Work Begins at our New House

The last day of November. I’m thankful that:

1. The sun was shining today.
2. The wind blew, and dried laundry quickly.
3. We have a food dehydrator.
4. I have brothers who love to explore new places.
5. My brothers like naming places—like “Rabbit Hill” and “Pine Tree Hill”.
6. We got to go look over our new place more thoroughly today.
7. Dad did not have to work today.

Since the sale finally went through yesterday, we went over to the new place to look things over again with Craig and Debbie. There’s some remodelling to do in the house, and major outside work to do. It was good to just look it over and talk about it. We did some when we first looked the place over, but now that they own it it’s a lot easier to plan.

Up till now whenever we’ve gone into the place we’ve had to go through a hedge (pushing the branches aside), and then duck under a lot of branches from an ancient apple tree to get to the house itself. But this evening, from the reports, Dad has managed to open up the hedge (cut out the branches from the openings) so that we can walk straight through to the gate. He also cut away all the branches along the walk to the house. So that will be a lot nicer walking there!

Craig was going to put some sheep in there to clean up the yards, but they promptly escaped. So we will have quite a bit of weed whacking and mowing to do. Maybe that’s something I can help outside with once we get the house cleaned up and windows washed.

There’s a lot to do there, but I’m sure that if we work away at it, little by little, we’ll get it all done. At the moment, Craig is focusing on getting the trees out so the power line can get to the house without grounding out. That will also make it a lot lighter in the house, too.

These next few weeks we’ll probably end up working on getting the house clean (vacuuming, washing windows, etc.). Dad needs to fix up a shed so that we can put hay in it for winter. We also need to fix up another shed for the boy’s tool shed and work shop. Dad also wants to cut up all the trees that will be pulled out into firewood. He’s started cutting off the higher parts of some of the trees, leaving enough leverage that Craig can pull them out of the ground.

The boys have really enjoyed exploring. They climbed several hills, rolled down at least one, and several have almost fallen in the creek. Joe fell in completely and actually went under (says he never touched the bottom), but praise the Lord Simon was right there and pulled him out just in time. That was close!

And here are the promised pictures from yesterday.

I made doughnuts yesterday for Hanukkah. I had to take at least one picture of it. They were delicious, even if they didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped. (Oh, yes—and I kindly ate this one for you. It was yummy.)

 

Welcome to our new place! The driveway is right under those two trees in the middle. You might have a little squeeze to get through….

 

A closer view of the driveway. That bushy tree stump is the plum tree in the cattle stop. And yes, it is every bit as big as my brothers said it was!

 

The new shipping container is almost here!

 

Unloading.

 

The cows watched the proceedings with much curiosity.

 

Our house! It’s pretty old. :) All those trees will be coming out.

 

Our front yard. It’s slightly overgrown. Joe is on the walk leading to the house, and you can see how we have to duck under the branches of the apple tree. You can’t see all the other trees in the yard. It’s…a mess.

 

The boys found some 1997 newspapers and New World coupon book in this mailbox.

 

Inside the house, today, in my room. Simon enjoyed scooping up all the cluster flies.

So there you have it—a brief glimpse into what’s been happening lately. I really should take more pictures!

~Esther