Holiday Season

Holiday Season

The past few months have gone by so quickly. We finished our living room walls finally. Mostly. We are about a pallet shy of being done completely. I love it. The wood makes it look so warm and cozy and inviting. We put up the Christmas tree and lights, and the living room just glows with Christmas spirit.

I had a really good Thanksgiving this year. We had turkey with his mom and family, and then we smoked our own that weekend. Well Paul smoked it. Well the smoker smoked it and I watched over it while Paul worked. But anyways. It was delicious. I am however, just about sick of turkey. I am so over it. I can’t wait till Christmas and we get a chance to eat ham for a change.

Our “barn” kitties have turned into “porch” kitties. They basically sit on the porch and try to get into our house all day. I am hoping they will grow out of it. We have to lock them in the barn tack room at night so they don’t freeze to death. They are that dumb. They have adorable winter coats coming in, they are so fluffy and fat. All they do it eat. We only feed them in the barn, so they follow us to the barn, eat, and then come right back to the porch. UHG.

We discovered that the one is a pretty good mouser. We accidentally caught a mouse in our nearly empty dog food tub. So we took it outside to see if the cats would be worth anything. Tux (the black and white little boy) grabbed it up and took off with it. I was impressed.

I am hoping they will grow out of the porch thing once they get bigger and braver about exploring the rest of the farm.

Our dog in her nightly spot. As soon as he gets home she is on the
back of the couch on his shoulder. 

I planted my garlic earlier in November. I needed to put it on the south side of my house, and we don’t have flower beds on that side, and the yard is just tough grass, and I don’t have a tiller available to me just yet. So what did I do…. Another trusty pallet to the rescue. I laid a tarp under the pallet. Filled it with dirt, and planted my garlic in between the wood slats. I really have no idea if this is going to work or if it will come up in the spring. We’ll see.

This is actually been the best holiday
season for me.
But this made me laugh

I remember when my family first moved to Oklahoma, we moved onto my great Aunt’s farm. She had garlic in the flower beds. She showed us how to can it that summer. Our house smelled like garlic all summer. But kept the mosquitos down I think. 

All in all I am in love with the new house. The propane heater keeps the living room toasty in the evenings, and the electric heat keeps the bedroom suffocatingly (hows's that for a scrabble word mom?) hot at night (working on a fix for that). The drive to work is only about 15 minutes longer, but it doesn't really take that much more gas. We are looking to get a 4 wheel drive vehicle for the snow and to use around the farm. This winter we are just going to have to risk it. I'm hoping for a good blizzard so I can stay home a few days. 

Even better than I pictured

Even better than I pictured

You ever have those ideas that seem kind of crazy, and people doubt you, and then you start to think it might be a really crazy idea, and you start to doubt yourself? Well, I have gone through this whole process with my living room walls. Before we even moved in, about a month ago, I decided I wanted to do a wainscoting of pallets on the bottom half of my living room walls. Pallets are free, I love the rustic look of them, and it would be so much less boring than painting my living room. In that month I have doubted it several times. I have tried to come up with fancier ideas (fancier = money we don’t have to waste). I decided cedar planks would be so much more amazing, and my lowly pallets wouldn’t cut it.

Looks gross huh

Luckily Paul kept me on track. He didn’t doubt me once. He tracked down pallets (remember when he tied them on top of Wonder Car?) and last weekend we had finally collected enough to start on a few walls. The only thing he worried about, was the old ones were cool, but a lot of the wood falls apart when you start sawing at them. They are much more fragile. And the new wood, was easier to work with, but didn’t have the same charm. Luckily I had the solution. I had found the recipe for aging wood on Pintrest, but pintrest has let me down before, so I was doubtful. But we forged ahead anyway. 

You can see them darkening here.
Ones on the left are just done, one
on the right haven't been yet

The recipe I found called for Apple Cider Vinegar, steel wool and a bucket. Let the steel wool soak in the vinegar for a while (I went with overnight). I started putting the mixture on the next day, but it didn’t seem to be aging the wood. I was worried I had messed up, so I got back online. I found a different recipe where they first rubbed coffee or tea on the wood, let it dry, and then applied the vinegar. I’m not that patient, so I dumped coffee grounds into my mixture, and applied again.

 

This is the same pallet as before
Just an hour later. 

Can I just say I am SO IMPRESSED? It worked. My new pine looking pallets, were darkening before my very eyes. And after they dried the smell of vinegar was completely gone. Paul then took the sawzall to them and began cutting the nails to separate the planks. There is a trick to this as well. The saw will cut through the nails easy enough, but it kills the battery MUCH faster if it has to saw through any wood. (Yes a corded sawzall is on our Christmas list). So we took a hammer, and banged on the back of the planks a bit to loosen them. Not too hard, but enough to separate the wood from each other. Then the saw can get in there and slice through the nails.

We have quite the system going now, and I can’t wait to get the rest of the walls finished. We finished one full wall this weekend, and the rest will go up easy enough now that we have a system and an unlimited free supply of pallets (I talked to my maintenance guy at work. They just throw theirs away, and get a ton each month).

See how dark they ended up.
And yes I helped. 

My walls are AMAZING. They turned out so much better than I expected. Mom was worried about my living room being too beige. But the aged pallet wood adds so much warmth. I love it. I told Paul when all our friends see it, they will want it in their house. We will have to charge money to do it, because while it is amazing, it is labor intensive. Which makes it so much better. We are fitting each piece together exactly where it fits best. We have picked out each crooked piece and fit them together with love. So much better than cookie cutter box store wainscoting. 

There is our cute wood stove too. 

We also built a pantry this weekend. I had one from a pallet Paul had made me about a year ago, and we came across one that was the same size for a second one. Add a few shelves, and they are perfect for holding cans. I think we should go into business building these kinds of things. Or maybe I am the only one obsessed. I don’t know. 

My two favorite men

My two favorite men

Ta Da. Super cheap, functional, doggie door

I am spoiled, apparently. My mom pointed this out a few weekends ago. Let me explain. For pretty much my entire life, mom, my sister, and I have been coming up with crazy projects that we need my dad’s help with. From moving furniture to fixing cars. My dad has always found a way to make it happen. 

Once Sis and I lived 4 hours from my parents. Alone in a town, just the two of us. It snowed FEET and sis called mom complaining we were woefully unprepared. We had run out of junk food. Dad called his co-worker who was in town, who had a truck, and asked him to deliver goodies to our house. Even from 4 hours away he saved the day. Once when I had a flat tire on the side of a highway 3 hours from home. Dad called the highway patrol to come change it for me. No matter how crazy, or how impossible it seems, he just always finds a way to take care of us. 

My sister and I have absolute faith that our daddy hung the moon, and he can do anything. And after 26 years, we have yet to be proven wrong. 

 I have put this to the test several times over the past few weeks. Each idea for the house has just been done. My dad, with Paul’s help, have just somehow made it work. As they patiently listen to us explain our ideas, giving us the look that says no way this is going to work, and then working away at it until it happens.

I explain all of this, because the next man in my life (Paul) had very big shoes to fill. I am spoiled. My sister’s future husband, poor guy, will have to be near superhuman. And so far, Paul has done pretty well. Each idea I have come up with, he just does it, and somehow makes it work. Do you know how CRAZY I was to send him after carpet in a grand prix? Last week I explained that to save money I didn’t want to buy a $100 prefab doggie door. I explained to him we could make one. And he gave me this look as I explained how we would cut a hole in our door, screw an auto mat to each side. Seal the insides with weather trim. I mean, it said on pintrest it could be done, so I believed he would just figure it out.

Can I have my cookie now? 

Penny took a little
 more coaxing.
But she got it.

And once again, I have been proven right. It has been proven that my Paul can also do anything. Yesterday, in desperation with our fly problem (caused by leaving the back door open for the dogs) he installed my homemade doggie door. Took maybe a half hour. We still need to get the weather stripping to make the hole in our door air tight against the cold (“Winter is coming”). But I think it is AMAZING. And it only took one dog cookie to convince the dogs it is AMAZING.

So Dad, thank you for never letting me down. Even if my ideas were only half thought out. Thank you for driving 8 hours nearly every weekend to help us. Thank you for coming out this weekend to put my carpet down, even though your back hurts and you will be supervising as Paul and I crawl around on the floor this time. 

And Paul, thank you for taking care of me these days, when my dad is too far away to rescue me. 

My two favorite guys. 

Snakes, Spiders and Flies, Oh my!

Snakes, Spiders and Flies, Oh my!

See those black spots.... Flies. All of them. Everywhere.
And see the UGLY kitchen wallpaper. It is on the list to get rid of
It's also in the bedroom. UHG. 

I have forgotten how many bugs are in the country. And I feel like this place has double its share. The grass and weeds were halfway up the side of the house, so the bugs had plenty of room to take over. The house is swarming with flies. We finally got screens up for when we open the windows on the warm afternoons. But we still haven’t gotten the doggie door put in for my dogs. So we have been leaving the back door open for them to come and go outside as they please. Unfortunately, this has been letting the flies in and out as well. Well mostly in. I don’t think any are leaving. Paul walks around at night and swats them with a kitchen towel. Why not get a fly swatter you ask? Because the local dollar store is sold out, and if I go into Wal-mart for just a fly swatter, I will come out with $50 of other unneeded stuff. 

Apparently there was an incident with a dog sized spider the other day while I was at work. Penny tried to grab the very large “tarantula” scurrying across the floor. Paul grabbed her away, got the spider killing spray, and apparently the spider proceeded to laugh at him, grab the spray can, and carry it away under the stove. Apparently. I wasn’t there to witness said incident, but that is how Paul tells it. I am just lucky he didn’t get the 12 gauge out and blast it away. So there may or may not be a mutant size spider lurking in my house. (That’s right Mom. I hope you sleep easy this weekend while you are staying with me).

Let's play spot the snake lol. Can you pick it out? 

That just leaves the snakes. We found the very large, and very fresh snake skin in our barn about a week before we moved in. Paul assured me the snakes would leave when it got cold. We finally decided it was cold enough, I moved the kittens out to the tack room in the barn so they can get used to being outside. And yesterday we found big and nasty’s baby in our flower beds. EWWWWWW. Paul promises it wasn’t poisonous, but his “snake expertise” is losing credibility with me… fast. We didn’t kill it. We are hoping it will eat some of the very poisonous spiders that hang out there as well. Brown Recluses. They are ALL over outside.

So confession. I am very much against the use of pesticides and poison in and around the house. I know how bad it is for the environment and people. With that being said. I also know how bad carpenter ants (they have been eating the walls of the house, or so my dad says) and brown recluses are for our health as well. The landlord is scheduling a bug guy to come spray the outside of the house. The winter will help kill off some of the bugs. And then we’ll have chickens in the spring. But I would like a mostly bug free house someday.

The kittens are adjusting to barn life VERY well. They are racing around the closed in tack room as I type. I will leave them shut in and safe for a few weeks. I want to make sure they know this is home.

Other updates. My bathroom is about near finished. Living room carpet goes in this weekend. Wood stove goes in, eventually. And yeah. Lots to do, lots done. I am sealing a roof with tar this afternoon. Or at least making sure Paul doesn’t fall off the ladder. Or at least driving him to the hospital if he does. I’ll let you know how that goes. 

Not sure if the picture is crooked or the floor. It does kind of slant
on that end of the house. 

Wonder Car

Wonder Car

It is a well realized fact in out here, that we need a truck. There are just too many things to do that require more space than either of our cars have. We need a truck before I can start getting chickens or goats, we need a truck to just finish this remodel. We need a truck to haul away all of the junk and trash in our barn.

Other truck jobs the Wonder Car has done this month

With that being said, our little Grand Prix has had quite the adventure the past few months. I have nicknamed it Wonder Car. It started out as my sister’s car. And she always claimed it was part jeep, off-roading, taking on mailboxes, and running down turkeys in the broad daylight. It made no sense for her to take it to Japan with her, so we bought it from her. Speaking of which I think I still owe her a payment or two, oops. (We are cool about loaning, borrowing, and/or paying back money in my family).

It started yesterday, when I saw an ad for free carpet. It came from a pet free very nice house, was the PERFECT size for my living room, right color, and did I mention FREE. I called Paul and immediately begged him to go check it out. The people had thrown it in their driveway and left for work. It was first come, first get it.

So he zoomed down the road trying to beat whoever else may have seen this ad. He called to borrow a truck on the way, but no luck. So he gets to this house, and there is this enormous pile of carpet in front of this guys house. It wasn’t even rolled. He stretched it out and had a 17 by 20 foot piece of carpet. And 10 feet of space from dashboard to trunk in the Wonder Car.  

I wish I had been a fly on the wall to see how he loaded up this carpet. Apparently he folded it in half, rolled it, shoved it, jacked it up with a car jack to keep it from folding, bungie tied it, backed it into a house to push it further in, got on his back and pushed with his arms and legs and got run burn all up and down his arms. It took him an HOUR to load this carpet, all by himself. The roll was so big he couldn’t get his arms around it. It was so heavy that when I helped him unload it, I am convinced he must have super strength. I have no clue how he actually managed it.

We offloaded it into our covered utility trailer in the front yard. I have NO clue how we are going to get it in the house. I think it weighs a couple hundred pounds at least. But the point is, I have free carpet. It’s nice. And totally worth it (well I think it is worth is. Paul may have a different opinion). And our Wonder Car handled it like a champ. 

On a side note, Penny and I are over living in a construction zone. It will be another week before Dad can come back and help us install the carpet. And there are so many tools. And stuff. Everywhere. No clue where we put all of this stuff in the apartment. It just doesn't seem to fit in this house right now.      

It looks Questionable to me

It looks Questionable to me

I think we are officially moved in. We slept in our new house for the first time last night. Most of my stuff is somewhere in the house, barn, or moving trailer. It took about 5 minutes just to find a pair of shoes to wear to work. I was more emotional leaving our apartment than I thought I would be. It was my home for 3 good years. And I am generally anti-change, even if it is for the better.

 

This, this right here is some questionable mattress hauling.
Good news, it made it.  

 

We really haven’t gotten to start on any of the fun stuff yet. We are still lugging boxes around, with far too many little projects to get done, before we can start on any farm improvements. Paul is going to build me a clothesline in the interest of keeping our electric bill low. For jeans and blankets and the stuff I usually have to dry twice in my little old dryer.

My wonderful dad laid my bedroom carpet, so the bedroom is done, except for paint. It is such a nice fluffy carpet. I love it. We were going to get the guys at the hardware store to do it. But they were going to be such a pain about it. They wouldn’t just take our measurements, and they wouldn’t let us use cheap carpet pad. (Yes, I am aware the pad is cheap. Yes, I am aware it won’t last very long. Are you aware I am on a budget, and just want something cheap and clean right now?

I also got him to do a few other projects. We are going with a coastal or beach or something theme in our bedroom and bathroom. So I opted for rope pulls instead of the previous brass ugly cabinet pulls in the bathroom. He drilled out the holes for the ropes. I don’t have any “finished” product photos yet, well, because nothing is currently finished. There is stuff everywhere. My mom organized my kitchen this weekend. The layout of it is a little weird because the fridge doesn’t fit in the fridge hole. So it is kind of taking up a lot of space right now.

Sassy

Sissy

OH yeah, best news. We got the first new additions to our farm this weekend. Two barn kitties. My mom decided on the names Sissy and Sassy. Right now they are too little for the barn so they are going to be spending a month or so inside. We have seen the snake skins in the barn, so they would be his lunch easy. Paul says the snake will leave as it gets colder. Fingers crossed. 

I chose females because they will have to be fixed, and fixed males just get fat and lazy. And the females are the best mousers anyways. They will probably be mostly outside cats. To keep the mouse population down. With that being said, one of our first projects will be a doggie door into the kennel for our dogs. So I am assuming the cats will meander in eventually on cold nights. 

We watched the lunar eclipse last night on our front porch. We decided it was a good sign on our very first night there. It was amazing. You can see the stars so clearly out in the country. I didn’t bother to try and take an awful cell phone picture. Those never come out looking good. All in all a very good weekend. All in all this will be a good home too. 

Big girl job

Big girl job

My whole adult life I have wanted to get a “Big Girl Job.” I wanted my own office, and benefits, and a place I could get dressed up to go. But with this move, this suddenly seems so unappealing to me. I am beginning to resent my job, because I could be at my little farm working.

As of right now we have nearly finished putting the walls up. Sorta. My bedroom still needs drywall, and the some of the plywood for the living room walls hasn’t even been cut yet. We still don’t have our carpet bought, nor do we have someone to install it. We HAVE to move in this weekend, so we will probably be doing the carpet after we move in. Which involves moving a lot of stuff around.

The good, but bad news is, Paul’s company is closing for a week in October. Apparently they do this a couple times a year to install and maintain equipment. Bad news is, no pay. Good news is, he’ll have time for all of the projects we haven’t gotten to just yet. I plan on keeping him very very busy that week.

Parker, the large white moose, and Penny my neurotic heeler.
Don't they just look at home on the couch? 

I don’t have any pictures of our progress because, well I am usually too busy doing stuff. I think that makes me a bad blogger already.

We took our dogs out there the other night. I thought they would be so happy to play in the new bigger yard Mom and I built. No. They looked at us out the window while we worked on the porch. I kept telling them to go play and be dogs, but apparently they missed their couch. Towards the end of the night there was even crying involved. Them, not me, mostly.

I’m sure it doesn’t help the place smells like a construction zone, and not home. It’ll will take some adjusting for all of us. 

Almost carpet-less Acres

Almost Carpet-less Acres

This weekend I made a choice. A very grown up choice if you ask me. When we first went out to the house, got the electric on, and started cleaning up, we had a plan. I was going to paint, and replace the carpet in the living room and hall way. This is a good house, just needed some cosmetic help. Then came the brilliant idea to tear out the carpet in the bedroom, and well you, know how that turned out.

So in order to properly seal my house against rain, wind, and critters of the night, I had to give up replacing my carpet right away. I see plywood sub floors for a few months in my future. I am okay with it. My master bath with the large Jacuzzi tub will be completely done by the time we move in. It just needed some paint and a deep cleaning. My plan is to hide from the construction zone in my tub.

Good news is, the lady we are renting/going to buy from is pitching in for the carpet. The arrangement is, we do the work and she is going to take it off of our rent. But that was before we realized just how much upfront money we were going to need. So I get to go carpet shopping this week, and see if I can have it installed before we move in. Nothing like waiting till the last second. 

Another issue in this house is electric. When we went to get it turned on they told us the highest bill was $375 for a month in the middle of the winter. WTF man WTF. I pay $100 for my apartment. 

There is no way I am paying that much more. So our highest priority was to get a wood stove. Paul and I found an adorable one for $100. I have tile in the barn that I am going to lay out under the stove and behind it on the wall. We are sealing every crack we can find in an effort to make this leaky ship, air tight. Because “winter is coming.”

Our electric company has a cool feature. They text me every day to tell me what the prior day’s usage was. I LOVE this. I can micromanage every kilowatt we use now. And as you will soon find out, I like to plan and know. Not that my plans ever work out the way I would expect. But the act of planning relaxes me. It’s like a hobby. And even if it requires sleeping in the living room next to my woodstove, we will NOT have a $400 electric bill EVER.

I am just so ready for country living. We officially move in this weekend, and I can’t seem to tear myself away from blogs about all aspects of homesteading and farming. I can’t wait to have a tractor, and pigs, and chickens. I want to buy seeds and start my garden right away, but I don’t know what to plant when. There is so much to learn, and I just want to get started. My, sitting in an office, job holds less appeal than ever as I learn more and more about the daily chores I could be doing on my own little farm. 

Fence Building and Leaky Walls

Fence Building and Leaky Walls

My fiance, Paul and I have spent 3 years dreaming in a tiny little apartment, of having a farm someday. And that time has finally come. I wanted to start a blog to share the stories of trial and errors I am sure to come.

The walls of our small apartment home have shrunk exceedingly fast in the past year, since the addition of our moose size dog, Parker. He is the range of 80 pounds and about a year old. Every time I leave the house for an extended amount of time, he grows, I swear. But dogs are about the only thing that grow at this dysfunctional, north-facing, plant hating, abode. I want a garden so badly. My potted attempt in the only sunny spot near my house was a failure. I think I got 3 peppers. The neighbor kids stole the rest. Dang heathens. And don’t even get me started on neighbors.

I am not particularly a people person. While I find the antics of our neighbors amusing sometimes, it doesn’t make up for the waterbeds flooding our downstairs apartment, or the knocks on the door at any hour of the night. Paul is an uber people person (is that a thing? It is now). He can’t walk out the door without being accosted by some person, wanting some thing. I won’t miss that when I leave.

This place has been good. It was our first home together. I am almost, almost, almost sad to leave. But I am excited for the new adventures to come.

 The new place is a 3 bedroom mobile home on a concrete foundation (it makes me feel good to point out the foundation. It makes it more home and less mobile). There are 5 fenced acres, a barn, and a small tool shed. Did I mention the porch? It has a HUGE porch with a lovely tin roof. I can’t wait for the first rain storm, provided we get the multitude of leaks fixed.

Speaking of leaks… The disaster inside our bedroom wall was discovered simply because I decided I wanted to go ahead and remove the hideous purple carpet. All of the carpets were purple, and nasty. So my finance and wonderful father begrudgingly agreed and ripped it up. That is when we discovered the very soft spot in the floor. And then the very soft spot in the wall. 1 hour later all of the drywall was off the wall and several boards inside had been rotted through. There is a leak somewhere on that wall and I don’t care if we have to use 20 cans of caulk, we will seal the whole dang inside of the wall if need be.  

 While the boys rebuilt and patched the wall and floor, my mom and I built a fence. We told my brother that on the phone and assumed we meant we watched while Paul and Dad did the work. No. My mom and I did all of the work. We extended the current dog kennel that was outside. My mom drove T-Posts (I was so impressed). I dug a misaligned ditch for the fence panel to sit down into. (Lesson #1, if you are going to take the time to dig a ditch for your fence to sit in, set the fence panel up, and then paint or mark the line somehow. Don’t just guess.)

Then we wired the cattle panel to the new posts and, voila. My dog kennel is now twice as big. My moose and puppy dog are going to be so happy. And do you know how much this fence cost me? Nothing. The cattle panel and t-posts were found in the barn. Which is good, because repairs on the house ran much higher than we were hoping. Hence the name, Penniless Acres…