First Night on Our Farm!

Tonight is the first night on the farm. I'm sitting in the dark because there's no electricity. The bungalow is also not yet leveled, so we're living on a slope for tonight. There's no running water, we just have a jug of water. But we're here! That's the main thing. I don't even know how long I'll be able to type this because the computer isn't charged up all the way and there's nowhere to plug it in. No cell phone reception. No noisy traffic. It's nice out here! At least for tonight we're totally off grid!
I think Zeke was happy to go to sleep in his own bed again.
Tomorrow Daniel will level the bungalow and get the water running. For now it's kind of like we're camping.
I can't believe we're here! This is kind of amazing! We're on our own land! Well I'm going to bed. I'll keep you all updated!

A good day

What a fun day I had yesterday! First I got to go visit the Amish to pick up our cow Elsie from the processor... she had slipped on the ice a few weeks ago and broken her leg. It wasn't going to be able to be fixed, so now she is hamburger. She was processed at an Amish slaughter house, and I am very intrigued by the Amish, so I was excited to go pick up our meat. The drive out there was beautiful, and I loved seeing all the Amish homesteads. The man running the place was super friendly (actually the most talkative Amish person I've ever met!) and pleasant. We now have five trash-bags full of frozen 1lb ground beef packages! They are in the freezer of course. Yum! I'm so excited to have our own stash of organic grass-fed beef!

But the MORE exciting part of the day was that our bungalow arrived! Two good men from our church in Texas drove it up for us. They said the trip was totally uneventful until the last two miles- they came from the wrong direction on our road and nearly got stuck on a narrow bridge! Thankfully they made it over. Then they got stuck in the mud just outside the hoop house.




It's all my fault, too, because as they were driving up I waved at Mike (driving the truck) to stop. I asked him if he could move the bungalow a little more to one side, as they were headed directly for the center of the hoop house and i had planned to have it off to the side so we could have more open space. He said he'd try to move it over, and then proceeded to press on the gas. The tires started to spin-- they got stuck in the mud. As you can see, my Amazing Husband was able to push both truck and bungalow out of the mud using only his strong manly muscles.



Just kidding ;) Our friend Nathan used his truck to help pull Mike's truck and the bungalow out of the mud. But my story is better. :)

I think the most exciting part about the bungalow arriving is that two of my Texas friends snuck into the bungalow last week and gave it a makeover! It was totally "blah" before and looked like a bachelor pad. They made curtains and cushion covers and made a kitchen table (when we bought the bungalow it didn't have one) and made me a built-in sewing desk! There are many more details and I will be doing an entire blog about it later once I take pictures. It is so stinkin cute now!!!! I just LOVE it! The most amazing part to me is the fact that I have such loving and amazing friends, first to bring our bungalow up from Texas, and then also to do this. I really miss my Texas buds! We are so deeply and truly blessed to know you all!

And now a few pics from the week:

Here's Zeke and his cousin Hudson playing on the land while the daddies finish the hoop house. This one's from last week-ish.
This picture is from Sunday at Daniel's uncle's house. Josh, Jamie, Hudson and Archer on the left, Daniel, Zeke and I in the middle, and Mark, Caitlin and London on the right. Josh and Mark are Daniel's brothers.

Today I'm packing up all our stuff to move back into our bungalow. Daniel is getting the water hooked up. We're excited to have our home back!

bump conquered!

Daniel just called me to say that we will be allowed to run electricity to our hoop house without moving it! Thank God! He spoke to the vice president of the company who turned out to be a very kind and reasonable man. He told Daniel that they normally require a 25 foot distance, but that the code is actually 10 feet. He personally approved our request, so now there should be no more delays!

Daniel and I prayed before he left this morning that things would work out well, and of course God came through for us! Thank you Lord!

The first bump...

The hoop house is nearly set up, the electricity was supposed to be run yesterday. The electrician went out there to run the line but called us to say that he couldn't do it because the hoop house is too close to the power line. It's 10 feet away which is the county policy, but the electrician told us that the electrical company's policy is 25 feet. So today Daniel has gone to the electric company office to see if he can get them to be leniant about the policy. HOPEFULLY they will be kind... otherwise we will either have to disassemble the hoop house and move it over 15 feet, pay to have the power line moved (thousands of dollars!), or possibly get a hydro-electric generator (my favorite option as I would love to be off-grid anyway). We'll see what happens! My husband is very charismatic and reasonable, I imagine they won't be able to resist his charm ;)

I'll let you know the next turn of events! Meanwhile our bungalow (aka travel trailer) will be arriving on Monday or Tuesday. I can't wait to have my home back!

Hello Kentucky!

We're home!!

We've been home a few days now, and I love it here. Our trip was long and thankfully uneventful. Zeke was great for the car trip. We've been staying with Daniel's brother and his wife while we wait for a friend from our church in Texas to pull our bungalow up here. I'm looking forward to my little home arriving, I miss it!

I got to visit our 40 acres for the first time a couple days ago. It is beautiful! I can't even tell you. It was so exciting to drive out there! The road to our land doesn't even have lines! Here is Daniel sitting on our hill, holding Zeke and enjoying the view.
I promise you, this picture doesn't do the place justice. It is so lovely out there!

We have one big hill and three fairly flat fields, and a river and a stream. It is all so beautiful and perfect and it feels like home. I've always wanted to live in the country and now we will be!

Daniel, his friend Nathan, and his brother Josh have been working on building a 30x60 foot hoop house. We'll be parking our bungalow in there for a while until we have money to start building our permanent home (planning on a yurt!). Of course we still have the four month internship at polyface farms this summer, so we still have one more stint away from home. But after that we can really put roots down. I want to plant a bunch of wildflowers on our property and put a garden in and go swimming in our river.

Daniel and Nathan planning stuff. Notice the awesome Texan hat my husband is sporting :)

Daniel and Josh holding up the first hoop. Nathan's checking to see if it's too close to the power line.
Here's a picture of where our river and stream meet-- the stream is off to the right. You know you want to come visit!
We have a lot of work ahead of us since our land has no improvements (as in buildings, water and electric, etc. for all you city slickers out there) but we're enjoying the work and we're up for the challenge. It also helps to have multiple families involved... many hands make light work :)

Good bye, Texas!

It's raining tonight, our last night in Texas. We've said our goodbyes. Daniel began his leave today... we've waited 5 years for this! It's amazing that it's all over, just memories now. Mostly fond memories, especially of the last two years. I'm looking forward to keeping in touch with my friends down here- you all are such a huge treasure to me! The goodbye's are hard... we have so many people here to love! Somehow it seems unreal that we're really leaving our community... but we are. We're setting off on our next adventure. Tomorrow.
I have a lot of work to do tomorrow-- finish all the packing, pack up the car, last grocery trip to get car-trip food, I need to mow our little "yard" that has weeds up to my knees. I should go to bed right now.
I don't think it's hit us yet that we're free to do as we please... Daniel hasn't shaved in 5 days... and somehow that's ok! Wow! He needs a haircut.... but I'm not going to give him one (yet)! I think we're really going to enjoy the next two months of relaxing and visiting family.
Some things in life are just hard... Thanks to all of you who have been praying that God would give me the fortitude to move away from our home down here in Texas. I didn't think I could do it without my heart being ripped out... but i think that the more you love, the bigger your heart gets...
Well I will definitely be documenting this next stage of our life very well, so check back often to see what's going on with us. Once we make it up to our new home and rest up for a day or two, I will start blogging again.

I knit a sock and 47 days left

I've just started to realize how soon we're leaving Texas. A dear friend told me yesterday that we only have 48 days left.... today it's 47. I have very mixed feelings- on the one hand I'm so excited to move home and start our next phase of life. On the other I just hate the thought of leaving all our friends here. I don't think I've ever been surrounded by so many good people that I just plain like, and deeply love. We've been blessed with many wonderful friendships and a strong sense of community here, and I'm sad to leave these people behind. I feel like I need to squeeze in as much time with everyone as possible before we go. I so highly value all these good people in my life! God is so good to us that he gives us each other to love.

One thing I will miss about Texas is the lovely winter weather. Except for a couple weeks of weather in the 30's, we've enjoyed a very mild winter this year (and every year, really)- most days it's in the 50's or 60's, which is perfect for life in the bungalow. The windows are almost always open, and we can spend time outside.

Today I'm finishing a batch of chicken stock. I need to finish the dishes. Zeke should be napping but instead he's crying in protest, even though he can barely keep his eyes open. A big Rottweiler keeps coming around our yard because our dog Sadie is in heat. I keep running outside with a big stick to chase him off. He seems like a nice enough dog I suppose, but I am seriously ready to shoot him. I'm supposed to be visiting my darling friend Natasha right now but Zeke's car seat is in Daniel's car. I've got a mild caffeine headache. Been listening to the Beatles lately... haven't gotten those cd's out in years. It just started raining! It smells like chicken soup and rainy weather today.

I've got a huge itch to start sewing again... but my sewing machine is still broken. Daniel said he wants to get an ipod touch and I told him that's fine with me if he gets my sewing machine fixed. I'll let you know if he goes for it!

For the knitters out there: Here's my sock!
Overall I am utterly pleased with how this turned out, especially since I learned from a book which is always more difficult than having someone show me. My only disappointments are:

-There is a small hole where I joined the heel back to the main sock. The book said this would happen, and to knit in the back of the stitch to avoid it. I thought i did so-- apparently I did something wrong because it's still there.
-The book didn't give any instructions for the bind off at the toe-- so I used a three needle bind off. I realized afterwards that I should have turned it inside out and then bound off-- so the bind off seam kind of sticks out on the toe instead of being on the inside where it should be.
-I made a few small mistakes (like decreasing in the wrong spot for the toe, and dropping a stitch then proceeding to pick it back up backwards) that i typically don't make, but decided not to fix them. It somehow seems more romantic that my first ever sock should have a couple flaws. In my opinion they add to the character of the thing :)
I used "Knitting Without Tears" by Elizabeth Zimmerman to learn how to make this sock. This is just a wonderful book on knitting and if you are often a frustrated knitter you must add it to your collection.
Oh I failed to mention that during this sock-knitting escapade I broke one of my lovely rosewood double point needles! It was so sad!!! Those suckers were $22 for a set of 5! And I'm not the type to spend that much on needles... but I totally splurged one day in my excitement to make socks. It appears that it could possibly be repaired-- I think Daniel could glue it back together and sand it down a bit for me. We'll see.
Future sock knitting goals: I used the german heel, but I really want to learn to do short-row heels- I think they look so much nicer. I want to make a pair of lace socks, or cabled, or whatever. Just something more fun than stockinette stitch. I want to make some knee-high socks. I want to make toe-less, flip-flop socks. I want to make everyone a pair of socks for Christmas next year. I have lots of sock goals. I think I like socks.