An American Homestead

Chris finished the woodshed last week and we have started getting the wood chopped and put in it. We have a lot of trees cut down, we just need to get them cut up and put into the woodshed. He started clearing land as well and it is starting to look really good across the driveway from the house, into the woods. We sold the windows from the old house yesterday for $1000. That will certainly help on the down payment of the farm. Sickness is going around like crazy in the schools and where I work. So far we have been spared, but I began to wheeze last night and have a light sore throat this morning. I took some honey before and after breakfast this morning and will continue that and an herb concoction until it goes away. I have been ordered by my Doc to take a few days off work and I had planned to take off tomorrow, so it figures I would start feeling sick before I get a chance to go up to Santeetlah Creek for the day.

The weather is much cooler and that is so nice. We had just a few rough days in which I would have been glad to have a fan in the house, but for the most part, we made it through Summer OK. I realize it is not completely over yet, but the worst part I think has passed and we survived the heat. So now we prepare for Winter. I am looking forward to getting the garden plowed up and everything hauled over to the root cellar for Winter. I will be glad when we have a wood heater installed in the livingroom and know that things are secure and ready for the cold Winter months.

We still get strange looks from the neighbors when they pass by. Yesterday we were down at the Spring washing some clothes by hand and a few cars passed and did double takes at us. I don’t think most of them know that we live without electricity because there are power lines running to the house. But I am sure seeing us at the Spring getting food out of it, doing laundry and stuff makes them wonder.

We had a very good weekend. My health has not been too great lately. My Doc blames it all on the stress from the past year and wanted to put me in the hospital for exhaustion last week. I told him I was trying to come up with the down payment on the farm and could not sit in a hospital. I would not be able to rest in there and would come out worse off than when I went in. He actually agreed with me, but ordered me to take some time off work and NOT stay at the farm working on my day off. This weekend I did a few things around the house on Saturday, but spent time playing my banjo, visiting the Mennonite Market just down the road, getting a little shopping done and then we went to the County Fair with Amanda and Perrin. I sat on benches and watched Perrin and Chris ride every single ride that Perrin was tall enough to get on. It rained on us right before we went into the Carnival. Sunday morning I got up early and played the banjo on the porch in my rocking chair. I am learning a new song this week “Blackberry Blossom”. It is really a cute little song and so far I am doing pretty good with it. I have memorized Cripple Creek and Wildwood Flower and enjoy playing both of those. We cleaned house, finished my jigsaw puzzle and started another one, had a visit from my friend Joanna and her son Tsali.  They stayed for several hours and we had a very nice time together. Then we had to go get chicken feed and cat food and littler and all that wonderful stuff. It was nice to get back home and we had a good evening.

Tomorrow is supposed to be my day off work to leave home and relax all day. We are planning to go into Tellico, stop by the bakery and see our buddies there, grab some fresh bread and pastries then head up the river and across the Cherohala Skyway. We are planning to go up to Joyce Kilmer for a little while and then down to Santeetlah Creek, which is my favorite place on Earth, and spend the rest of the day on a blanket reading book or crocheting or something. We will start heading home right before dark and hopefully things will go well. I am already thinking of a million things I could get done around the farm or even here at work if I don’t take off, but I have promised my Doctor and MY family that I will take a day off and relax. Amazing the things some of us have to go through to relax and how stressful the thought of relaxing can be. LOL

So we are still doing OK and still enjoying our farm. It is beautiful and each day I find more and more things about it to love.

I have not been able to post too much lately. We are trying to get the rest of the down payment for the farm and well, I will just be glad when October is said and done so we can have this down payment behind us and there will not be that stress on us. We like 2500.00, well more like 2000.00 now. We have 5 weeks to come up with it. So….yeah…prayers are welcome!

As for things on the farm, we have been working around there getting things fixed, moved, accomplished as we can. The root cellar (root beer cellar as Perrin calls it) has been prepped and ready for its transformation. We moved all the firewood over near the woodshed, which is being finished today. We hauled a LOT of stuff off this weekend. We have cut trees and are beginning preparations for winter. I have been canning like crazy and storing food for winter as well. We had a hen die. I think an egg busted inside of her. It was one of my Reds so that upset me. Chris called today and he discovered another one of the old cedars full of honey bees. That makes two trees now. I am going to get an empty hive or two and put them out, just in case these bees swarm maybe I can get some in a hive. I won’t be able to get honey from these in the tree trucks, but by golly we have plenty of bees to pollinate the garden. I miss my bees and am thrilled that there are bees at the farm.

I plan to take some pics of the root cellar and the transformation, Chris is working on it with Don this week. I also have more pics around the farm to post as well. The weather is a bit cooler and it is so nice to be able to get out and get some things done without fear of heat exhaustion.

So pics will be up this week and a proper update of things we have managed to get done so far.