So here we go! By the way - this is from something that I started writing after we moved in that I have kept up with so we wouldn't forget all the things that have happened....
I love animals. All animals. I started with cats and dogs. By the time I was 6, it became horses. I was one of the few little girls who actually did get that horse for Christmas. I was 8 years old and had a horse to call my own. I got my second horse when I was 11. While still living with my parents I also had hermit crabs (the cat ate them one day) and gerbils (they were smarter than the cat). As I grew older my love of animals expanded to include reptiles. I had a Cayman Alligator, Red-tailed Boa snake, and iguanas. Then I found that I loved birds. Parrots to be exact. I hand-raised a Congo African Gray Parrot. I worked at my horse veterinarians’ farm. I loved life. I had animals wherever I turned. Then I got married and things went down hill from there, literally. My animals started disappearing one by one. He didn’t like them. Within 3 years I went from a horse, 2 cats, the Cayman, the snake, the gerbils, and the bird – down to 2 cats. We had dogs too, but in honesty, since they were working police dogs, I couldn’t really call them my own too much. I’m not saying that the lack of animals is what ruined my marriage – but it just goes to show me that he never understood me, who I was and what made me, well me.
We all have those lifetime dreams. Sometimes we succeed in making them come true and other times, it just never seems to happen. Our lives don’t go the way we planned and those dreams get pushed aside and forgotten. From the time that I was a little girl, I wanted to live on a farm and be surrounded by animals that I love so much. I knew that it would happen someday. I didn’t know when and I didn’t know how. I just knew that it would happen. When I became separated from my husband of 8 years, I knew my chance was coming. I moved in with my parents after we separated. Where else could I go with 2 little girls in tow and no money in my pocket? In time, I started to date. I began dating a man that was a long time friend of mine. He was divorced with two kids of his own. We have the same outlook on life, many things in common, and our relationship blossomed. As the months went by and our relationship became more serious, we talked of buying a place. Neither of us wanted to live in the city, we both had our fill of subdivisions, so farm life here we come! So please, come along with me to discover the great and not so great times of learning to live in the country and starting life over to make two separate families one.
We needed to decide where to look for some land. He grew up on a farm in the south end of our county, so it was only natural that we looked for a place close to where he called home. It took us a year to find a place that we could afford. We didn’t want to be house poor and we weren’t rich to begin with. We wanted a few acres. Did I mention I had horses again? Yes, we needed some room for them too. After all, that was part of the dream; my horses in my backyard. So we find this house on a few acres, the ground is mostly level. The house is a modular home and not a trailer, so that is such a plus! There is a full basement that isn’t finished. Perfect for us so that we can add more bedrooms and a large family room and still have room for storage. Our separate families are soon to join to a group of 6, with kids ranging from 5 to 16. This is going to be wonderful! I just can’t wait! We are literally bouncing off the walls that we actually found a house on some land that we can afford. Our offer gets accepted by the seller and now we are off to schedule inspections, appraisals and all the fun stuff that comes along with buying a house.
Inspection Day - November 2007
He’s late. The inspector is late. Maybe he got lost out here in the sticks. Maybe we are early. No I marked it on the calendar when we made the appointment. We are at the right house I know we are. Why do these things always happen to us? Think he will show up? Over and over in our heads these questions come. At promptly 4:30 the inspector shows up. We were really early.
The inspector is nice friendly guy. We like him. He starts outside the house. “Hmmm… The gutters need some attention just so you know,” he says.
That’s easy we can clean them out.
“Umm… the gutters are missing on the back of the house,” he informs us.
“Really? We didn’t notice that before.” We look at the gutters, well ok, just the front gutters, and we realize that they no longer run into the cistern. Great. What brainchild took away the water source?
The inspector notes a few other minor problems and climbs down off the ladder. He tells us the siding looks to be in great shape. While looking around the house he wonders why the cable and phone is stapled to the siding and then a hole drilled into the house the way they were. Why not run them into the basement properly and disguise them on the underside of the floor. Sounds like the same brainchild at work to me. Sigh. We can fix that.
We head into the basement since the only access to it is from the outside of the house. Yes that’s right. You can’t get to the basement from inside the house. There’s no stairs. Actually there should be stairs. There is a place for stairs. But in the few years of the houses’ life, no one has bothered to add stairs to the house. They must actually enjoy walking around the house all the time to get downstairs. But that is not a problem. We are handy and can build stairs, so we overlooked it from the get go.
At some point in time someone made a pretty good effort to start to finish the basement. I didn’t say it was done well, just that they made a good effort. They only dry walled the ceiling. They also dry walled where the stairs are supposed to come down. Idiot. Oh yeah - they put the dry wall on facing the wrong way too. Sigh.
“There’s water damage here,” he notes. “It looks like the dishwasher upstairs probably leaked at some point. It’s dry and no mold, but the drywall will have to be replaced.”
Yes we knew that too. Of course the whole entire ceiling will have to be replaced because brainchild ran the electrical lines and plumbing lines on the wrong side of the drywall. Yup you can see them all. I thought ceilings were supposed to conceal that stuff? But then, maybe I just grew up in a house that they were concealed. I wonder how you paint around those. I guess they were probably just going to paint over them. Same brainchild. Sigh.
It is time to go upstairs. We exit the basement through the wooden doors and walk around the house since there is no other way up. This is going to get old fast. I make a mental note that the first thing we do after we move in is to put in the stairs.
There is nothing major wrong with the inside of the house. That’s good news. The systems work. Water runs. Drains drain. We head to the master bath. There is a note on the toilet from the seller. It read something like this: “Inspector, we just replaced the valve on the toilet as it was not working correctly. It needs time to seal itself and may still run. Please make sure that the toilet stops running so we don’t run out of water.” Umm, ok brainchild. The toilet needs time to seal itself. Sorry it doesn’t work that way. We look inside the tank. It’s one of those cheap $2 valves and it’s not installed right. Nice. We don’t think that it will seal itself. I added another mental note to fix toilet.
The inspector steps onto the deck to check it out. We stay inside. Did I mention that the deck was not built correctly and the posts are on the outside of the deck and not underneath of it? We don’t think it’s safe. The inspector is braver than we are. He walks to the end of the deck, spreads his legs like he wants someone to search him, grabs the railing and proceeds test the sturdiness of the deck by shaking it back and forth as hard as he can. Oh my god, the inspector is going to die. The deck is swaying back and forth like a swing. He is a brave man. The deck barely passes inspection only because it didn’t fall down. Another mental note added to put a weight limit sign on the door to the deck until we can fix it.
“One more thing before I go, I need to take pictures of the trailer certification,” he informs us.
This is a trailer?!?!?! What!!!! We aren’t dumb people, but we had no idea that this was a trailer. Boy they sure don’t make trailers as poor as they used to. We decide that we don’t care that it is a trailer. We like it and it suits our needs. I’m about to become a trailer queen.
The inspector is nice friendly guy. We like him. He starts outside the house. “Hmmm… The gutters need some attention just so you know,” he says.
That’s easy we can clean them out.
“Umm… the gutters are missing on the back of the house,” he informs us.
“Really? We didn’t notice that before.” We look at the gutters, well ok, just the front gutters, and we realize that they no longer run into the cistern. Great. What brainchild took away the water source?
The inspector notes a few other minor problems and climbs down off the ladder. He tells us the siding looks to be in great shape. While looking around the house he wonders why the cable and phone is stapled to the siding and then a hole drilled into the house the way they were. Why not run them into the basement properly and disguise them on the underside of the floor. Sounds like the same brainchild at work to me. Sigh. We can fix that.
We head into the basement since the only access to it is from the outside of the house. Yes that’s right. You can’t get to the basement from inside the house. There’s no stairs. Actually there should be stairs. There is a place for stairs. But in the few years of the houses’ life, no one has bothered to add stairs to the house. They must actually enjoy walking around the house all the time to get downstairs. But that is not a problem. We are handy and can build stairs, so we overlooked it from the get go.
At some point in time someone made a pretty good effort to start to finish the basement. I didn’t say it was done well, just that they made a good effort. They only dry walled the ceiling. They also dry walled where the stairs are supposed to come down. Idiot. Oh yeah - they put the dry wall on facing the wrong way too. Sigh.
“There’s water damage here,” he notes. “It looks like the dishwasher upstairs probably leaked at some point. It’s dry and no mold, but the drywall will have to be replaced.”
Yes we knew that too. Of course the whole entire ceiling will have to be replaced because brainchild ran the electrical lines and plumbing lines on the wrong side of the drywall. Yup you can see them all. I thought ceilings were supposed to conceal that stuff? But then, maybe I just grew up in a house that they were concealed. I wonder how you paint around those. I guess they were probably just going to paint over them. Same brainchild. Sigh.
It is time to go upstairs. We exit the basement through the wooden doors and walk around the house since there is no other way up. This is going to get old fast. I make a mental note that the first thing we do after we move in is to put in the stairs.
There is nothing major wrong with the inside of the house. That’s good news. The systems work. Water runs. Drains drain. We head to the master bath. There is a note on the toilet from the seller. It read something like this: “Inspector, we just replaced the valve on the toilet as it was not working correctly. It needs time to seal itself and may still run. Please make sure that the toilet stops running so we don’t run out of water.” Umm, ok brainchild. The toilet needs time to seal itself. Sorry it doesn’t work that way. We look inside the tank. It’s one of those cheap $2 valves and it’s not installed right. Nice. We don’t think that it will seal itself. I added another mental note to fix toilet.
The inspector steps onto the deck to check it out. We stay inside. Did I mention that the deck was not built correctly and the posts are on the outside of the deck and not underneath of it? We don’t think it’s safe. The inspector is braver than we are. He walks to the end of the deck, spreads his legs like he wants someone to search him, grabs the railing and proceeds test the sturdiness of the deck by shaking it back and forth as hard as he can. Oh my god, the inspector is going to die. The deck is swaying back and forth like a swing. He is a brave man. The deck barely passes inspection only because it didn’t fall down. Another mental note added to put a weight limit sign on the door to the deck until we can fix it.
“One more thing before I go, I need to take pictures of the trailer certification,” he informs us.
This is a trailer?!?!?! What!!!! We aren’t dumb people, but we had no idea that this was a trailer. Boy they sure don’t make trailers as poor as they used to. We decide that we don’t care that it is a trailer. We like it and it suits our needs. I’m about to become a trailer queen.
Starting Life In Our Trailer
We have now moved in and sort of settled. We walk the property to figure out what we need to do in order to get the horses here. We need to have it bush hogged. We don’t have a tractor. There are tires, trash, toilets, blankets, car parts, and anything else you can imagine all over the property. It seems that it was sort of a dumping ground. This is going to take forever.
There are 2 strange birds that spend a lot of time at our house. I have no idea what they are. They seem like some type of poultry. They are semi-tame. I look it up on the internet and apparently they are called Guinea Fowl. I have never heard of them. Mom said that her aunt had some, but she didn’t know much about them. I learn that they eat bugs and love ticks the most. Hmmm… they may be worth looking into.
We still don’t have steps to the basement.
We did fix the toilet.
The deck is still unstable.
We still don’t have a fence up for the horses which means we are still boarding them some where else.
We have discovered that all the light switches are wired backwards. It’s driving us crazy. The drapes that the sellers left behind are actually sheets sewed to go over a curtain rod.
The carpet is rental blue and stinks since it had never been cleaned since before we got here. I clean the carpets regularly, the smell only leaves temporarily.
We can’t please any of the 4 kids.
We haven’t put up gutters on the back of the house. We still haven’t run what gutters we have into the cistern. We buy our water and get it trucked here.
Maybe sometime soon we will be able to do all the things we need to. Hopefully in this lifetime.
Spring is Coming
Spring is coming. It is getting warmer out. My oldest daughter Cassie brings home a paper from school and asks me to sign it.
“What is it for?”
Matter of factly she states “So I can have a chicken.”
A chicken. She brought a permission slip home from school asking me to give the okay for her to bring home a baby chick. Apparently they are hatching chicks in her class for a school project. When they hatch they need homes. Cassie wants one.
I think about it for a few minutes and decide what the heck. We live in the country. She can have a chicken. Why not? I can’t say thought that chickens were on my list of animals I want to have though.
A few days later the chicks hatch and I have to go to school to pick up our new pet chicken. The chick was fuzzy yellow and was promptly named Buttercup. I tried to explain to Cassie that yellow chicks grow up to be white chickens. She didn’t care. So Buttercup it was.
I am really knowledgeable when it comes to animals. I had raised ducks before and chickens can’t be that much different. Keep Buttercup fed, watered, and warm and we should be good to go.
Buttercup was lonely. Buttercup is VERY loud when lonely. Buttercup kept me awake all night. PEEP PEEP PEEP! She never quit. As soon as the kids were in school the next morning I drove to the closest poultry farm and got more chickens to keep Buttercup happy. I wanted 3 more, then there would be one for each kid. For the price of 3, I got 4. He gave me brown chicks. Said I wouldn’t like the white ones when they grow up. The kids wanted yellow ones. But the expert said the brown ones are better for our situation.
We now have 5 chicks living in a box. The cats think it is dinner time and will not leave the box alone. We put the chicks in the bathroom and shut the door to keep the cats away from them. Then I come to the realization that the chickens can not live in the house and we need to build something outside for them. Next project – a chicken house from scratch.
I am officially chicken stupid. Buttercup is sick. I ask my mom about it. She grew up with chickens. She remembers her dad putting tablets in the water for something. She doesn’t know what they are called or even what they were for. I go to the feed store and ask the girl working. She has no idea. She knows nothing about chickens but points me in the direction of the chicken supplies. I finally find 2 different antibiotics for chickens that go into the drinking water. They both treat the same things. I close my eyes and pick one. Once home, it’s time to mix the water and antibiotic. Hmmm…. This small package is enough to make 512 gallons at 200 mg per gallon. I want to make only a ½ gallon of this at a time. Oh this is going to be good. It takes some good math on my part, but I got it right. Unfortunately, it was too late for Buttercup. By that night she passed on. We lost another one named Butterfly a few days later. She seemed to of had something neurologically wrong with her. Now we are down to 3 chickens.
We now officially have a chicken graveyard.
We have chickens in the kids’ bathroom.
We decided that we would like to have guinea fowl. I found a lady that is not too far from us that sells day old keets. A friend of ours decided that they would like some too, so I ordered 12 – 6 for each of us. The breeder tells us that it may be August or September before we get them since she is a small time breeder. We really don’t want to wait that long. We want them to eat bugs this summer. I found a large breeder in Iowa with day old keets available in June. Minimum order is 30 in order for them to stay warm during shipping. That’s a lot of birds. We go ahead and order them figuring that we would lose some in shipping anyway. Now we wait another 2 months for the arrival.
It’s now May. The chickens are still in the house. They are about 8 weeks old. They have been in the house the whole time. The bathroom stinks except for the first 5 minutes after I clean it. On the plus side, the chickens are friendly. They truly are pets. We have 1 rooster and 2 hens. The cats are afraid of them now.
We still don’t have a chicken house..
We still haven’t bushhogged the field.
We still don’t have a tractor.
We still don’t have the fence up
We still don’t have steps to the basement.
We still don’t have gutters on the back of the house.
We decide to get started on the chicken/guinea house. We are broke. With some searching and thanks mostly to Craigslist, we got a lot of free used wood. One person took out their old wood pool deck and gave us the old wood. Another person had a garage full of wood and other miscellaneous items he gave us. He also gave us 8 4x4 posts that were 12 feet long. Perfect. Building day comes and we disagree on the size. I want bigger. We finally agree on 8 feet by 8 feet with an almost 8 foot ceiling. We have no plans – we just start hammering things together. Somehow we managed to get up the framework for the 4 sides and the joists for the floor. Cool. Day one a success. We have not spent a penny on this project yet. Call it going green by reusing wood. Day two – the flooring doesn’t go very smooth. The wood from that person’s deck is not the same width. Plus they are cut into 3 and 4 foot sections. It is like a jigsaw puzzle. We finally manage to get the floor down. Day two is over. I should mention that day two didn’t even start until 5 pm after work.
Two weeks have gone by and we haven’t had time to work on the chicken house. It looks like we have a stage for a banjo band in the backyard.
The guineas are coming in less than a month. The chickens are still in the house, however we did move their cage to the basement and set them up a pen outside to be in when we are home.
We still haven’t bushhogged the field.
We still don’t have a tractor.
We still don’t have the fence up.
We still don’t have steps to the basement.
We still haven’t finished the basement.
We still don’t have gutters on the back of the house.
Even if we haven’t finished the chicken house, we have managed to redo the flower beds out front of the house. Before they were weed beds. Literally. There was not one flower in the entire 3 beds. Just weeds. We dug weeds, tilled soil, added better dirt and peat. We built a new retaining wall using creek rock from the creek beds. Thanks to both of our mothers, we got a bunch of new plants to put in them. They look really nice and we are really proud of our work. We still haven’t bushhogged the field.We still don’t have a tractor.We still don’t have the fence up. We still don’t have steps to the basement. We still haven’t finished the basement. We still don’t have gutters on the back of the house.
JUNE 2008
We are down to 2 weeks before the guineas arrive. We have to finish the house. The only thing that we bought for that house were about 12 2x4’s and the siding. Total we spent about $100 on the entire thing not including paint. The house is done enough for the chickens to take up residence there. They love it. They are now able to free range the property. They are total pets and follow us everywhere.
We got a tractor! It’s small, but it will do what we need done. It’s a 1940 Ford 9N. It has been mostly restored and runs great. When we get it home, we proceed to drive around for a while playing. It stalls. It turns out that there was gas that sat in it for years. Now there is all kinds of crude in the gas tank. This is going to be fun. We borrowed the neighbors’ bush hog and get to work. The tractor stalls every 10 minutes. Once we clear the filter it starts right back up again. After several days of working around this, we decide that next time the gas tank is empty, that we need to take it out and clean it out. Kerosene and rocks did a good job cleaning it out. It only stalls about every ½ hour now. I can live with that. It can only get better.
It’s late June. The guineas come today. I had given the breeder my parent’s address to ship the birds to. I didn’t want them sitting here on the front steps until who knows when we get home. They sent the guineas by US Mail. They called at 6AM from the post office to tell me to come get them. Remember I sent them to my parent’s house so they are at their post office, 30 minutes from me. Sigh. I get to the post office and the woman at the door yells that the bird lady is here. I am expecting a big box for 30 birds. She brings over a peeping box that measures about 8 inches by 6 inches. There is 30 birds in there?!?!? I am required to open it and make inspection. Everyone wants to see the guineas. I can’t believe there is 30 birds in this box. They are TINY. I had no idea that they would be so small. I take the guineas back to my mom’s house since it is close and these birds need some water. They have been in a box for 24 hours. There is one guinea that is DOA. There is a total of 35 live ones. Wow. Mom and I make sure each one gets a drink and we put them in a larger box. There is a small one that I promply adopt for myself and named him Puny since he was so small. Then there was another one that ran around like crazy who we named Loco. I get the guineas home and divide them. Dave and I take the ones for our friends to their house. Their son falls in love with them.
Our guineas sleep in the bathroom their first couple nights. Yes we did finish the guinea/chicken house, but for some off reason I want them in the house. The cats really would like to get a hold of these little guys!
The guinea/chicken house has now been divided into 2 sections. One side is a nursery for the guinea keets. They can't get out and the chickens can't get in. The other side is for the 2 hens and the rooster. They can come and go as they please.
It's July. We have spent a lot of time bush hogging the fields. We finally get a section fenced with electric so that the horses can come. I am so glad that they are finally here!
Summer is here. It’s hot outside. It is a typical Kentucky summer. One day is gorgeous outside and the windows are open, the next day it is 90% humidity and you can’t even breathe. On those days we bite the bullet and shut the windows and turn the air. But most days we leave the windows open. The cats like to come in and out so when I am home, I open a little window with no screen in it so that they can come in and out of the house as they please.
As most mothers do, I spend a lot of time and effort to try to teach my children proper manners. I insist on please and thank you and really stress not to interrupt the adults when they are talking. For some reason the interrupting part, just don’t get through to them. Especially when I am on the phone. I know that I am not alone here. My girls can be nowhere in sight and precisely one minute after the phone rings, they are on me like flies “Mom, can I… She hit me…. Where is my….” And on and on and on. You get the picture. We have all been there. I keep telling them that unless it is a matter of life or death or someone is bleeding, then not to interrupt. They still don’t listen, but I won’t lose this battle!
Today happens to be a nice day. The windows are open. There is a nice breeze. I’m doing laundry and cleaning the house some. The phone rings and its Dave calling from Virginia where he is for work training. Not 2 minutes in the conversation, Cassie is tugging at my shirt. “Mom. Mom, I need to tell you something.”
“Just a minute Cassie,” I whisper to her.
Cassie stands there for 10 seconds.
“Mom, I need to tell you something,” She says again.
“Just a minute Cassie, he has to go back to class, so hang on.”
“Mom, it’s a ‘mergency there’s a snake in the house.”
I give her a funny look. Yeah right, a snake in the house.
“Mom, I’m serious! There is really a snake in the house. Come see it’s right over here.”
I tell Dave to hang on so I can look. There coiled up nicely under the bar stool is a snake. It’s small, but there is a snake in my house. Sigh. I hang up the phone and try to figure out how to get the snake out of the house. I don’t like to hurt any animal, so removing this animal must be done nicely. I get an empty garbage can and try to corral the snake into it. The snake doesn’t want to go. I sigh angrily. I finally manage to get the snake in the garbage can and take it back outside to nature where it belongs. Never a dull moment here.
Part 2 coming soon.....
