Prepping « Robin Writes

Good Lord, this is overwhelming! It doesn’t help that I’m trying to finish a new novel and run a business, as well as keep the home fires burning and all that, but every time I think of the new farm, I get a little panicky over everything that needs to be done. Not much, but a little.

The problem, of course, is that when that happens, I tend to freeze up and just sit with my thoughts jumping all over the place.

The solution, on the other hand, is that I’m a compulsive list-maker and super-efficient. I guess it balances out . . .

On Friday, we closed on the farm. Easiest and shortest closing EVER. We each signed in two places, I handed them a check, and we were done!

Then we drove out there—our agent had never seen the place, except in pictures, and we needed to see how large a dumpster to have delivered. Conclusion: a really BIG one.

Having been out there, once, we knew there was a lot of stuff. A lot. But we were hoping the auctioneer would have gotten rid of a lot more than he did. Starting to wonder if he actually sold anything at all.

Went back into town and checked out the local lumberyard. Have a ton of stuff to order, and here’s the beauty of small towns: the guy said, oh, no, we don’t like to take credit cards over the phone, you just wait until the order comes in, so you can make sure it’s what you really want. Wow!

He sent us out to a farm store, which we never found, but we did come across a tool and heavy equipment rental place. Nice! So the guy’s two brothers-in-law live near our new place, and he grew up there too, and he went to school with the listing agent . . . and on and on! Plus, he gave us a couple names for small engine repair, and I’m sure he’ll have a lot of other info for us too, down the line.

We’re still going ‘round and ‘round with the electric co-op. Sheesh. Slow. The dumpster should be delivered in a few days. Still waiting for the insurance agent to call me back—he’d said Thursday, but no. Not Friday either. Sigh.

So, the lists. We have to call the lumberyard by 4:00 p.m. Tuesday, in order for our stuff to be in by Thursday; otherwise, we have to wait another week. We’re trying, of course, to buy local as much as we can, but today we made a run to our now-local Home Depot. Naturally, a second trip will commence tomorrow—that’s how we roll.

What it comes down to, for our 4-day work weekend, is all the stuff to clean up the place and the building materials for our campsite outhouse. And the gate. And the “POSTED” signs, for sure!

Next week, Prep Monday might be a day late, but you can look forward to some before and after pics and a rundown of the completed part of this project . . .

We went camping this weekend, our annual freeze-our-butts-off trip. And of course, we’ll be doing a lot of camping this summer at our new farm, out of necessity while we work on the place.

How do you camp?

I realize that can be a complicated question, so I’ll go first:

I like to camp in a tent and do all the cooking over the fire; I like to build the fire from scratch. I even do the dishes over the fire. I can handle skipping a shower. Maybe two. Maybe.

Do I make concessions to civilization? Yep.

I take my iPhone and a solar charger; I do some of the food prep before we head out to the campground. And I bring my own port-a-potty with its own tent. J

Some of my friends who come camping will happily do all the traditional things, but they also prefer an RV for its beds and bathroom, particularly the shower. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t take advantage of the bathroom at least once, and I even plugged in my phone when my charger went kaput.

And by Sunday, I was done doing the dishes over the fire—they went into the truck to be washed at home.

So how do you camp?

It should be really interesting when we start making improvements to the farm and “living” out there for a few days or so at a time. There’s a well, of course, and electric up at the house and barn but not at the campsite we’ll build first.

The first weekends will be the most like our normal camping, as we build an outhouse and shower house, and then a kitchen shelter—after that, all the camping gear will stay there. And we just set up a new playpen for Kura, so she can watch us and not feel left out, but most importantly, so we don’t have to try to work while hanging to a hyper little dog!