If you think last week was crazy...

When it rains, it pours.

I'll apologize upfront for another newsy update, as opposed to pictures of progress or wildlife, but the tale must be told.  We seem to be on a non-stop roller coaster as we try to finish up the cabin, get packed up from rental house #1, move into rental house #2 and settle things down for a while.

The good news...Emily is recovering well and feeling better each day.  No setbacks.  Just resting and getting her strength back each day.

More good news...Terrell is pretty well settled into the cabin.  The replacement cabinets are in.  The brick steps are in.  Every bit of paint is touched up and the house is starting to look like a home.  A few small trim items left to take care of, but otherwise, he's living comfortably and unpacking boxes...lots of boxes.

Now...about our move on July 1st...  Wednesday morning I get a call from U-Haul confirming the truck I reserved for our move.  It turns out that the office I was supposed to pick it up from can't accommodate us, so we'll have to pick the truck up another 30 miles further away (Thanks U-Haul, as I'm paying you $1/mile to rent your truck?).  Oh and by the way...it's not available at 8AM (movers are showing up at 9AM).  It won't be available until 12:45PM.  Are you kidding me?  Time to make some calls.

I finally tracked down a truck through Budget.  It's much smaller than what I needed, but I figure we'll just make two trips.  I can breathe somewhat of a sigh of relief knowing that I have a local truck available at 8AM.  Whew!  Then Neta's phone rings...  (cue music from the shower scene in Psycho).

The rental company called to tell us that the house we are moving into is infested with fleas and needs to be exterminated and asked if we can push our move date back a week or so.  We tell her that we'll have to see if we can reschedule things with the truck and the movers.  Oh yeah...and the cable/telephone company.

Luckily with a few phone calls we managed to get all of that changed to next Friday (July 8th).  The landlord, who owns both houses and is moving back into the one we're in now, is very understanding of the whole situation and said he has no problem with us staying until the other house is ready.

The silver lining of it all is that it give us more time to pack and get ready.  Neta already had more on her list than could be done in the few days we had left.  We were just taking care of the priorities and letting the other stuff get taken care of when we could get to it.  Now we have some breathing room...fingers crossed.

Can this move get any crazier?  Our next blog post may contain stories about a plague of frogs, a meteor and a zombie apocalypse.  If so, I promise pictures!

TGIF? Not this past one...

As we mentioned in our last post, we had some "chaos" last Friday.  I don't know how many pictures this post will have - quite possibly none - as most of what happened either wasn't documented or, let's face it, you wouldn't want to see it.

It all started out as a fairly normal day.  Neta had gotten home from a business trip the night before. She and I were going to work a half day and then we were going to move Terrell into the cabin. There were still some minor things to finish at the cabin, but we needed to go ahead and move Terrell in as we're moving to another (smaller) rental house soon.  We were expecting the painters to come and do some touch ups, the plumber to install the toilet, possibly the mason to put in some steps and the cabinet guy to bring a replacement cabinet.

I turn on my phone around 8:30am and there are two messages from Tracy, the contractor, saying that the spare key is not at the cabin and no one can get in.  The painters who were stopping by from an overnight job had already left and the plumber had left as well.  I told him I was on my way if he could get the plumber back.  I can live without perfect paint, but if there is no toilet in the cabin, that would be problematic.

Tracy managed to get the plumber to return.  He and his helper installed the toilet and to help me out also installed the washer/dryer combo as well.  All was right in the world.  I left the cabin happy and returned home to get to work.  Whew!  Dodged a bullet!

In the meantime, Emily had gone to a doctor's appointment to have an ultrasound on her gallbladder. You may recall that Robert just had his removed a few weeks ago, and Emily started having trouble a few days later.  Neta had hers removed around the same age, and others in her family have a history of gallbladder trouble as well.

Emily had just arrived home when her doctor called her and told her to meet the surgeon at the emergency room, because her gallbladder needed to come out immediately.  Neta had to wrap up a couple of quick things before they left and while she was doing that...

Here comes Terrell pulling up at the house.  I stepped out to meet him and he says, "We have a problem!  There's water everywhere in the cabin!"  I asked him where it was coming from, but he said he couldn't tell.

Really?  Was this some sort of joke?  Were Neta and I on some hidden camera show?  Was someone going to jump out of the bushes and join Emily and Terrell in yelling surprise and hand us a check for a brand new house?  We didn't wait to find out.

I sent Terrell to go back and make sure the cabin was unlocked while I called Tracy to get the plumber back.  Neta rushed off to take Emily to the hospital.  I let my office know that I was leaving and jumped in my car to head to the cabin.

Turns out the cabin wasn't as bad as it seemed.  The washing machine drain hose had come loose.  We mopped up while the plumber ensured it was tightly fitting in the drain.  I did some clean up around the cabin, but there was still a lot of organization that Neta wanted to handle so I had to break the news to Terrell that the move wasn't happening that day.  He understood, considering what had happened to Emily.  Which, by the way...what had happened to Emily?

After a long and protracted wait caused by the ER staff not notifying the surgeon that she had arrived, she was finally seen and proceeded into surgery.  In fact, she had to call her doctor, who was not happy, and she called the hospital herself.  It must have been quite the phone call, as Emily was in surgery prep within minutes afterward.  The surgery was a success, but more involved than the norm, and Emily was kept in the hospital for a few days afterward.

After all that, we were able to get Terrell moved into the cabin on Saturday.  Terrell and I moved the furniture and boxes in the morning, and Neta spent a few hours unpacking that afternoon.  As of Tuesday, the painters had finished the touch ups, the masons had installed the brick steps, and the replacement cabinet was in place.

There are no after pictures yet - the move in process is messy and not something we want documented for the ages - but they'll be forthcoming soon!  In the meantime, here is a totally unrelated picture as a reward for enduring the cliffhanger post...

We spotted these 4 mama turkeys and their 30 chicks (approximately) beside the road recently.  

Trench Warfare

Last week I spent more time at the cabin than I did at my desk working, making multiple trips each day.  On Tuesday I met Claxton Oil as they were dropping off a propane tank and trenching a new external gas line at the cabin. On Wednesday Georgia Power hooked up the overhead (no trench) power cables.  Later on Wednesday, Pembroke Telephone trenched a new fiber optic cable for the TV and telephone.  We're at two trenches and counting.

Ben Franklin wasn't this happy about electricity.

On Thursday the electricians returned to...dig a trench...for the new power cable from the pump house to the external power panel so we could power up the well pump.  And on Friday the plumber...you guessed it...dug a new trench to run a new water line.  The yard of the cabin looked like the Western Front circa 1914.  The good news is...the Allies won this battle in that no one managed to cut anyone else's cable or pipe.  Victory!

Our yard was "trenchier".  Especially after a hard rain.

In the middle of all the digging, the electricians also put in the final fixtures, installed all of the outlet and switch covers and made sure everything was powered up properly.  The TV/Telephone man got those services up and running.  The gas man fixed a leaky gas hose and connected the heater and kitchen stove.  Last, but not least, the plumber installed all of the plumbing fixtures, except the most important one of all...the toilet.

The new toilet was missing a gasket between the tank and the bowl.  He called around and could not find a replacement gasket or another toilet of the same model.  I ended up going to another plumbing fixture store and found a matching toilet, but by the time I got back with it he'd moved onto another job.  Sh*t!  Oh...not so fast.  There's no toilet.

Aside from some minor painting and a replacement piece of cabinetry, the cabin is ready to go.  We should get our Certificate of Occupancy this week and be on schedule for Terrell to move in this coming weekend.

As for the house...We've come a long way, baby!  Well, since the last time we blogged about the house, anyway.  In "The Tale of the "Husky Rider"", those pictures showed a rather skeletal structure:

Here's the progression since those pictures:

Raise the roof!  Well...some of it.

The carport and porch roof is tied in.

And most recently, we're pretty much all closed in with tar paper on the roof and house wrap around the sides.

It's almost habitable.

Welcome to our house...

Follow me upstairs...

Upstairs bedroom.  Those dormers are awesome!

Another view of an upstairs bedroom.

Stairway and upstairs hallway

Opposite end of hallway looking into upstairs bath

That's as far as we've gotten.  Neta and I will do a walk-through with Tracy sometime next week, if all goes well.  We'll go room by room and plan out how everything will be laid out from appliances to cabinets to plumbing fixtures to wiring to whatever else we can think of.

We already have a plan which Neta has spent countless hours going over, re-drawing and finalizing, only for us to think of something else that would be nice to have or make things smarter.  In other words, the slab and framing were the easy parts.

Now we really start getting involved in finishes, fixtures and so much more.  It's an exciting time!

UPDATE - Ooops!  We spoke too soon! We had no idea just how exciting things could get.  We starting writing this blog entry on Wednesday.  It is now Sunday.  Everything was going along so well...and then chaos ensued on Friday.  More to come when we post our next blog entry.  Keep an eye out in the coming days.

Fox on the Farm

We have a fox on the farm, and no, I am not referring to Craig (this time!) 

This is a red fox, whereas Craig is more of a silver fox.

We first saw him last week, when we had to go over to the farm before work. I spotted him on the island, just disappearing into the undergrowth.  Yesterday Craig and I made our usual evening trip to check on progress and we spotted him again, in the pasture near the little pond. I started walking toward him while snapping pics, assuming he wouldn't let me get very close before he bolted. But this was a juvenile and not yet savvy enough to be on guard. I was able to get pretty close; close enough that I started to worry that he might not be running away because he was rabid.  Not worried enough to stop approaching, obviously.  Eh, I had plenty of room to run!  

I had noticed some stray goose feathers near the fox, so after he left I went looking for our geese, just to be sure we still had a full crew. I spotted them by the blueberries and all were accounted for, just hanging around the bushes and...wait a minute! Those darn birds are stealing our berries!!! They were even taking little hops so they could reach higher. Which was adorable but still...I don't want to share my blueberries with the geese.  Neither did Craig, who immediately went to shoo them away, muttering "whippersnappers" and "off my lawn".  They departed reluctantly, hissing over their shoulders (do geese even have shoulders?!). I'm sure they'll be back.

Caught in the act.

Move along!

In other farm news, we've been overly blessed by cucumbers that think they are zucchini, and the tomatoes are really starting to come in as well. Last week we picked baby eggplants and turned them into feta, pine nut, balsamic-glazed awesomeness. This week we have 9 more eggplants on the same plant. Maybe it is because I didn't plant any zucchini that my other vegetables are taking up the mantle.

We're getting about a dozen cucumbers a week at this point, off 2 plants. 

Getting creative with the pickles: Claussen knock-offs, half sours, Thai-style, and more. 

Almost too cute to eat. 

They were delicious (she says modestly).

I think we'll pick our first cantaloupe next week and the watermelon won't be far behind. Yum!

The Tale of the "Husky Rider"

A recent encounter...

Much of my time on the farm, evenings and weekends, is spent cutting grass.  Much of Terrell's time on the farm is also spent cutting grass.  Okay, that last statement isn't really true.  He spends a lot of time tossing fish food to the fish in the ponds and watching them voraciously feed, but he does cut his share of grass.  However, as it pertains to the ponds, they are his personal aquariums.  But back to all the grass cutting...

Along with the area surrounding the house, I also cut most of the fields.  I had bush-hogged them, but now that they are somewhat under control (term used loosely), I am cutting them with the riding mower, your run of the mill Husqvarna from Home Depot.  Pretty standard stuff.

One thing I've quickly learned is that the mowers you buy at the big box stores are made more for cutting a few acres of smooth lawn.  The fields that I'm cutting have ruts, fire ant hills, cypress roots, pine roots, holes from armadillos, large tire tracks from the lumber equipment and lots of other things that a consumer grade lawnmower shouldn't have to deal with.  So, as you can imagine, I've had to make some repairs or replace things, especially the blades...4 times since we bought it in February of last year.

Recently, I took it to a local repair shop to have the deck fixed.  Terrell dropped it off for me at 7am and they called at noon and said it was ready.  That was impressive!  We went to pick it up the next morning.  I walked up to the counter and the lady asked for my name.  I told her.  She grabs the phone and calls out over the very loud intercom to the shop and throughout the entire place, "I NEED A HUSKY RIDER FOR BOZMAN!"

I didn't flinch or say anything, but I was shocked.  Did she just call me fat?!!!  I'm thinking, "Hey Lady...I know I'm big, but you don't need to announce it to the world!  I'm just here for a lawnmower. You're not too slim yourself, ya know!"  But being in the south, I just smiled sweetly as I paid the bill.

With a straight face and holding my head high I started outside, expecting strange looks and snickers from the guys in the shop.  As the man in line behind me, who was your average sized man, gave her his name, I heard her voice again, "I NEED A HUSKY RIDER FOR LEE!"

Okay...I get it now.  He owned a Husqvarna too.  Mystery solved.  Now...on to the latest progress on the houses.

The cabin has been sitting idle for a bit while we waited for the flooring and cabinet folks to clear their schedules.  As for the main house, the framers have been busy. We have a second floor, and roof rafters, and dormers!

It's starting to look like a house

View from the carport side of the house.

A view from a few days ago.  Picture this view without the dumpster, POD, car and lawnmower.

That's not all that's growing though.  Along with the house and grass getting taller, the vegetable garden continues to grow and produce.

There are tons of tomatoes on those vines.

Especially the cherry tomatoes.

And some Roma tomatoes.

We've got peppers too!

And in this monstrosity...

The watermelon patch.

We have several of these...

A little bigger than a softball right now.

The cantaloupes are thriving as well.

Though dwarfed by the watermelon patch, the cantaloupes won't back down.

It's sorta in the teenager stage.

A few Indigo Apple tomatoes are starting to ripen.

And finally, I'll leave you with a final reference to my "Husky Rider" in case you'd forgotten about it.  As I was riding it (proudly) this evening, out on the island (not really, but we call it that) in the little pond, this view caught my eye and I had to snap a pic.

The view from my "Husky Rider" from the island.

UPDATE!  UPDATE! UPDATE! - I started this blog entry on Wednesday (June 8th), but didn't get it posted.  Today we had some new updates to the cabin and the house.  First...the cabin.

The kitchen(ette) cabinets are in!

We'd told Tracy that we were just looking for basic cabinets.  He had a new guy who has been bugging him for the chance to make some cabinets for him, so he told him to do these.  The workmanship is very good, especially for only asking for basic cabinets.  We were impressed with the job he did.  There is a large roll of flooring (not pictured) in the cabin that will go in on Friday.  After that, the trim guy does his work (Friday afternoon) and the plumber puts in the final fixtures...maybe Friday, maybe Saturday.  We'll see.  We're getting close.  Soon our roomie, Terrell, will be moving out on his own.

They grow up so fast... Now on to the main house...

I want to tell some sort of roof joke, but I feel it would go over your head.

This is the view from the backyard (master bed/bath on left).  This is the view the dog will see when she goes outside.  Hopefully she always goes outside.  

Side view.  MBR on back (right) corner.

The roof looks YUUGE from this angle!

The view from what will be Robert's upstairs bedroom dormer.

I've climbed up the ladder to the second floor a few times to see the view, as you can plainly see.  Both kids will have nice views from their windows and plenty of light (south-facing).

One more gratuitous roof picture.  This time from inside.

So that's all the progress up to the evening of June 9th.  It's coming along.  Each day we go over to either work, check the progress or both.  It's amazing to watch it take shape, and despite the sometimes overwhelming amount of decisions we have to make, and sometimes change, it's quite the adventure.

Have a great weekend!!!

1st of June

We have progress to report!  Not so much on the cabin (which I am beginning to fear will never be finished), or the house, but in the gardens.

Yesterday we discovered and devoured the first ripe blueberries of the season.  There weren't many (yet) but they were amazing.  I've always loved the blueberries on the farm, but in recent years we've usually gotten down here at the very tail end of their season.  I'm looking forward to sharing a very bountiful harvest!

Get in my belly!

The few that didn't get in my belly.

That's allright fella, that one is all yours.  

We found something else in the blueberry bushes, too.  A pair of brown thrashers have a nest in one of the bushes, and Mama was happily minding her babies until Craig tried to take her picture.  Then she lived up to her name, and Papa got in on the action, too.  You can see her wing in the picture below.  Craig had an exciting few minutes, and after a quick picture we left them alone.  Although I can't promise not to be back soon (blueberries aren't for the birds!)

Not very cute at that stage.  

Along with the first blueberries, we also got our first ripe tomato yesterday.  In Virginia I used to shoot for (and usually fail) at having ripe tomatoes by the 4th of July.  Getting one a month earlier than that was pretty exciting.  It isn't a very pretty tomato, but there are a lot more coming along.

The cucumbers are old hat by now.  

There is actual progress on the house...framing continues...it just isn't very visually exciting at this point.  Yesterday Craig and I ventured out to shop for lighting.  We returned home with 4 massive catalogs and a new-found appreciation for interior designers who just magically make these decisions look easy.  At the cabin, the siding is finished and we're hoping the cabinets go in tomorrow. 

It is starting to look like a real house.

June 1st also means we have one month left in the Cox Farm rental before we have to move to the (teeny, tiny) Hwy 67 house.  We are hoping we'll only be there for 2-3 months before our house is finished. Please keep your fingers crossed for good weather, fast progress and my sanity!