Rural life is many things, but easy livin’ aint one of them. nevertheless, I think I found a happy medium.
I’m Nan Thorell, and I started Free Range Living to capture the kind of life that unfolds when you trade city traffic for dirt roads and swap convenience for creativity.
These days, I live in a small mountain town in southern New Mexico where the power flickers, the water system has a personality of its own, and the coyotes gather to brag loudly on the golf course in the early summer evenings. It’s quiet here. Not just peaceful, but quiet. No freeway noise, no leaf blowers, no endless urgency. Just wind in the pines, birdsong, and the occasional reminder that we share the woods with creatures bigger and stronger than us.
This site is my way of sharing what happens when you build a grounded life with an independent spirit. I write about living simply, working for yourself, and making do with what you have. Some days that looks like sorting and categorizing old paper for my online shop. Other days it looks like wrestling scrub oak in the yard, or making dinner out of random leftovers. Either way, it’s a life with room to breathe.
If you’ve ever felt more at home in a flannel shirt than business casual, or you’ve had to get resourceful because the grocery store is a hundred-mile round trip, and the local market closes at dinnertime, you’re in the right place.
Sound familiar? There are a bunch of us out there. This is for them. For us.
