The Beginning of The Back Thirty-Three
Welcome to the Pilot Episode! Ha, not really, but welcome and allow me to introduce myself! I’m Katherine (insert 20+ nicknames here) Ilbrink, a 20 something mom and wife living on a dirt road in mid-west ag country. I’m sure that doesn’t sound thrilling to everyone, but this is where I’ve dreamed of living for years.
I grew up in the outskirts of the country in a suburb neighborhood on a few acres of land and it was incredible. My parents eventually moved us closer to all of our activities which meant a move into a busier neighborhood, closer to shopping centers and the hub of city living. Before this move, I never really considered where I wanted to live when I moved out on my own and started my own family. That all changed with this move to a bigger city. This move lit a fire in me that vowed to return to living in a place that I considered to be peaceful. A place where I couldn’t hear the traffic of a busy intersection from my front porch. A place where the only lights I could see when I stepped out of my house at night were the stars. A place where the nearest neighbor’s house is much further than a stone throw away. I made it my mission to move back to the country.
The vision for my future ended relationships and fueled my “boss babe” era to work myself into the ground, knowing that my dream life would someday be tangible if I could build up enough money. I had no hobbies, zero freetime, self-induced insomnia, and let many of my relationships suffer and die off. I lost so much of myself, because if it wasn’t making me money to reach my goal, I wanted nothing to do with it.
Enter COVID-19. I ended up selling the house I lived in and rented out to some friends/roommates and moved back in with my parents. That might sound horrible, but some of my fondest memories were had and started in two-thousand and twenty. Twenty-twenty was amazing for me; it forced me to slow down and enjoy life a little more with the people I loved most. It was the year my family was all together under one roof again, the year I started dating my husband, and the year we bought what is here referred to as “the back thirty-three”.
Sometime in the summer of twenty-twenty, I enlisted the help of my realtor friend and started to look for my next house. My then boyfriend, now husband, also agreed that he belonged outside of the city limits and assisted me in the search for what would be my (and possibly someday, our) country paradise. We looked at multiple houses and submitted a few offers without much success, until a few weeks into when my boyfriend found a plot of vacant land. The current owner stated that she and her boyfriend planned to build on the property but after they broke up she was left to sell it off. We put on blinders and decided that just because this property had seen one breakup, didn’t mean it was bad luck. We actually saw a good bit of wildlife while we were walking the place and instantly knew it was meant to be. So shortly after October started, I closed on our thirty-three acres.
The Back Thirty-Three is just what it sounds like: it’s thirty-three acres of pure, undeveloped land. Its country. It’s freeing and a sense of home in one. I’ve told my husband many times that the property is my favorite smell (besides the smell of babies, of course).
Plans for a dream house were soon underway but were quickly halted by reality when the covid-inflation prices got higher by the day. Wisely, we decided that we didn’t want to have a hefty mortgage just to build a dream house. But we mutually agreed; God isn’t making more land, so we’ll white knuckle our thirty-three for as long as we have to. We use the land for hunting, gardening, and soon some additional hobby things. I frequently get emails and mail requesting that we sell, but we don’t foresee that happening anytime soon.
We now live in a farmhouse a few miles from the back thirty-three; a house that’s over 150 years old. Complete with uneven floors, walls that aren’t square and plenty of issues we encounter every year (currently dealing with a well issue, yay!), but we wouldn’t change it for the world. Also, I’m constantly reminded that with a bigger house comes more to clean, and I already struggle to keep up with what I’ve got! Especially thanks to the small children and multiple dogs.
The stars are still the only light I can see from my kitchen window and my nearest neighbor is well across the street. So in my opinion, I’ve made it! But now that I found myself living where I’ve always dreamt, I’ve discovered that I don’t have any hobbies of my own and don’t have a real passion for my work… So, I’m on a mission to change that, while also hopefully utilizing some of my amazing land. And I’m asking you, dear reader, to join me in discovering passions and romanticizing the life you have currently. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the pursuit of my goals, it’s that life keeps moving regardless of your achievements, or lack thereof. So I’m choosing to be happy and enjoy the journey in pursuit of the goal, because any day could be the last one.
