Life in the Bungalow

Oh my blog, I miss you! I'm so glad to be writing right now!

We've fully transitioned from suburbanites to urban homesteaders of sorts.... and we're loving it so far. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know that we bought a 1984 travel trailer to live in for a while for many various reasons. Well we're now renting out our 1600sq.ft. house to some friends and living in our travel trailer in our church parking lot. We've named the travel trailer "the Bungalow". And life there is good. So much less space= so much less cleaning= more time for knitting/reading/family time/various projects/time with friends. There have been some challenges, including the air conditioner going out, the gray water tank leaking, a pipe bursting at one point, and no internet (yet), but my brave and ingenuitive husband has fixed all problems that have arisen. I'm getting used to cooking in a smaller kitchen, and actually enjoying it. We only took 4 cups, 4 plates, 4 sets of silverware, 2 bowls and 3 mugs.... so we hardly have any dishes. They can all be dirty at the same time and still fit in the sink! (Amazing for me, who isn't a huge fan of dishes). Honestly I don't even miss my dishwasher. I've been more creative with the crock-pot, for which I am imensely grateful. I do kind of miss the "mud room" entryway in our house where dirty muddy shoes can be left... but we're working out a good shoe system in the Bungalow, so I think I won't even miss that very soon. Our church has quite a few (completely paid-for) buildings which include a large nursery, a school, and a kitchen-- and they've given us keys to all these buildings. When we're feeling a little closterphobic in the bungalow and it's too hot to go outside, we go play in the nursery. We're also able to use the refridgerator in the kitchen (the bungalow fridge doesn't keep the milk cold enough and it spoils before we can pick up more from our co-op). Some of the ladies at the church have even started excercizing every morning in the nursery building which is literally 20 feet from the Bungalow, so I've been joining them and I'm happy about that-- I have no excuse not to be there! We've been spending a LOT of time outdoors. Zeke and Tula (our puppy) really enjoy that, and so do I. A few of my friends have children that attend the church's school, and so they stop by every once in a while to visit when they drop off/pick up their kids for school. Life is fun there! Living on the church grounds is really the PERFECT transition from suburban life to off-grid homesteading, farming life. We're currently living some sort of peculiar half-homesteading, half-normal life. And learning how to live in the bungalow with so much support from our church has made the transition so much easier. I can't even imagine moving straight from my nice big house in Texas to an off-grid travel trailer in rural Kentucky---I'm sure that would have been quite a shock. But the Lord has been gracious to us and has provided this smooth transition, the perfect time for learning and growing and preparing for the next phase of our life.

Speaking of the next phase of life, Daniel applied for a four month internship at Polyface Farms, the Salatin family's amazing sustainable farm. The internship would be starting in June 2010. Daniel made it through the first essay screening and has been invited to come to a two day "tryout" where he will be competing with other applicants for the few prized internship spots. We're hoping of course that he will get the internship! It looks like he will be going for the tryout in January, but we're not certain about that yet. I will let you all know what happens! :)

As we do not yet have internet in the Bungalow, I am writing this at a friend's house (actually at our house, as in the one we own-- our renters are out of town and we are cat-sitting). BUT my darling husband bought me something I've been wanting for a long time-- a flash drive!! So my plan is to write blog posts on our desktop in the bungalow, save the posts & pictures on the flash drive, and then upload my posts whenever we have internet access. That's the plan. I want to be diligent about this because I know in 20 years we will treasure all the memories and crazy stories from this time in our life. I have a really bad memory and if I don't write stuff down I just don't remember it later.

Did I ever mention that Daniel caught the kids who had been vandalizing our farm & garden project at the church?!! He DID!! It's a crazy story!!!! I'll let him tell you sometime. Since he caught them and they received a citation from the police we have had no more problems, which is a huge burden off our backs.

Speaking of the farm & garden project, it is going well. Now that the vandalism is stopped, we can start making progress again instead of just repairing all the damage that was done. We are providing eggs for a few families in the church, and we have a new batch of broilers that will be going out on the field this coming weekend. We're planning a work day to put in some winter gardens (I do love that you can garden all year in TX!), and quite a few families are contributing all their kitchen scraps to the compost pile. There seems to be a giant mountain of work in front of us, but I'm really excited to leave a "mini" sustainable farm on the church grounds for other people to benefit from when we leave.

What else is going on with us?? Zeke is doing great! He's huge, he's handsome, he's smart. I imagine he will be walking soon. He just started waving bye-bye this week! It's too cute.

Well I need to go give Daniel a haircut-- I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday afternoon!

The Bungalow

We are officially moved into our travel trailer, which I have named "the Bungalow"! We do not yet have internet there, so I am updating this from a friend's house. Once we're back online I will update this blog more regularly. Our renters moved into our house this past weekend. everything is going well! Our home phone is of course disconnected, so you'll have to reach us on our cell. E-mail me if you don't have that number!

Spider bite update

I went to the ER this morning, waited for a few hours, and saw a super nice doctor who cut open the bite and drained it out. He said it's a good thing that i came in, and that the wound should heal up just fine. He said there is no way to know what kind of spider bite it was without having actually caught the spider. I was in a lot of pain this afternoon after the anesthetic wore off, but I'm feeling ok now. I bet I'll feel a lot better in the morning! Thanks for your prayers and concern guys :)

Crazy spider bite... I'm a bit worried....

Guys, I think I have a brown recluse bite. I put my pajamas on the other day, and then shortly realized that something had bit me. Well I go to take a look, and there were 4 bug bites on my rear (sorry to talk about my rear on my blog). I didn't think too much of it at the time, but they were kind of itchy like a mosquito bite. Anyway, it's about two days later(I think), and three of the bites are just teeny little spots, but one (I'm assuming the initial one b/c it would have got the most venom?) has gotten bigger. After doing some research I suspect a brown recluse bite...? It's bigger than a quarter, swolen, sore, and feels hardish to the touch with a scab in the center (ok sorry too much detail!). It's 3AM and I can't sleep because it hurts and I guess I'm worried about it. I think I'm mostly upset because we're very busy this week and I really don't want to go to the hospital tomorrow, but I probably should. And I think I will. Grrr.

I absolutely HATE HATE HATE spiders (and hospitals). A couple times a year I will fly out of bed from a deep sleep because I had a dream a spider was in the bed. I have to turn on all the lights and shake out all the blankets before I'll go back to sleep. Poor Daniel. I'm not so bad with spiders I can see-- I don't mind squishing them too much anymore (even squashed a very tiny one with my bare finger the other day!). It's those spiders that you can't see-- the ones in your shoe, your pajamas, your bedsheets--- that seriously freak me out.

update tomorrow.... please pray for me!

Stake-out and renters

We've had a rough week with all this vandalism. But it looks like we're making progress with it-- we figured out they're coming some time between 11am-3pm. Daniel rigged up a walkie-talkie and I stayed in our travel trailer today (which is in the church parking lot.... which is fairly close to our chickens) listening for a ruckus. Shortly after noon I had a hunch that I should go out to check on things, and I sat there for not even 15 minutes when I saw someone off in the far corner of the field behind a tree. I got out of the car and yelled at them (it was pretty far, I don't know if they heard me or not) then called Daniel at work and he rushed over to try and find the guys. By the time he got there they were gone, BUT he did find a spot in the woods that looked like a teenage-hangout spot. So we know what time they come, and we know where they hang out. And no chickens were killed today and nothing was broken or damaged. Hopefully we can get this stopped soon. I'm really hoping that if Daniel gets his hands on them he'll beat the crap out of them and then give them a good talking to. Just like in that movie "second hand lion".

In other news, we've found renters for our house!!!! I am soooo excited/relieved/thankful. God is so good to us! We will be renting to some friends of ours, and we will be using our own garage for storage instead of having to get a storage unit. That will make moving so, sooo much easier!! It really will be a great situation, and I'm so glad to have it worked out. I was concerned that we might not be able to find anyone.

Alright I'm exausted, so I'm going to go now. :)

Why do people do these things?

Someone has started vandalizing our farm & garden project. We're really discouraged and frustrated. They broke all the poles holding up the electric netting around our egg layers (they've done this twice now) and smashed all our portable broiler shelters (many salvageable pieces, though-- only one or two are completely ruined). They also killed a rooster. Poor rooster. Also had an electric fence charger and a car battery stolen.

I know vandalism happens, but I've never really had it happen to me before. It's especially frustrating because we're trying to do something good for the local community. But how can we do it if someone destroys everything?? It really bothers me, too, to see all the hard work my husband has done destroyed. And now instead of being able to work on new projects he's had to spend his time repairing everything. Sigh. We know that God told us to start this project, so we'll keep on keepin' on. We need to figure out a solution. We're thinking....

On a more positive note, we can literally see how we've been able to improve soil fertility in our field-- the grass is coming in nice and green where we ran the chickens. Everywhere else it's brown.

Goodnight!

We're progressing!

Today we moved our 5th wheel into our church parking lot. We found out that there is an RV hookup there, so we asked permission to park our new home there for the next 6 months until we move up to Kentucky.... and our pastor and elders said yes! We go to the most awesomest church ever, people. Really. I love our church.

This whole situation is exciting for many reasons.... one, we will be close by to devote lots of time and energy to our church farm & garden project. It is going splendidly so far, and we want to make sure that when we move everything is running smoothly so that someone else can take over and keep providing organic local healthy food for the church, and eventually the local community. Two, we will be able to save a lot of money by renting out our house to pay the mortgage instead of paying it out of pocket every month (we decided not to sell right now cause the market's not so good and there are like 6 houses for sale in our neighborhood already). Three, we will be learning how to live in a 5th wheel while Daniel still has a steady income. We will also have the encouragement of many loving friends who think we're cool for doing not-so-normal things (like living in your church's parking lot in a 25-year-old travel trailer). So we're really excited about the whole situation. I think it works out well for our church too, because we will be there almost all the time to help out with whatever comes up.

Anyway, the plan is that we will get our new home (it needs a cool name... I'm open to suggestions) squeaky-clean this week and move in this weekend. Then we will spend the next couple weeks packing up our house, having a yard sale, and getting it rent-ready. Hopefully by September we will be fully transitioned out of our house-house and into our house-on-wheels. We're going to be so busy. But a good busy. I'm really excited about our new lifestyle. I think we'll spend a lot more time outside.

In other news, we had a fun birthday party for Ezekiel on Saturday. He enjoyed eating his (super healthy) cupcake. It was too cute. He was very serious about it. Actually he seems to be very serious about many things in a cute, kid-like way. He's growing so big. I can tell by the look on his face that there are things he wants to be able to say, but he can't do it yet. I'm looking forward to when he can talk, but I'm also loving the stage he's in right now. He's such a wonderful blessing, I love him so much!

Goodnight!