We had a wonderful and productive weekend on the farm. Chris and I went down on Friday evening and took Perrin with us. He played in the branch and root cellar while we raked leaves and worked on the weed trimmer. Amanda showed up and took us to Chattanooga for supper at Genghis Grill. It was nice and a good evening. We got home VERY late. Saturday morning we headed to the farm as soon as our eyes were open and the chickens were fed. We did not stress ourselves that day, we just worked on things when we wanted to and sat on the porch and waved at neighbors and crocheted when we wanted to. Not over doing it and stressing was nice, but we managed to get a LOT of work done. We actually hauled some chairs and my rocker down there, some bird feeders and a few other little things to hang on the porch.
The first thing we did was trim the weeds around the branch and Spring. Chris worked on that while I cleaned the walkway in front of the house and rakes a mountain of leaves from the front of the house. The yard looked much better on that side after the weeds were trimmed and we discovered all of the tiger lilies, small apple trees, willows, yucca plants and tons more little surprises (snakes and lizards and such).
We had some visitors drop in and that was nice. My friend Joanna brought us bread, strawberries, cookies and some tulips. We had Devin for part of the day, my grandson, and we had a good time showing people around the farm, some friends from work dropped by as well. After everyone left, we started working on the kitchen. I think we pulled about 104 nails from the walls and window frames! I have never seen so many nails stuck in one place. Chris got the light fixture down that the birds had been nesting in. Then we ripped the counter out. Chris is like He Man and even though he is a little bitty thing, he is pretty darn strong. After getting that out we started on the water heater, which we full of water and we had no hose to drain it with. So we strained ourselves to the point of no return and got it out of the closet and on its side, rolled it to the door and then pushed it out onto the porch to drain. All of that and we only got two small cuts on our hands which are already healed with honey and duct tape. We scraped and swept and now the kitchen is ready for a good scrub. We have to put a piece of plywood down where the sink was and inside what will be the pantry. We are going to put another foundation pillar under the house where the wood cook stove will eventually be and then paint! The windows are OK in that room, other than one pane in a window is cracked a bit. We will replace it later down the road.
Before
After
Chris started cleaning the fireplace in the middle room while I made my way to the barn to visit a new friend, I will tell you about later in this post. I lost track of time and returned to help work 20 minutes later. We spent time relaxing on the porch and talked, laughing and making plans. I pulled weeds around some Iris’ in the yard and we went home late Saturday night.
Sunday we headed down there again when our eyes opened. I visited the barn friend and we mostly piddled with small things because we had to go to a birthday party for a grandchild at 11am. As soon as that was over we headed back to the farm. For some reason we found ourselves down at the Spring scooping moss out and chatting. Before long we had rakes, hoes, crowbars and hammers down there and we had an absolute blast cleaning that old Spring out. We managed to bust our some of the bricks. The Spring comes from two areas under the ground. One side had a brick wall with a 5 gallon bucket in the water where it was pumped to the house. Much later down the road we may put a hand pump on the Spring to the house but for now we plan to just build a small Spring house over that section and stick our milk, butter and such into a crate and lower it into the Spring. The other side will be used as a water supply for the house. I will have the Spring tested in a few weeks. We cleaned out watercress and sludge and you name it. We discovered mudpuppies and lizards and crawdads. The Spring is running clear now all the way to the branch. We put a warm soda in it and within 30 minutes it was cold. SO YAY! We have a fridge now! We still have a little bit more work to do on the Spring but we accomplished a lot. We laughed so much while we worked on that, splashing water on each other, taking frustrations out on the cemented brick with a hammer and crowbar, and waving at every single car that went by. (I am sure the neighbors are going to think we are some kind of happiness freaks! LOL One neighbor was walking her dog and is almost totally blind. She was walking down the road and stopped to talk to us for awhile. She was thrilled, yet shocked, that someone was moving into the house.
Before
After
We spent the late evening finishing up the Spring and identifying some trees and plants we discovered. We walked back out to the barn and spent some more time in the house and on the porch before we headed home last night. We got home at dark and spent the night talking about what a great weekend we had.
We have lots of plans this week, if the cold and snow flurries don’t stop us from accomplishing some of our goals. I am writing Hazel a letter today to send via my attorney to see if we cannot get this thing settled as soon as possible so we can start moving things down there without worrying that she will find out we are moving. Hopefully the letter will strike some kind of guilty cell in her body and she will settle so we can move on. After this weekend, I am actually looking forward to it!
We discovered a vulture hanging out in the barn. She was in there every single time we went up there. She would fly out the side of the barn when we entered. I decided to make a trip up there myself and was very quite. I went in and she was on the ground in a stall. She spotted me and started hissing and growling at me. She did not fly away. I sat down about 8-10 feet from her and she just sat there and watched me, occasionally growling and hissing. I left about 20 minutes later. Chris we up there that evening and she flew out of the barn right away. It was then he discovered 2 eggs! We are going to have BABIES!! Little vulture babies! I am so excited! I will take pics and post them as they hatch.
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, crying
, excited
, unexcited
, hopeful
, unhopeful
, as I read about the home you left behind. Thank you for sharing your life with us. 
) and making homemade cobbler. 
living w/o electricity
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