Our back four

Elburn Herald reporter recounts her transition from suburban to rural living

by Susan O'Neill

            The transition from Oak Park to Maple Park is just one word, but that word has made a world of difference.

            Living in the country is something my husband Jim and I had always dreamed about. Jim was raised in a small town in Michigan and spent a lot of time on his grandmother's farm. Although I was a city girl, born and raised in Chicago, I grew up in the 1960s during the “back to the garden” years.

            Jim and I found the place of our dreams on one of our drives in the Elburn area to look at property. We had found a few possibilities on the Internet, but on our way we made a wrong turn. That wrong turn led us to an old but renovated farm house and a few outbuildings on a five-acre piece of land about halfway between Elburn and Maple Park. The sign out front read “For sale by owner.”

Susan O’Neill pays some attention to her large goat, Woody, on her farm in Maple Park. Photo by John DiDonna

            Our house sold quickly, and within two months we were moving in. Our introduction to rural life took place the day we moved. Halfway through December of 2000, a howling snowstorm began as we made our way along the country roads.

            When we arrived at the house, the first thing we saw was our moving van, stuck in the ditch. The next thing we saw was our neighbor's pick-up truck, pulling it out.

            A lot can happen outside the confines of a city, but pitching in to help your neighbors comes naturally to the people who live here.

            The first thing I had to get used to was how spread out everything was. When we lived in Oak Park, we could look out our dining room window and see into the kitchen of our neighbors. Here, if the field between us is planted in corn, we can't even see our neighbors.

            Our first winter was brutal, but Jim took the opportunity of lots of indoor time to look through seed catalogs. When the spring thaw arrived, he planted his first garden. We had tomatoes coming out of our ears that first year, and sold the extras to Alice's Place in downtown Elburn.

            That fall, determined to learn about canning, I went to the Sandwich Fair. I asked around the home arts building until I found the tomato-canning blue ribbon winner. She gave me great directions, and soon we had Mason jars of tomatoes, tomato sauce and salsa coming out of our ears!

            The best advice I received for how to learn my way around was from a friend who had grown up in the country. She told us the local feed store would be a wealth of information. Soon, Phyllis at Johnsen's Farm & Country Store on Route 38 became my new best friend. Phyllis shares my passion for goats and has a variety of them in the field by the store.

            It was at the feed store that I found an advertisement for goats and sheep for sale. Kim Kuipers, who was just starting her pumpkin patch outside Maple Park, would buy baby animals for the season's petting zoo. At the end of October, she would sell them and buy new babies the following year.

            We brought home Spud and Woody, a Pygmy and a Nubian goat, and George and Buzz, two Jacob sheep. All my life I have loved playing with the goats at petting zoos; now I had my own. I bought the sheep for Jake, our Australian Shepherd, to chase.

            Since we had four acres of empty land, we began growing hay on what we called The Back Four. We keep some to feed our animals and for a few horses we boarded for awhile. We sell the rest.

            Who knew that the Jacob sheep would turn out to be a rare breed? When we were looking for someone to shear them, it was Phyllis who told us about the sheep-shearer who came to Garfield Farm. He did a sheep-shearing demonstration during the Rare Breed Show, and the price was right.

            While we waited for our sheep's first haircut, people who came to the Rare Breed Show would stop to look at George and Buzz and ask us questions. I guess they thought we knew something about animals. Of course, being able to tell the difference between sheep and goats was a leg up for us.

            Our farmer friends, however, knew we didn't have a clue.

            “You mean your animals are going to die of old age?” they would ask incredulously.

            One even brought over an article explaining the expanding market for goat meat in the United States. Goat meat is apparently enjoyed by people of Hispanic, Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern descent. With the influx of more people of these backgrounds into America, the demand for goats as food is on the rise.

            Even the men who helped us harvest our hay wanted to know how much we wanted for the “big dog with horns.” I thought about hiding Woody away the next time they came.

            When we lived in Oak Park, Jim would buy me jewelry and other such items for Christmas and my birthday. Since we've been out here, my most treasured presents have been a snowmobile outfit for my winter trips to the barn, an electric de-icer for the bird bath and a weather vane for the top of the barn. It's always important to know which way the wind is blowing.

            Our evenings out in Oak Park would often include a dinner at a nice restaurant or a concert or a movie. Downtown Chicago was a 15-minute car ride.

            Although we still go to the occasional concert or take in a movie now and then, our dinners are more often at home and our trips to Chicago are fewer and further apart. We still enjoy a good night out, but often we're happy relaxing at home with our dogs and cats.

            We spend many winter nights warming ourselves by our pot-bellied stove. Although we recently had a wonderful time at the Taste of Chicago taking in a Bonnie Raitt concert, during the summer we are more likely to visit Alice's Place in Elburn or Hill's Country Store in Kaneville for ice cream.

            On the way home, we watch in awe as millions of fireflies light up the fields. Sometimes it truly is the little things that can make you happy.