I have found in my lifetime that fall is not just a season of changing colors of leaves, it is a season in which the biggest changes in my life happen. 2018 has proven this again.
The homestead of which I had such hopes is now gone and a new dream has taken its place. The woman whom I was doing the sweat equity deal with changed her mind and I would have to be out by the first of the year. A new home for my ever growing family needed to be found.
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| My front porch on the cabin |
I HATE moving.
Especially when your little farm has grown to be what mine is now. Moving is difficult in the extreme, takes a LOT of time and is always a pain the bazootie to complete. But it is almost over now. 4 more horse pens to take down, one more horse shade to dismantle, lumber to move and the garden tires to relocate to the new place.
Life is full of surprises and never turns out the way that you think it will. But I can see the fingerprints of God all over this move. I have gone from a rustic one room cabin that has no running water, to a cute 2 bedroom home, with a huge mud room for the pups, that has more usable land in 2 acres then the other had in 10. My days of dreaming of a GINORMOUS canning garden have now become a reality.Well at least when spring happens again!
When I made the deal on the cabin, there was this little home down the mountain below me that had these HUGE porches and I just drooled when I saw them. I actually thought, "Now why wasn't that home available BEFORE I made this deal?! I would have bought that!!!" And so through the 2 and 1/2 years I lived in the cabin, I watched as renter after renter when through that home and slowly but surely wore that little home down. They even removed the porches! (You could see the place from my front porch and I drove by it every day on my way to work!) By the time I finally confronted and figured out that this woman I had made the deal with on the cabin, was not serious and had no intention of actually selling the place, there was again, another renter in the place. And then, as if ordained, it happened.....the last renter left and the place sat empty.
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| The little home I coveted... |
One Sunday soon after, as I was late and preparing for church, I was in a VERY foul mood. I wanted to go to church, but I didn't want to go. Especially since I did not have enough water to bathe before I went. I argued with myself, argued with God. I was angry and pissed and to my shame, I might add, I flowered the air with choice words that would make a sailor blush. So giving up the trip to church, I went to fill the tank on the back of the truck so that I would be able to water horses, cats, dogs, chickens, myself and take a bath. I was NOT a happy girl, but lo and behold, on my way home, I was passing the little home and the gates were open. The owner was there fixing the place!
It took all of 3 seconds for the thought to enter my head! I stopped. Immediately. I probably scared the man and his wife out of 7 years of living since I hadn't yet showered, but I approached them, we talked and we made a deal. As I had been packing boxes since January, I was ready and the move begin immediately.
That was one and a half months ago. I, and my entire family is now at the new home, but there is still much work to do. Due to the stream of steady renters that preceded me, I find myself fixing and patching and painting and leveling and spackling and cleaning and cleaning and cleaning, for there is no way it will pass an appraisal at this time!
This place is indeed a mess, but I can see in my mind what it will be when I am done, and it has it's own well! Not a shared well, IT'S VERY OWN WELL!!! And so with the help of the original owner and his wife, who are just sweethearts, I have leveled floors, pulled out flooring and replaced the sub-floor, added outdoor light posts, replaced insulation and all this in between working a full time job and moving 8 horses, 5 dogs, 5 cats, 18 chickens, a duck and one very precious ringneck dove and an entire household of STUFF.
This is as close to heaven on earth as it gets. I can turn on a faucet and get cold OR hot running water. I can shower ANYTIME I feel like it. I can wash clothes without hauling water, wash dishes (by hand as the dishwasher still needs to be hooked up), without heating the water on the stove first. My horses have large pens where the arena will be, as I work on the barn. My dogs have run of the out of doors as the entire place is fenced properly and when tiring of the outside, they can come into their very own bedroom, (the mud room on the rear of the house). My kitty gang hangs in the master bedroom that has been cleaned top to bottom, painted and spiffed up and sleep on a down comforter that covers the end of the bed. They even have their own air conditioner as I work on getting the duct work up that the last renter tore out. Although we won't be using that air conditioning for the rest of the year, we will definitely be needing it for the heating, which is gas, efficient and clean! I am actually planning on putting in a gas burning fireplace so no more chopping wood for this girl! I will get to use a remote and have white girl fire whenever I want it! AND it has my little goat barn already built, you know, the one I did the blog about years ago? IT IS ALREADY HERE! One side for the chickens and one side for the goats!
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| Goat and chicken barn!!! |
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| The antique wrought iron fencing. Just waiting its turn to be set up! |
There is even a place for that orchard I wanted to put in and what with the well and all.....no problemo!
LOTS of work? You betcha! But with the sweat equity involved, I am getting quite the deal which means that I should, if I do this right, have this place paid off in SEVEN years! Even if it means that I must postpone my Disneyland trip for this year, I am perfectly content in doing so. Disneyland will be there next year unless California drops into the ocean, right?!?! And blessings like this don't happen every day.
They say God works in mysterious ways. Does not take a genius to figure out that if things had been just a little bit different with the water and all, I would have never been there to see the owner and make this deal. Sooooo..........?
Thank You, Father.
