Skip to main content

Timber!

Life is still at a fast pace, as always with our family of seven, but the pace is now down this road we chose instead of in circles. We have our house and we're settling in nicely. I am fortunate enough to have several substitute teacher opportunities to tide me over, and one elementary school that is close by seems to be happy enough with me to schedule me pretty regularly :)  My hopes are, of course, that subbing leads to a full-time teaching position, so the more, the merrier! I am also applying to other positions that are education related (the line is sometimes fuzzy) in case the school arena doesn't pan out. Besides my teaching, the house projects keep rolling along. Shelby is very ready to tackle the big jobs, which has resulted in several downed pine trees (eight so far, more to come), including the large one in front of the porch. Our fruit trees and other trees are in place for planting, which may be happening tomorrow if plans work out - a friend of ours may be stopping by with a digging machine to knock that whole process out (fingers crossed). There is still plenty of cutting to finish up before our yards are free of pine branches, but that will happen soon enough. Our Health Inspector should also be stopping by tomorrow to give us the scoop on our septic (bad choice of words? scoop? septic?), and then we can move ahead with the back yard plans.

The kids are doing well in school, and even Gage is adjusting. Shelby is doing great in her job, and it sounds (knock on wood) like her position is going to be around for a couple years. I am placing my Master's plans on hold for now, until I find a job. That just seems to make sense to me. I would love to go back, but after I have a job to customize my degree towards, and after I am able to bring a regular paycheck into the household.

So there we have it: my update! Fall is in the air - hence the rush to plant the trees. We need heating oil and a plan to weatherize. I am not looking forward to winter, really, but it will be much nicer here at our home in the country :)  There are plenty of indoor projects to keep us busy - we have a closet to build, which leads to a better storage room upstairs. And we have a basement to get ready for canning and planting. And we haven't even been in our attic yet - who knows what that will lead to!

I shall go for now, and get back to work at home while I have some time. This weekend is the Pork Festival, so that should give us more to write about! Bye for now!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Things I Love About Our Farm

One of the reasons that we bought a house in rural Ohio was to finally start our farm. Our 1.3 acres is just big enough to house us, some animals, and our plant food, with room left over to play. So, here are some of the reasons that I love our farm: Fresh milk! The best product, in my eyes, that we have harvested from our farm is goat milk. I never thought I would drink it, but I like it, and we get half a gallon on a bad day (a gallon on a good day). Beyond milk, we've made cheese and plan to make soap and other products. Major score! Our farm animals are fun to watch and take care of. So entertaining and full of personality, our alpacas, sheep, dairy goats, and angora goats are our pets that give us company along with the fiber and milk for our home. Fiber. I haven't found the time or patience to knit or crochet yet, and I probably won't be a great spinner, but I do love the different textures and colors of our fiber animals. Alpaca fiber is so soft, as is angora, ...

Happy New Year 2015!

I love our Christmas and New Year's break because it gives us time to celebrate, time to relax, and time to take inventory of life - the past, the present, and the future, or at least hopes and direction on what we want our future to be. I feel like this past year was a deep breath to prepare for our future home...we had our share of projects, but there is so much to do to make our home what we want it to be. Things that did happen in 2014: We bought our pellet stove and had it installed! This old house is drafty and cold, but our stove keeps our parlor and living room the warmest, and gives us a toasty place to warm up in when winter is its coldest. This is now our primary heat source and, so far this year, our only heat source. We've had some animals give birth and some animals pass. We lost Steve our sheep and Josie our alpaca, and Ollie the fall prior. We sold some of our non-producing goats to a land owner for clearing brush, a life I'm sure they will enjoy. S...

Winter Wonderland at Marxwell's House

Snow AND Christmas decorations?! A first at our new house :) Shelby and I staying warm and looking cute (well, Shelby is, anyways). Ollie loving the snowy pasture! I love how the snow traces our trees and bushes.