Arrival!

We're finally here!

For those of you hoping for farm stories filled with chickens, goats and large swaths of tilled land full of fruits and veggies, you will be sadly disappointed.  Instead you're getting a tale of a harrowing journey, exhaustion, lot of sweat and tons of gnats.

We left Northern Virginia on Friday evening and drove our convoy into the driving downpours that blew through the area that night.  The fact that the big truck could only do about 60 - 65 mph coupled with the rain and typical DC rush hour traffic, we only made it as far as Emporia, VA.

HOUSE UPDATE - If you read the first post you would know that the buyer's were trying to salvage the deal after having their financing fall through.  We had to place the house back on the market.  Well, we're back under contract with them.  Their underwriter feels confident that the financing will go through and we should have the house sold by July 7th, if not sooner.  We remain hopeful.

Back to our story... The next day was a long, long drive.  We stopped a lot, but for good reasons: food, bathroom breaks and to give the dog a chance to walk around and drink some water.  We arrived at the rental house close to 7pm.  Neta took her car, drove into town and got the key from the rental agency's dropbox (along with some much needed dinner items) and we quickly unloaded the small truck, which we smartly packed with just a few essential items, such as mattresses, some kitchen and bathroom stuff and whatever was left that wouldn't fit on the big truck.  We crashed hard that night.

As you can see, the truck was packed
full and very intricately.

The guys we hired to help us unload arrived at 9:30am on Sunday.  They were great.  We contracted them for 4 hours and they had us unloaded in 3.  After that, it was all up to us.  We were surrounded by boxes, chaos and one very bewildered dog.

The unpacking has moved steadily along.  The dog has settled down and gotten used to things, though she can't seem to decide where to lay as there is so much room and we are so spread out.  This house is huge; about 3100 sq ft.  The high-speed internet - vital to our jobs and therefore survival - has been hooked up, or else you wouldn't be reading this.  The grass needs a serious mowing; there's 5 acres of it.  We need to go grocery shopping.  There is so much to do.

Today the temp was 100 and the gnats have been relentless.  We had storms roll through around 5 or 6pm this evening, putting the kibosh on my plans to cut more of the lawn.  We had stuff just outside of the carport that we had to pull under it.  Later we loaded up the remaining rental truck with stuff that we're taking to "our farm" tomorrow.  About that time the breeze blew in and the temps had dropped into the low 80's.  Neta and I sat down on the porch glider, watched the sunset below the low clouds and enjoyed the nice breeze.

Every night since arriving, when I step outside I see nothing but stars, and I hear nothing but tree frogs.  We're a long way from city/suburb life...and I'm happy.