\u201cIf we do this, we will never go away,\u201d I warned my husband on our way to sign the paperwork at closing. \u00a0How could we ever expect anybody to watch all the animals we planned on getting so we could go on vacation? \u00a0Even an evening out would be a lot to ask of anybody. \u00a0There wouldn\u2019t just be instructions detailing our children\u2019s evening routine. \u00a0There\u2019d be a list of franch chores as well. \u00a0But, life on a franch was something we had dreamed of for our family and so we penned our signature that day without further hesitation. \u00a0We figured our life would be quiet, romantic evenings spent at home on the franch with very few opportunities to travel. \u00a0Fortunately, I was wrong. \u00a0We were first blessed to find a babysitter who loves helping our children with all the franch chores. \u00a0I will always remember one evening I was giving our babysitter instructions on what to do with our new border collie puppy. \u00a0I always spend a little time on what franch chores need to be done, but, this time, I was going on and on and on and on about how to handle the needs of our new puppy. \u00a0She finally interrupted, \u201cWow, the puppy is going to be more work than the children \u2013 I feel like I\u2019m here to babysit the puppy!\u201d How funny! \u00a0We agreed I usually have more to say about what needs to be done with the franch than with the children. \u00a0We decided she doesn’t just\u00a0babysits, she\u00a0also franchsits. \u00a0Also, by good fortune, we moved in\u00a0next to an amazing neighbor who is always willing to watch our place for any extended times away. \u00a0She is our\u00a0dependable\u00a0long-term franchsitter. \u00a0Admittedly, she\u00a0even takes better care of our animals than we do! \u00a0She will do everything we ask no matter how ridiculous. \u00a0We joked with her one time that our daughter\u2019s hermit crabs like to be sung to, and she later texted to let me know that she\u2019d been singing to them during our time away. \u00a0Even my newly retired parents, who know little about farming and ranching, recently agreed to do all the franch chores for one week so we could go on a family vacation to Florida. \u00a0I think they had second thoughts when I started reviewing a one-page Word document detailing how to manage the franch and care for all the animals. \u00a0But, my parents survived, and even exceeded our expectations during a week when lousy weather made franching more difficult! \u00a0I am so thankful for all of our willing franchsitters who make it possible for us to live our days on a franch and still get-away a little too.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIf we do this, we will never go away,\u201d I warned my husband on our way to sign the paperwork at closing. \u00a0How could we ever expect anybody to watch all the animals we planned on getting so we could go on vacation? \u00a0Even an evening out would be a lot to ask of anybody. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=888"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":911,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888\/revisions\/911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}