We spent our first night at the cabin last night.

Ada coughed all night long, so there wasn’t much sleep involved.

Sick, crazy bunny!

This weekend we moved some of our furniture–the dressers, beds, and a love seat.  We still have to move the big Expedit shelves, which have to be taken apart and put back together, and the washer and dryer.

The house has tons of stuff all over it, half packed boxes.  Everything is still in the scary over stuffed coat closet, the bathroom closet, the laundry closet, the attic, garage, and the kitchen cabinets.

Unfortunately packing any of it up with the girls is nearly impossible and Tyler has mandatory overtime this weekend.  Frustrating.

The anxiety of having all of my things completely disorganized is not fun.  I don’t like it when everything is out of place.

We don’t have a TV at the cabin because we didn’t move them.  Netflix is spotty–works sometimes, when the internet is cooperating.  We don’t have cable anymore.

It’s weird not having TV and streaming internet.  It reminds me of my childhood.  We have to do stuff like play and read books.  Haha.

If the girls could ever get over this bronchitis virus it would be a lot more fun out here.

My neighbor, who is a bus driver, said all the kids have had the same virus and it’s a long lasting one with a bad cough.  Fun stuff.

He said he caught it and coughed his head off for a full two weeks before he felt even semi-normal again.

Ah well.  At least the view is pretty!

The cabin is in the middle.  That white thing to the right of it is the first chicken hoop coop.  (Second one has yet to be constructed…first one isn’t even totally finished because the tarp isn’t nailed on.)

Here’s a view from up on the hill.

This is behind me to the right.  Belongs to a neighbor, the older lady named Ms. Ellen who lives in the cabin way back behind us over this ridge.  We are free to run and play up there, she doesn’t mind.

These neighbor horses are killing me.  Never close enough to touch!  Please, let me nuzzle your soft horsey nose…

Not approved.

Is it just me or does this horse have humongous nostrils?  I mean more so than regular horse nostrils…or maybe she’s just flaring them at me all the time in indignation.

Doesn’t help that Hank barks at them whenever he’s outside.  I don’t know what his hound brain thinks!

We brought Abby (the black lab mix) out here today.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that she had nice manners with all the other neighbor dogs!

Typically in our suburb she will try to attack other dogs in the yard or walking past.  I have to muzzle her at the vet too.  But here?

She came up on Brenda’s three big dogs (the horse owner) and they barked viciously at her.  She barked back then ran off to play.

I’m still unsure about fencing.  People here just let their dogs out to run where ever. Seeing my dogs running happily through the field is great.

Hank and Manuel tend to stick close to home and come back when called.  Abby though…she just took off running. I followed her for about half a mile before she stopped.

She doesn’t listen when I call her.

She’s fast too!

Hopefully she can learn that this is home and she doesn’t need to take off running at 240 mph.

Since we live on a dead end gravel road it’s pretty isolated for quite some way, so there aren’t that many dangers, but it causes me some anxiety to think that they aren’t safely locked in a fenced in space.

I really just…don’t know.

I will say they are definitely happy and exhausted dogs at night!  I can see that this is how Hank is meant to live, not in town where he is so bad.

We made the best purchase ever yesterday.

Long range walkie talkies!

They’re the Motorola brand kind that can go for an insane amount of distance. Something like 65 miles! They also act as a flash light and weather radio.  They recharge with a dock or via USB cord.

Since cell phone reception here is spotty, and sometimes I need to walk a fair distance from the house to lock up the chickens or chase down the dogs I can just take one walkie talkie with me and leave the other inside with the girls.

Rosie is responsible enough to not burn down the house or anything crazy when left inside with Ada, but she gets worried if she can’t see me out the window and can’t immediately speak to me.  She loves the walkie talkies!

Abby ran up to the neighbor’s house this evening and while I was corralling her Rosie was informing over the walkie talkies that she hurt Ada’s ear but it was an accident, and how many seconds until I walked back into sight of the house, and can she please eat some chips from the green bag?  Haha!

Before the walkie talkies when Abby would get out and run off (in our suburb) I would have to leave the girls at home to run and get her and they would sit there and sob.  (I can’t catch the dog while dragging two slow kids along!)

The walkie talkies have totally solved this problem.

Rosie is also sleeping upstairs in the loft bedrooms with a walkie talkie and I have one down here.  Perfect.

I can hear Ada coughing and choking again, so I’d better try to save this while the internet is working…

 Had an awkward moment this afternoon.

We were petting the goats when one of them managed to shove her head through a square in the fence!  It was kind of funny at first, until we realized it was actually completely stuck.  When she tried to pull her head back through the fence her horns would catch and prevent her from getting out of the headlock position.

This was when only one horn was through the fence square.  Soon both horns were stuck through it.

Then it got extremely awkward when all of the male goats decided to take this prime opportunity to gang rape her.  One of the long bearded pregnant female goats ran up and started repeatedly head butting all of the goats involved in the…orgy.  I’m not sure if she was annoyed at the chaos or trying to rescue her female friend from repeated rape.

My girls have seen the ducks do this, but somehow it was more horrifying to them with the goats. Probably because the poor goat with her head stuck was bleating in terror!

Finally Tyler was able to hold the goat’s head tightly in the right position to shove it back through the fence.

Shew!

Goats…

I am very surprised at how much Tyler likes the goats.  He was actually asking me questions about goat breeds and goat care.  (Because obviously I’ve already over researched owning goats over the past three years, just in case…)

They are hysterically funny creatures.  And friendly too!  Kind of dog-like, actually.  Except with “rectangly rectangle eyes that are not right” as Ada would say.

This is my favorite goat.  It’s a she goat.

She *loves* to be scratched behind her horns.

This is the sassy pregnant mama goat with the beard who was doing the head butting.

The little goat just underneath the one eating the apple is named Baby Frank.  He’s recently weaned.

These horses are so shy.  We have yet to actually touch them, even when offering treats.

Ada didn’t want to leave the goats.

I had to tie Hank to the porch so that we could pet the goats.  He barks and scares them if he follows us up there.

Luckily he doesn’t mind napping right there…for hours.  When I unclipped his collar to let him free he thumped his tail and resumed snoring.

We’re building hoop coops out of cattle panels for the chickens.

This is how it looks half done, in its current state.

It still needs chicken wire on the front and back, and the super strong tarp over it.  The tarps were in the mail at our house in town when I got home tonight.

Side view.

I can’t wait to get it finished!  Then we have to build the second one…

They are 8×8 feet, and a little over six feet tall inside.  They’re so strong you can hang the feeder and waterers from the top.

I’m going to put Premier electric poultry netting around them, but I haven’t ordered it yet.  I hate how expensive that stuff is!

Everyone I’ve talked to and everything I’ve read says it’s totally worth it though.

Both the electric poultry netting and the hoop coops can be moved around so that the chickens have plenty of fresh grass and bugs!  Basically they’re free range chickens without the neighbor’s dogs eating them.  (Hopefully.)

We sat out on the porch and watched a big thunderstorm come up over the hills.

After the storm!

This picture above was taken while standing right here, in my kitchen:

The cabin is really rustic.  But in a fun, quirky way.

I can’t wait until we get our beds moved in.  It already feels weird to come back to the suburb and our other house.  It’s so vastly different.

I’ll choose the cabin and that view any day!

The only major, major downside is the internet.  The speed is 1.5 compared to the 10 or 11 we have here in town.

1.5 is so slow that it barely functions.  I’m not sure how I will upload pictures or anything.  Netflix works, but it’s blurry.  Even Facebook is slow to use.

That’s the best option.  We explored every possibility.  Maybe they’ll upgrade the service out there soon?  Just a few miles away they don’t even have the ability to use wifi, so we’re lucky in that regard.

With no cable, poor internet, and living way out in the boonies we are definitely going to be in an isolated bubble.  Good thing there’s lots to do outside.

By the way, because several people always ask:  All the photos in this entry are iPhone pictures.  I took them using the VSCO CAM app, and used the filters from PicTapGo app to adjust the contrast and everything.  Those are my two all time favorite photo apps!

I am completely overwhelmed by moving and keeping up with daily chores.

Moving is going ever so slowly.  It pours rain all day for the one day off Tyler has each week.  Every single week since we’ve had the lease!

We can’t seem to get the fencing set up, which means we can’t move out there for good because we can’t leave the animals here alone.  I’m so frustrated!

I wish Tyler could just take a week off, but he doesn’t have any vacation time so that won’t happen.  They have so much mandatory overtime that he doesn’t get to leave work until after five every morning, which means he gets home around six, and then he has to sleep later.  Shift is supposed to end at 2:15 when there is no overtime.

On top of that they have been having mandatory Saturday overtime, which means Saturday is like a regular work day complete with not getting off until 5 in the morning.

He also has duties to do before shift starts, so he has to go in an hour early every day.  The money is great, but not the lack of time to get stuff done.

Plus, I suck at single parenting.  Really suck.  Especially during this pregnancy when I feel terrible a lot.  (Yes, still!  It’s not going to go away until birth, is it?)

Lots of people are buying Toyota cars I guess.  So much that they are opening a whole new section at the plant where he works. I think they’re going to start making the Lexus or something.  I can’t remember.  It’s due to increased demand.

Oh wait, here’s an article explaining all of it.  It’s a New York Times article about the plant where Tyler works.

 

Even though moving is incredibly stressful and horrible, our cabin is still awesome.

We finally met our closest neighbors.  They live in a tiny silver trailer just over the hill.  They’re extremely nice.

Sherri, the woman, is probably somewhere between 45 and 55.  It’s so hard to tell!  Her hair is all gray, but her face doesn’t look that old.

She has horses and she does dog rescue.  Her five year old granddaughter comes over to visit a lot.  I bet she will be friends with Rosie!

Sherri told me that her granddaughter knows how to ride well by herself and they would be happy to teach Rosie and Ada to ride.

Rosie is THRILLED.  I had promised her she could go to horse camp this summer, until I realized it cost about $300 for a week…not including the gas it takes to drive there and back to drop off and pick up.  Living next door to horses and getting to ride them all the time is only about thirty thousand times better!

One day, if we ever get moved and settled in with the new baby, and once Tyler gets a promotion at work, I would love to own a horse or two.

 

My dreams of having my kids grow up outside in the fresh air, enjoying nature and animals are totally coming true.

Can’t believe it.  So blessed to have found this place.

I’m 100% certain it’s an answer to my prayers. I could have never in my wildest dreams imagined this would really happen.

And so suddenly too!

Here are a few pictures from the past couple of days.

I want to learn the name of every wildflower around the cabin.  There are so many I don’t know!

See that?  Those are my kids in the creek, which is low right now.  Rosie begs to go get in the creek and play.

The day before yesterday she took off her shoes and squished her toes in the mud.

ROSIE!  Careful, clean, overly cautious Rosie!  This move is going to be so good for her.

Remember a few years ago when we went on a hike up a creek and Rosie screamed and sobbed the entire time?

I won’t ever get tired of staring at my yard.  (Both sides of the road are ours!)

There’s a county owned graveyard just over our property line through the trees on the very far left.

You can see where there are Christmas trees on the far left, and there’s a big gap between them.  The graveyard is about half a football field through the woods past those Christmas trees.

Here are a few iPhone photos from in the graveyard area.

The graveyard is hauntingly beautiful.

I think this grave says 1790.

(The county has an easement to go through our field to get to the graveyard for mowing.  They mow at Labor Day and at Memorial Day.)

A newer part of the cemetery is fenced off for a family area.

This made me pause for quite awhile in sadness.

I desperately want to know the story behind this family.  Did they live in the original farm house on our property?  The house that my cabin is made of?

(The cabin is made of reclaimed wood from the farm house, and the original farm house front door is the side door to the cabin that leads into the kitchen!)

Did the unnamed twin girls and the two year old die at the same time?  Or were they buried here at separate times and and a marker placed later?

Why did the toddler die?  Did the twins die from being born too small or too early?

Worst of all, how did that poor mama cope?  My heart, it breaks for her!  The mother and father and another adult with the same last name are buried right next to this grave.

The mother was also named Eunice.

I may never know the answers to these questions.  I want to ask the elderly lady who lives in the cabin on the ridge behind mine.  Her property backs up to the graveyard from the opposite direction.  She’s the mother of my neighbor Sherri with the horse riding granddaughter.

These May Apples grow all around the entrance of the graveyard.  Apparently they were a very useful herb to the Indians.

Which leads me to wonder if Native Americans used to live on this land too.  Too bad I can’t ask that person in the 1790 grave…

 

View from the Christmas tree line graveyard entrance:

Poor Hank almost died yesterday at 4 in the morning.  Apparently he ate a spider in his crate and then had a major allergic reaction.

He vomited a lot, collapsed, and couldn’t breathe.  I thought he was having heart failure or something, he’s pretty old.  Then once I realized he was swelling up (insanely, like a Shar Pei!) I shoved Benadryl down his throat and within 20 minutes he was able to take semi-normal breaths again.

As soon as the vet opened at 8 we rushed him in.  The vet swore that allergic reactions in dogs were actually somewhat common.

How terrifying!

If your dog ever has this happen give Benadryl immediately! I just guessed, as a last ditch effort, but it saved his life and was actually the correct thing to do.

His lips were so swollen they started to crack and bleed.  I’ve never seen anything like it before.  His eyes were even swelling shut.

His skin was burning hot and he had huge hives on his belly.

He’s fine now!  He has to take a strong dose of Prednisone for a few days.

I’m so glad he’s ok.  He belongs at this cabin on the front porch.

And goats.  Because they are awesome.

Today–

We seem to be stuck in a pattern of one nice day, followed by a week of rain and cool weather.

Yesterday at the cabin, it was actually this color outside.  Gray.  Blue.  Rain.

See that white gate?  That’s the last neighbor on the “street”.  Everything beyond the fence line there is her land.  Everything in front of it is…MINE.

One of my future lawn mowing crew, out of three.

Rosie standing in the road.

We were going to a princess birthday party after the cabin.

Ada was walking from the neighbor’s white gate and the horses back to our cabin.

Not wet grass on the princess dress! Noooo!

We took Hank out there to run around.

He’s totally fine loose with our chickens and ducks, so I was surprised that he barked and growled at the horses and goats.

Not sure what I’m going to do about that!  I’m not sure if he was actually barking at the animals or if he got them confused with the guard dogs in the fields.

Hank inside watching the goats through the living room window…hopefully he’ll get used to them?

Moving is going as slow as I thought it would.

As in we haven’t moved anything yet…

See this cabin?

THAT IS MY NEW HOUSE!

(That little person in the grass is Ada.)

At the driveway there’s a neighbor’s field.  The field is full of goats–maybe 15 of them.  They came running, bleating hello.

Pregnant goats, nurslings, and man goats with long beards.  Pure awesome.

Ada said, “That goat isn’t right Mama.  He’s got rectangle eyes!”

All goats have eyes like that kiddo.

Almost every house around has chickens and roosters.  The neighbors over one more field, also bordering our land, have horses and the neighbors behind them have a herd of cattle.

It’s completely and totally perfect.

 The view of my yard on a cloudy day:

There’s more land across the road and behind the house, plus a bit through the woods down to a creek.  It’s 4.33 acres in total.

I love that there is no road.  It’s all gravel, just a gravel road with gravel driveways off of it.  I don’t have to worry about kids and pets running into the street.

My Little House on the Prairie dream house is on a gravel road out in the sticks.

The inside of the cabin is a little rustic, but in a fun way.

WiFi reaches out here!  The cabin is a mile from the river, down winding roads out in the country.

This is the view on the drive out:

(It’s been so cloudy and cool out lately, yuck.)

We’re renting this place from another homeschooling family and selling our home in town as quickly as we can.

Moving is proving to be very stressful.  We have to put up fencing, build chicken pens, and pack/move all of our household things.

This isn’t exactly easy while pregnant. I get tired out so easily!

 I’m completely overwhelmed by predator proofing.  The neighbor with the horses warned us that her dogs eat chickens and chase cats.  The dogs roam all over.

We also have coyotes, on top of all the regular predators like raccoons, foxes, owls, and hawks.

Here’s a picture the owners posted of the inside:

The floors are made of willow wood.

I can’t wait to get moved out there!

Baby H will be born in this cabin out in the woods.  (Hopefully!)

Here’s to being 26 weeks pregnant, in my new bathroom!

Ada’s birthday weekend started with going to see Disney on Ice.  My parents went with us and bought everyone the tickets.

(They don’t allow professional cameras there, sad!  I utilized my trusty iPhone.)

My sister got cotton candy and it randomly came with stick on earrings.

The girls got $12 snow cones.  At least the cup and spoon straw are pretty cool.  (And dishwasher safe!)

The next day, Sunday the 21st, was Ada’s third birthday.  She was super excited.

We opened a few presents in the morning after everyone woke up.

(It was Princess Cadence, from My Little Pony. From Rosie!)

Tyler got her super heroes.  She loves Batman and Spider-Man.  A lot.

At first she said, “Hey I didn’t want these!”

So Tyler told her he could just return them and she was like, “Noooo!”

I guess she meant she didn’t specifically ask for these, not that she didn’t want them at all.

Rosie has Princess Celestia.

I got Ada sand for the turtle sandbox and a subscription to Starfall, neither of which have any pictures involved.

After brunch we told the girls we needed to run an errand, a really boring one.

No worries, we let them bring their ponies.

But alas, it was a trick!  Since we never go to the mall the girls had no idea where we were going.

When we walked up to Build-a-Bear Rosie was almost ready to cry–she’s been begging to make a

My Little Pony ever since she found out they have them there from one of her friends.

She thought only Ada was going to get to make one for her birthday.

What fun would that be?  Nothing is very fun when you don’t have someone else to play with you!

Ada insisted on carrying her box even though it was almost as big as she was.

And THEN, we met up with family at the park for some cake and a few last presents.

Except Ada only wanted to swing.

Until I swung her too high…

Ada wanted a bunny cake. She picked the pan from the clearance section at Kroger after Easter when we were grocery shopping one day.

She specifically requested it have blue ears.

(My sister made it.)

Ada also requested Batman cups and plates.

Cake!

Trying to get the candles to stay lit in the wind…

Then more swinging, before heading home!

We were all exhausted!

I can’t believe Ada is three.  Wow.

Ada is sitting next to me wrapping up her birthday weekend with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in bed while watching The Powerpuff Girls.

She had too much fun this weekend and passed out before eating supper tonight.  She just woke up hungry at 10:00.

I can’t believe she turned three today.  That seems so old!

Fresh from the womb!

Our new family, when Ada was one day old:

Ada at two days old:

One week old:

Her first birthday!

Almost two!

Three today!

I have tons of pictures to post, but I’ll have to do it tomorrow because it’s bedtime over here!

Things with the house reorganizing are coming along every so slowly doing it mostly by myself.

Yesterday I reorganized all the boxes in the POD outside and brought in 95% of the toys.  They’re semi-organized in our old bedroom, the new playroom/office.  I got completely worn out and sore after moving all those boxes.  I’ve been too tired to do any more today!

I managed to take the girls outside earlier to check out signs of spring.  We also potted some flowers they picked out when we were shopping yesterday.  I was intending to plant some seeds too, but after feeding the chickens and carrying the chicken feed, then walking outside with the kids, and putting a few flowers in pots I suddenly had no energy left.

This pregnancy is really wearing me out for some reason.  My body just stops.  Cannot keep going, must lay down.  Dislike!

I get antsy when I can’t get up and do things.  If there’s no chaos I feel the need to create some, I can’t just sit here. Body, really…I’m not feeling sick anymore thankfully, just worn out sometimes.

Maybe I’m becoming elderly and feeble.  You know, at the ripe old age of 26.  ;)

And my toes are swollen.  Dude! I’ve never had swelling this early in pregnancy before.  June and July might be long, hot swelly months for me.  Yikes.

I am getting cautiously excited about a teeny brand new baby to snuggle and love on.  I’m still paranoid about miscarriage, or I guess now still birth.  He’s not nearly as active as Rosie and Ada were, at least not that I can feel all the time.  My placenta makes an L shape along the side and top, so maybe that’s blocking some of his movements?  He’s down so low too, way lower than the girls.

I’m already in love with him, somehow.  That scares me since he’s not safe in my arms yet.

But a new baby! I might really be having one?  To dress in cute baby clothes, and with a tiny bum to pat.  Soft baby hair to sniff.  Send help.

Hate being pregnant when I feel awful, but I could easily have a million newborns.

I’ll just…post pictures now.

First, here are a couple of instagram pictures from yesterday at lunch.

These pictures are from our time outside this afternoon:

Our strawberry patch got decimated by the ducks.  I wasn’t sure they would come back up, but yesterday tiny leaves appeared and today they’re even bigger.

Rapidly growing!  These little dew looking drops are not dew.  Guttation, maybe?

This would be perfect if Rintoo was sniffing a flower, but instead he’s sniffing dead tomato stalks from last year that I never cleaned out…

Periwinkle is in bloom!

This is the almost actual color of these flowers. They are very dark blue/purple in person.  I’ve never, ever seen ones so striking before! I can’t remember the name of them.

I saw them at Walmart yesterday, which isn’t somewhere I normally buy flowers but I couldn’t not buy them!

Rosie and Ada picked Primrose flowers for themselves.  We put them in clay pots today and since they only need 3-6 hours of direct sunlight per day the girls can keep them their rooms.

Rosie was distressed because the petals on her plant got old and white overnight.  Luckily there are brand new buds down inside waiting to open.

The wild violets are blooming!

I don’t know why people put weed killer on their yards, some weeds are beautiful.  What is our obsession with plain perfect grass??

I don’t know what these are, but they’re so cool!  They’ve never grown under this tree ever before.  We just found a random patch of them had popped up.

They’re tiny.

Leaves: Coming soon to a tree near you!

It’s supposed to storm tomorrow and then turn cooler again.

The past couple of days of 80 degree temps were heavenly!  Can’t wait for summer.

Here are pictures from yesterday–Rosie and Ada love my best friend’s kids.  It’s worked out so that we had babies almost the same ages!  Rosie and Cade have known each other just about their entire lives, and Ada and Eli have also.  Too bad they live three hours away so we don’t get to see them very often.  They do come to Lexington to shop every few months, so we get to hang out then.  Tyler works so much we hardly ever get to drive out to Pikeville to see them.

Four month old Baby Hazel is not pictured.  She’s waiting for my Baby Boy to partner up with her.

Yes, we totally have secret plans that they will all marry each other!

Cade is is one month younger than Rosie, but Rosie is tall for her age.

Cade gave Rosie a heart necklace, which Rosie LOVES and is clutching in this picture while beaming.  Eli wanted to give Ada a necklace too, which thrilled Ada.

Rosie wrote Cade a letter, but wanted to give it to him now instead of mailing it.

Rosie and Ada loved holding Baby Hazel.

We dyed Easter eggs!

The kids were so happy to see each other, can you tell?

Ah, the true handiwork of kids who dye eggs with no help.  Note: not beautifully decorated naturally dyed eggs.  Just pure kid fun.

And…now Ada is late for her allergist appointment.  Testing round #2!  Must go get dressed.