Homestead Move – Crunch Time

Why on Earth does anyone ever move?

I am such a home-body, a creature of habit, that moving is like a never-ending nightmare for me. The chaos and uncertainty of it all is absolutely nerve-wracking let alone the physical labor of it all. Add all the farm tools and farm animals into the mix of the home-stuff and I may never move again.

Oh boy. Alright, enough of that.

I apologize for being MIA in this space (yes, it’s really been a month and a half since my last update here), but holy moly, there just hasn’t been the time for the writing or the photo editing of it all. I trust you understand.

And so, as an apology and in the interest of documenting a few pieces of this journey from farm to farm, here’s a snapshot of where we are, what we’ve accomplished, and a peek into the next few days before our official move (on 2/23/18). We’ve had to triage necessity ahead of, “Well, it would sure be nice if…” and have come out ahead on most accounts.

• I’ve decided we’re officially insane. Moving a farm two hours away while working full time and managing said separate farms in the interim has proven itself a true Beast. Add a four-year-old and a few health challenges into the mix and it’s a perfect storm for testing everything we thought we were capable of. Don’t worry, we’ve got this, but I am surely already greyer and wrinklier for the journey.
• The earthen floor has been patched and refinished (see pics here and here)! They’re not perfect and could take another couple of layers of linseed oil, but we’re out of time and happy with where they are now and so are going to call them done.
• The barn plan was changed from a dual chicken/goat barn to just a goat barn and is 95% done. It could totally house our does at this point if we need it too, though the goal is for full completion before we move them over. It’s taken four separate trips to get it this far and countless hours of greatly appreciated friend-fueled muscle power to get it this far. There are no words for our gratitude. Now we just need to fence in the area around the barn to contain them for a bit until we can electrify the second pasture for them and create a run from their barn area down to the second pasture.
• The outside fence lines have been cleared on the top field and clips mostly attached for electric to be run on the established barbed wire fencing. This must happen before we move to contain our menagerie of 45 animals and so is a top priority right now.
• With the dual barn changes, we’ve ordered temporary housing for the chickens because there’s no way in hell we have the time to build anything else before the move. Best intentions are out the window at this point 😉 The chickens will live in the orchard ultimately, scratching and pecking their way through the myriad of pests inhabiting it while fertilizing it all beautifully.
• We’ve gotten rid of so.many.things. Some has gone to the landfill, some has gone to donation, some has been sold on Craigslist, and we’re still picking our way through the last bits of, “Do I love it? Do I use it?” every.single.day.
• We’ve got help lined up for Moving Day which includes strong arms, a couple of extra trucks, and a livestock trailer. Ideally, we want to move all the animals at once to lessen stress all around (the dogs are already feeling uncertain about the trips we’ve taken to the other place with truckloads of stuff). However, 45 animals…six does and two bucks which have to be kept separate, 23 chickens, nine ducks, three dogs and three cats…is a lot to transport. We’ll see how this goes.
• Despite mapping it all out on graph paper an deciding it’s surely not going to work in our new tiny space, we’re still going to try to fit in my favorite chair (which just so happens to be an actual chair-and-a-half). I’m hesitant, Kim wants us to try because she knows how much I love my big, cozy chair. A chair is a small detail in comparison to the rest, I know, but still important. Wish me luck. Purging beloved items is rough.

To wet your whistle while you anxiously await another update, here’s a few pics of the Barn Progress that took place two weekends ago during our Barn Raising Party Kim requested for her birthday as well as a follow up work day:

A post shared by Melissa (@evergrowingfarm) on Feb 4, 2018 at 8:34am PST

I hope you can forgive the grainy photos. I’ll eventually get a proper post up with nicely cropped pics taken from fun angles 😉

Alrighty then, unless you follow me on Insta, I’ll see you on the other side, Friends! Thank you for continuing to follow this ever growing journey of ours!

xoxo,
M