Secret Agent Man...

Our church had "Trunk or Treat" last week.  Of course, one option would be for Boy to go as a moving box....

Luckily in the moving I found my old fedora from my Duran Duran days, that along with my trench coat made a great privat eye.  Here's Private Agent Boy with one of his best friends (whom he claims great feelings for) and her older sister, the Dragon!

How do you move chickens??

We moved the chickens...finally...yesterday.  Scarlett decided she didn't want to leave W'ville.  After trying to catch her for over an two hours, she managed to completely elude me in the woods.  I was sad to leave her behind without a coop or her friends.  I just couldn't find her.  I will stop by this morning and see if I can find her, she may be roosting near where the coop is...or she may have been dinner for some lucky raccoon.  The Boy prayed for her to be safe and the raccoons to pick on someone their own size, so we shall see...

In the meantime, we are now down to 10 chickens.  Here is the documentation of their move....

Waiting for Man and Boy to bring the trailer to move the coop.  The girls are getting to explore parts of the yard previously unvisited.

Last picture of Scarlett (the grey one)

I was asked how do you move chickens (thank you, faithful reader!)....just like everything else, I packed them in cardboard boxes and stuck them in the back seat of the Versa.

Upon arrival...

"Oh, Hello!" 

Boy took this picture for me!  Man and I were unloading the coop from the trailer.

Now we have just have chickens instead of "city" chickens!  They seem to like the farm.  Sorry, I forgot to take the final picture.  I will do that today and post it here. 

Pictures.....

I know I've gotten several requests for pictures of the farm....finally I found a "tail" for the camera.   So here are some pictures.  I just realized that I haven't taken a picture of the front of the house, just inside and around the farm....I'll do that soon.  Oh, and look at some of the recent posts, I've tried to add pictures where needed.

Here we are at the old house, *kinda* packed up and ready to go...

Two nights before we actually "moved", we had a camp out at the new house.

Here is the fireplace in the middle of the downstairs.  It faces the kitchen, you can see the front "fancy" staircase and a bit of the living room through the doorways...off to the right is the den/office.

Below is looking out the back door/ back porch.  You can see the white picket fenced yard, my car, and then our BIG barn towards the very back of the acreage. There is the littler barn(the scrap barn) to the right, and then to the right of that you can barely see the top of the chicken house in the corner of the picture. 

 This is at sunrise, the backdoor faces east.

Below is at sunset looking out the front picture window.  The farm across the road and also all the farmland around our house is owned by one family which have about 800+ acres.  The tree to the left is an apple tree.

Here's the Master Bedroom...lots of closet space and a window seat that looks out over the back yard.

The house is 104 years old, and has some wonderful (and a few quirky) details.  Here are some random pictures of things I already love about our old farm house....

The front staircase (there is a second one, not fancy going up to the homeschool room)

The details on the banister:

The cool door knobs...this is on our front door

Doors with wonderful wood work.  Left is to the bathroom, right is the door to the back stairs.  These face the kitchen.

Here's a happy country dog (Stormy-Boy's dog) among the boxes to be unpacked on the kitchen floor.

Kristl-who really loves running all over the farm~!

And the other wall of the kitchen.  Refridge on the left, pantry on the right, and side door out to the yard.

And finally...the quirky....here is the "guard pig" that is above our back door.  He was so dusty (and still is) that while my dad was painting, he gave the pig a mohawk.

We were working in the house 2 days before we even noticed this crazy thing!

My life is OuT of cOnTroL!!!

So I spent this morning with our future tenant, getting to know her better and getting the rental application filled out.  I gave her the lease (thanks Mom!) and we are/were meeting Tuesday evening to get deposits, keys and all that fun stuff......the house is rented! 

So we got an email this afternoon from our realtor that there will be an offer made on it..........Wednesday.

Oh.my.

What's the lesson in this?  I think it's that God is in Control....not us.  I took matters into my own hands and thought I had everything all summed up nice and tidy.  Then God reminds us,  His will not ours.  So here I sit with love for my heavenly Father in my heart, gratitude for my Savior Jesus in my soul, and confusion in my poor walnut brain.

I really like our renters and they need to find a place and be out of their house by Friday...yes of this week.  I thought this was God sending relief for our mortgage and a way not to lose it to the bank.....but all along we have had a running list of options and renting was number 3, with selling outright being #1.  Our renter has two kids (and a DH, and a HUGE dog).  Her son is the same age our Boy was when we moved into the house.  Watching him running around the corner was like seeing a replay of Boy.  Oh.my.heart.  Oh.my.head! 

Please pray.  Pray that God gives us the wisdom to discern the right thing.  That the offer would not be a low ball silly offer that is below what we owe on the house.  That they would not be asking for the stars and the moon in addition to the house.  My renters love the place as it is and it would be so easy to get them in and just start making my house payments again.  Oh.my.sigh.  Please just pray for wisdom and God's hand to be obvious so that even a ditz like me can figure out the path.

And officially....

The farm party is on November 7th at 4pm. It's a Farm Warming ~ Thank You ~ Boy's Birthday party! I just ordered the invitations today and will be getting them out Wednesday/Thursday. So mark your calendar now. I'm making the famous Dairy Freeze coney sauce and hotdogs, brats, and lots of good stuff....including PEARS!!!

I seem to only write on Sundays and Wednesdays. I'll try to get a few more days in there, but right now that is when it is 'less busy' at work and I can squeeze in a few minutes.

Well, we found renters for the house in Westerville. I will be meeting with her this morning to get the application and they need to be out of their current home by Oct 30 due to closing being moved up, so I have just 2 days to get the rest of the stuff out of the house in Westerville. Luckily our van is finally back from the shop after having the whole back axel rebuilt...long story..so hopefully we can get that stuff moved out early. We also managed to get the trailer stuck in the mud on the path back to the big barn....nuts!! We were moving stuff from the workshop to be stored in the big barn until I can figure out what to do with it. It was my plan that all the "stuff" from the shed in W'ville would go out there too. We'll have to see what will happen next.

I did explore a bit this weekend and finally went into the "falling down" stable. It is not nearly as rickety as I thought. I am seeing a future "Memory Lane Barn!" It is two story and about 20X20. Big windows in the upstairs perfect for a 'bunk room' and a great cropping room in the downstairs. This is L O N G term plans...like 2+ years from now. In the meantime, I did find 2-3 boxes full of canning jars!! So the pears will *hopefully* soon have a home. Speaking of the pears, they are currently 'chillin' in the pump house.

We are almost out of wood for the fireplace, but Man has found an Amish sawmill not far from home that sells slabwood bundles for a very reasonable price. Slabwood is the wood that is trimmed off before they make boards (The bark and rounded sides). Now that we have the van back, we'll go get some. We also have a cord of hardwoods being delivered in November, so we should be set for the winter. We've been able to keep the house very comfortable for the past two weeks with just wood. Even with the freezing temperatures at night.

Last night (Saturday) as Boy and I were unpacking in his room we saw a hayride go down our road. We have a few retreat centers right around us. One on the road and another around the corner. They could see us through his huge 6X6 picture window, we waved and when they came back past about 20 minutes later, all the riders were hollering and yelling hello! How FUN!

We're also hoping to finally get the chickens moved. I have not yet been able to get the new flock, or get my girls out to the farm. That is one of this weeks priorities. Besides getting everything out of the W'ville house. I haven't yet decided what to do with the chicken yard and house. The house needs work for the girls to be safe and it is on the agenda, but other priorities seem to keep bumping it out. In the meantime, I will start the chicken tractor on the garden and start getting it fertilized and the grass decimated for spring. Hopefully by the end of November, before the brutal cold, I can have the chicken house shored up and ready. Maybe by Friday I can get the new birds in as well.

I know I will get more posting done this week (and less work done) as I will be working an extra two days this week, for a total of 23 extra hours. So keep tuned.

Status....

OK, as of today things are going fairly alright. Here's the lowdown.....

We are dropped the price of the house in Westerville. I asked my realtor to have no showings available until yesterday so I could get it somewhat cleaned up. I have most everything out from inside(that is going to the new house). I just need to move one bookcase, a small video cabinet, the quilt stand, and the stereo components (and speakers). I also want to bring over the full mattress that is in Grandma Arizona's room because ...eventually...the boy will be getting a twin over full bunkbed, since we no longer have a guest bedroom. But in the meantime I don't know where I would put it.

So for now, it's wonderful to go take a quick 2o minute nap while I'm waiting for things to happen in Westerville....what would be happening you ask? Well, yesterday morning, I showed the house to a lady that is interested in renting the house. (That's the other development. We decided that if it doesn't sell, we will try to rent it before giving it back to the bank.) I hope they do decide to rent it. She was a neat lady!

I have had the carpets cleaned over there. I still need to paint 1 room and we still do have lots to find a home for. The attic has not been cleaned out, either has the crawl space....or the shed. The chickens still need moved and the outside "stuff". We've been at a disadvantage because the whole rear end of the van went out and it's been in the shop for a week. They did give us a loaner, but it doesn't have a hitch to use the trailer and I'm thinking that they might not be very happy with me moving chickens in it :)

Speaking of chickens...as soon as I am able to get to the new chicken house...I've found a flock of Aracaunas to add to the farm! We will be at 2 dozen birdies. 23 hens, and one happy rooster! Then in the spring, we'll let some of the eggs hatch out for babies. We should have lots of green and blue eggs. This will be great...right now both of the Aracaunas (Scarlett and Arica) and the two Buffies are going through a molt and we have not seen eggs from them in a while. It will likely be a few more weeks until we see eggs from them again. Also, I'm pretty sure that Maran has not yet started laying. But the Comets and whites are laying very consistantly. We get 6 eggs from 6 birds on almost a daily basis! WOOHOO!

I'm still mulling over whether to have someone come out to Bush Hog the chicken yard and all the burrs or go ahead and get my first dairy goat.....there are good arguements either way. I'm just not decided yet.

So back to what's going on....I have put on the calendar that the farm warming / boy birthday party is going to be on November 7th. I'm praying that the weather will cooperate because we'd like to be able to cook out and also let folks wander around the farm and check things out. But I've "bit the bullet" and there will be no more delays. I've ordered the change of address/invitations and so, there it is. Mark your calendar...

In the meantime, I have a list a mile long of all that needs to be accomplished in the next 17 days, besides all our "other" stuff (Mandatory overtime, plus 2 additional OT days next week, Trunk n Treat, Boys Brigade, Bible Quizzing Practice, and a Rally. Biography, Geography Fair, and Boy's Birthday. ) And on top of that, Boy and Man picked all the pears from our pear tree. Seriously, I have a whole 30 gallon trash can full to do something with (jam, pear butter, canned).

I know everyone wants to see pictures. As soon as I unearth the camera "tail" again...I'll post some! Especially of the inherited "guard pig" that is above our back door. (Which my dad made a mohawk with all the dust on it...and I still haven't dusted it off.)