Our Country Home and Town Home

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My husband and I live in a rural area on several acres of mostly wooded land. We love it here. We began our married life on this little plot of land. We contracted the house ourselves and did some of the work during construction. We’ve done all of the landscaping—and there’s a lot of it. Even as I’m writing this, I can hear my husband outside mowing up the leaves that will fall all winter from the many, many trees we have. The chores never stop. If we did not love living here, we’d be looking for a place easier to take care of. We stay here because we love it. But we realize we will not always be able to care for this place. Over the years we have found people to hire for some of the chores, but, in a rural area, even that is sometimes harder. But we are aging, and we know we will not always be able to take care of this place. So, through the years, we have talked about making plans for leaving here if that time comes. Better to be prepared, we believe. Our solution was to buy our own retirement house. I call it our nursing home. It’s a small house in a small town, closer to groceries, closer to medical facilities, and, for my husband, closer to the golf course. It will also be easier to hire people to help with chores and upkeep. We plan to do some remodeling on the house and add some senior-friendly features. Right now, we have a relative living there who lost his job because of the pandemic. He’s caring for it and helping with the upkeep. So it’s worked out well for everyone. We’ll continue living at our present location until we are unable to care for it, and when, and if, that day comes, we’ll have our alternative location ready. It seems better to me than a retirement home.