4 Acres Farm For Sale!

So much fun stuff going on around here! We're aiming to list our cute little Colorado homestead for sale the end of February. Fingers crossed we can get everything ready in time.

Project 1: Finish the master bathroom.

We should be starting the kitchen this week! I'm so excited. I'll take more video. Can't wait for you to see.

Video Update!

It's Time

Darran and I have known for some time that we wanted to move to more land. But as recently as last year we didn't feel it was financially possible. So we decided to start right where we were and not postpone our plans, our lives, because we only had 4 acres.

I'm so thankful that we did. It's been an amazing year. We've learned so much. We've lived our priorities. It's opened our eyes.

As 2012 comes to a close we've realized it's time. It's time to go.

It's been a hard decision for us. This wonderful home is the only home we've lived in together. We've spent our entire 10 years of marriage here. 

Bigger than that: this house was built by Darran's great grandfather in 1918 and has only been owned by a member of the family since.

Bigger than that: I grew up in this town. My father grew up in this town. My grandfather grew up in this town. My great grandfather moved here to raise his family. Darran's family likewise. In fact, both sides of his family have been here since his great grandfather on the one side and great-great on the other. Our roots here are deep.

Bigger than all of that: we know deep in our hearts that we are meant to leave this place and begin writing our own story.

As I said in my last post we've found land that we want to buy. I have to admit it looks impossible from here, but we've never let that stop us before.

The bank will not lend us money on the land unless we have a contract on this house or 30% down. As we can afford both payments we had hoped that we could buy the new land and still keep this place until we built a house there. But, no go.

This spring we will be taking a huge leap of faith and putting this house up for sale without another house to move into if it sells. While I had hoped for the security of at least having the new land purchased before we did that, it is what it is.

I'm hoping with all that I am that this house sells quickly. I see such a wonderful future for my little family; I see it so clearly that it's hard to be patient. I want to go tomorrow!

Darran's a little uneasy about selling this house with only bare land to go to, but I told him that I don't care if I have to live in an army tent or a camper trailer on the new land while we build a house. He knows me well enough to know I'm just crazy enough to mean that.

Of course we have no guarantee that the land won't sell to someone else in the meantime. Our other option would be to come up with the 30% down payment. $48,000. Then we could still live here while building a house...hey, miracles happen.

So I wait and I plan and I hope. Because I know it's time.

Fading Into Fall

Things are fading into fall around here. We've had our first freeze and so the garden is done. I went out and told it thanks for the great year! 

Last week we harvested the rest of the pumpkins, squash, cucumbers, and tomatoes. The corn didn't quite have time to mature, but we had 5 or 6 good ears. All in all we had a pretty decent harvest considering the crazy dry year we had.

Leaves are turning beautiful shades of yellow, orange, and red. We even had a little snow a few days ago.

Fall always seems like the end to spring's beginning to me. This year is no different. Except maybe a little bit more nostalgic as we plan for this to be our last fall here. (Did I mention we found land we want to buy and will likely be moving?! I'll post on that soon.) I find myself enjoying the leaves a little bit more. Enjoying our walks with the goats a little bit more. Revelling in the awesomeness of this place.

Not in a sad way, but in a thankful way. I'm thankful for our time here. BUT I look forward to moving to more land. To taking this homesteading thing up a few notches! At the same time we'll miss this place. Lots of great memories here.

But Most Times it IS Sunshine, Rainbows, and Unicorns

The deer quite like my spaghetti squash. They've eaten 4 so far. You're welcome Mr. Bambi.

Call me insanely optimistic, but I always think that when things get really, really bad there is something really good on its way. Yes, last week was a bad week for us, but this week has seemed like there were little miracles waiting around every corner.

 Yes, the deer have been enjoying my beloved spaghetti squash, but I managed to pick two like this one. Yum. Paleo spaghetti here we come.

The tomatoes are putting on like crazy and we've been able to start picking them! Let me tell you, it's absolutely true that there is nothing like a homegrown tomato. Store bought doesn't even begin to compare.

Eating farm/garden straight to the table is am amazing thing. Who needs a recipe? I just chopped up some heirloom white cucumber, some of our amazing tomatoes, drizzled a little olive oil on, and sprinkled with a little sea salt and basil. Best. Thing. Ever.

Do you remember that flowered tree we found last spring? OK, you probably don't. There was a tree at the far back corner of our property, half hidden by willows and chokecherries, with blooms on it last spring. We had never noticed that tree before. To our knowledge there were only chokecherries, willows, and cottonwoods back there.

We hadn't been going back to the second creek where this tree is because bears had been enjoying the chokecherries back there. Call me crazy, but I was going to let them help themselves! 

The chokecherries have been all eaten for a couple of weeks. Saturday we decided to go check "the tree". I walked back there and saw something bright and red.

My little miracle tree.

It's an apple tree! We'd suspected it might be a crab apple. Those are common around here. But if it is it's like no crab apple I've ever seen. The apples are bigger than a crab apple and are slightly tart, but tasty. Crab apples are generally very bitter/sour.

It's right next to a small pond and the second creek, so I'm sure the roots are drinking well. They must be, because even with the crazy dry year we've had the tree was filled with little yummy apples! 

It took a lot of work to cut the willows and chokecherries away to get to the tree, but we were so excited we made quick work of it. You'd have thought we'd found gold.

Ellie and Fiona were great help picking apples.

We've done better than expected financially this summer and have started working on the house again. (You have no idea how amazing this is, we haven't been financially able to work on the house in YEARS). We painted it and will be putting new counter tops in the kitchen soon! I'll do a full post on our house soon, it has a very cool story.

We've also had lots of purple beans, green beans, peas, zucchini, yellow squash, and eggs of course. Oh yes, and Red is happy as ever.

It's been a good week. Life is amazing. Tough times come, but tough times always go. We are grateful.

It's Not All Sunshine, Rainbows, and Unicorns

I have another post I'm working on with updates and garden pics and good news...this is not that post however.

We've had a tough week. 

One of our spring calves

You see, we're passionate about grass feeding our cows. Generally that is not an issue, it's just what we do, but this year has been tough because it hasn't RAINED. 

Our cows have been on a pasture that we leased for the summer because of the dry year and my dad's place not having enough pasture. On top of the cost of the leased pasture (we share all costs with my parents thank goodness) there will need to be hay bought for the winter, again because of the dry year  my dad's place made no hay either.

Not a big deal. There are dry years, there are wet years. We adjust and move on.

However, in the last 3 days 3 of our cows have died. We're not sure why. We've called the vet and hope to figure out what's going on soon. In the meantime we are moving the cows back to my dad's because of concern it's something they're ingesting.

Two of those were steers that were to be our food for the next year. The other was a mama cow with a 3 month old calf. Together with my parents we had 14 cows at the beginning of the summer, and 11 right now today.

So...on top of all of those expenses we will now have to figure out what to put in our freezers for the next year.

I hesitated sharing this post. But this is our reality right now. This is the truth of our lives. Our spirits are good. We know this can be part of the deal. But, at the same time we care about our animals. They're not just feedlot numbers to us.

We've had a tough week.

Totally Worth It

As Darran and I lay in an exhausted heap on the living room floor last night I asked him what I should post about on 4 Acres this week. He said, "I don't know." I said, well what do you remember about this week. He said, "zzzzzzz." Well, not really zzzzz, but he'd nodded off. That really did answer my question though.

This last week has been a whole lot of hard work. 

We've been pumping water with a hand pump and bailing buckets into a pipe system to water the garden. Every day, sometimes twice a day. FYI: water is heavy.

This is a VERY old pump, it breaks almost daily. It's a dang good thing Darran has skillz.

We've been weeding like mad and hauling the weeds to the goats and chickens. (We try not to waste anything around here). Not to brag, but one thing I'm highly skilled at growing is weeds. Oh, and FYI: weeds, when in sufficient amounts, are heavy.

Darran has been building Fort Knox back by the creek. Goatopia is getting an entire other layer of wire on top of the wire there now. These two tiny goats require quite the pen to be kept IN.

Goatopia.

I made laundry soap. I've got it down to 20 minutes flat.

On top of those things, I've begun preparing for our homeschool year. We start in a week. Oh yes, and I've begun training for a 5k...

Yes, it's been a week of reminding us how hard this lifestyle really can be. But it's also been a week of reminding us how rewarding this lifestyle can be.

Yep, totally worth it.