her able hands

I’m Kelly Ferry, a native New Englander, recently transplanted to Northeast Ohio via New York. I moved here to live with Chris—the man with the great thumbs and the business he owns with his brothers—after our daughter was born. My teenage son from my first marriage lives with us as well, and we are forever grateful for the sacrifice he and his father have made so we can be together.

For the fifteen years previous to the move, I lived in various areas of New York (Brooklyn and then upstate in the Hudson Valley) and commuted to various graphic design jobs in NYC at big, glossy magazines and then finally one less glossy weekly news magazine. I don’t miss that life. I do, however miss having access to a lot of the things that made that fast-paced life worth living. Food. Live music. People. Food. Food. Oh, and did I mention food?

For the first three years here, we lived on four acres in the country. We homeschooled, ran a small market garden and tried our hand at homesteading. Sort of. We unfortunately spent most of our time driving into the nearest big town. So this summer we moved there, into a beautiful little farmhouse on an acre. We’re right in the heart of town, within walking distance of wonderful things like a library, a grocery store, a used record (CD) shop, an old movie theater that’s now a stage and hosts many a live music show worth seeing, a natural foods store, the music store where Chris and Tyler take music lessons and best of all as far as I’m concerned—the farmers’ market and the homemade ice cream stand—and we are loving it.

I started a full-time job in order to make the double house payment work, so if you know anybody who wants a big 70’s ranch house with a barn on 4 acres in the boondocks of Northeast Ohio? Email me at kelly AT herablehands DOT com. The job’s been a re-education for me, making clear once again that I still do not love working in a gray polyester cubicle, working 8-5 to add to someone else’s wealth or being away from home so much. But it’s serving a purpose (hard cash) and a great stepping stone on the path to whatever may come next. I’m earning a living from my writing for the first time and this is a huge, if not mixed, blessing.