Pink Squirrel Farmstead

The saying “time flies when you are having fun” is an understatement. The last couple days on the farm just flew by so quickly. In the basement there was a Styrofoam room for a lack of better words that had refrigerators with the backs but out placed into the walls of Styrofoam. The room was used to place large blocks of ice into and it would keep items cold for extended periods of time. I am not sure exactly how long it lasted for them but the Styrofoam was very very thick. A neighbor from down the road told us about how the Amish family that lived here years ago would drain all the oil out of the blade of the chainsaw and cut giant blocks of ice out of the creek across the road. And then they would haul the ice and put it into the room. The reason they would drain the oil out is to keep the oil from going all over the ice and contaminating the creek. The cold ice would keep the blade cool.

And to think, I complain about being exhausted after grocery shopping and meal planning in general for the month. I could not imagine having to cut large bricks of ice out of the creek, and haul them over to keep my food cold after or before shopping.  The modern conveniences we have make things much easier and they choose not to use them. To me, they are the ultimate survivors or dooms day preppers. I hope to learn so much from them.

The septic tank is on the outside of the wall behind this ice fridge and will need to be removed to be able to get indoor plumbing. My dad dug down, wayyyy down and found the pipe that plumbing will be tied into while we were at the zoo. The Styrofoam had to be cut out with a chainsaw it was so thick. I have never seen Styrofoam that thick before in my life. As it was taken out of the basement it was stacked by the road with a sign on it that said “free” and it was gone very quickly. Even the fridges that were glued into the foam. The bottom layer and a section of the back was having not been removed yet. It makes it easier to stand on it instead of a ladder or scaffolding to put in other plumbing pipes and electrical lines. It will be removed at a later date. My dad and I headed to Lowes to get the list of plumbing parts and some beginning electrical supplies while Chad started grinding away almost 100 years of paint off the bottom side of the bath tub. My dad and Chad are not allowed to go to Lowes unsupervised. They like to buy expensive things and try to tell me it was a great deal. LOL

There are 3 Lowes all within about 30 minutes of the farm. My dad loves to go to the town of Morehead. From the Farm to Lowes in Morehead it is 19 miles or 26 miles. I like the Lowes in Mt. Sterling better which is 29 miles or 34 minutes away. Then there is also Lowes in Maysville that is 24 miles or 31 minutes away. So, I chose for us to go to Mt. Sterling, and my dad complained the entire ride there about how much farther it was. I told him I would fill up the truck with gas on the way home if would quit complaining about it. Do you think that stopped his belly aching? Nope he is also a brat! It was quite comical though.

When we have a project to do with my dad, he always thinks of prices from the 1990s. and we always say that when dad gives a quote of cost to add $200-300 more to the amount for prices now. Dad and I went all over Lowes and got our pipes, a small piece of ply wood and some electrical wire. When we got to checkout Chad texted that he needed more stuff for the grinder and paint remover. I paid and we loaded up the supplies and then went back in for the items Chad needed. We looked all over for the paint remover and finally found it. When we got back to the farm, we gave Chad his supplies to which he quickly pointed out we got the wrong paint remover. It clearly said on the front not for bath tubs. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?

I offered to go back but Chad said no and he got back to grinding. He said it was taking much longer than he anticipated it would. My dad went and found a second grinder and the two of them kept grinding away on the tub with generator power into the night.

While grinding my dad’s grinder got away from him and he ended up grinding up his arm and injuring himself pretty good. He tried to act all big and bad. Didn’t want to put medicine or a bandage on it but, I am pretty stubborn and he knows that so he finally gave in and let me. Last thing I wanted was for him to get an infection. OLD people I swear. Chad kept grinding and finally quit way after dark. He was trying to get finished with it before we had to head back to Texas.

The next afternoon we had to go back to Texas. We had been having a great time and did not want it to end. We had gotten to explore some of our property, the plants growing on it and we found a wet weather creek in the back corner. What an amazing trip, so sad to see it end.

08/05/2021

Have you seen the show Secrets of the Zoo? The first episode came out on Nat Geo Wild in July of 2018. I have since seen every single episode. I just love the show! You get to see all the heartwarming stories about the animals and the keepers at the Columbus Zoo. I have wanted to go to this zoo for a while. When we took a vacation through Tennessee and Kentucky back in April, we were going to go but unfortunately, we were just unable to fit it in. There are so many things that are done behind the scenes that people just don’t know about. The love and care the keepers have for these animals is just amazing. I know not all zoos have such a wonderful loving staff but I love knowing that these animals are so cared for.

I love going to the zoo and I don’t mind all the walking. But the Columbus Zoo was a giant! I was determined to see the whole zoo in one day. Ha-ha that was not such a great idea. Entering the zoo was very heart whelming. Having children of us with special needs it was so amazing to see all the staff that was there with special needs. Everyone was so kind and had a smile on their face. It was truly so amazing. Hunter wants to work in a zoo when he finishes college and one of the employees took the time out to talk with him on what he would need to do to stand out and get hired. How many people would even do that now? It made my heart so happy.

First stop was the bathroom after the long drive to the zoo and off to see all my favorite animals. The layout of the zoo was great and it flowed so well. We went towards the giraffes first, reindeer and the elephants. A new elephant was recently born at the zoo from momma elephant Phoebe. The baby was not out in the main exhibit the day I was there but I got to see it behind the scenes. It was so cute and full of adorableness.

We ventured on and saw penguins, and polar bears. We even got to watch them swimming. It was so cute! I just love seeing different animals and watch their personalities portrayed. There were so many locations high and low to be able to get a glimpse of the animals. In the show secrets of the zoo there was a very loving flamingo named Haleakala that had hydrotherapy for care and the flamingo would just love her keeper. Thought of the show when I saw the exhibit. Watch this clip below from YouTube:

After over 16,000 steps we could not walk any more. We were exhausted but wanted to keep going. We saw so many amazing exhibits. The animals’ habitats were truly remarkable. They all had so much room to move. I even stopped and saw the chickens. I would definitely recommend taking a few days to check out the zoo. We will be making several trips here for sure! I cannot wait to start filling our farm with up animals and people coming to see them and love them too. When we left the zoo, we were starving. We love trying out different German restaurants when we go places and we love German food in general. I had Chad choose a place to go on the drive up and we headed there for an early dinner. The food was amazing. Dessert was not my favorite but I am very particular about desserts. Hazards of being a baker I suppose. We enjoyed the atmosphere and with over full bellies we headed back to the farm for some more adventure.

I love to plan out everything. I am that person that plans every single aspect out on a vacation. I just can’t help it. I am also a very visual person. I need to physically see what someone is talking about; I have a hard time imagining it.  I have drawn out rough sketches of bathroom layouts but I have no spatial ability so I have no idea if things would fit or not. I had purchased the beautiful 1926 antique tub that needs a little refinishing and Chad swears it weighs 500 lbs. I bought a brand-new toilet from Lowes that I has the two buttons on top for flushing depending on what you are flushing so that you flush with less water.

I used blue painters’ tape and taped down my definite bathroom plans onto the floor. Since the main floor did not have a bathroom on it, we wanted a toilet closet attached to our master bathroom. The living room in the house was gigantic so we cut the room down the middle to create 2 smaller rooms. The painters tape helped me visualize the layout and make some somewhat final decisions.

I did not what to have brand new everything in the house, I love the charm and character of individual pieces. Chad found a beautiful cabinet that had been turned into a sink in Frankfort KY on Facebook marketplace. We drove the next morning to meet them at their house. The woman was a nurse and had to work that day but we were able to meet with her husband. He was so nice, invited us into their home and went over the piece from head to toe. They had purchased it for their bathroom but unfortunately it did not fit where they were needing it to without redoing some plumbing. He helped Chad load it up into our SUV and told us about how he mows and cleans up the local cemetery. Such a nice man. The next day Chad got a message on Facebook from the person we bought the cabinet from and said that her husband had talked so highly of us and thanked us for purchasing it from her. Such a sweet message to get.

The next question on the plumbing is where does the septic pipe tie into the septic tank. Now in my head I had never really even thought about this part, but apparently it was quite essential. And apparently you can’t just start a new pipe. My dad began to make a list of the supplies we would need for plumbing but we had to figure out where the pipe was to finish the list. I wanted to get the supplies before we headed back to Texas. The kids began to dig around the septic tank to try to find the edges. This was taking forever. I’m sure probably to them it was even longer because they were the ones digging in a small space under the porch. I went to help them since it was taking so long but after hours of digging, we still did not have much of an answer. Luckily the kids knew we were taking the next day to go to the zoo for some much-needed fun. They had worked so hard without complaining too much and they deserved to have some fun.  We will figure out the sewer another day.

After all the craziness with Chad’s flight we needed a chill day or two. We slept in, and then enjoyed a delicious breakfast that my parents made. We hung out on the porch and looked around the local areas, and looked at house and barn in the day light. Chad had been doing some Amazon Shopping for the farm while he was back in Texas and most of those packages were supposed to start trickling in this week. There has been so much going on, on the farm it was a little overwhelming knowing what to do first and what should wait.

 We had an appointment with the health inspector regarding future plans on our septic tank, and what all that will entail. Chads work phone rang continuously so unfortunately; he missed a lot of that meeting.  The inspector stayed around and chit chatted with us for a while, He has quite the number of hats in the surrounding community. Paula our realtor was able to come by the house and chat with us. She even brought us a sweet gift basket filled with Kentucky made products, which is funny because we made her a gift basket with Texas made products. Great minds think alike. We have been trying out the products in the basket since we have been back in Texas and they have been quite tasty so far!

We went to look at covered bridges, looked at the downtown Historical district in Flemingsburg.  Wow, it is quite pretty and the details in the buildings are just amazing!  We explored Morehead, grabbed some lunch and bought a walk behind weed eater thingy. I didn’t even know things like that existed but I am glad they do.  We tried it out when we got home clearing the fence line by the road. It works great!

The evening became rainy and we were able to just enjoy some time relaxing. When the rain began to let up, we were sitting in the living room and Chad spotted an own out on the deck railing (he is definitely very observant, unlike me…. He can get a haircut and I won’t notice for a week.). I tried taking pictures but couldn’t get one very well through the wet window screens. I snuck ever so quietly (probably not to the owl) out onto the porch, snapped a quick picture and noticed there was a second one out there too. SO FREAKING COOL! What an amazing experience.

Late on August 1 Chad was settled in the hotel in Lubbock anxiously awaiting his early morning flight to come see me. We were chatting, he upgraded his seats so that he would have more leg room then he got an alert. His flight was canceled. WHAT!? Are you kidding me? The notice tells him to call their 1-800 number and talk to an associate. He called and was on hold for over 2 hours with no answer. American Airlines rebooked his flight for Tuesday evening and then he wouldn’t even get to Kentucky until Wednesday afternoon. I couldn’t believe this was happening. He only had 7 days off to be on the farm and I miss him so much! I am frantically trying to find other flights so he could still come first thing in the morning. I checked flights into Cincinnati, and into Louisville. All the flights going into Dallas were cancelled. I was so upset but tried to keep it together. Chad was going to try to go first thing in the morning to figure it out with the airlines since they are not answering the phone. I am sure neither of us slept very well that night.

Early, early in the morning Chad went to the Airport and spoke to the service counter.  They explained the issue was bad weather in Dallas and that there were no flights being allowed to land there. I guess it was waaaayyyyyyy up in the sky because there wasn’t a drop of rain on the ground. But Chad was able to still get a flight out of Dallas that left at 4:30 pm. Mind you, he is 5 ½ hours away from Dallas still in Lubbock. He had one vehicle there so when he flew back home, he would have a vehicle. So now what? How do you get to Dallas and leave a vehicle at the airport? Try a rental? Sure, they open up at 7 am according to the service counter, Chad sat for a couple hours waiting for 7 am to rent a car. At 7 am the car rental ladies start showing up, Chad walks over and they ask if they can help him. He said, yes, I need to rent a vehicle. She says oh sorry we don’t open until 8 we are just here doing paperwork. He goes and sits back down. At 8 am he goes back up to the counter and she once again asks, how can I help you. He said Well I still need to rent a car from here to Dallas airport. She said oh we don’t have any one-way rentals. And proceeded to tell him he should have booked in advance to ensure they had a car available.

Now, Chad is usually the calm one when it comes to things like this (probably because he doesn’t usually deal with them) but this is when he blew a gasket. He proceeded to tell her “Now why would I rent a vehicle when I was supposed to fly out 3 hours ago? Would you have rented a vehicle ahead of time?” Then he went down to the next agency to see if they had vehicles. Apparently, the guy heard the first conversation and explained they also did not have one-ways. The only other option was a company in town but they did not open until 9:30 am. What a waist of a morning. Chad at this point was very frustrated and decided he might need to go get some breakfast and calm down before his next stop.

I had gotten a notification about his new flight so when I woke up, I was excited to know he would still be coming today. I didn’t know all the Hell he had been through already this morning. When I called him, he was on his way to the rental company in town to try his luck there and he would call me back. When he got there, Chad being nice asked how his day was going and the guy began to explain he was having a bad morning. Chad could relate and told him he needed a vehicle to go from Lubbock to Dallas. The guy explained the only one he had was still dirty. Chad explained he has a flight to catch and doesn’t care that it is dirty. Chad got it rented and asked about a shuttle. The guy said they do not have shuttles to the airport and he would have to get a uber. Super frustrating but at least he was able to get a car.

Finally on the road to Dallas, and made it with 1 hour to drop off the rental car and get through TSA. Talk about stressful! He gets in line at TSA and of course things are slow as can be and he is worried he is going to miss his flight. When it is almost his turn, he finds out that he could have taken the shorter line since he upgraded his seats. Oh well now! Chad races to get to his gate just to find out that his flight was delayed for 45 min. but the flight didn’t even start loading for over an hour.

I was already in Lexington doing some last-minute shopping at Costco anxiously Waiting for Chad and his flight had not even left yet. I’m sure he was overly tired and ready for this day to be over with. Finally, they were boarding and they were headed to Lexington. I finished up shopping, got some gas, and headed to the airport. I wasn’t sure how traffic was going to be and I did not want to delay seeing Chad for another second.  I parked and waited for a little over an hour and got a notification that the flight was delayed another 30 minutes. Sigh~! Apparently, it was not a good flying day!

Chad was finally there! I was so excited! I pulled up at the front of the airport and picked him up. WE headed to dinner and enjoyed our little date and then headed to the farm.  Chad had not been to the farm prior to this. He had only seen pictures and facetime when we viewed the property. When he got there, he looked all over the barn, and the house by flashlight. It was adorable but I couldn’t blame him one bit. I would have been doing the same.

August 1, I have been at the farm for one week. We have accomplished so much in one week! Chad will finally be here tomorrow! I cannot wait! We hate being away from each other. My goal is to finish the dry creek behind the house before he gets here. My back is killing me from swinging the pick axe all day yesterday and the motivation has not yet arrived this morning. I think I will just sit here for a little while on the porch and drink a hot tea under the blanket and listen to the bird’s chirp and watch all the Amish buggies go by to church. It is so intriguing to see them all dressed in their Sundays best and the whole family piled into the buggy. The kids will be sitting in laps, or even on the floor board. They are always so friendly waving and smiling. It is such a breath of fresh air.

My parents are big breakfast eaters and make a big breakfast most mornings. I am not a big breakfast eater but after working on the farm all day every day for the past week I have really enjoyed morning breakfast that I did not have to make. Maybe I am just not a morning breakfast maker…. hmmm. Yesterday we looked up in the attic to see what was up there and found several boxes, lots of trash and a cute little Amish hat that Hunter claimed even though it had a small tear in the brim of it. When we got busy working this morning hunter grabbed the hat and got busy.

I started digging the ditch, Hunter started placing the rocks, and Payton started toting them to Hunter. It was going pretty quick for the most part but we were definitely not as motivated today. When digging I kept hitting rock over and over which was not fun with swinging a pick axe. I decided to go help Payton get some rocks for a bit, we played with the cat and dog a bit and took lots of breaks. We planned on taking Monday off so that was our motivation to keep going since I would be picking Chad up from the Airport.

While carrying rocks my flip flops had a blow out, I guess its time to put on work shoes. Yes, I know the shoes I should have been wearing the whole time anyways. Did I mention I hate closed toed shoes?  A little after 1:30 we finished the dry creek to the end of the back of the house. Lunch and break time turned in to lunch and nap time. Man, it felt so good to take a long nap on the porch. I am sure it will not be my last, that’s for sure.  

Here Chick Chick Chick

Hunter and I got busy first thing in the morning clearing more tall weeds beside the house and continued working on the “creek”. My mom and Payton went to work on laundry and my dad was working on fixing the waterline to the barn. The weed eater and I had finally decided to get along and we were making pretty good progress. Hunter was cutting down pokey milk weed that was too big for the weed eater to cut down and was not having much luck. He would clip the, and they would fall on top of him. Those plants are the worst, they sprayed everything when the weed eater cut through them.

The new electrician we had contacted came buy to take a look about getting it hooked up and gave us a quote right away. It would be another couple weeks before it would be hooked up since they are so booked. I was very impressed with him and called Chad with an update on that. We were hoping for electric to be hooked up while I was there but it is what it is. 

Mom and Payton got back from doing laundry and going to the grocery store. Then Payton and Papa (my dad) hopped in the truck and headed to the stock sale. Hunter opted to stay and help me out. We continued working on clearing the fence line from a rocky trail down to the fence. This is when I think I was exposed to poison ivy but did not know quite yet. We weren’t quite sure what Payton and Papa would show up with from the sale but at this point I was hoping for a hundred goats. To clear all this brush. LOL. They did come home with 9 Ayman Cemani silkie mix chicks. Dad was very surprised at the cost of livestock now. They are definitely not 1990 prices anymore.

Payton got put to work when she got back to the farm since she was out having “fun” all morning. She started hauling the brush to a pile down by the front of the house. And We continued on the “creek.” We had made quite the progress but still hadn’t quite completed it. We were only about half way done but we were exhausted. It was quitting time for Hunter and I. Payton went up to start working on clearing out the 3-inch layer of chicken feces off the floor of the chicken coop. I’m sure she just wanted to hang out with the new chicks.

Over night on July 30^th there was a big storm for the area. Usually, no big deal but as you know there is no electricity in the house and we rely on the cool breeze coming in when we sleep. Most of the windows had to be closed because the wind was blowing and the rain was really coming down. Didn’t seem to be a bad storm but we actually got 3-4 inches of rain in a short amount of time.

A little after midnight I had to go to the bathroom and found out that the whole back walkway was flooded that was on the way to the outhouse. I also noticed that there was a little water coming in the back door. I went to the bathroom and then decided to checkout to see if there were any other leaks or anything. Since I was on the main floor I went looking around. I found a leak around the base of the floor in the laundry room where the cinder blocks meet the concrete floor luckily there is drains built in the floor and there was not anything that would need to be moved to keep from getting ruined. Then I moseyed down to the basement to check it out. Also, in the basement there were leaks where the cinder blocks meet the concrete floors. There are also drains built into the floor down there. Maybe that’s why? I guess we will try to figure out how to seal that up. Glad to find the problems now and not after finished construction. I went up to the top floor of the house and looked around for more leaks and luckily found none.

Payton got up several times to go check on Rick in the barn, she let me know that there was a river going through the barn. Oh boy! Just what I always wanted to hear. I asked if the cat was up somewhere safe and dry and she said yes, he was laying in the hay. I sent her back to bed and headed up stairs.

I went back to bed, texted Chad to have him remind me of the things I found in the morning. Most of the time he doesn’t hear texts when he is sleeping but he did that night. He called me right away about it and I told him my plan for fixing some of the problems and we went back to sleep.

The next morning got up and saw most of the neighbor’s driveway in the road in front of our house. I was like ummmm yikes! All the rain pushed large rocks and gravel down their road and washed a lot away. I messaged Paula our realtor to let her know because she was supposed to come out to visit that morning and I did not know the condition of the roads around us and did not want her to drive all that way (1.5-hour drive) for nothing.

Checked in the barn for damages. There was definitely water flowing through the barn but it was not as dire need to fix as it was to fix around the house. The water had pushed several things into the bay doors going into the barn and the cat bed was soaked, but overall, not any terrible damage. I will have to work on that some other day.

I found a bath tub online on Facebook marketplace and messaged the seller to see if it was still available. Luckily it was and we decided that since it was too wet to do much outside this morning, we would make the trip to go get it. The tub was in Cincinnati, Ohio which sounds far but it was only about an hour and a half away. Have you ever been to Cincinnati? Why are the roads so small? Why are the houses practically on top of each other? Why is there absolutely no parking? Oh, and did I mention I am pulling a trailer.

Luckily there was a Kroger’s parking lot by the seller’s location but little did we know the tub was a few blocks down in a garage down a driveway at the bottom of the hill. I thought to myself oh boy! This will be fun to carry a cast iron tub up the hill and load onto the trailer but I didn’t say anything. There were a few options on tubs to pick from. The guy remodels old homes and that is where he obtained the tubs. I saw a big farm house sink in a shopping cart and asked if it was also for sale and he said yes. I reluctantly asked how much and to my surprise it was only $100. We had been looking all over for one and could never find one under $800 in this condition or this size. I was wanting a double sink with the drain board on the side and this one has one on each side. I ran down to Kroger’s right away and got more money out to pay him and his crew loaded up the trailer for us. YAY! We were so glad that all we would have to do is strap them down and we headed home.

We stopped at Lowes and Walmart on the way back home to pick up some more supplies needed for the house and grabbed some lunch. I think everyone was glad to get away from working one the farm for a bit, we had been going nonstop.  

That evening it was time to get busy on a project to hopefully help prevent water from coming in the house again. In the back of the house is a large hill and weeds above my head. I thought that if I dug a ditch behind the house and lined it with rocks and concrete then maybe it would redirect the water and keep it from coming into the house. We got to weed eating and raking it all up. We decided to create a brush pile to burn it because it was just so much weeds.

While Payton and I worked on that Hunter cleaned out the gutters and trimmed the tree in the back that was hanging over the house and gutter quite a bit. Not sure if you know but Hunter HATES heights so he always gets those tasks. I’m a loving parent, I know!

Luckily, we were refreshed after our morning off because there were lots to do behind the house. I began to dig and dig and dig and dig some more with a shovel, a hoe, and a pick ax. There are tons of rocks around on the property so we hauled rocks to line the “man made creek” making sure to have the rocks higher on the house side to keep the water contained and redirected. It was coming along slowly but surely. My dad started making dinner on the Blackstone and we worked until dinner was done.  

Relaxed on the front porch that evening and did some tub home measurements for Chad so he could order the hardware we will need to put it in and the kit we will need to refinish it with. Luckily it looks like the sink just needs some elbow grease and new fixtures. I am so excited about our forever farm; I love working on the farm and enjoying the outside. One of my favorite features is the front porch, it is so nice to sit out there and listen to the bird’s chirp and feel the soft breeze in the air.  I cannot wait to get back to the farm.

Chad is beyond excited to have a workshop and I am beyond excited to have a barn for animals. Chad was still in Texas at this time dying to be at the farm. The barn was quite a hot mess when we purchased it but it just needed some love. There was a room in the barn that we could not look in before purchasing because the owners had so much stuff in it that we could not get in there. The room is about 8 1/2 ft by 12 ½ ft. We call it the tool room. It was honestly the least intimidating room to tackle first. We took everything out of it, swept the walls, ceiling, shelves, and floor to get rid of the abundance of cob webs, saw dust, old feed, and just all-around grossness. We found am old exercise bike, and some old rusted horse shoes.

Payton had already started in the big bay working on clearing out old rotting straw that was piled up for who knows how long. I had her start wheel barreling it to the big horse bay to use for compost in the garden once we get the Polaris fixed. This part will take a few days to complete it was quite a bit and was heavy scooping it up and hauling it. We moved some of the totes of tools, and garage type stuff into the big bay after sweeping out some of the cobwebs, and sweeping off the counters and my dad started putting some of the guy stuff in the tool room. It is all starting to come together little by little. I knew Chad was very excited about the workshop areas so I wanted to get them a little cleaned up for when he got there.

Now, the third bay of the shop was quite a mess. It had been used in the past as a Farrier shop (horse shoeing). And it was piled almost to the ceiling with trash and treasure. We thought, dang this is going to take a few days and we started to get busy. Slowly and carefully, we started pulling out trash, and interesting tools, more horse shoes, more trash, buggy parts, metal gates, animal troughs, chairs, more trash, wood, gas cans, broken insulation boards, tomato cages, even tires, both wooden and rubber oh and more trash! I really thought the Amish would have been a bit cleaner than this but that’s what I get for making assumptions. We began to wonder after getting a lot of the stuff out of the room if the floor was dirt or if it was concrete like the rest of the shop and barn.

I got out my handy dandy German snow shovel and started scraping up 3-4 inched of composted horse poop off the concrete slab. I started putting it into the wheel barrel and sifting through it to remove trash and metal debris so it could be used in the garden as well. 90% of the floor was covered with the composted poo/trash mixture. We continued to chip away and get it clean. Once we were able to open up the bay doors 2 kittens came to visit us. One was super friendly and Hunter named him Rick. The other one was very skittish and didn’t really want any attention at all. Rick hung around the remainder of the day and we had no idea where he came from. But it was a nice breath of fresh air to have him around and he was quite curious to see what we were doing and had a blast exploring around the barn. Hunter stepped on some glasss while cleaning up but luckily it wasn’t bad. We like to work in sandals, they are more comfy but not practical. Oops! Glad there was no stitches or anything but a foot soak and a band-aid.

My mom kept us hydrated as we worked on the barn and checked on us to see how we were doing. We had bagged so much trash up, had a pile of both good and rotten wood, a pile of trash that couldn’t be bagged up and, a pile of insulation board for trash and kept some that were still good, and then a pile of cool gadgets to check out on a later day. The bay was finally cleaned out, man what an accomplishment.

After working on that all day, I decided to clean out one of the stalls in the barn, it had a stall mat in it and more piled up manure and hay. I scooped up the what I could and then we moved the stall mat. The smell was putrid, it was slimy with manure and urine. We drug it out of the barn and scrubbed it down. We ran a hose down from the house to use to help clean it since we hadn’t fixed the water to the barn yet. We finished scrubbing the stall out, removed more cobwebs, and dirt dobber nests then sprayed out the stall. It is so rewarding to work on your own farm.

We knew when we bought the property there was a water leak at the main on our side not the city side. Which is why I did not get the water turned on until after we were there. The water was leaking over a gallon a minute which can get pretty pricy pretty quickly. But we did not know exactly where it was. We were given a phone number to a ditch digger that came out within 30 minutes of being called that showed my dad where the leak was, gave us a part to turn the water line on and off all for no charge. Him and my dad are now best buds and has literally been so helpful in many instances since we got there. My dad got up early the next morning (he is definitely a morning person…..I did not get that gene) and dug up the line and found the leak.

After finding the leak and my dad working on it to get it fixed we found out that there was actually water to the barn. YAY! But we did not know where it was either. We did not have all the parts needed to fix the problem due to the way the piping was put in. The broken pipe was actually a Y that supplied the water to the house and to the barn. My dad patched it so we could use the shower that night in the house that we got off amazon for temporary showering. When we hooked that up we found another water leak inside but luckily it just needed tightening and was a quick easy fix.

Everything was pretty grown up and had not been mowed in a quite a while so when I was at Lowe’s I had purchased a new lawn mower (self-propelled…. I know super Fancy, right?) the mower dies several times due to the height of the grass and we had to make several passes to get it all cut but it was very satisfying in the end. The hill going up to the entrance was quite the chore though. Self propelled going up was great but not going down. It was so steep and the ground was so slick that it literally pulled me down the hill and fell onto my butt a few times too. At one point I fell and let go of the mower for safety reasons and it went all the way down to the bottom of the hill. We worked on mowing the yard for a couple days but finally got it done. It looked amazing and when I tell you the grass felt so soft and amazing on our feet with out any stickers in it, oh it was heavenly.  When I just finished mowing around the front gate and beside the barn an Amish buggy came by. I just love our little farm.