Flood (yes, this is late in coming, I know. We've been busy!)

So did you hear about all the flooding in Tennessee and Kentucky? We sure did. Our entire property flooded! As in every single field was at least 8 feet under water. It was crazy! Nearly all of our belongings were destroyed, and our travel trailer (aka the bungalow) which we had been living in was filled about 2/3rds with water. Fortunately the bungalow is insured, but nothing else. Good news: we're all ok, the animals are ok (the neighbor cut the fence and let them onto his much more elevated property), the vehicles are ok (sort of- my car needs a little lovin- it's headed to the shop right now actually), and some of our stuff is salvageable. Our lap-top was at Daniel's brother's house, the camera was in my purse. My cello was at my mom's house. In fact, Daniel's grandmother has already washed all of our sopping-wet and muddy stinky clothes. All the instruments we have (excessive amounts, actually!) are ok, except for the violin bows. We had time to grab some things before we left, but I certainly didn't expect the water to get so high. There are a lot of things I would have grabbed had I known what was coming! I guess I should tell the whole story from the beginning.... (and I use too many parenthesis, I think).

So we woke up Sunday morning (May 2nd) to get ready for church. After I showered, I looked outside and saw that water was half way up the field from the creek. Uh-oh. I told Daniel he should probably move his car b/c the water is already lapping against the tires... he gets up, moves the car, moves my car, tries to move my dads truck (he's recently lent us his old truck) and gets it stuck in the mud. Neghbor drives by, stops, and helps us un-stick the truck. Our friend Nathan arrived to check on us and see if we needed any help. Another neighbor stops and says we'd better leave soon before we're flooded in. We should have left right then.... instead we mucked about for a few minutes trying to take care of the animals and generally prepare things for lots of water. We threw a lot of boxes that were outside in the hoop house (aka barn) into the bungalow because we never imagined the water would get that high! I couldn't quite think straight so I didn't accomplish much of anything except for wasting time... which led to me driving my car through water, it dying, me hopping out in water almost up to my knees and pushing the car the rest of the way through the water, arriving safely on the other side, and then a neighbor informing me that there was much worse flooding just a quarter mile down the road and I couldn't get through even if I wanted to. He kindly pulled my car up his driveway with his truck and we watched the water continue to rise. I was now flooded in with Zeke and Sadie (the dog) at said neighbor's house (Danny and Denise- great neighbors! They feel like family now!). Daniel is still over on our property, now completely flooded in. He waded over about 20 minutes after me, leaving his car and our truck parked on the highest spot of the road (thankfully the water didn't make it that high!). We all settled into Danny and Denise's house (the cozy-est cabin-ish house you've ever seen! I could have moved in!), they feed us breakfast, gave us dry clothes, and we watch the weather channel all day and stood on the porch watching the water rise. I knitted and crocheted up a storm! (no pun intended). I was so anxious all day that I couldn't eat and felt horribly sick. The water rose to just a few feet from the side of Danny and Denise's house! The electricity flickered on and off 3 or 4 times- we kept expecting it to stay off, but it always turned back on, thankfully. Finally the rain slowed down. We all stayed up really late to watch the weather channel and see what would happen next. It was one of the most nerve-racking days of my life! Finally, we all went to bed- Daniel, Zeke, and I in the guest room, and Nathan (he got flooded in with us!) on the couch. When we woke up in the morning we were still flooded in (as in we couldn't drive over to stay with family yet), but the water had gone down enough that we could go see our property. Daniel went first to see the damage--- water had filled the bungalow about 2/3rds of the way full. All of our belongings in the hoop house were either washed away down the creek or destroyed by water and mud. It was very sad to see, but I was over my anxiety. I had already resolved in my head that everything was gone, and so when I did find anything that could be salvaged, I was very happy about that. There was one thing I really wanted to find-- a quilt that my Great Aunt Lucy had made. I remember the day she died (I must have been 9 or so) we went to see her, and I was very sad- I loved her. I remember picking up the quilt out of a basket and asking the hospice nurse if I could have it. She was so sweet- she started crying and said, "of course, honey!". This quilt has been one of my most treasured possessions ever, and I was going to be so sad if it had washed away or been ruined. I looked for it the first few days of clean up but couldn't find it. FINALLY I found a box labeled "aunt Lucy's quilt", which was soaking wet, squashed to a pancake, and covered with mud. Well I opened it and found the quilt-- I had packed it in one of those giant zip-lock bags! Amazingly it was completely dry!! See, God is so good to us! He knows we can only handle so much. I would have been so sad if that quilt had been ruined, but He was gracious to me and let me find it in good condition.

Since that day we've been cleaning up the mess. Our bungalow was hauled away to the junk yard. We've filled sooo many contractor garbage bags with stuff to throw away and have slowly been taking it truckload by truckload to a dumpster. Daniel's grandparents are very graciously letting us live in their RV, which is parked at Daniel's parent's house. We will be here another week, at which point we will leave to go to Virginia for the Polyface Farm internship. We've been so busy getting prepared for that and dealing with all the flood drama, so I've felt rather overwhelmed. But we'll get there... we make progress every day. I think the hardest part for me right now is that we are technically homeless- we don't have a place that is our own. It's given me a lot of perspective on the fact that I actually have no home here-- heaven is my home.

Now for pictures...

Daniel and Nathan, trying to decide what to do. You can see the tree line in the background where the creek is supposed to be. The creek is normally down in about a 12 foot trench type thing, so you can understand how much water it took to get to what you see in the picture. This was maybe 45 minutes after we had woken up to get ready for church.
This was taken right before I left to try and go stay with family. It was too late, I was already flooded in, I just didn't know it yet. You can see Nathan's truck in the background-- the battery was dead, so they couldn't move it. I think Nathan was pretty sad about that. Eventually it was entirely under water.

View from the end of the neighbor's drive way an hour or so later. The road I had driven on to get there is now completely immersed. Eventually the fence posts you can see in the foreground of the picture are completely under water, too. If you look closely, right in the center of the picture by the pine tree you can see our vehicles parked on a little hill (kind of behind the tree). Our property is all to the left of that-- it was like a giant lake (except for our big hill, it was fine of course- too bad we hadn't already built a house up there!).
Daniel, a few days later, going through the last of the boxes. We've thrown 90% of our belongings away. My darling husband took a picture of every single book so we can eventually replace them. I can't even tell you how many hundreds and hundreds of books we must have had. You can see our happy pigs in the background :)
So that's what's been going on with us. Sorry I haven't written more lately-- I have lots to write about! But it seems that when my blog would be the most interesting is also when I have the least amount of time to spend on it. I'm sure it's the same for you other bloggers. Anyway, I'll try to write again sometime soon. :)

Today is Friday

and we are getting ready to go visit daniel's mum (I love the word "mum", and British words and phrases in general.... "Mucking about" is probably my favorite!) in Sidney, OH. She hasn't met Zeke yet, so I know she's excited to see him, and we're excited to see her!

Right now Zeke is napping, Daniel is napping and trying to fight off a migraine, and I'm folding laundry and watching a storm blow in from my mum's kitchen window. Can I just say how much I MISSED Ohio weather? And the big beautiful trees? And all the lush greenery? Everything is blooming and growing right now- the dandy lions and violets are out in the yard, all the flowering trees are in bloom, and all the deciduous trees are sprouting their bright-green baby leaves! The air just smells so good! I love it up here! Sigh!

So I'm thinking about all the things i want to do now that we're actually settling into our home! (ok we won't be back in KY until monday but you get the idea) I believe a list is in order...

-Plant garden!
-Get a bicycle powered washing machine!
-put up a clothes line!
-find a refridgerator!
-sew many things!
-knit many things!
-go swimming in the river!
-build a bridge (that's the men's job- they're starting on Tuesday!)
-visit friends in KY!

Ooooh I know there are many more things to do.... those are just off the top of my head. So many fun weeks coming up! It's just starting to rain!

For Paige

This blog post is just for you, Paige. :) It's all about our "septic system", or better yet, our lack of one.

As previously mentioned, we have no improvements on our land- no buildings, no water or electricity (although these will be done soon!), and no septic system. So what do we do? How do we "powder our noses"? (Love that euphemism, Tamara!) How do we shower? Here's how it works:

We use a composting toilet. Yes, that's right, a toilet that composts. How do we do that? Well, take a five gallon bucket, stick a toilet seat on top, get some sawdust, and you magically have an ecologically responsible way to take a dump. You see, as long as you get the carbon-nitrogen ratio correct (that is, sawdust-crap ratio), all your excrement will, over time, turn into lovely compost that can be used to fertilize your soil. Not only will we be giving back to the land, we won't be flushing gallons of clean, drinkable water down the toilet every time we powder our noses. After the five gallon bucket is full, we empty it into a special, just-for-the-composting-toilet compost pile (kitchen scraps, etc go into a different compost pile that will later be used for gardens). A composting toilet compost pile needs to age longer than a regular compost pile to make sure all nasty bugs are destroyed, about 2 years (this is variable depending on how you do things). Compost from this compost pile will be used to fertilize trees, flowers, etc, but not the vegetable garden, just to be on the safe side (although many veteran "humanure" composters don't feel the need to differentiate between their two kinds of compost- point being, it's perfectly safe to use on your vegetable garden IF done properly- but that stigma is still there, and guests may not want to eat your salad after they see your powder room and reality hits them!). To sum it up, a composting toilet system is perfectly safe for the environment IF carefully and responsibly handled. It is not only perfectly safe, but it gives back to the environment in fertilizer and also saves many many gallons of clean water from being wasted in the toilet. You get the idea.

Next, the "gray water"- aka, shower water, dish water, etc. We collect all of our gray water in a holding tank and then use it to irrigate. As you can surely understand, our gray water will only be polluted if we put pollutants in it. Sooo, we use all natural and bio-degradable soaps, shampoos, cleaners, etc. We don't pour anything down the sink that we're not comfortable pouring directly onto the soil- no chemicals, no toxins, etc. By doing this we are able to recycle all of our water- it's all used twice, because first we use it to shower, do dishes, etc, and then the same water is used to water the field or trees, etc.

I imagine that there are still plenty of you who are slightly freaked out by this idea, especially if you've never heard of composting toilets before. You may be concerned that we are polluting our land... but let me assure you that no one cares for our 40 acres more than we do, and we want to be as responsible as we can possibly be in every decision about our home. After quite a bit of reading and research we are definitely convinced that composting humanure is the most ecologically responsible thing for us to do.

So there is your answer Paige! To learn more, read this awesome book, "The Humanure Handbook". It has answers to your every question! (About composting toilets, that is ;)

ETA: No, the composting toilet doesn't stink... at all. I promise! Yay carbon-nitrogen fixation!

Visiting Ohio

Howdy all!

Well we've spent the last week-ish visiting family and friends in Ohio. It's good to be here, and we're having a lot of fun. BUT.... I can't wait to get back to my new little home! It's time to start digging up a garden, and I'm itching to do so.

Daniel has spent the past week in Texas. He went back to pack all of our belongings into a moving truck, but the fun part for him has been visiting all our dear friends down there. He should be getting back to KY on Friday. The moving truck will arrive Monday with all of our belongings. Last week Daniel and his brother Josh put up an electricity pole, so we should have electricity by the end of next week (crossing fingers!). On Tuesday all the men will begin building a bridge over our creek so we have access to the rest of the property. Sounds like a lot of work to me!

We'll be in Ohio a few more days before we head back home. I'm looking forward to seeing my husband!

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!