It’s hard to believe we’ve had our property for almost 2 years now. Greg is still in transition with his job, but I’ve been living on the farm full time, working remotely, for over a year! It certainly doesn’t feel like it’s been that long.
Even with Greg visiting on weekends, we’ve still managed to get a lot done. We also had to push back on some plans in order to give priority to more important projects - like the barn. This farm was a dairy farm way back in the day. And although the barn is in great shape compared to most barns around here, it still needs quite a bit of work. There’s a little thing called electricity that seems like it might be important to add. Apparently the previous owners just ran down a long extension cord when they needed power. But we’ve got plans for lights and outlets in each bay. As you can imagine, that’s a fairly large project. We also need to shore up some of the siding and dig a french drain to take care of the water that comes off the hillside.
So many plans
So little time…
So this is our big plan for the summer of 2019 — get the barn ready for animals!
Once we have a place to house them, we can finally get those goats. Maybe at that point we can truly call ourselves farmers.
We’ve completed several projects over the past couple of years, some large and some small. We are so lucky that Greg has the skills and the knowledge (and the tools!) to do most of the work himself. And he loves researching, so even if he doesn’t know how to do something, he’s great at figuring it out.
Here is a short list of things we’ve accomplished while we’ve been here:
installed a wood stove
created wood storage and filled it with 4 cords
ripped up the carpet in the living room and guest bedroom, put down wood floors
installed a ceiling fan
planted the orchard
cleared paths in the woods for future campers and our own hikes
prepped the silo for a pool
installed a water catchment system
started our emergency preparedness plan (got backup batteries, rainwater tank, generator, etc.)
Here’s what we’re hoping to accomplish over the next couple of years:
finish the silo pool and take our first swim!
add a deck off the pool
finish getting the barn ready for animals (fix siding, install electric, clean out stalls and reinforce gates, fix bay doors, add missing bay door, finish painting)
start the veggie garden
fix the exterior fencing (part of it was hit by a car before we bought the place)
figure out livestock fencing
build chicken coop - GET CHICKENS!
put up first glamping campsite (and get our first campers!)
clean the well to get more water
finish backup water system
When you write it all out, it sure sounds like a lot! But there’s plenty more to do when all of that is done. And who knows what will come up in the meantime. That’s part of the fun - not knowing all the possibilities of this place. We’re slowly figuring it out, enjoying the planning, but understanding we have no idea what will happen next.
Wish us luck!
Oh yeah, we got this!