Scribs Farm one year later

We've officially been on the farm for a year. I'm a bit late, are you surprised? It seemed to have both flown by and taken forever. We've learned a lot, had some pretty stressful times (Hello flooded field!) and learned exactly what is important. The kids are so much happier here. If I let Nature Baby be in charge, she'd never come in the house. I foresee more animals in our future! We've seen the progress we've been making and it's so satisfying. Google maps updated their maps (this happens every 3-4 years) I can see the difference from above. Our garden is in there, and the compost we've built, no coop or removal of garbage hill.

Highs
Chickens (The coop and eggs!)
Garden (July,  June, and May)
Living room redo I still can't believe it's the same room in the same house.
Wild life (and here)
Finding the Elephant Hawk Moth I still haven't seen any signs of another.

Lows
Flood
Garbage hill
Living next to a berry field, the sound machine. My goodness, I'm not looking forward to it again next year.


To Dos this year
Paint kid's rooms
Fence both for the yard and field
Paint hall way and back entry
Screen door for backdoor
Play set for the kids
Switch Septic field to a wild flower mix.

Next 5 years
Reside the barn
Landscaping - I want big trees!
Patio with a pergola
Re-insulate, new windows, basically get this house warm in the winter
Paint the kitchen cabinets

This year, I don't think my hands have ever been clean and I've never worked so hard in my life and I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm excited for the future, for myself, the kids and the farm. We have a plan for the direction we'd like to head and some ideas on how to get there. I have finally gotten my knitting mojo back and now I'm starting to consider sheep. We'll see what the future brings.

Being here, I've found a sense of calm. I wake up happy. I'm no-longer as cynical, hating everything and everyone. Maybe that comes with age or maybe that comes with finding and being somewhere that feels right. People in the Pacific North-West, in my experience, are happier because they want to be here. The first thing we noticed upon moving from California is that people here are nice, they are friendly, they're willing to tell you about cool new things to do and see. We spend time outside, exploring! It's green, the wildlife isn't trying to kill you and you can be outside without worrying about extreme heat and the ground moving.

For the first time in a really long time, maybe ever, I'm still and I'm happy.

Goodbye garbage hill

We discovered that what we had thought was just a place the previous owner had fires was actually their trash burning pile. Had we known that, we would have had it removed before we bought the farm. Lesson learned. This is definitely a job we knew that we'd have to call someone to take care of.

We were planning on putting berries there, but put them elsewhere. We are put the chicken coop over there but then we discovered the disaster. After a little digging around (literally) we discovered that we have a giant burnt trash pile. Scribs dug down about 3 feet and it's full of nails, broken glass, melted plastic and who knows what else.

That whole L shape is full of junk. There is concrete in there and rocks and who knows what else. Whats with the giant concrete cube? Beats me! Oh the treasure that must be in there! 

And then there is the lovely stump that grows mushrooms every time it rains. That needed to go before the chickens are let loose. Chickens aren't the brightest birds and will eat mushrooms given the chance. The stump was huge! The hole was big enough to bury a smart car. 

The lovely tractor tire that was dug up! There was a buried TRACTOR TIRE! What?!

 All that dirt was from digging up the stump. I wish I would have been able to get better pictures but you know, kids to watch, things to do!

More random trash, bricks, metal bits, thankfully nothing that would have caused a serious problem. 

Yes that is a garden hose and parts of old clay pipes. I found more pipes in the garden. The thing that looks like a bone is a part of the stump roots. The man dug a hole about 20 feet deep to get that sucker out.

Several dump truck trips to the dump to get rid of all the trash and several trips to get clean fill. And Garbage Hill is no more!

Ta-Da! Much better! Now we're waiting for the grass to go in, it's been seeded and watered (constantly).

I am so glad Garbage Hill will be a distant memory and our yard will look normal! We certainly weren't expecting to have to get this done, but it's one of those things that had to be fixed.