31 Days to Green Acres - Day 25

Welcome.  This is one of many entries as part of a 31 Day series.  To read earlier posts, please click here.

We're at it again.  You know, another one of our massive, all encompassing, exciting, draining projects.  And, while we're at it, life still chugs along here with it's regular and harvest time activities. I am grateful to be here today, to serve the words and the story that is still developing.  Thank you for coming back and for patiently walking alongside.  You make the journey more full.

Neither Weekend Farmer Husband nor I had any intentions for animals on the farm beyond a couple of laying hens and a cat.  The house restoration consumed all our energy until we moved in, and once we could camp comfortably in our own home, we quickly moved on to repairing the roof on the animal barn and installing a 44 panel solar array.

An aside - if you have read the Little House on the Prairie books or any other stories/series of the USA's early frontier and settlement days the idea of squatters sort of captures what the moving to the farm experience felt (and sometime still feels) like. The departure is that we have legal rights to occupy the property, but at some level I feel like we still have to earn the privilege of being here.  Do we have what it takes to save this house, bring new life to the land, and preserve the buildings? Somehow this relates to camping on our own home...and proving our mettle.

The old board and batten wood sided animal barn is probably original to the property.  There are no nails holding the structure together, just solid wooden pegs, and the dimensional lumber and support beams appear to be hand hewn, massive markers of an earlier time.  At some point in the mid 90's, near as we can tell, a concrete floor was added, electricity was upgraded, and a pole barn added on to form a "T" to the north.  There are multiple animals stalls, a water source, and a hay loft.  Clearly this structure was built to shelter animals.  Off to the side there's a lean to constructed of (no kidding), old wooden grocery store and wine boxes, covered with metal siding and a slapped on metal roof.  It made the perfect "shop" and likely held larger motorized equipment sometime after the upgrades were completed.

Weekend Farmer Husband noodled long and hard burning through notebook after notebook of scribbled details to prepare for the roof tear down, rebuild, and solar installation.  Until our current project (yes, yes, I'll tell you eventually), I've never seen him think so long and hard on any one thing.  Thinking soon became implementing, and we were up on the roof tearing away and tossing aside wooden shakes that had weathered better than a century.

If we'd known then what we know now, we'd have anticipated that this was another pre dawn to post sunset project.  Every weekend, evening, and any other conceivable other "free" time was dedicated to the barn.  And, no matter how much planning, there is always the unexpected.  But, we persevered  not just because snow would fly soon, but because we have a contract to sell the power we produce and our consumer expected us to complete by the agreed upon deadline.

In hindsight, it was a crazy dangerous thing we did. We wouldn't repeat it - at least not without changing a number of practices.  After all, we were 26 feet in the air at a 33 degree pitch - imagine a metal playground slide a little better than two stories high and you are handling costly, fragile, and dangerous tools and supplies while holding steady at the very top of the slope. Even with harnesses and safety equipment you are exposed and vulnerable to mistakes, poor planning, harsh weather, and the plain old randomness that we call accidents.

We passed inspections, hook ups were completed, the basic installation was finished and the snow came.  Literally, we laid our tools down, came off the roof and didn't revisit the project until the following spring.  Most of our tools got put away, but some of those tools we laid down brought a good chuckle the following season as the thaw revealed their whereabouts.

Finally, some rest.  We'd occupied Libby for seven months, and between Christmas and New Year's we installed the bathtub in the lower level bathroom.  Oh the bliss of a long soak and the relief of warm after the brutal cold of the barn roof.  And, I should be very clear, I never went on the roof.  This project was completed entirely by Weekend Farmer Husband, our offspring, and friends from church.  One of Weekend Farmer Husband's clients lent us some valuable tools and heavy equipment that made the job so much easier, but when I say "we", I really mean "them".

We watched lots of movies at night in the ensuing months.  Tired doesn't even begin to describe the lethargy we felt.  The indoor and screen time was fun and restorative.  After unrelenting work, work, work it was bonding and settling to sink into the couch after supper and veg.

When we ran out of comedies, family, and adventure type movies to share I started watching documentaries.  Both Weekend Farmer Husband and I gobble up that genre of program with the key difference his interests run to giant squid and deep sea type things (no, I'm not making that up), and I am drawn to social commentary type films.

After watching a number of compelling programs about food, nutrition, and food production by myself, I invited Weekend Farmer Husband to watch with me.  At first he wondered why I watched, "such depressing movies".  His kindness kept him at my side and I could see that he was warily engaged in buy in on the surface of the issues.

It was Food, Inc. that had just concluded when I caught his eye and said, "We should get a cow."

He didn't say no.

31 Days to Green Acres - Day 24

This post is one in a 31 Day series.  To find other entries, please click here.

I think you've gotten a pretty comprehensive and overwhelming view into the total renovation of our farmhouse.  One friend says I made him tired.  We actually hear that quite a bit.  When people visit and get "the tour" they are often astounded at the before and after.  And, yes, you too will have a tour.  We just have quite a bit of recovery to do after a week of illness (and did I mention a broken washing machine...?), before I'm willing to take pictures.  I know it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful, but I always clean up before I invite guests in, be you friend or family!

I don't know how it happened.  In the broadest sense I'd like to view it as God's gentle leading as He taught me a greater reverence for creation. That's sounds a little hooity tooity - what I'm trying to say is this.

I was, at best (before we moved to the farm), tolerant, bordering on indifferent, toward animals.

To meet me now, you'd think I'd been an animal lover for the whole of my life.

There were 3 failed attempts at pet ownership during my growing up years, and one doesn't even really count for me because I was away at college when a puppy came home for one of my siblings.  When I was a preschooler, we had a duck and sometime around late Kindergarten/First grade a golden retriever.  Neither "experiment" lasted too long, and although I have warm memories of Chatterduck and Chava, I don't have any sense that I especially longed to have them back once they were no longer part of our home.  Maybe I shed some tears when we put Chatterduck in a brown box and released her at a local forest preserve - or was it a park - I can't recall.  I was four people.

I never really "got it" - you know - animal people.  In fact, I probably used that term in my high school english class as an example of an oxymoron.  I was willing to accept that other's passion for all creatures usually defined by a kind was exactly that - a passion, and although I didn't understand it, I could see that it was real and ran deep.

Early in our family life,Weekend Farmer Husband and I brought home a really nice golden retriever, McKenzie.  She was a beautiful dog with a very sweet temperament, and she added a lot to our family life. Until the very last months of her life however, I was only capable of measuring her contribution in terms of stink in the house, mud on the floor, and epic hairballs in every nook and cranny.

She moved to the farm with us and spent her last days in doggie utopia.  I am pretty sure she smiled for 15 months straight.  One day she stopped smiling and we knew it was the end.  No one was surprised.  But everyone was shocked when I cried.

Something in my heart had started to connect with her, with the chickens in the coop, the kittens in the barn, and the cows in the field, and even the skittish, yippy, goofy dog who was her companion in the last months.

If you noticed that this indifferent to animals person had a partial barn and property full of warm blooded creatures before she began to identify an affinity to them, you've caught on.  It came late and caught me unawares.

The chickens came first.  It just made sense that with all the space in the barn and the 4-6 dozen eggs our family eats in a week that we should have chickens.  (This should settle it once and for all you folks who want to know what came first...it's always the chicken)

And then, we had lots of feed - and lots of mice.  So we got cats.
I watched my children fall in love.
Even the big burly man boys were and are smitten.
I felt myself warm.

I was bowled over by my affection for the cows.
Their presence in our pasture was a source of joy for me.
They have distinct personalities and they're very social and mostly sweet.
(Disclaimer - we have a weird one this year.  We'll be glad to see her go, but the other three are quite nice)
I search for them every day, feel deeply responsible for their well being even though I do none of the associated chores, and yup, I actually talk to them.

No time, no particular event, no revelation stands out as the clear moment when I began to "get" animals and animal people.  All I know is that it's been delightful.  The richness of experience and the sense of abundance that animals on the farm have produced is both real and perceived.

Real because as robust omnivores, we provide for our pantry, freezer, table, and our need for food by the work or our hands.  The abundance is evident in our larder.  (Does anyone even use that word anymore?).

Perceived because the ambiance, atmosphere, and level of relationship that the animals bring to family life, the land, and their role in this redemptive journey is difficult to capture in words or image.  A producing farm yields and overflowing cup - at least for us.

Now, it's not always rosy.  There's many a cold night that we're out in the barn keeping chicks from freezing when - it's no lie - we'd rather be under our cozy electric blanket.

And, yes, cows do run away and take years off of one's anticipated  lifespan for the stress of it all.

It's true- some chickens aren't very smart, (but some are...), and the meat birds are particularly smelly.

Have I let you know how much work this all is?  It's hard, and it's constant, and there's nobody else to do it but you.

But at the end of all the work and even in the middle of it, there's joy.
Getting a glimpse of what God might have been thinking when he fashioned a cow is such fun.
Learning to "think like a chicken" is funny and in the end proves to be effective!
Observing and participating in the complete life cycle of a meat bird helps you to see just how intricate life is, and that drumstick on your plate represents thousands of little life events to form the whole product you bring to the table.

We're almost to the end of our production cycle for this year.
I find myself lingering at the fence a little longer, gazing out the window to drink in the view of a full pasture more often than usual, and counting the days until it's done so that I don't fail to savor any that remain.

This is still so new.
I don't know when it'll feel normal - like it's "always" been that way.
But it is very welcome.

31 Days of Green Acres - Day 23

Welcome!  This post is part of a 31 Day series.  If you'd like to read other entries, please click here.

Well now, that was an unanticipated absence.  Our large family likes to share, which makes a perfect companion for pathogens of the virus type.  Five of the eight of us fell victim to the flu.  Slowly we are returning to health, and I can nurture wellness at home and give some attention to this story.  I work well under pressure, but it's clearly beyond me to fit the last seven days into the one remaining day of October.  So, we'll revise the project, yes?  And I'll just keep telling the story.

I've mentioned more than once that for substantial portions of the initial demolition and renovation process our family was divided.  You'll remember then that a great deal of mess making and future building occurred while I kept our city life humming along off site.

From a writer's standpoint it is more difficult to give shape the chronology and events with my words since although I have primary accounts of what happened, I would go for weeks at a time without laying my eyes on our progress.  In hindsight I'm grateful for the capacity Weekend Farmer Husband and I had to trust one another and the level of optimism we cultivated and protected in order to press on.

I don't have lots of construction stories to tell or "how to's" to offer for the six months we spent dedicated to initial interior renovations.

I did take lots of pictures though when I made the trip out to the country.

So, for today at least (and maybe beyond), I'll try to tell the story with images and offer my limited words about the scope of the project pictured.

You've seen this hallway before - from the other direction.

Unbelievably, although we've stripped away so much, we're going to take it even further - doors gone, 2x4 framing gone, and yes, we even got rid of the mouse's nest visible in the header.

The only thing I can think of when I see this floor again is "nerve damage".  Weekend Farmer Husband spent 4 days with a heat gun and 2 inch scraper to get the tar, asbestos tile, and adhesive  off what had earlier discovered are hand milled maple planks.  When he finished, he'd sustained sufficient nerve damage in his shoulder that it took months for him to recover from numbness and tingling.  

Really?  You can't tell what this is?  Well, since there wasn't any heat or cool in the upstairs, we ran a trunk from the basement, into the attic, and then like an octopus, arms branch out into the different rooms in the second story from the attic.  As for the rest of the space, well can't you just picture it?  It's the en suite bath for the master bedroom!  It can get pretty cozy in there during the winter months thanks to that great big metal thing ushering air from the furnace to the upstairs!

The upstairs demolition has long since been completed, but we're still not done stripping away layers. We've started to get some insulation on the walls, but have managed for now to preserve some of the striking pink trim...ahem.  Even though we're indoors we're wearing winter gear and trying to judiciously use the kerosene heater.  Baby it's cold!  For the record, this photo is taken from inside what was to become the girls room closet, you're looking through the boys room, and into the master through the worlds coziest and perhaps smallest master bathroom.

This picture's kind of neat...you're standing between what is eventually to become the entrance to the master bath, and the opposite wall.  The blue trim on the left will be replaced and the room door hung there.  See the planking?  We quickly discovered that our home utilized balloon frame construction and see the varying sizes of the boards?  We have reason to believe the much of the wood for the home was hand milled on site.  It's hard as rock and sturdy.  Although the house is a little drafty still, it's stands firm in storms.

One of the most important spaces in the home, the future site of a half bath in the upstairs hallway.  There was this startlingly large landing area at the top of the stairs that appeared to never have been used for any purpose other than connecting the top of the stairs with the hallway leading to the kids bedrooms.  It's the most diminutive room in the house, barely measuring a hair over 20 square feet!

We did a floor to ceiling demo (and then some) to the bathroom on the main floor.  Measuring 7 feet wide and 13 feet long, it is a generous space, but the previous owners had vastly underused it's potential.

You're getting it now aren't you?  Of course we rebuilt the ceiling, ran new ductwork, exhaust lines, and electric!

Standing inside the bathroom and looking at where the shower used to be, you're viewing the future home of a stacking washer and dryer, a very large cold air return (covered by a bulkhead) and wire shelves for laundry supplies and such.  The door to the bathroom is just off the kitchen.

Score!  We've found an old claw foot tub on Craigslist.  It will need to be refinished, and it eventually is - but, it doesn't get installed until 7 months after we move in!!!

Some people might call this a kitchen counter.  Not so.  This is the drop spot for the daily (well probably not really...) supply run to the local hardware store.  Occasionally it would get cleared off for minimal food preparation...I didn't ask too many questions about those practices.  I'm the mother of sons - there are some things I prefer not to know.

Frankly, there are hundreds of additional photos that detail the metamorphosis.  Please, come visit.  I'll speak to you in my love language of hospitality, a good drink (coffee, tea, a glass of wine...), plentiful fresh food,  and share the images. But, I'm starting to think that for the purposes of this series, you've got a pretty good idea of the scope of what we took on.

A couple of readers have had some queries that give me new ideas for other posts.  Will you chime in too?  

I'd love to answer your questions and comments - what gaps have I left so far, or what seems obvious to you that I'm just too close to notice?

I'm so so glad you came back! 

Do it again, yes?

There's more to tell.

Thank you Nester for creating the 31 Days series.  Although my socks got knocked quite off last week and I've not been faithfully posting, I've been so grateful for the opportunity.

Have you checked out the other bloggers who took up the gauntlet?  They're pretty amazing...

31 Days to Green Acres - Interrupted

This post is smack dab in the middle of  31 Days series.  It has nothing to do with the topic.
If you'd like to read entries from the Green Acres posts, please click here.

We've been cooking along on 31 Days to Green Acres pretty well haven't we?

I don't think I've been as disciplined to write with this frequency ever before.
In college there was more time between assignments, and even if they were frequent, I definitely pulled an all nighter tended to concentrate my efforts right before the due date rather than write every day.

I've appreciated the discipline of being here and my brain feels more awake in relationship to content.
I still at least on a emotional level, if not practical, wrestle with what and how of organizing story.
So, we keep coming here, right?
Me to tell the story, and then you to read, and we grow in relationship.

Several weeks ago, in early October, we were given a glorious Indian Summer day and the youngest of the children and I whisked away to the lake shore to glory in the beauty of creation.

We'll be enjoying another unseasonably warm day at the farm today. Gift.
But, I'll not be devoting much time to the blog.

Illness has laid us low and this mama must nurture a return to health.

Come back, yes?
I will, and I always do so with the hope of meeting you here.

31 Days to Green Acres - Day 22

Welcome.  This post is one of many in a 31 Days series.  If you'd like to read the other entries, please click here.

It's a funny  thing with demolition.  Only a few minutes of heavy blows with the hammer or crowbar produces hours of follow up work and restoration.

You can loose your perspective a little bit - both ways.
Either you feel like , "Aw, look at that pile.  It's already so huge we might as well keep going.  What's another couple sheets of drywall anyway?"
Or, you can barely breathe, and not because of the dust, but rather you have shocking and sudden clarity on what you've just destroyed, and have a jolting realization that it's up to you to put it all back together again.
These perspectives share the stage.
Sometimes they share the song and dance number, and sometimes, (only briefly), they have a solo act.

One of the welcome gifts for us in restoring Liberty Farm was that Libby has never looked too awful from the outside.

In fact, she can be downright welcoming and cheery standing tall among the trees on the slight rise to the property.

That's her on the day we first met.  I saw her first.  It wasn't long before I called Weekend Farmer Husband and made arrangements for him to meet me.  We wrote an offer within hours of our first meeting.

A few other factors made and still make the property inviting.
Wide open pastures are the perfect canvas for a frame of trees on the property line, and tall grasses bend a hello.  Tall old trees stoop to greet us.  Ten fenced acres hem us in and define what has seemed like a vast expanse to this city girl.  The long U shaped driveway makes an easy entrance and a gentle farewell.

All this loveliness became all the more dear as soon as you walked in the door.  Your senses assaulted, all one wanted to do was make it go away.

So we did.

First we removed floor coverings in all sections of the house except the bathroom, kitchen, and back entry.
Above is a photo of one end of the living room and below is the upstairs hallway where the kids bedrooms are.

Then the walls started coming down.
This perspective below no longer exists.
There's now a wall where you see the sawn off 2x4's, and 3 bunks from floor to ceiling on the boys room side and a double closet on the girls side.

The black and blue trim?  Oh yeah, that's a thing of the past.
Again, this view has vanished, but the photo was taken from what is now the boys room looking through to what became the girls room.

"Hey guys, have you seen my hammer?"
For reals - our friend's hammer is somewhere in an area landfill.
We never found it in the pile above and eventually the mountain of debris was carted off to the dumpster.

Notice won't you that there's still lap on the walls, studs to frame rooms, and ceilings in these photographs.
I wasn't around to take the pictures, but that all went away.
The upstairs was gutted to the  inside surface of the exterior boards, and only one 6-8 foot section of wall remained in the interior space.
We re-framed the entire upstairs save for the one little section of load bearing wall I just mentioned.

I don't exactly remember how long it took us to make this much of a mess.
Confidently, I can assure you that it was only a matter of days.

Thank you Nester for being such a gracious hostess.  
Have you enjoyed checking in on the other 31 Days Bloggers?

31 Days of Green Acres - Day 21

This post is one of several in a 31 Day series.  If you'd like to read others, please click here.

Beautiful day here at the farm.

First, we worshiped.

Such breathtaking liberty.  Grateful.

And, we rested..

And then, I reached for the camera.

Thank you Nester for inspiring and hosting 31 Days.

31 Days to Green Acres - Day 20

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Initially we planned to repair the section of roof I showed you yesterday, replace floor coverings, add heat and cool to the second story, put hanging bars in the old weird closets, frame and build a wall between what was to become the boys and the girls rooms, and freshen paint throughout the home.

That's all.

I'm not trying to be the master of understatement. We felt that the above list was manageable given our time and resources.

The horrible, smelly, organic nature of mildew and mold would be addressed by accomplishing the above and we didn't want to get stuck having to move quickly and find ourselves in a massive push to move while still finishing up the farmhouse.

We didn't know what we didn't know.

In spite of multiple showings each week on the city house, we went ten months without a single potential buyer indicating they were even keeping us on their short list.

And, every time we set foot in the old farmhouse we thought of some other cool thing to try to build or fix.

Before we knew it, quite spontaneously mind you, we had demoed the entire house - except the kitchen.

I'm so grateful in hindsight that's how it worked out.

Time was again our friend and so we just kept making improvements and learning new skills.

The youngsters stayed in town with me so as not to disrupt nap schedules etc. and the older kids established a routine of getting their schoolwork done, scooting on out to the farm, meeting their dad after his work day, getting some projects done, and then doing it all over again.

And by consistently keeping our shoulder to the wheel, each of us doing our part, (here's where you think I'm gonna say something positive, right?), it got a lot worse before it got better.

Wait until you see.

Thank you Nester for hosting the 31 Days blogging event.  If you'd like to check in on 1200+ other bloggers who joined in, click here.