Mellow Day

We stayed last night at the Bush seniors, and have enjoyed having the computer to research directions and store hours and craigslist and such.

Phil met with the electrical guy this morning. We are hoping to get our bush hogging neighbor Butch to trench the electrical line from the box to our homestead site. That will cut the cost from $8.17 a foot, which adds up QUICKLY. (The wire will still cost about $2/ft, but that is more reasonable.) He has to get a permit even for a temporary power box, so that is a bit disappointing for him, but okay. It will probably be about two weeks or so until we have electricity.

The health department well guy said he needs a week or less for the permit; the well driller will need a week or two after that to drill. So we should have water in about two or three weeks.

He is meeting right now with the bulldozer dude, who will make our driveway and clear the pads for the two trailers (and hopefully for a trampoline for when the house sells). The bulldozer dude said that he thinks he can be done on Monday. Then our trailers will come on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, and we'll have a solid-sided, weather impermeable house. Yay!

Phil will be back in Colorado from Tuesday through the following Thursday night. We haven't heard anything from our agent since we went back on the market; the first two weeks are the most important when on the market, so I try not to panic.

We are hoping tomorrow to buy grass seeds and a broadcaster, so we can seed down our acreage and get good grass growing. I've looked at goats and pigs online; we'd like both soon, so maybe we will find fencing and such, and maybe we can get them while Phil is away. Once the trailers are in place, I hope to start the lasagna garden: we'll have plenty of boxes from unpacking, and our neighbor Butch will give/sell us hay when we need it. Maybe I'll bring in leaf mulch from the forest. We'll see how that works.

Maybe on Sunday we'll go to Scottsville Baptist Church, where Lottie Moon attended 100 years ago.

And Tuesday the boys and I will head to Richmond for the Sonlight Forums Central Virginia Pool Party. There'll be almost 100 people there. I'll hit Costco on the way back, I think, to stock up on tuna, raisins, peanut butter and such. Maybe diapers; I tried to do cloth, but I gave up. It's the one thing too much right now.

Hooray! and Oh No!

Good and bad: we got the land bush hogged and we killed the neighbor's dog.

We got to the land yesterday and experienced a true Virginia downpour. I thought I was in the shower--I could wring water from my hair, my clothes. We couldn't even see the other end of the property. I made eggs in the rain and they were very watery! Good thing rain is good water.

We went to the County Fair in the evening, and although they had prices posted, it was free. I'm guessing because of the rain, they wanted people to come by any means possible. We met Master Naturalists and the local Beekeepers, which was VERY cool. I am excited to start, hopefully next winter. We saw the few animals and the few vegetables, and had a really fun time. A real high--the boys talked about what they would do next year, and Isaiah asked the beekeeper three good questions. Good for him!

I am 30 1/2 today. I was up many hours in the night, praying and thinking. I don't think it was terribly productive, and I was grumpy in the morning.

We met our nice neighbor Butch, who we asked to bush hog the land. In about four hours, he took out all the large brambles, the 20 foot trees, and everything else. (Note the way the land looks after he's cut a swath compared to the growth he had to wrestle through!)


We can see clearly the contours of the land, which is very exciting, as we never have before. It is fairly hilly, but Phil said no more so than Joel Salatin's land. And wonderful that Butch was able to come today--he had considered either today or Saturday, which wouldn't have been as helpful for us.

When the bush hog man stopped to talk to Phil at the end and get paid (he had popped three hydraulic lines as he worked--bummer), the neighbor's free-running dog crawled under the bush hog for shade. Sadly, none of us realized he was still under there when the bush hog started again. It snapped the dog's back, so he wasn't in pain, but he died within a half hour. What do you say to the neighbor you've just met. "Hi, nice to meet you, sorry it's under such crummy circumstances"? Ugh.

Now we are at the Bush seniors for a little R&R. If we didn't have this, I don't know what we'd do.

More Progress

We are about to leave email territory for 24 hours or so. Quick update: we are back on the market, have a showing today, and I'm happy to be out of the house for that, forever (Lord willing).

We are getting good food from the Bessettes: a chicken, some eggs, some vegetables.

The electricity guy will come right before the well guy on Friday (he had a cancellation!), and we picked up our mail. It is good that we still have the CO physical address, because a surprising number of things need an address.

I didn't mean to sound devastated yesterday. We really are, overall, in good spirits. I had meant the "I didn't burst into tears" statement as a positive--I didn't lose control or sob! It's good!

All the little stuff is going so well--I will trust the Lord on the big thing.

Thankful for the Small Mercies

Today was a productive day, in many ways. Phil returned the trailer that the little car rolled on (two hours); we set up a bank account with a friendly bank that has been in business since 1872 (1 hour); we checked out the local grocery which had watermelon and bananas that I felt okay buying--they had NO organics section! (1/2 hour); we did laundry, I worked at our friends' house; we got the hammock and the cookstove set up on the land; we bought some camp chairs (they were normally $40 and we bought the last for for $25 each!), so now we can sit down outside.

Phil made it back yesterday from getting the well permit and he bought two construction trailers for good prices, so we will soon have storage and sleeping accomodations. There was one that he had hoped to buy a few months ago that was REALLY good, and it had sold, but the buyer never picked it up, so we got it after all! Awesome! Provided we get enough of the brush cut down (whether from Phil scything or a bush hog machine cutting down the brush), we should have all of that set on Friday, and the trailers delivered next week.

I didn't burst into tears when almost all our meat went bad (it is warmer at this time of year than when we were here in October, and it has been difficult to get ice), but tried to be thankful that we have some good stuff in our cooler.

I didn't burst into tears when Abraham's right eye swelled shut, just about, probably from a bug bite. Although he remains in good spirits, he LOOKS painful.

And I didn't burst into tears when our buyers walked away from our house today, ten days before closing, with no repercussions for them. I have wanted to get teary a few times, and even had to externally process, "Are we supposed to move back?" but that isn't the right option. And I can pull all my retirement now that I'm an independent contractor, so we can even live for several more months.

We were going to go with another agent, but she talked us into staying with her. It's good that she still has all the photos, so the promo stuff will look good, even though our house is empty and none-too-clean (we couldn't wipe out the tub after we'd packed all the towels, so the house is actually more filthy now than it ever has been), and she knows the history of the crazy buyers, so when people ask why the house fell out of contract, she can be diplomatic and honest. In the end, although we offered them $5K for their list of wishes, they wanted a new electrical panel and $5K towards asbestos remediation (they were willing to pay half--how generous), so that they could pop the top more easily. I'm sure they are happy today not to have such a large project ahead of them.

I don't honestly think we'll come out ahead in any way. Besides more months of mortgage payments, we have no staging, a dry/dead lawn (when they first came, the rains were yet falling), and a school year starting super soon. Typing that all makes me want to cry, because it seems so impossible. And I was so thrilled with what seemed like the right buyers at the right time withe a neat date, and a painfully low but agreeable price.

In retrospect, though, although I am sad, I have no regrets. If they wanted us to pay $15K toward their remodel, they should have written that in to the contract to begin with, and we would have said no.

We are staying one more night at the Zach Bushes. I am going to work on the Beam now, and am thankful that, once again, we have internet and electricity for the present.

Land Ho!

We reached the land yesterday around noon: cloudy, humid, and so green and lush! Ecstasy! Yay! Finally!

Unpacking when there is no place to unpack onto proved to be a challenge. Phil went to get equipment from the Bessettes (left there in October), and Cheri and I picked blackberries from the brambles. Yum! Phil drove Samson, the truck, to the camping site in the trees (good thing, since it was almost impossible to hike anywhere on the land--it is SO overgrown, due to a heavier than usual rainfall this year).

After we unloaded everything in the truck onto a tarp on the ground, the Zach Bushes showed up. Thankfully, because we were going to put the tent up on a slight slope. Zach suggested we just dig out the corner and make it more flat, which he and Phil did. I was so wiped at that point, I had thought of it but didn't suggest it.

Rachel Bush, wife of Zach, took me up the truck's trail and showed me all the poison ivy. Everywhere. It was almost unreal, but now at least I know what it looks like! And no reactions so far, and no chiggers from the blackberry picking, which Rachel said (privately, away from us yesterday), "If they don't get anything, it will be a miracle!" So I keep praying, because that would be very sad.

We hiked down to the creek with Cheri (Ken spent much of the afternoon in the A/C car with the boys, which was good because we have no chairs, and there is really no where to sit or rest, other than the tent). Then to dinner at the Bush Seniors, bless them, where we had a great evening. Back to the tent at 10:30, where we did a tick check on all the boys. That was an hour-long, brutal process. Jadon was extremely freaked by the few he had, and Abraham must have sat in tick paradise, as he had 30? 50? ticks in his underwear. We had left our clothes up at the car, and didn't want to drive the truck back to get new, so he slept in the nude, and whimpered much of the night.

It started to rain shortly after 11pm, and I think it rained much of the night. All our stuff was just loosely covered with a tarp, so I don't think that was too good for our possessions, but thankfully Phil is off purchasing a construction trailer or two, and a shipping container or two or three, right now, Lord willing.

The humidity was so high, Phil opened all the tent windows. Jadon woke up this morning, completely drenched, with a puddle under his mat. Apparently there was a little breeze that let water in his window. Oops.

Phil left at 8:30am to get his parents. And I was left with four boys on the land, with soaring temperatures (90?), no real paths, plenty of poison ivy, no way to cook, no books to read (all locked in the car). And the vague sense that there was something I should DO, but I had no idea what it was. How did I spend all my time in Boulder? I surely always felt busy! I pulled poison ivy until I have a VERY good idea of what it looks like. Goats would help eradicate, but I don't think we should wait for fencing to come in--I want that nasty stuff gone now.

So the morning felt aimless, but then Rachel Bush picked us up and brought us back to her house, where I am now.

It sounds epic, doesn't it? I think it is actually pretty fun, thanks to good friends helping us more than they know. Or maybe (definitely) it is true that we are given the grace we need when we need it, and not before.