in and around the farm . . .

It's fun to "settle" into a home and re-arranged things to fit exactly the way they function best. We have done that with the kitchen and family rooms already. After living here for a few weeks we are starting to get the feel of what works, and what doesn't, and have moved things around a bit to find that great fit for items.

The children started their studies again after a long winter break. With moving, and the fact that they study on Saturday and through the summer, Ildi decided to give them an extended break while we have been moving in. It's always hard getting back into the routine of waking early and spending time studying. They are however, doing a good job of it already.

Janey is giving us more and more milk week after week. After we moved, it seemed like her milk production went up a bit, and we are not quite sure why. About three gallons a day. As a result of the abundance, Ildi is able to make cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt, and we are helping out my mom with some fresh milk. It is really helping her blood production and her lack of iron.

This next couple of weeks we are going to be visiting some churches in the area. I am excited to get back into a local church where we can start building friendships with people in the area, and worship God together.

repairing to do . . .

This past weekend Nolan and I spent some time fixing a few of the barn doors that had jumped off the track. Big doors . . . big work. We have two more to hang, and a little repairing to do on the weather beaten bottoms, then we'll be mostly done with the barn door work. I love the idea of getting the outside buildings not only functional, but aesthetic as well.

In addition to fixing some of the outside stuff, a good friend and his family came over on Saturday for dinner. Patrick brought along his Stihl chainsaw and helped us cut some more wood to burn for this winter. It's nice to have someone who knows what they are doing with a chainsaw to give tips and pointers on how to cut wood. He has cut wood since his youth, and is a reservoir of information on cutting techniques. LOOK AT THE FORM on that MAN! :)



I'm almost ready to post another few before/after pictures of the interior. :)

some before and afters . . .

Mostly these picture are for Chris H. however everyone else can enjoy them as well. Over the years of friendship, Chris and I have had joy in designing interiors of our many homes. Like us, his family has moved several times and he has painted, arranged furniture, and enjoyed adding his and his wife's style to their homes. These are the before/after pictures of our family room and kitchen. (the new part of the home) The last few years Ildi has wanted to try her hand at cooking on a wood cook stove. So, last weekend we installed the "New Decade" wood stove to not only heat the house, but to cook on as well. It is equipped with an oven to the right, and the entire top of it is a cooking area.

These two rooms are almost completely done minus some art on the walls, and a few minor changes.

mucking out the barn . . .

Each evening this past week we have spent some time mucking out the barn. Apparently, there was a beef operation on the farm at one point and the barn is LOADED with dried manure. There will be no need to buy compost or manure for the gardens this year (or next!)

We started working from pole to pole doing one section of it at a time. Good for us, each night Janey sleeps right in front of the hay chute. So we started there. Filling that small area with straw is easy for now. Our plan is to get all the floor mucked in the next week then we can start on the loft part of the barn. It sure feels good to have that old mess cleaned out.

cut some wood . . .

Today was a great day on the homestead. For a couple of weeks I have only concentrated on painting and organizing in the house, however, since school was closed today, I spent almost the entire day outside doing work. And it was a BEAUTIFUL day to be outside. A cool 27 degrees with no wind. Perfect weather for outside work.

This is Fly with her catch from the woods today. Both the dogs have been delighted in catching rabbits and digging in the ground to uncover field mice.


Floppy is our doberman/hound mix that wondered into our lives around 4 weeks ago. We hesitated keeping her but found that she keeps Fly with some good company.

Two days ago I bought Nolan a chain saw to cut some wood for us. Today we started cutting up some of the "down" wood in our 4 acres of woods. There is probably enough wood laying around to keep us in wood for the whole rest of the winter.

Both Nolan and I take turns cutting. Even though the saw is only 9-10 pounds, it does take quite a toll on your forearms. Maybe after a few years we will be strong enough to handle cutting for several hours without it being so exhausting.

some small tidbits . . .

It is good to have internet service again. The last few weeks I have been doing research on providers here in the area, setting up our desktop, and arranging furniture to house the computer. After several calls it came down to one provider and DSL. Our phone company. Come to find out, we had to go with the DSL service with our phone company because NO other company provides service this far out.

On a barn note, there's a rotten egg smell coming from the well water in the barn. No wonder the previous owners put a pond in for drinking water. The smell is foul. I don't think the animals will be affected by the sulfer in it though. However, if the milk starts tasting funny, I'll have to come up with a new plan for water to the barn.

Nolan was driving the ATV/Gator around pulling the other children on sleds behind it. Always trying to look back to see if everyone is OK, he came too close to the propane tank, bumped it with the tire, and KNOCKED it over. That's right, 200 gallons of propane in a bullet-like container dropped right over on it's side! Such a scary ordeal. Thankfully, no one was hurt, the gas works, and no explosion at the new home. When you live in the country and use propane you can either rent, or buy a tank. If you rent one you buy gas only from the company whose tank is on your property. When you buy one, you can decide who you have fill it. The advantage of buying one is comparing prices and having different gas companies fill it. Hopefully with our wood cook stove coming today, it will add enough heat to the house that I won't need to use that much gas.

Since I have a long weekend this weekend we plan to finish putting everything away and I will continue to touch-up some more painting. I also will get the garage and workshop in order so that I can make a few pieces of art that was ordered on my Etsy site.

Looking back over these past two years of renting and now finally landing here in this home, I really can see God's hand in "placing" us here. We looked at so many houses and farms, and none of them seemed to suit our needs. It is nice to finally be at our own place and for it to not only suit our needs, but also exceed what we wanted in a homestead. Ildi and I have spent hours already talking about the possibilities of our lives here and sharing vision for the place. I love things like that.

day nine through now . . .

This is the view driving into the property; the detached garage and workshop, and the HUGE grain barn in the back.

Wow! Did I mention that I really don't enjoy moving? I am soooooo DONE NOW with moving my junk all around the country.

Here's a bullet fashion snippet of what happened the last several days.

I stayed at the house up until Friday before move day to get as much painting done as possible. I painted almost the entire interior of the home minus three bedrooms and the master bedroom.

After we moved in, the existing radiators stopped working one day. Little did we know that we need to keep an eye on the propane and NOT let it run out!

We got the well pipes fixed and we now have water to the barn. No more dragging 5 gallon buckets of water out to water the animals. :) (it's really heavy to carry those buckets full of water about a 100 yards)

I found some radiators on craigslist and plant tp check them out this next week. Since I have Monday off of school, I am planning to drive up to Toledo and see if they will fit in my home. If they do, that will save me several thousands of dollars.

Tomorrow I drive to the Amish to get my wood cook stove I ordered. It will be GREAT to have an additional heat source in the house.

Lastly, the boxes of books, decor, and miscellaneous is finally dwindling. I can see light at the end of it all.

house update . . . day six - nine

Christmas day we attended a church really close to our new house. In the afternoon I went back up to the to do some more work and stayed the night so I could work most of the day Saturday. After coming back home to "freshen up" (there is no plumbing on in the house as well as heat) I went back up to work more and stay the night. Sunday my sister came up to help me for the day, and we had a great time working and talking most of the day. The plan was for me to come home Sunday night, but we had a bit of a snow storm Sunday late afternoon so I decided to stay over again and just continue working. I got most of the downstairs finished with painting, and am excited to get back up there tomorrow to continue getting the rest of the house ready for us to move in.

The plumber came today and isolated more of the bad radiators and deduced that 5 out of the 11 in the house actually work! He turned the boiler system on around 3:00pm and by 4:00pm the radiators that were working were HOT. It felt really good to put my hands on something warm in the house. For the past week I have been using kerosene heaters and a small electric heater to take the edge off the cold in the house. Since it is a chilly 38-40 degrees in the house, it takes the paint a little longer to dry as well. Good thing . . . I can leave my brushes out ALL DAY and they still don't dry up. :)

Yesterday I also installed a wood burning stove in the family room. I bought the used cast iron heat stove from an Amish man on Saturday, so I painted it that night, took it outside and burned wood in it all day Sunday to get most of the paint smell out. That little stove should heat the whole family room and kitchen.

In addition to some of the radiators working, the plumber is going to turn the water on to the house tomorrow. Yeah! That means no more using the camping port-a-potty. For the last few days, while I am staying there, I have been using a portable toilet and using a pot system on the stove for my water supply. The skills I gained while camping in the Sierra Nevada Mountains with my family has come in handy.

The plan is still to move in by this weekend. I want to be in the house before I go back to school on Monday. That is if I can get enough heat into the house that we feel comfortable to live in, and the water/plumbing is working. I sure hope it comes together before Saturday.

Tonight I spent a little time on the computer answering emails, catching up on my online store, and posting here. As well, I found a craigslist ad for 17 radiators, all working and various sizes, that were taken out of an old house a couple of hours from us here. I'm going to call on them tomorrow to see if he has the size radiators I need. It would be great if I could find just what I needed from his discard pile of radiators. :)

day four and five . . .

Wednesday we worked on getting more of the paper off the walls. I ended up getting some paint to re-motivate us and painted the kitchen and back hallway. It's nice to have something "finished" looking already even if we are still swamped in peeling paper. Wednesday night I brought the family back to our rental house and headed back up to stay the night and do some more work. I worked late, and then worked this morning until this afternoon.

Tomorrow morning we we will go up to a church in the area for service and then have a little Christmas time at the new house. After I drop the family back at home, I'll head back up to stay the night and do some more work. The goal is to get everything done before we move in. All of our earlier moves we worked on the homes as we lived in it, but I want to have this house finished so that when we move in, we just put the items away where they go.

I do need to replace all the old registers in the house before we get the heat turned on. And Saturday I find out when our wood cook stove comes in. I'm hoping that I can get it all done ready to move in by next Friday.

day three . . .

This is the view into the older portion of the house. After coming out of the kitchen and family room new addition, you walk straight though a hallway with the basement door to the right, the master bedroom up a little and to the left, and the room furthest in this picture is the entry way from the front of the house. It is not used as a front entry though because there is no sidewalk leading up to it.

This is the entry room view. Two big windows, a door to the left, and stairs up to the right.

To the left of that room is the formal living room. Both this and the entry way are two of the three rooms downstairs in the 1900 built part.

The third room downstairs, in the older part of the house, is the master bedroom. One of the closets in the room is directly above the stairs from the outside that leads to the basement. So, the ingenious previous owners built a "step up into" closet to store clothes. There are 3 sets of drawers that are around three feet deep, that once you step up into the closet, you pull out. What a great way to use all the space in the closet!