Prep Monday—Getting Organized


Between kid activities and my business and a few other things, I’ve barely had a chance to get down to the farm lately; except yesterday, when I took my mom down to see the place. She’s visiting from Colorado, and won’t be back until fall at least, so we took the opportunity while we had it. It was a quick trip, which means I didn’t actually do any work . . .

However, my husband has been on the job—yesterday, he put in a new water heater and last weekend he spotlessly cleaned the bathroom and went over the kitchen again. So we’re kinda civilized now.

The downside of this is that things are getting a little crazy, and by “crazy,” I mean disorganized. Bless his heart, he’s a really hard worker and can do ANYTHING, but he tends to get off-track a little. So my immediate goal is to get a few things finished and organized, like the rest of the trash around the edges of the yard, the interim storage in the closet, and the odds and ends sitting around on the deck and in the kitchen.

THEN I can focus on what needs to be done.

Complicating things a bit is that the kid got a job and it’s mostly weekends. That’s going to slow us down for a few weeks, until school is out for the summer, but after that we can adjust. Of course, it might limit any assistance, as most people I know will be working during the week, but we’ll figure it out. And, too, the coming weekend has a rainy forecast . . . for now.

My short-term goal is to work on the garden area. Trim, pick up junk, mow, plow, plant. In that order, of course. And soon. My cabbage plants are crying for a new home.

And after that, we’ve got to get the campsite built out. No, it’s still not done, but to be fair, we had a heck of a time choosing the location. And then, too, our plans were a little ambitious that first weekend. But, we have the materials, so there’s that. Hmmm. This kind of falls under the “get stuff finished!” headline.

You know, when we started this venture, we’d been thinking about everything for quite some time; and then we figured we’d find a place in a few months and have some time over the winter to get started on improvements. As it turned out, we didn’t close until spring, about 14 months before our targeted moving date, plus we had a head start with the house and barn and utilities already being on site.

But.

There’s a lot of outside stuff to do, and come fall, we’ll be working inside, moving walls and re-doing others, and adding to the kitchen and maybe some work on the bathroom. It’s not critical that these things are done before we move in, but it sure would be easier to have the remodel finished without furniture and other “stuff” in the way.

A year seemed like a long time—but the clock is ticking!

 

Prep Monday—More Things to Do


Sadly, I’ve not been able to get down to the farm since our work weekend, although I’m going for a short time this coming weekend. My mom’s going to be in town and wants to see the place, so we’ll drive down and back, after she takes some photos.

My husband was there this weekend, though. He got the barn cleaned up and the pit drained—oh, I didn’t mention the pit? We saw it first in the pictures, trying to imagine what it was for; someone suggested storm shelter, another claimed it would make a good wine cellar. Turns out, the guy who built the barn was planning to refurbish old school buses and was going to use the pit for draining oil, etc. Don’t think he ever did, but now it’s full of water. Or was.

He also got the sinks cleaned in the house, and the tub and shower. Yay! Had to heat water, as the water heater itself is kaput. Aside from the fact that when we first turned on the water and the thing leaked from the top—and by “leaked” I mean that it sprayed all over the lean-to which, as I also said, needed a good cleaning anyway. Still does.

So next order of business is a new water heater, and a showerhead. I’m sure those who come down to visit will appreciate both these things!

No, we still haven’t hung the new gate or built out the campsite, but we have all the materials so that’s a good start. The problem, at least during the school year, is having the time to go down in between jobs and school. ‘Cause, oh yeah, the kid got a job caddying at a local club. Which is good, but not so good for several-day adventures!

We’ve also managed to move a fair amount of “stuff.” Have to hold off on more for now, until we can do some building inside the barn, for storage. Most of our camping gear, and things that are duplicates—like tools and cookware and so forth—is already there.

However, the critical chore is breaking ground for the garden. I have seeds and seedlings that need to planted very, very soon. So, yeah, another big project. Think I’ll ask Santa for a tractor this year . . .