New House and Garden

It's been several months since I updated this blog.  In March, we divided 2 acres off from our property and started building a house.  We were getting to the age where navigating the stairs in the old house just didn't feel safe anymore.  The house plan we chose was a small one-story 1500 sq ft plan.  We asked the builder to make it handicapped accessible.  This included wide doorways and a walk-in shower.  We had a lot of rain this spring and summer, so it took longer than expected to build it.  However, it was worth the wait.   We are now moved in and settled.  Here's a picture of the house.

One of the features I love about this house is the breezeway which separates the attached garage from the living part of the house.  We have moved our recycling containers and a potting bench into the breezeway.  We also park the Gator there.  The garage is over-sized, so there is room for both vehicles, along with an extra refrigerator and a workbench for whatever farm projects we have.

You may be wondering what we did with the rest of the farm.  We sold it along with the house and outbuildings to our daughter and son-in-law.  It puts him much closer to his work.  So, it worked out well for all of us.  The two acres we kept has plenty of room for a big garden, our chickens and raised beds. 

The biggest reason I didn't write anything for the blog during this period of time is we lived in an RV for 4 months while the house was being built.  

It wasn't easy with the two of us, a dog and cat, but we survived.  The RV is 20 something years old, but is in good shape and we got a really good deal on it.  The best thing about the experience was we parked it in the back yard and could check on the new house progress everyday.  We got to know most of the workers and gave them extra produce and tomato plants.  In turn, they built us a deck for the RV out of scrap lumber.  We do not plan to use the RV anymore.  It runs well, but we are not comfortable with driving it.  So, we are looking for a buyer.  If you know of anyone who would be interested, please contact us via the blog.  

While I spent most of the summer inside the RV trying to keep up with the garden produce in the small kitchen, Hubby was busy getting the chickens moved and building some new raised beds.  I'll write more on these topics later, but I want to share a little about the raised beds he built.  

As you can see, he made them 3 concrete blocks tall.  It was amazing how many concrete blocks we had when he disassembled the old beds and collected others we had laying around here and there!  He also put paving stones around them to help keep Bermuda grass out and it is nice to have paved walkways between them.

We also have plenty of room for an in-ground garden, as well.

I'll write more in the next few weeks about our new scaled-down life.  But, for the time being, I just wanted to give you a summary of the last few months and to let you know we are still alive!