right?

    I plan to share it all – the good, the bad, and the ugly. This adventure isn’t going to be easy. There will be challenges and losses along the way. But if I only talk about the good, how honest would that be? I want to be authentic, and I hope that my experiences might offer someone else a lesson learned or simply the encouragement that they’re not alone in navigating this crazy world.

    For now, I’ll leave you here. I have work to do (a mantra that will probably be repeated often: “Thanks for stopping by! I’m off to finish a project!”). Have a wonderful day, and God bless!