An American Homestead

So what do you do when you are very ill and you need to get better? What do you do when you suddenly have unexpected medical bills arise at the same time you need to make a huge down payment on a farm? What do you do when the stress from all of that makes you sicker and you try not to go to the Doc so you will not have to pay out more money?

I started becoming ill on the 31st of August. Several people had been sick at work and I picked it up, despite the constant hand sanitizer and avoiding people in the hallway. I was scheduled to take vacation days and go relax in the mountains. Tuesday morning I felt horrible and called in to work. Wednesday I felt even worse. I kept telling myself it was stress and maybe if I could just get away for awhile, things would be OK. So I forced myself. I woke up and left for the mountains. We got gas and took food and blankets and I found myself hours later and Santeetlah. I visited the creek, I visited my tree, I made friends with a snake, I took pictures of mushrooms, I rested on a blanket by the creek and pretended I was better. We saw river otters on the way home near Citico Creek. I smiled widely as I watched them play in the water and on the bank and pretended my cough was not getting worse and I did not really have a fever. We got home and I was exhausted. I went to bed.

I suppose that little trip was not a good idea. Chris was cutting wood the next day and I tried to go out to help and could hardly make it to the porch. I was hurting all over, sick to my stomach, fever, it was bad. By Friday, I remembered I had bills that had to be paid in town but what I really needed was to see my Doc. I made it into town and sat in the clinic for over 4 hours. After x-rays and breathing treatments and much more, it was discovered I had a large amount of pneumonia in one of my lungs and a little bit in the other. I was just barely able to make it to the pharmacy and then still barely able to make it home. Yes the hospital was an option and discussed but we just could not afford that right now.

So the weekend was a blurr and when he told me I would be off work another week, I kept thinking “I’ll show him”. He told me I could not do ANYTHING at home, not even cook, just walk from the bed to a chair and only rest. Again I thought I’d show him. But yeah….there was no danger in me doing anything. I had been zapped of all energy and have never felt so weak.  Chris took very good care of me and kept tabs on the numerous amount of medication I was taking. The prednisone of course made my sugar sky rocket so my medication had to be doubled. I could not do insulin because it has to be refrigerated. There were days I barely made it from the bed to a chair. Life was not fun at all. Again I heard the chain saw and wood being stacked and could see Chris covered in sweat at the end of the day and I felt just horrible that I was not helping. I made my way to the back porch at one point and sat in a chair to watch him getting the winter wood supply into the woodshed and thinking about what a wonderful man he is. He would stop long enough to fix me something to eat or check on me and I could not ask for a better love in this life.

I missed my grandkids so bad I cried over it. It was horrible not getting to see them for all those days. I had a bad night on Wednesday night, vomiting and chills and cough. My heart rate was horribly fast and I was so very sick. Thursday it was back to the Doc. More medication was prescribed and he was very kind. I got another treatment and was ordered to remain on the horrible prednisone for another 5 days. I told him I had to be back to work on Monday and he was doubtful. The energy level was a big concern. My body was craving protein and I honestly had not been eating well those two weeks. I got some protein in me that day but had to rest at Amanda’s before I could drive back home. Saturday was an easier day. I was feeling some better and the mornings were good.

I forced myself to go to the store last night to get some protein bars for work. What should have took 10 minutes took forever. I could not drive straight home so I had to rest at Amanda’s before attempting it. I collapsed into bed and dreaded today. However, I slept well and woke up feeling like I could face the day. It has been a very hard day at work. No one does your work for you when you are out and considering I wade through a ton of paperwork every day, two weeks worth was drowning me today. I have managed to get a few things done and make it through two critical meetings. I am tired and really just want to rest.

So how does this change things? Hopefully not much. We are still preparing for winter. I think we will make it but I have to say, in living like this and taking on the adventures that Chris and I have taken on, if it were not for the love we have for each other, the love we have for the lifestyle and especially the love we have for this old farm we are bringing back to life, we would have never made it this far. This year has been a true test of our desire. A test of how bad do we really want this. I try not to think about Hazel anymore and the things she did, the lies, the deceit and the pain she caused my family. I think about Jimmy some and realize it has been a year since his passing and what would he think of it all. I think he would have walked away from her himself and found a place to live in our dear old farm house. I have memories now and must dwell on the good ones and put the past where it belongs. I miss my mother so terribly. I miss my Mam-maw as well. I want them to see my home, our life, experience it all with us. I would love to have my Mam-maw sit at her old kitchen table that is now in my old home and eat cold biscuits and MY home made plum jelly just like we use to do when that table was in her kitchen when I was a child. I would give anything to have my mother, when she was healthy, before the cancer took control of her every move, sitting on my front porch quilting and telling me about the Spring they had when she was a child. To hug them again, just one more time. Bear hugs from Mam-maw and just a simple hug from my mother that spoke a thousand words when those words were too weak to be spoken. I wish my other grandparents and even my Father cold see that despite it all, life turned out to be good for me. Despite it all, I am living that dream and yes, yes a million times over, despite the hard times, the tears the struggles and even the current worries of making that down payment….it was all worth the journey because the journey has been a beautiful experience for me and Chris.

So we continue. This week finds Don and Chris getting that lovely old root(beer) cellar done and when I get all of those jars of food unpacked and placed neatly on the shelves, I will most likely cry. LOL Yeah I am a sentimental old fool. The wood continues to go into the shed. Thankfully we cut a lot of trees months ago and now we only need to cut them up and get them stacked into the shed. I know my wood cook stove will not come again this year. We just cannot afford that with everything that has happened. So I will settle once more. We have our eyes on a box stove in town with two nice eyes on the top for cooking. Big enough to keep us toasty warm this winter. Coffee made each morning on the top, stew sitting on the burner all day and thanks to two old ladies we ran into at a midnight diner in town, I was informed how I can bake some cornbread in the ash box! I love old people. If we just shut our mouth long enough to let them feel free to speak, they own a world of knowledge that has been tested, tried and true over a lifetime and how much easier life would be if we would listen for a change. Oh and baked potatoes too! I have to try the baked sweet potatoes in the ash box as well. Hey if it worked a hundred years ago, it has to work today right? So maybe we will get that stove we have spotted in town one of these days.

The weather has been fantastic. I am really enjoying the cool nights and the mornings are just beautiful. We had a problem with the hens. We were not getting many eggs and I worried there was a weasel in the hen house or maybe a snake grabbing up the eggs. I think however it may have been some low quality layer we got from TSC. We changed to the co-op and started getting eggs the next day. So I am thinking maybe the layer from TSC was not good quality. We have discovered as well that we need to check for small entrances into the attack from the outside of the house. I noticed my pecans were missing and I thought maybe Chris was just doing some extra snacking. Now a half a crock is gone and we are discovering hulls about the house. You would think with 9 cats we would not have mice. But in the attack I think is a bit more than mice. LOL I can hear them running around at night and I think it is squirrels. Nuts are rolling around and the scampering of little feet sounds too big for mice. So we will need to get that taken care of soon.

Someone took out our mailbox post yesterday and it almost looks intentional. We got home and the mailbox was halfway up the driveway and the bottom of the post in the driveway. But the beautiful swirly indented post is missing. I want to think it was an accident and maybe Chris will locate the rest of the post in the daylight today, however, I have my doubts. People never surprise me anymore. There is little respect for others in this world and a lot of uncaring.

The root cellar has been a puzzle for us and that is what is taking so long to fix it. I have heard many ideas on what we can do and the only one I have ruled out completely is to rip it out and make a new one. I want to leave that 100 year old cellar as it was when it was first put there, as much as possible. The concrete has some cracks in it but I think some concrete and sealer would work OK. It needs a top which I intend to just make a dirt mound over it. Our plan is to mend the cracks, seal it all, put some posts inside for stability for the roof so the mound of dirt and roof will not be resting on the 100 year old concrete walls, build a strong roof over it and cover it all with a mound of dirt. We also plan to use our blocks and concrete in the window area. The man who grew up there said it was a root cellar with a small washroom built on top of it where his mother did her laundry. I plan to use it for a root cellar, and a storm shelter and strongly feel I would prefer a mound of dirt over the cellar instead of a building on top. We sill block in that window and then try to find a good heavy door for the entry. I think we may use the cedar poles we had on the porch to put in the corners and one in the middle to support the roof and keep the roof off the weak concrete walls. So that project begins this week and we will see how it goes. I will be making a post solely for the root cellar with pics later this week.

I will also be putting pictures up later on today and tomorrow.