I strongly suggest that you do not downsize once your children leave home.
Yes, it is a strange quiet and a large space at first. But I assure you the space fills up quickly. It took me some time to slowly move them out even after college and then we seemed to expand. One bedroom is now a hunting/workout room/man cave. One room is now a toy room for the grandchildren. One bedroom has become my thrift overload room that I really need to clean out and restore to the guest room for when company pops in.
We have even outgrown the empty spaces with more uses. The three bathrooms with two people still come in handy. And the three acres? Still a garden space, two sheds for garden and hunting equipment, a swing set, small baseball field, and now rabbit and chicken pens. That is right. The overflow of our grown children keeps seeming to find its way back here.
We have discussed building a kennel for the grand dogs we keep watching when the younger couples go out of town. And the older son has an overflow of chickens and rabbits we have adopted. Of course we could say no. But obviously no has never been a common word with the two of us explaining the large family we have created. My husband has now built a chicken pen that is three times the size of our original one because he feels it is not enough room for our four. This brings up the possibility of getting more chickens to get more eggs which our neighbors have come to love.
And the two brother rabbits are now minus one. They were at least eight years old when we inherited them and after finding Widow dead in the cage, I looked it up to read that is the life expectancy.
After that his brother just changed. How? My son asked the same thing. He didn't bite me. He didn't "say" anything. And maybe it was just my guilt, but I could swear he was mad at me for killing his brother.
It weighed on me so much that I called my son and asked him to bring me a wife rabbit for Blossom. Yes, it is a girl name, but small boys eight years ago didn't care. Then I had to explain to my husband that just as he thought he was minus one of the adoptees we now have a potentially plus one that can bring about plus ten with a little more than minutes sharing a cage. So, the cages join each other. They have a friend, and Blossom has seemed to perk up. Or so in my mind. Bonnie is only half grown and traumatized, but I did save her from the noose, as I explain to her each day bribing her with fresh carrots. My son sells rabbits once grown.
So, we just keep growing and expanding as we always have for going on forty years. And I am happy with the cramped spaces obviously. In life there is no such thing as actually downsizing once you have children. Things just multiply as nature has designed.
And hopefully by next spring Bonnie and Blossom will have a little family to sell as "pets only" in Callie's Garden. Otherwise, we may be building a new rabbit cage. Ladies, never fear your future empty nest. The twigs will always find new use!
