Life on Providence Farm

The Move: Part 2

2012-01-29T15:59:00.000-08:00

If you're just joining me, I'd encourage you to read the post below first. That way you're caught up and aren't jumping into the story part way.

So here we were, selling our house and getting ready to move with no place to move to. We knew we were heading north, closer to my wife's family and her work, but we had no house at all. Sometime near the end of June, my mother-in-law was having lunch with a friend when a mutual acquaintance walked into the restaurant. The lady struck up a conversation with my MIL and her friend and was talking about how she and her husband were going to move the following year because their place was just too big for them now. Her husband's health made it difficult for him to keep the place up and there was just too much house. She proceeded to give more details about the house and property and my MIL said, "Well my daughter and son-in-law might be interested in that!" Fourth of July weekend rolls around and we head to the in-laws for the usual celebrations.

We were sitting down to lunch on Sunday and the phone rang. It was the lady from the restaurant wanting to know if we'd like to see the house. Evidently, my MIL had talked a bit more to her and found that the couple would be willing to move earlier than planned if they got a good offer. My MIL had evidently told the lady that we'd be in town over the fourth. So after lunch, we all piled into the van and headed down the road to see this place.

The couple that owned the house were very nice, answered all our questions, and let us look as much as we wanted. They didn't have a realtor but were willing to work with us if we wanted to make an offer. Frankly, it was the first house that even remotely met our requirements. It's 45 minutes for my wife to get to work on very good roads, and only five miles from my wife's parents. It's got two very usable acres. By that I mean the house isn't smack-dab in the middle... there's plenty of 'yard' for pasture, etc. It has a huge pole barn (56x65). The house itself has four bedrooms, three full baths and an incredible amount of closet and storage space for a house built in 1911. We were pretty sure this was it. We knew that it would need some serious updating, but the house and property were great.

So I met with our realtor and worked out an offer. Because the owners didn't have a realtor of their own, my realtor and I were going to have to present the offer to the couple ourselves. That was a little odd for me, but we did it. They wanted the night to think things over and would get back to us the next day. Well, later that evening we got a call saying they'd accepted our offer. We had a house!

Now the fun begins.

If you haven't purchased a house since the market tanked, you may not know what a miserable experience it's become. I'll try not to bog you down will all the gory details but I'll highlight just a few things that made me just about insane.

First, we applied for a USDA Rural loan. This is a government loan designed to get people to move to the country. You have to qualify in terms of income - not having too much(we just made it), and the property itself has to be in an approved area (something to do with population). We qualified on both counts and proceeded with the loan. I went to meet the loan officer one day and sign papers, my wife stopped by later after work. There are a lot of papers. Additionally, there are all the forms you have to provide showing all your assets and income, etc. After that day, I continued to get a phone call or email about every other day from the loan officer stating that she needed another form or wanted me to sign something else. What made this all difficult was that I didn't have my own computer or printer. It was in storage now because by this time we'd moved to Sheridan and were living with my sister-in-law. She didn't have a scanner, so I'd have to go over the my wife's folks' house to scan and send. The mortgage company was about a half-hour away. It got to the point with all the asking for paperwork that I began to say that I would draw the line at blood and tissue samples. They could not have that!

One fine day during all of this, I took the kids to a bookstore just for something to do. Now, I have to admit that all of this paperwork, the phone calls, inspections, appraisal, etc.... it was really making me crazy. My stress levels were very high and I wasn't handling it well. So we're at the bookstore and I'm feeling stressed that morning anyway when the cell phone rings. It's my loan officer telling me very matter-of-factly (and rather quickly without much explanation), now that we're several weeks into the loan process, that there is a new rule that just came into effect in the previous few weeks. It says you can't get the USDA loan if there's a barn on the property and we'd have to apply for a different loan. WHAT? Who buys property in the country that doesn't have a barn on it? I about came unglued. I didn't yell or get crazy, but I very politely told her that I couldn't talk about it right then and I'd have to call her back, goodbye. And I hung up. I was beside myself. The mortgage company looked into the rule a little more and found that it actually said that if there's a barn, the door to said barn cannot be bigger than 20' high. This is an effort to keep farmers from buying property on the loan and using the barn to store their tractors with which they make their living. Basically, the loan isn't to help people make money, but to buy a place to live.

The owner of the house went out and measure the barn door (12') and my realtor wrote a letter confirming this and we were good to go... or so we thought.

Our loan finally went from underwriting to the USDA for approval and funding. Then my wife got a phone call from the loan officer (she decided it would be better for my wife to tell me about this one). The USDA looked at our loan application and asked if we'd been turned down for a conventional loan. Well no, we hadn't. Hadn't even applied for one. Well they can't have this USDA loan unless they've been denied a conventional loan. NOW we had to apply for a different loan. What made me crazy is that underwriting should have caught that in the first place. The loan applications have a checklist of things to make sure of before you even apply. "Has applied for an been denied conventional loan." This happened about a week before we were due to close on the house. A new loan was applied for and granted. But our closing was going to be late, making both us and the owners nervous.

It all came out ok in the end, though and we were able to close. We would have to wait 15 days to take possession, but it would be ok.

On top of all this, during this time, our dog Toby died. He was staying with my in-laws while we were living with my wife's sister. He was doing ok, but had to stay in a kennel most of the time unless we went over and took him out. Before our move to our new town, I'd noticed that he was acting funny. There was a day or two where he would hardly walk and wasn't eating. He just wasn't himself. The vet thought it might be a sore back so we gave him some pain medicine. He improved very quickly and seemed to be fine. Nevertheless, I prayed that God would keep him alive during all the coming weeks at least until we got settled into our new home. A few weeks after we'd left our old house, Toby had another "spell" and I took him to the vet here. We had an MRI done and discovered that he had a tumor on his spleen. This isn't unusual in an older Golden Retriever and Toby was nine years old. It was really a life threatening situation as the tumor could burst at any time and he would die rather painfully and in considerable distress. So we decided that we'd have surgery to remove the tumor. The operation went well and they removed not one but two tumors. One the size of a grapefruit, the other the size of a baseball! I got to see Toby after the surgery when he was awake. He got up and came to see me as if to say, "Ok, dad, let's go home now." He needed to spend the night though, and so we left him there. A few hours later, however, the doctor called and said that Toby's heart, somewhat enlarged anyway, was having difficulty pumping. They thought that it was the size of his heart, coupled with the loss of blood and the shock of surgery. They were doing chest compressions but they couldn't get him back.

That was the hardest day of the summer. We had to wait to tell the kids because we were with family and it wasn't a good time. I felt such a sense of loss and disappointment. I had to drive and get away for awhile to compose myself. He was such a good dog. We had him cremated and will bury the ashes on our property sometime this spring.

Well, congratulations, you made it to the end. My next post will be about what happened after the closing until the day we were able to move in. The story isn't over yet!

Update: The Move

2012-01-19T06:08:00.000-08:00

It's time. I've been away too long and it's time to catch up. So here it is. I'm going to spend a post or three bringing you up to speed on my life the past eight months.

It begins with 'the move'. Our house had been on the market a year and a half. I was going nutty. I was in the process of deciding whether or not to put out a garden (since I hadn't the previous summer and lived to regret it) when, lo and behold, we got an acceptable offer on our house. It really happened pretty quickly. But we'd gotten a couple of less than acceptable offers before, so I was afraid to hope too much. Suddenly there was this offer contract with four names on it, and we'd sold our house. What followed was pretty typical... inspections, appraisal, insurance people stopping by. We had a couple of things to address from the inspection, but other than that, all was set and we were good to go. The buyers agreed to give us 14 days after closing to move.

I'd been packing things all along. We'd staged our house to sell it, and in doing so, we'd put a lot of things away and packed them up. Little did we know it'd be more than a year before we'd see them again. But now, packing began in earnest. I did a lot of it myself because my wife was working. Someone with more foresight would have taken the time to go through stuff and get rid of things BEFORE you pack it so you don't have to move as much. Not me. I didn't trust myself to get rid of things that my wife may or nay not want later, nor did I want to take the time. I was moving!

Our first snag, however, was that we didn't have a new home to move to. We'd looked and looked. By this time we were getting less and less picky and looking at just about anything that might have possibly worked for us. But everything we looked at had something significant wrong with it that made us decide against it. Either it was too small, too expensive, had some serious structural issue, didn't have enough property, had crazy high taxes, wasn't in a good location.... we just couldn't find "the place".

Fortunately, my wife's sister came to our rescue. She lives in the town we were moving to and said we could move in with her until we found a place. Her home is a large building 'downtown' in which she has her art studio and a large upstairs apartment. It was plenty big enough for us to live with her and make do. So the arrangements were made to store our belonging and keep up the search. This really was a blessing because it meant we didn't have to rent a house and end up moving twice. The apartment worked out really well. Wife and I had a bedroom to ourselves, the boys slept on a king sized bed in another room, while our daughter took a cot in the same room. My sister-in-law voluntarily slept on an air mattress in yet another room. We paid her something to help with utilities, but she never asked for it. Plus, she was able to eat with us on several occasions, which was a better meal than she would have fixed for herself!

Our belonging were to be stored in a warehouse in five large crates. U-haul has a business called U-box. You can get as many crates as you need (but the truck can only haul five at a time). The truck delivers them, you fill them up, lock them up, and the truck comes and hauls them either to the warehouse or your new home. In our case, they went to the warehouse for storage. When we were ready for them, they delivered them to the house and we unloaded. It was pretty amazing really.

Each crate could only hold 1500 pounds. Well, who knows how much their stuff weighs? The tow-motor that loads and unloads the crate had a scale on it and if the crate were overweight, you had to unpack and reload to fix the problem. The crates were delivered on a Thursday or Friday and I began to load. Then Saturday morning, some family and friends came by to help finish the job. The truck was scheduled to return the following Monday to pick them up. We left for our new hometown that day with the crates sitting in our driveway. I would have to return on Monday to be there just in case we had weight problems to deal with.

Remember how I said I hadn't gotten rid of much before packing? Yeah, that was my problem. Five crates weren't big enough. The were essentially quite full and I still had some stuff in the garage. Plan B: Rent a U-haul truck to drive back on Monday, load everything up, wait for the crates to go, then drive back to the new hometown and store the rest in a storage facility up here. As is usual with me, I overestimated on the size of the truck, but not by too much. My father-in-law came with me to help load up. I was pretty proud of myself, driving that big-ol' truck on the highway... I was pretty nervous. Of course, it would be one of the hottest days of the summer. But by dinnertime that evening, we were back and unloaded and the U-haul was back at the rental place. Oh, and the crates were all fine, none were overweight! I can't tell you how relieved I was. We had successfully left our old house and with two days to spare before the new owners really took possession.

We CLOSED!

2011-08-28T16:37:00.000-07:00

So much has happened in the past two months and I've not been able to post at all. But we found a house with 4 beds, 3 baths and two acres! It has a huge pole barn. It was built in 1919 and even comes with a wood pellet stove! I'm pretty excited. We won't get to take possession until the 17th of September, but we've waited this long....

I'll do my best to write more later about the whole miserable experience of buying a home in these United States at this point in history. But for now, let me just say, "I draw the line when they ask for blood and tissue samples."

Oh, and my blog may be getting a name change soon. More to come on that. In the meantime, I have chickens to plan for, and a garden to think about next year, and fruit trees to consider, and sheep or goats to wonder about (and the wife wants a guard llama. She likes how they look). Life's about to get very fun. I'll do my best to keep you in the loop. Maybe I'll even get my readership up to over 10!

Tomorrow we move!

2011-07-08T05:46:00.000-07:00

Moving day is fast approaching. Like, tomorrow! I'll take pictures and post them later (maybe way later). I don't know how long it will be before this ol' computer sees the light of day again, so my next post might not be for awhile.

I'm relatively certain that none of us have any clue what an 'adventure' we're in for, living with my sister-in-law, including her! But we did go look at a house last weekend. Funny thing, it wasn't on the market. You should have seen the people's faces when we came in and started poking into closets! Naw, they were expecting us. My MIL knew the lady and had heard they were thinking of moving. Then Sunday afternoon, the lady calls and wants to know if we want to come see the house. So we did. It would work really well for us.... 4 bed, 3 full baths, on 2 acres with a 60x65 pole building! We'll see what happens, our realtor was supposed to call them yesterday and chat with them.

If you think of us over the next several weeks, say a prayer for sanity and a house!

Thanks!

Closing day

2011-06-28T05:43:00.000-07:00

Today is the day. This morning the wife and I will go to a local bank and sign papers to close on the sale of our house!

In other news, we still don't have a house to move into in a couple of weeks. We looked at two others last Friday night, and I looked at three Monday morning. Potential? Yes. Beautiful property? Yes. But there are just things that make each one not the right one.

I think I mentioned that we'd made an offer and the people took the house off the market... Well, after looking Monday morning, our realtor (bless him) went to that house and talked with the owners. They're a little old couple that doesn't know squat about real estate (come to think of it, neither did their realtor). They have what's called a reverse mortgage and didn't do their homework before they put it on the market. They didn't know if they'd be able to sell the house and get any equity out of it. Plus, they had and assessment from 2007 that said the house was worth 200K. Ummm, no. Our realtor sat and talked with them for two hours and tried to help them out and give them some direction. He is calling some lenders to figure out the whole reverse mortgage thing and see if he can't help them. We may not get that house, but at least we know what really happened. Then again, we could end up getting it. They're a Christian couple and wanted Christians to get it...

In the meantime, we'll be living with my wife's sister in her uber-big apartment over her art studio. I'll have to find things for the kids to do... frequently. We're going to get the U-Boxes from U-haul and have all of our stuff stored until we're ready to put it in a house. THAT will be interesting not having our stuff for goodness-only-knows-how-long.

Aaah, I got the pictures to work.... Finally. That picture has nothing to do with anything, but I thought my blog was a little foto-anemic. Enjoy.

Updates and such

2011-06-22T06:10:00.000-07:00

Someone posted recently wanting to know how the pickled limes were that I wrote about some two years ago. I'm too lazy right now to find that post and link to it, but it's there somewhere down amongst all the other blog posts. Feel free to dig through the box for it, you'll find it.

Anyway, pickled limes: The were salty. My kids seemed to like them a lot though, which I guess is all that matters. But after several months taking up room in the fridge, I got rid of what was left. I suppose they just didn't like them enough.

We have a closing date on our house! We'll be signing papers and collecting money on the 28th at 10:00 a.m. Furthermore, we made an offer on a house yesterday. Details:

The house is bigger than the one we're in, though there are still only three bedrooms. Our boys will just have to learn to get along and share. What a pain, huh?! (snark). It's a brick ranch built in the 1978 on 1.4 acres. The flow of the house is good and it has a lot of potential to be really great (once the old folks living there get all collection of junk out). It has three small sheds, two of which can be used for chickens or perhaps even goats. I can't have a cow there, not enough room, but I could put some goats or sheep on it, for sure. Might even get the kids in 4-H. Garden space abounds and the kitchen is large.

Our offer was pretty low, so we're expecting a counter-offer. However, the other realtor is kinda ancient and doesn't even really use e-mail much, so I'm not sure how 'swift' he'll be about helping his clients get the best deal they can get. I could be wrong. We'll have to see. Our realtor is someone that I really think God led us to. He's a homeschooler, homesteader, Christian. He's a PK, like me, and we surprising have a lot in common. He's a nice guy and I think we could be friends after this. Matter of fact, after he and I went and looked at a house, he asked me to go with him to get something to eat. That was fun.

Meanwhile, I've been packing and packing and packing. Our church's VBS started last night, which I'm helping with. AND I've broken the 3 mile barrier in my running! Twice now I've topped 3 miles. I'm pretty excited. Wife bought me four new pair of shorts, size 36 - down from size 40 this time last year! Yeah, that feels good. My blood pressure was 113/67 this morning, too.

And now, just so this blog has some visuals to it, I offer the following: er... nope. Never mind. Can't get the pic to post. Sorry.

WD-40

2011-06-01T12:25:00.000-07:00

I was sitting outside today reading to my daughter and there was a fly that would not stop biting my legs. It was really driving me nuts. Then I thought about something I'd read in the past to keep flies away. I got up, went to the garage and lightly sprayed my legs with WD-40. I don't know if it's the smell, the taste, or the 'oiliness' that they don't like, but there was no fly bothering me after that.

I'm thinking that this could be put to good use on a cow or a horse to help relieve them of some of their summertime miseries. AND I've read that there's nothing in WD-40 that is harmful if swallowed. Pretty cool. So spray it on a rag or your hands and wipe it on your animal's face... or your legs and arms or wherever to keep the pesky flies away!

Househunting angst

2011-06-01T12:21:00.000-07:00

Well, this weekend we went to my in-laws and spent some time driving around looking at houses. No, we didn't go inside. We just drove by them. We had three in particular that we wanted to see, in order to tell if we wanted to see more. Ummm, no. For various reasons, all three failed the test. We have seen no homes yet.

Last summer we looked at several (when we thought selling our house would be easier) that would have been great. But this year it appears that there are just really not any out there for us... yet.

Of course, if it weren't for me and my crazy nonsense desired to have some land to homestead on, we'd have our pick of dozens of houses... seriously! Even ones that aren't in neighborhoods. But I'm not willing to give up my dream of a homestead just yet. So I'll just have to hang in there.

Our inspection went. It just went. There were a few things they want us to fix and we're going to get estimates before we agree to anything, but chances are good we'll end up doing it all. I was really put out with all they wanted, especially since most of it is in the detached garage and not the house at all. Wife takes a different spin and says, "If it'll sell the house then it's ok, right?!" Yeah. I guess. I must be turning into a tightwad in my 'old age'. I've found myself grumbling about bills here recently.

And so it happens

2011-05-19T10:10:00.000-07:00

It's amazing. Just about the time I begin to truly despair of selling our house. We had a showing last Friday morning. They came back that afternoon and we had an offer on Saturday. We countered on Sunday and (due to some insurance issues) we're finally getting a response today to our counter. They have accepted it and we are signing the paperwork TO SELL OUR HOUSE!!! I can't believe it. I'm not holding my breath... I haven't seen the paperwork yet and all, but still. I can almost feel the huge sigh of relief welling up inside me.

I know that the next few weeks will be crazy. We won't really start packing until inspections and appraisal are done, but then we have to find a place too (for which I've been praying the past four and a half years). On top of that, we have two more weeks of school to do and get out of the way. Heaven help me (and I'm burning out already anyway - NEED. TO. BE. DONE.)

So that's the excitement. If this is premature and it backfires on me... I don't know what I'll do. My wife may have to pick me up out of the corner where I'll be blubbering like an idiot.

And still I wait....

2011-05-05T06:36:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been an uneventfully eventful few weeks since I last posted. We had Easter, that was good. Spring came, then it went AWOL, but I think they found it and are forcing it back to town this weekend. We've been rained on like mad.... Oh, I don't remember if I mentioned it before, but I'm a runner now! Yeah, I started back in March. I'm up to about 2.5 miles or so now. I need to lose weight and get my blood pressure in order - it was creeping up on me. I can't say I love running, but it isn't so horrible as it used to be. It really helps clear my head and improves my mood.

Our house is still our house. There was a family that I was told would be making an offer. They have a family member who is gifting them the down payment, which in my opinion is a dangerous kind of situation to find yourself in. Too many strings attached to that sort of thing, you know. But anyway, we never got the offer. Come to find out, they had a tiff of some kind and the family member wouldn't give them the money. There's another family that lives quite literally just the next neighborhood to our south. It's a ritzy neighborhood, high priced. They want to downsize and have told our realtor that if they sell their house, they want to buy ours. Well, that's dandy, itn't it? (yes, I spelled 'itn't' on purpose). Problem. Their house is kind of expensive. It's only been on the market for about two months. It has a flat roof line, which doesn't sell well. So there we are.

We continue to have showings. We had one Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. However, on Monday, we got the house cleaned and staged and left for the showing. THEN the realtor calls and cancels. AAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH! I'm so sick of showings. I want my life back. They really do mess up an entire day. They usually want to come at mealtime so I can't have anything in the oven because I don't want to leave with the oven still on. If they come just after dinner, we usually have to go out to eat anyway because it makes a mess and clean up is a big issue. (I know, I know... excuses). I just want my life back, that's all I'm saying.

In other news. I'm contemplating a trip to Poland this summer. There's a mission organisation that does family English camps where people come to brush up on their English. However, it's very Christian in approach and uses the Bible as a 'textbook'. There are numerous opportunities to share the Gospel and lead people to a deeper understanding of Faith in Christ. BUT, I've gotta hurry. The trip is the end of June for about ten days and I don't even have a passport yet. That's on my agenda for the next day or two. Fast track if you please.

I suppose I'll be dragging out the ol' tiller and seeing if I can awaken the beast in order to work up my garden and plant something this year. I'm not making the same mistake this year that I made last year. I'll at least plan on having something to can and freeze from the garden, even if we sell the house before it's ready. Actually, that's probably the surest way to sell our house... plant a garden and not be able to harvest any of it, and plan a trip to Poland so I have to either move the week before I go, or immediately upon my return. Actually, that's brilliant! Why didn't I think of it sooner?

Well, that's about it. I need to go do school with the kids. More sometime.

We need to move, and other stuff

2011-03-21T13:32:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been 11 months and we're still here. My wife has taken a new job which will require her to drive to work everyday (rather than the two days a week she currently drives). It's about an hour and 20 one way. We need to move closer in a bad way, because that's gonna get old fast. We continue to have showings but no one makes an offer. It's quite frustrating to spend half a day staging and cleaning your house so someone can take ten minutes to walk through and say, "Meh, no thanks."

Recently I've been praying for some healing in my life about some pretty deep kind of stuff. I'm usually not one to observe Lent, but this year I felt like God was asking me to do something. So I gave up chocolate. You may not know me well at all, but I'm a serious chocoholic. Wife and I have a bag of Dove Dark in the cabinet at all times and usually eat two a day. Any ice cream I buy, cakes, etc... it's chocolate. So this is a serious thing. I'm thinking that doing so will allow me to better experience the richness and sweetness (like chocolate) of God's healing when it comes. Pray for me.

Further, I've decided I'm sick of being overweight and unhealthy. I've been walking (serious walking, not just taking the dog for a stroll). And I think I'm going to make the goal of running a mile by the end of summer. Yes, one mile. But, I'm 39 years old and have NEVER been able to do that. Not even in junior high when we had to do it for that cursed President's physical fitness test, which I'm convinced was designed by Nazi's to weed out the weak ones. I've also been doing push ups. I must say, that never having been one to really try, I'm appreciating the improvements I'm noticing already. Here's to being hopeful.

Otherwise, life goes on. We're on track with school and the kids, so we should finish up right around the end of May. I applied for a certificate of completion program from my Alma Mater so that I can be licensed as a counselor (long story, maybe some other time). I should know about that in the next month or so and would start in the fall.

Hope you're well. Thanks for looking in on my little corner of the world.

I am...

2011-02-06T13:59:00.000-08:00

Alive. Unmoved (meaning we haven't sold our house after 9 1/2 months). Doing better this winter than in years past (if it's going to be cold, at least it could snow... and voilas!). Still hoping that I'll be moved in time to order chicks this spring.

Just an update

2011-01-02T10:46:00.000-08:00

Wow, it's been a loooong time since I posted anything. But when there's not much to say, there's not much to post, right?

I didn't plant a garden this year because I thought, "Hey, we're moving... why plant something for someone else to either enjoy or neglect?" My bad. We're still here. Haven't moved. We've had a lot of showings in 8 1/2 months and had one serious offer. But it was such a low-ball offer it was insulting and we weren't able to work anything out. So we wait.

I've been doing homeschooling with the kids, knitting, reading.... just being me. I'm way over getting my hopes up about moving and have resigned myself to just knowing it will happen when it happens. I remember thinking last spring, "I'll go crazy if we're still here at Christmastime." Well, I didn't go nuts, exactly, but we are still here. Sigh.

Long Lost Blogger

2010-08-25T09:05:00.000-07:00

Hi, it's been about two months since I posted anything and that's probably because there's not a lot to post. Well, maybe that's not true:

We've been running amok this summer. Went on a family trip to Sawyer, MI, where we picked blueberries, swam in Lake Michigan, climbed the Dunes at Warren State Park, and spent time with family. I took the kids to the county fair, we spent a day at the State Fair (planned intentionally so that I could be sure and see the dairy cattle), took the kids fishing (once), went swimming and hiking at Shakamak State Park, spent a week with the in-laws during the 4th of July celebration, which was also the sesquicentennial of Sheridan, IN. We've been running about. My Niece is getting married this weekend, and my youngest will be the ring bearer.

With all of that, I managed to do some reading and math with the kids once in awhile. We started our school year here yesterday. I'm doing two curricula at a time now, and I was pretty worried about how I'd juggle it, but maybe it's not going to be as bad as I'd imagined. I could be worse! Lol.

On the home front.... we had a contingency offer at one point, but he wanted immediate possession and we weren't willing to give that, so it didn't go through. If the other guy sells his house and ours is still for sale, he may well come back with another offer. We had a showing about the middle of June, then didn't have another until July 29th. We've had a few more since then. The housing market, like everywhere, is just the pits right now. But it's picking up around here. We had a showing and found out that ours is in the top two of this couple that looked at it. She likes our house, he likes another. BUT one of their parents live on the next street over from us, so that may be a selling point. Hope to hear something soon.

Melora's job as a flight nurse is going well, but it's taking her away from home a lot, as it's easier for her to go to her parent's house between shifts than coming two hours home, just to turn around and go back. This is kind of a bummer for us, but it's only temporary. If we sell our house, and can't find what we're looking for in Sheridan or nearby, my sister-in-law has offered us her place. She lives in an upstairs apartment above her art studio. She's remodelling a front room as a master bedroom and all five of us could sleep in it! Her husband is stationed in Vermont for three years with the military and she said she'd just go be with him while we were there. Her mortgage is half what ours is now. That way we would have a place to go and not be so pressured to buy someplace that wasn't exactly what we wanted. We'd just have to put all our stuff in storage for a while. Not the optimal situation, but it's an option.

There was a place we had our eye on that met our criteria very well. Newer house, close to her parents, barn/pasture, land to spread out..... It got an offer and out from under us it went. Bummer.

So that's what's going on. Otherwise, I've been reading the works of James Herriot (Yorkshire Vet) and watching the series, "All Creatures Great and Small." Great stuff.

No News is... well, no news.

2010-06-14T06:49:00.000-07:00

Hi, I'm blogging on my wife's laptop, so no pics today. Sorry.

Our house is still for sale. Wanna buy it? Two weekends ago, we went up to my in-laws for a visit and met our realtor and looked at four different homes. Nope, not a one of 'em was 'right'.

Do you remember a couple of years ago when I blogged that I'd written a letter to the owner of a farmhouse and property, asking if it was for sale? It's here in my list somewhere.... check around October, 2008. Anyway, as we're looking at houses, I drive by this place again, as I've done numerous times. It's now for sale! Great, right?! No. I looked it up online. 89.3 acres for only (snark) 2.67 MILLION! That's 30K an acre. They're crazy. Land is expensive where we're looking, but not that high! I'm so disappointed. I feel like God pressed the 'smite' button on me or something. We looked in the windows... wow. Beautiful woodwork, but that's about all it's got going for it, besides good bones and seemingly newer electricity. Still, if it could be purchased cheaply, then the money could be spent on the house to make it livable. Sigh. I've been debating whether or not to write another letter to the man to see if he'd split the land or consider a deal or something. But I looked online yesterday on Realtor.com and it says it's no longer available. It hasn't been on the market much more than a few weeks, I'm sure. I'm thinking something has happened and they aren't going to sell it. Who knows. So, the hunt continues. Meanwhile, we've had one showing in the past three weeks.

In other news, I've been dying wool. Oh, just two skeins so far. I buy the wool yarn in cream at the store, then come home and have fun with Kool Aid! Yes, that magical drink from your childhood contains enough citric acid to work with the protein in the wool fibers to cause it to absorb and hold the food coloring in the drink! You start out with a pot of colored, fruity smelling water and when you're done, the water is clear! It's all been absorbed and bound to the yarn! Fun stuff. I'll try to post some pics of the process later on.

I also won four free tickets to and Indianapolis Indians game because I called in with the correct answer to a trivia question on a Saturday morning talk show from the University of Indianapolis. The host and guests were talking about a book of collected stories written by a woman from Baker's Corner, Indiana (she's now deceased) on the subject of growing up on a farm in the early 1900's. Yes, I might have to read this one. We happened to be in Sheridan at my in-law's at the time (5 miles down the road from Baker's Corner) and it was my FIL that suggested I might want to listen to the program. It was mildly interesting, but then the host asked the trivia question. He starts talking about a cabin in Sheridan's (Indiana) Veteran's Park that was the home of a man running from bounty hunters because, as an abolitionist, he'd helped several slaves escape. He wanted to know what this man's name was. I picked up the phone and called in. Of course, I don't know how many people were actually listening to the program, and of those, how many knew the answer.... probably me and one or two others (and that may be being generous). But I did, in fact know that it was George Boxley, the first settler of Adams Township, Hamilton County, Indiana. WHY do I know this bit of frivolous trivia? Because my Father-in-law was the president of the Sheridan Historical Society up until this year and was heavily involved in the restoration of the cabin! So now, I get to go to a Minor League baseball game for free! I don't really care for sports much, but a trip to an Indian's game is usually a lot of fun. The seats are closer to the field, play is faster than the Major's, there's always some kind of giveaway or sideline activity going on... it's just a good time.

Not having a garden this year is kind of a bummer. Not knowing when we'd be moving, I didn't plant anything. I'm either going to have to go to the local Amish Auction or a farmer's market and get some things to can, etc. We're running low. It's kinda sad really.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading!

On the Home front

2010-05-26T07:28:00.001-07:00

We've had 8 showings on our house now. I'm counting the open house this past weekend as one of em. Turn out was good, but our realtor says open houses rarely sell a house. What kills me is the 'joy lookers'. You know, the people that aren't serious about buying, they're just nosey. So we go to all the effort to clean and straighten and stage the house for someone to just come in and look around without any real hope of them buying.

I've realized that when we have a showing, my anxiety and stress level go up a lot. I get antsy, frustrated and really not nice. Then, once we leave the house, I crash and burn. I get really tired and need a nap. That's what emotional energy use will do for ya.

I'm trying like crazy to be patient and not get uptight. Not an easy thing for a man who's dreamt of moving to the country for the past two-plus years. But I've waited this long... what's another couple few months?

Odds and ends

2010-04-29T09:16:00.000-07:00

Hey ho.

Not much going on. We've had two showings on the house, but no takers. I'm not really surprised. My mother-in-law is on a serious quest now that we've decided to move back closer to my wife's hometown. My inlaws have called numerous times (and I mean NUMEROUS) with listings and homes they find when they're out driving. Problem is, they don't understand what we want. Yeah sure, the house is nice, but it's only on two acres! Oh sure, there's 39 acres for 400K.... can't afford it and don't need that much land. Sheesh. Added to this is the fact that they rarely give me enough information about the house to actually find it online and give it a look. But I continue to take down the information and be polite. I understand that they're excited and want to be helpful.

I should be doing some homeschooling right now, or making lunch, but I'm not (obviously). Spring comes and I lose all sense of drive to do school. The kids want to be outside playing and it gives me a reason to put off school for a few hours. I'll buckle down here soon and get it done.

I finished my mother-in-law's Wool Peddler's shawl. Gave it to her last weekend when we went for a visit. She loved it and wore it to church. Good thing, it was cold in there.

I sincerely hope we can sell our place soon and find our next home so I can manage to put out at least a small garden and get my chickens ordered and started.

Here are a couple of pictures of the Wool Peddler's Shawl:

Selling the house

2010-04-15T07:15:00.000-07:00

Well, we listed our house yesterday. It's kinda wierd and it produces a fairly generous amount of anxiety for me because now I have to keep the house 'hotel room' clean for goodness knows how long with three kids running around! It'll take awhile I imagine, unless God's just gonna be really good to us and send someone along right quick.

My wife has a new job with Lifeline as a flight nurse and she's going to be stationed in Lafayette, IN. She wants to move closer to her parents so she can be around to help out as they get older. So, we've been looking a lot online. The place near Anderson we looked at won't work for two reasons. 1)It's in Anderson and not nearer to Lafayette (it'd be about an hour and a half drive!), and 2) the appraisal of that house came back a lot higher than anyone thought it would.

So there's a little place in Sheridan we found that sits on 10 acres, has fruit trees already and could be really great. Problem is, the house has two small bedrooms and only 1.5 baths. We'd have to build on at some point, and it would require quite a change in lifestyle until then. But 10 acres! Wow. So we're gonna look at it next weekend.

I had originally thought about posting several longer posts about what I did last summer and all, but that's just crazy at this point. Needless to say, I did a lot of canning!

I've checked, and good for me, I will be able to order chicks way into the summer, so if we get moved by June or July (I hope), I'll still be able to have chickens this year! Call me crazy, but I can't wait!

I'm still knitting. I'm currently working on a shawl for my Mother-in-law. The pattern is called "The Wool Peddler's Shawl" from the book, Folk Shawls, by Cheryl Oberle.

Sheesh, I gotta get off of here and get started on school with the kids... More later.

OY VAY!

2010-03-20T16:17:00.000-07:00

It's been a LOOOOOOOONNNGGG time! What's happened? Well, Melora Graduated with her MA in Nursing Ed. from Indiana Wesleyan University in December (good to see ya Doug). She got a job as a flight nurse with Lifeline and is loving it. It's a major step up in her career.

The kids are growing, I nearly made it through the winter (it was a tough one for me), and now we're looking to move!!!

Melora is tentatively going to be stationed in Indianapolis at Methodist Hospital, but Lifeline is opening two more bases in Indiana, one in Muncie, so she could get transferred there.

Yes, I'm looking for my farm! We found one NW of Anderson out in the country, but I'm not gonna say too much at this point. The people are really great Christian people and have a very nice home/property. We're going to do an appraisal to see what it's worth, since the owners don't even know. We're hoping and praying still.

Our house will go on the market sometime in the next couple of weeks if I can get my butt in gear and get some things done.

I've done a lot of knitting this winter and actually finished six or seven projects. Still haven't finished the throw I started three years ago, and at this point, I'm not going to. I'm gonna frog it and use the yarn for something else. Perhaps I'll post some pics of some of my projects. Anyone on Ravelry? Hit me up!

I'll try not to wait too long to let you all know more of what's happening in our lives.

Thanks for being patient!

In which I learn to make cheese

2009-07-04T11:07:00.000-07:00

First of all, what am I doing blogging on the 4th of July? Well, I've already read the Declaration of Independence (and got teary eyed). But it's raining. Nought to do outside when it's raining. My wife is working days today and the kids are playing. What else is there to do but blog?

So, a couple of days ago, I went to my friend Alan's farm to chat with him for awhile and watch as he and his helper made Jack Cheese. It was a pretty cool process. They also made some Garlic and Herb Jack by adding the spices to the curds before pressing.

Here's a picture of the cheese tank. The whole milk is poured in here and the bacteria culture is added. The pole you see going down into the milk is an agitator that spins the milk. The 'smooshy' looking stuff around it is a bit of whipped butter. The little white globs are cheese curds. The milk is stirred and warmed to between 90 and 100 degrees (yes, this is raw-milk cheese). After awhile, the bacteria that has been added begins to grow and form the curds. It takes awhile to reach the right consistency. When the curds are just about right (a point it takes some time to learn) then Alan drains off about 1/3 of the whey and adds that much water back into the tank. The water helps to slow down the bacteria growth so they don't overshoot the 'right' moment for cheese making.

When the curd is 'finished', that is, it sticks a little, but will still fall apart from each other, all the whey is drained off. See the tool at the top of the picture? It's a pitchfork made of stainless steel, with tips that are bent into small loops. Alan says it was an expensive tool. It's used to keep the curds from forming a big sticky mass, as it's passed through them while the whey drains.

After that, some of the curds were moved to a stainless steel sink where spices were added. But eventually, all of the curds were packed into large plastic hoops, lined with cheesecloth. Tops are then put on and a weight is applied to the hoops. This presses all the curds together and makes a nice wheel of cheese. Because it is raw-milk cheese, it will age on a shelf for a minimum of two months.

Alan makes a variety of cheeses. He showed me three large wheels of Parmesan that were soaking in a brine bath (which gives the cheese a rind). He makes jack, cheddar, Swiss, feta, parm, and a variety of other 'farmstead' cheeses (like Hoosier Jalapeno, or Flora and Fauna). Listen, if you've never had real farmstead cheese, you don't know what you're missing. It's absolutely amazing! Here's a link to Alan's farm: The Swiss Connection

This whole process was started about 9:30 or so that morning. I left the farm around 4:00 in the afternoon and the wheels had just had weight applied to press them. Alan said he'd probably turn the wheels over once that evening, again the next morning, and perhaps one more time that afternoon. They would then go on the shelf for aging.

And what does he do with all the whey? Surely you don't imagine he'd throw it down the drain? No way! He has nine pigs that he's raising to butcher. He sells them as 'whey-fed pork'. Yep, they get all the whey they want twice a day. Oh, there are weeds in the lot with them, but they do quite well on whey.

Pickled Limes

2009-07-04T10:37:00.000-07:00

I found this book at our library. It's a revised edition of an older book. It's got it all. Pickle recipes using vinegar and brine. And we're not just talking cucumbers either.

I've never read the book"Little Women," but evidently one of the younger sisters begs her older sisters for some money to buy pickled limes. Here's what author, Linda Ziedrich, says about the limes:

In the West Indies, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, ripe limes were packed whole in sea water or fresh-made brine and shipped to northeastern U.S. ports in barrels. In 1838, according to the Royal Horticultural Society of Great Britain, there was "a fair demand in the New York market for pickled limes," but by the late nineteenth century pickled limes were invariably sent to Boston. There they were sold from glass jars on top of candy-store counters, and some families even bought them by the barrel. Because the import tariff for pickled limes was quite low - importers fought to keep them classed as neither fresh fruit nor pickle - children could buy them cheaply, often for a penny apiece. Kids chewed, sucked, and traded pickled limes at school (and not just a recess) for decades, making the limes the perennial bane of New England schoolteachers. Doctors tended to disapprove of the limes, too; in 1869 a Boston physician wrote that pickled limes were among the "unnatural and abominable" substances consumed by children with nutritional deficiencies. Parents, however, seemed generally content for children to indulge themselves in the pickled-lime habit. (p.77)

So to make them, the recipe says to take some Mexican, Key, or West Indian limes, as fresh and ripe as possible. Simply brine them in a mixture of 1 tablespoon of pickling salt per cup of water. Put them in a jar, cover them with the brine, and let them sit for 3 weeks in the refrigerator.

Remember, these aren't the big lemon sized limes, these are small key-west limes, about the size of a golf ball or a little bigger. I bought a bag of them at the store. They weren't fresh, nor totally ripe, but they'll have to do. We'll see how they are in a few weeks.

Jam and Beans

2009-07-04T10:17:00.000-07:00

HUH? Well, yeah, here's some pics... I've been busy. We went to a U-pick place and got us a mess of strawberries. I made jam and froze a bunch. I had some rhubarb so I made some strawberry-rhubarb jam too. And can you gess what's in the three jars in front? Any guess at all? The pic isn't the best. Sorry 'bout that.

Carrot Jam! Yes, and it's wonderful! My kids love it and my wife said it reminded her of carrot cake, her favorite. It was in the Blue Book (the canner's Bible) and it sounded good... and it was.

Furthermore, I've used my canner for the first time. Remember this winter I went and bought a 23 quart canner? I finally got to use it. We got green beans in our CSA box two weeks in a row and the kids and I picked a whole mess too. Wife and kids snapped and washed 'em for me (wife capped and washed the berries too, bless her!). I got 7 quarts. I'm so happy about that. I'm hoping for more. God is good!

My Kids

2009-06-10T12:46:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd give you a glimpse of my kids. The Bible says that kids are a blessing or reward from the Lord. Honestly? Sometimes their behavior makes me say to myself, "Boy, if that's true, I'd hate to see His curse." But really, they are good kids. Smart, funny, generous. My wife and I are blessed, though I have had to have some tough conversations lately about obedience and truthfulness. But that's what a dad does, right?

This is Eric's posed picture. He saw a picture like this in a catalog we have and decided he wanted one of himself. Up the Redbud tree he shimmied and asked my wife to take the shot. What's he reading? Oh, don't you know what the top book on the summer reading program for six-year-olds is this year? Huckleberry Finn, of course!!
Grant. Male. 4 1/2 years old. Whiner extraordinaire. But he can give you the most genuine, loving smile in a heartbeat. This little penguin is just one of his many stuffed animals that find their way into his daily play. He loves toads (to death, literally), can ride a two wheel bike without training wheels, and loves to help.
And Anna. As I type this, she's spending the week at her Grandparents'. At nine-years-old, she's doing very well with her reading. This book, "Stone Fox", was her last reader for the year in our core 3 curriculum from Sonlight. Not to let the summer go unused, I went to the library and got her three books to read while she's at Grandma's; "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" (one of my favorites), "Caleb's Story", a follow-up to "Sarah Plain and Tall" which we read this year, and "How to Eat Fried Worms". She finished "Tales ... " before the weekend was out. And finally, showing their creativity, the kids built a space ship in the backyard out of crates, cardboard, a basketball goal, and some other miscellaneous stuff. What a riot.

A little bit of Spring

2009-06-10T12:25:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd share a few pictures with you of some of the blooms around my place this spring. I had a few others, but I'm not sure where they went.

Here's a young Crab Apple I planted two years ago. I forget its name but It'll be a real beauty when it gets bigger. The flowers look just like miniature roses.

Here's a shot of the lilac bush I planted. I got it free from the Arbor Day Society a few years ago. Most of what I got from them didn't live, but this did. You know the old saying, "Stop to smell the Roses?" That's a nice sentiment for summer, but if you didn't stop to smell the lilacs in spring, well, you didn't have spring.Finally, a picture of some of the peonies from my yard. This variety is called "Bowl of Beauty". I dug up the rootstock from my wife's Grandmother's yard and was able to get two bushes growing. I love peonies, but these are just about my favorites. And for you non-Indiana type people, the peony is the state flower of Indiana.

I hope you enjoyed spring while it was here. So quickly the summer comes with it's blooms to distract us. But spring has joys all its own that shouldn't be missed!

What a FIND!!

2009-06-10T11:55:00.001-07:00

You know, I love drying clothes on the clothesline. But it never fails. No matter how tightly I pull the cord or wind it around the eye-bolt or anything, it always sags. I use a vinyl coated wire. I know some folks use cotton rope, etc. But I'm afraid there just isn't a line anywhere that won't stretch out over time (unless it was steel wire).

For time immemorial, people have devised all manner of methods of keeping the clothesline up so the clothes aren't dragging the ground. Well I finally found the answer, at Rural King no less! It was in the sales flier a few weeks ago. When I saw it at the store, I immediately picked up three of them for $4.99 a piece.

It's this nifty gadget.

It is made of metal and hard plastic. The pole is telescoping so you can adjust the height and it screws down to hold it in place. The bottom is equipped with a hard plastic, pointy tip and flange (kind of like a ski pole) to keep it in one place.

The top looks like this:

It has offset 'lips' (for lack of a better word) that you weave your clothesline through and it keeps it in place, even in a breeze! I was soooo happy! I've gotten rid of the two old pieces of wood I was using.