Birdstump Barn

This week's CVS deals

Ok...let's see if I can remember all of this....CVS shopping really is amazing.

So I started out with $19 in ECB.

My purchases were:

1 Gillette Fusion razor

1 3-pack of Irish Spring bar soap

1 bottle of Caress body wash

5 bottles of children's chewable asprin

1 bottle of Tylenol Rapid Release Extra Strength

1 package of Preperation-H travel wipes

2 bottles of Crest Pro health Night mouth wash

11 boxes of Raisinetts (they are corn syrup and gluten free, as best we can tell, so they are usually what we get my son...it was nice to be able to stock up!)

I think that's it...Anyway, what with all the awesome coupons I had from Melonie, out of pocket, I spent $15.71 cents, and also used up those $19 ECB, for a total of $34.71.  But, I walked out with $33 in new ECB.  So the "real" grand total was a whopping $1.71  Gotta love shopping like this!

My brother-in-law is so amazing!

Just have to share a cool little brag on my brother-in-law, Paul.  He's married to my oldest sister, Linda, and has recently surprised us - well, I'm surprised, anyway....maybe I'm just out of touch with all the family goings on - letting us know that a song he wrote has been recorded by a southern gospel/bluegrass/a capella group, "Blue Cheese".

Here's a link if anyone wants to check it out - his is the 5th track, the title song, "Roll Back the Stone".

http://www.reverbnation.com/tunepak/artist_107278

I am now officially a CVS groupie...

Well, it would seem all the planets have aligned.....

I began trying to keep really diligent track of our grocery/household expenses beginning this month...

I had decided that I should actually go into a CVS, since I actually live where they exist now....

And then yesterday, there was a big package in the mail from my friend, Melonie, which, along with an issue of TOS, was filled with what must be about 2 lbs of clipped coupons!

So, romantic that I am, I talked my dh into a date night that included a trip to CVS (the closest one is about 30 minutes away).

So here's what I got - sorry, I'm not great about taking pictures of it all...I'll work on that...

4 little bottles of Palmolive dish soap - no coupons

3 packages of Pull-ups (each w/ a $2 off coupon)

2 bottles of All small and mighty laundry soap (each with a $1.50 off coupon)

1 colgate toothbrush

1 2-pack of colgate toothbrushes (they only had one of the single ones left)

1 package of colgate toothpaste

I think those were it for "deals" of the week..

then we just also needed:

1 box of 100 bandaids

1 box of 45 kitchen garbage bags

1 package of shoelaces for dh

So the grand total was: 54.55

According to the receipt, I saved: 24.85

And, best of all, I now have $19 in ECB.  (I think I should have had 21...I think one of the colgate things didn't get rung up right...but dh hates shopping, and was wanting to get out of there, so, oh well...)

So, now for this week, we may get some of the Nestle candy - I think Raisinets are Nestle, and they are one of the few candies that my 5 y/o can eat (he can't have anything with corn syrup, or maltdextrin, or dextrose, or gluten), so we may stock up this week, since, with the ECBs, it should be a pretty good price...better than the local gas station, which is where we have been getting them.  And, thanks again to Mel - who sent all those coupons I used last night - there was also a coupon for the Gillette Fusion razor in that batch, so I should be able to pick up that for free this week. 

I feel like I'm playing Monopoly or something, holding my coupons, instead of money or cards or something.

So now....does anyone have any great ideas on how to get the Sunday paper and all it's coupons, without shopping on Sunday?

Sick Siblings & snow.(sigh)

My 2 brothers have the flu.  The fact that it snowed, AGAIN, did not help with a cheerful outlook.

I am so tired of the snow! Just when I think it might stop, BAM! 3" of snow!

GGRR!

 Aside from that I watched a movie, did some laundry, washed Lumpy's hair, & fell asleep on the couch.

                                   Well, thats all for now!

                                                   Evelyn

Hi everyone!

Hello.I'm Carrie's daughter Evelyn, and since Mom is not useing her blog, I'm stealing it.;>)

Haha.It was authorized though.Well my hobbies are beading & reading,I love horses,

and can't wait to get out to "big grass."HOWEVER,   we are much farther than

we were way back in the day when Mom was posting

                                             Well,'bye for now!

Dreamy Victorian house, shed footers, and a job

Been awhile since I posted...had a few detours in our plans...

I had to go and fall in love with this house in town, and while David has been busy working in Kansas (2 hour commute each way), I spent a couple of weeks making calls and getting bids to see how much it would cost to move this home to our property.  Unfortunately, it just would end up being more than we feel like we should spend.  Kinda makes me laugh....the amount we're talking wouldn't even get us an old fixer-upper in the areas we have recently moved from.  But we're determined to leave decidedly within our means, with a goal of being mortgage free asap.  So, no gorgeous Victorian with inlaid wood floors, 10' ceilings, huge bay windows, original woodwork, including a gorgeous stairway, french doors......Ah, it's a beautiful home.  If anyone in NW Missouri is looking for a house, email me and I'll give you the details..;-)

So, putting that little fantasy behind me, a good friend came out today and worked with our two helper guys - Gabe and Jamie - and they got so much work done!  The footer for the foundation of the garden shed got completed by noon, so we went ahead and did the concrete.   Should have ordered a bit more - forgot to add extra for spillage - so we were a tiny bit short, so we also got to do some mixing by hand in a wheelbarrow, which was actually kinda fun.  Worked hard, it was crazy hot...99 degrees, and humid enough that it keeps raining a little bit and then stopping.  So, we're all tired, but the good kind of tired.  And it feels really, really great to see some permanant progress.

David applied for a job a couple of weeks ago for a non-profit org. in a little town about 40 minutes north of here, and they called today wanting to schedule an interview, so we're excited to see how that goes.  Been praying a lot to know the Lord's will as far as David's work.  If He really still wants David to be going solo, we'll do that, no problem.  But, maybe that time is done?  We'll see first if they offer the job, and then pray about whether to accept it or not, if they do. 

Batter boards

We spent Monday putting up batter boards and strings for the foundation walls and footers.   We ran out of string right at the end, so we actually have two lines still needing to be run, but the nails are there for them, so it won't take but a minute to do that when we go back next.  Something about all those nice, perfectly square, crisp exact lines really speaks to my soul....lol.  David thinks I'm nuts.  But hey - an exacting personality has lots of times where it is not so welcome....at least this is an opportunity for me to justifiably be as exacting and perfectionist as I desire.  ;-)

The weather is really starting to warm up.  Life in Missouri really is like living in a green house....truly amazing to see how nature, all on its own, runs things just like they do at a greenhouse in Washington. 

Time for me to do some serious menu planning.  With two more people to feed, having "ugh...let's just have carrots and toast."  for lunch isn't going to cut it, I'm guessing, when feeding three hungry guys that have been framing all morning. 

Little and not so little blessings

We purchased the airline ticket for my nephew on Friday; he'll arrive on Sunday the 17th.  And last night we purchased the ticket for Gabe; he'll arrive on Wednesday the 20th.   So, it's great.  But I was kinda worried about where they could sleep.  But...Saturday morning, two mattresses and box springs were listed on freecycle!  David needed to go that direction anyway to buy a new circular saw, and so he headed down, and was able to get them!  A small thing, perhaps, but so needed.

Also needed for our project - a building permit, which David took care of getting this morning.  So now we are all official in that regard. 

And last, but certainly not least in the needed department, some financial cash flow.  We are very happy that David has landed a short-term contract for the next 3 -4 weeks.  It will be long days - M-Th, 10 hours a day, and the job sites are quite a distance from us.  But, they are also paying for travel time, and the pay is good, and the timing is good.  By the time the other guys get here, he'll be almost done. 

Completely unrelated to homesteading, I met a lovely lady at the library today.  Recently moved to the area, homeschooling, homebirthing, appears to be dresses-only.  A true kindred spirit, it seems, and I'm looking forward to developing this relationship.

Ground breaking!

Well, it's been a long spring, making decisions, re-making decisions, and learning a lot!  But we have finally committed to a floorplan and building method, and we broke ground this morning.

We are building at the northwest corner of the property, rather than down by the old home site.  We'll be building a 24x34 gambrel-roof home,on a crawlspace foundation, using plans from www.barnplans.com .  We'll also be having an 8' shed roof addition on the north side, which will add some square footage for a huge pantry, a mudroom, space for the HVAC stuff, and a tiny little office for David. 

The excavator met us at our property at 8 a.m., and in just a few hours had a wonderful hole dug, all nice and beautifully level and graded.  We had hired a friend to do the foundation for us, but unfortunately he let us know yesterday that because of some personal issues going on, he would not have time to do this job.  We are very disappointed, but will push forward.  Our excavator had some references of other concrete contractors, and offered to check into their availability and get bids for us.  We've had a couple other local guys recommended as well, so we should have no problem finding someone to do the job; I'm just hoping that there won't be too big a delay.

The other big news is that, wonderous miracle, we're going to have a building crew to help us for the summer!  Building crew being my nephew, Jamie (age 21), and our old friend, Gabriel (age 20), from Olympia.(David was his Sunday school teacher back when he was 15. He's done several other work projects for/with us over the years, and we count him as a great friend.)  Both of these young men have offered to come out for the summer and help David with the framing, just in exchange for room and board...what an amazing blessing! 

Also today, at two o'clock, we're meeting a gentleman at our property who cleans out and inspects old wells.  We aren't expecting that ours will be usable for household use, but we are hoping that we will be able to at least use it for garden and livestock.  Can't wait to learn more about wells in this area!

And last but not least, today is a busy cookie day!  One of the ladies here has a tour group coming through, and contracted to do 100 boxed lunches, so she ordered 100 cookies from me.  So I made 3 batches of dough yesterday, one batch today, and I have the last of the 100 cookies baking right now.  So as soon as they are done, I'll deliver them, and then head over to meet David and the well guy.

Whee, we are busy!  And having a lot of fun...:-)

Plumbing

We've spent the last several days very busy complicating things...;-)  For the dual purposes of 1.  getting the practice/experience, and 2. having somewhere besides the tick-infested woods for going potty, we've decided to rough-in the shed for a half bath.  It won't cost much in materials to do so (we're up to about $60 in pipe and pipe glue stuff and fittings and such), and so the big thing will be learning how to do it...which we'll need to do for the house anyway, so why not now?

So, it's homeschool time for mom and dad!  :-)

Our curriculum that we've ordered and received this week:

1.  Building with Awareness  - a book and DVD set that discusses many green and/or cost-effective building techniques, including rubble trench foundations, concrete floors, strawbale exterior walls, adobe interior walls, earthen plasters, passive solar positioning, photovoltaic solar panels, and rainwater catchment systems.  It takes you through the building of one home that was built this way, so not lots of different examples of the same techniques, but still a great resource, and one that we've really enjoyed.  There are hours and hours of video...we still haven't finished watching all of it! 

2.  More Strawbale Building - haven't even had much of a chance to read through this one yet, but it looks to be very thorough.

3.  Three DVDs from strawbale.com: "How-to guide to building a concrete monolithic slab foundation, "How-to guide to building with straw bales", and "How-to guide to plastering with Natural Hydraulic Lime plaster".

4.  Plumbing (For Pros by Pros series) by Rex Cauldwell

5.  Wiring a House (For Pros by Pros series) also by Rex Cauldwell.  These two books by Cauldwell are both published by Taunton Press, which has a really good reputation; they should arrive today, and I can't wait to see them!

6.  The Complete Guide to Home Plumbing: Newly Expanded Third Edition (Black and Decker) - this book has really great incredibly detailed and good quality photographs, and is new enough that it includes plenty of information about using PEX tubing.

So, there's our study list....time to crack the books now.  I'm not really a huge fan of the Thomas Jeffereson Education model - more of a Charlotte Mason follower, myself - but hopefully all this modeling of learning will pay off some with the kids' education, especially since our own formal schooling has slowed down to  a bare trickle what with all this builidng going on.... 

Cookie dough and concrete

Brought to you by the letter C?  ;-)

Spent the day today ordering some books and DVDs about strawbale construction, and then we went up to our old mobile home to "loot" it of its oven/range.  First we tested it by baking a batch of cookies there and found that, yes, it is in fact a much better oven than the one in the home we're renting now.  So we packed it up and brought it home.  We'll call the landlords in the morning and ask them to please come take away the other stove. 

The reason I'm so thrilled about having a better baking oven (other than just my own general appreciation) is that I have received the go-ahead from the county health dept. to sell baked goods out of the Far West Country Store.  The couple who owns the store attends our church, and has told me to go ahead and try to sell whatever I like.  So, I'm giving it a whirl!  But when you have to rotate your pan 3 times in a 12 minute bake, it gets really old.  So I'm quite happy that this other oven works better.

Then during the evening we went out and visited the friends that have built a strawbale home and returned their building scrapbook/journal, and asked them a bunch more questions.  It's really wonderful to spend time with those who have "been there, done that", and have not only so much useful advice and suggestions, but also so much wonderful encouragement.  I'm feeling great about moving forward with finishing the footers and pouring the foundation for the garden shed.   (David felt good about it before, but since he couldn't explain it to me - even though he had a pretty darned good grasp of it himself - I was less certain, and wanting a bit more explanation.  That's the kind of double-checking information junkie that I am; poor David, lol.)

So, all in all it was a good day; now we just need to wait for it to quit raining....I'd say it's almost like back in the NW, but the air feeling is so different......but that's for another post.

Done with the initial digging!

We finished digging out all the topsoil for the area for our storage shed yesterday!  There were so many rocks, we've got quite the firepit now, lol.  I'll post pictures as soon as I get some time to get around to shrinking all the photos I've already posted.  I guess the file size on them is too big, and I'm out of memory space already.  So, I'll have to find all the originals, copy them to a different folder, then change the file type/size, delete the old ones from the blog, and put the new ones back in.  What a pain!

Anyway, we've finished digging out the space, about 6-8" deep or so.  Now we'll need to calculate the size of footings we need, and dig those out.  Then comes leveling, and gravel, I believe.  Probably time to get some advice from those that have more experience with this kind of thing...

Activities of the last week

Well, the weather was mostly beautiful this week (although we did wake up to a dusting of snow this morning, go figure.  Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and 64, lol.  Crazy Missouri weather!), so we spent quite a bit of time out at the property.

We made the decision to go ahead and build the garden shed  near the storm  cellar, as it is fairly level there, so we won't have to build a retaining wall, and also because the other place we were thinking of would put it right in the way of the beautiful view we want to have from the house. 

So, out came the stakes, twine and measuring tape again, and wow is it easier to do when the ground isn't frozen!  We got our perimeter all marked out nice and square, and started digging!  We've been finding quite a few good sized pieces of limestone rock, so as we find them we're pulling them out and using them to build up the fire pit in front of the storm cellar.  The kids are loving having all these campfires, especially the night we brought hotdogs, lol.  I haven't yet been a nice enough mommy to bring marshmallows.  All that stickiness with no running water is just more than I am up for. 

We got in touch with the local company (if there is a second one, I haven't been able to find it yet) that moves houses, and gave them a description of the home that we have been eyeing for moving out to our property, as well as the number of power lines along the route.  They estimated a cost of $25-30K to move it.  So, unless we were able to get the house for literally free, we're thinking that it's just not going to be the way to go.  Especially since we have heard things that make us think that it may take quite awhile for all of it to go through; we're just not sure enough of it, or interested in it enough to risk waiting all summer for something that might not even work out.  So...straw bale, here we come!

We spent last weekend going to a couple of other strawbale homes in the area, and talking with a local contractor that builds strawbale homes.  He was very kind and informative; I sure wish we could afford to just hire him to build it!  Oh well....the experience of doing it ourselves will be great, I'm sure..listen to me as I convince myself, eh? 

So, I've been working on floor plans.  I love gambrel roof homes, aka Dutch Colonial, aka a "barn house".  But, they aren't so energy efficient we hear.  But they may be way more space efficient.  So we'll just have to see.  I'm going to come up with two plans...one a single story rambler, 1600 sqft (40x40....did you know that square homes use materials more efficiently than rectangle homes?  I hear circles are even better, but we don't know how to do a circle roof.  Try it with legos sometime...it really works!  For example, doing a 40x40 square ( (160 linear feet of exterior wall)) instead of a 32x50 ((164 linear feet of wall)) saves you a whopping 4 feet!  ;-)  Ok, so that's not so much.  But before, I had been designing a 30x30 square with two 18x18 bump outs on each side.  1548 sqft, but 192 linear feet of wall.  So, changing to a 40x40 square (which is admittedly somewhat uglier, as far as architectural interest) will gain us 52 extra square feet - not a lot, but hey - that's the size of a mudroom, or a decent bathroom or walk-in closet - , but cut down our exterior wall by 32 feet!  How much $$ 32 feet will save us, I don't know.  But I know that after watching videos of the stuccoing required for a strawbale, every foot less that we have to do is a great thing!  Of course, the cost of having wider trusses may figure in also.  I'll tell you - you know, I am completely sure that I am not the first person to ever want to know what is truly the most economical shape of house to build, but it sure is complicated and no one I have asked yet seems to be able to give me a firm idea.

So...back to my two house plans.  One is the 40x40 square.  The other will be a 30x30 gambrel roof, so 900 sqft downstairs, and about 720 upstairs.  And I'll have to price out every last stinking thing...concrete, roofing, trusses, flooring, etc.  And with my luck, it will come out to, oh, about $6.12 difference between the two.  But I have to find out, because if I don't, I'll be second guessing it for the rest of forever. 

Anyway, here's some pictures of the kids helping out at the homestead.  That is the part I am loving so much.  Rather than so much of the work we have around the house - where really they often just get in the way, and can't do much to help (At last not without driving me nuts)...taxes, sewing, baking, computer stuff - out there they really can help...help dig, help find and cut wood for the fire, help haul rocks, etc.  And it all really does need done.  And they really can help.  And what's more, they love it!  It really doesn't get any better than that. 

That was from last Saturday, when they were digging the hole to test the soil for a septic system.  The dirt was so cool; it was like playdough.  And this was the stuff that, comparatively, didn't have much clay in it! 

Convenient that there was that low area right next to where we are digging...gives us a great place to dump all the dirt we dig out. 

Also convenient that we have as many shovels as we do, in the nice variety of sizes we do.;-)

More pictures of the old home site

There's the storm cellar.  It's in amazingly good shape, all considered.  Has a drain in the floor, and a vent in the ceiling that the kids love to yell down through, at whomever is in there. 

This is a little dipped down area....if the camera were pointing just a bit more to the left, you could see the storm cellar in the background.  This dipped down area is where we are currently putting all topsoil that we're digging out for the foundation for the garden shed.

Closer up look at the storm cellar, with Evelyn and Elizabeth in the foreground, and Eleanor climbing up on top.

And this is the well that is closest to the house site.  David will be making a sturdier cover for it this afternoon.

And a super close up on the side wall of the storm cellar, where you can see the date carved in. 

And last but not least, from the completely opposite side of the property (Old home site is at the SE corner, and this is at the NW corner), the pond:

And one more of the pond, because I just love it so much....check out the huge oak tree at the back side of it:

Pictures

All right ladies and gentleman, here by popular request (or was that just one particularly persistent requester? ;-)) we have some pictures of the homestead.  Now, most of these are going to be from last October, but I will get some more recent ones soon.  Too bad we didn't get around to taking any during the winter...it was awfully pretty in the snow.   Ah well...winter will come again. 

In the meantime, I'll give a quick slideshow of the old homesite, starting from the old driveway. 

This is from standing at the foot of the driveway, looking back up the road to the north.

Here is standing at the same place, looking up the driveway, to the east:

And this is standing at the top of the driveway, looking down the road to the south:

(You can see the neighbor's soybean field just past the fence.  You can also see some gray thing at the left lower edge of the picture that we cannot figure out what is.  Any guesses?)

Ok, this moving pictures around is slow and annoying....I'm done for now.  More later!  :-) 

Chugga Chugga Choo-choo!!

How is it that our homestead activities have such a preschool song theme to them??

Anyway, Tuesday was spent by me having an absolutely beautiful peaceful day at home with the kids getting caught up on laundry - lots of nice mucky clothes from the well-exploring the day before - on the most beautiful sunny day you can imagine.  I love Missouri, by the way.  The seasons change, right when they are supposed to.  And in the spring - get this all you west coast people  - we get birds, singing and tweeting and all that.  Just like in books!  (My experience with birds on the west coast was that mostly all you get is crows, seagulls if you live close enough to the water, and some very quiet robins that just fly into your windows now and then, but don't sing much.)  So we hung our wash out on the line, opened up all the windows, mopped some floors, and just enjoyed the day.

David on the other hand....he got to drive down to Kansas City on an errand.  There was this guy on craigslist giving away railroad ties.  He said he had about 3000 of them.  So off I sent him, to rent a big flat-bed truck, and get a whole bunch of them, for the purposes of 1. lining our future driveway, so that we don't have a big problem with gravel washing away as we hear is common. 2. building a foot bridge across the creek so we don't have to get so muddy and mucky every time we want to cross.  and 3. putting in any retaining walls we might want to put in, like in the area where we want to put our garden shed, but the land needs leveling up a bit.    So, heroic guy that he is, he spent all day loading, moving, and unloading railroad ties.  We ended up getting about 50 of them.  They are so heavy! About 75-150 lbs each, depending on how solid they still are.  So, after delivering them to our property and unloading, we looked at that big cool truck, and thought, "While we have this thing, is there anything else we want to move?"  And so up we went to our old mobile home, and brought down our riding lawnmower, wheel barrow, and bbq.  And then all the way back to KC he went, to return the truck.  I got to bed at 3 a.m., David not until about 5:00, poor guy.  But it's done!

Tikki Tikki Tembo...

Well, actually, I grew up with a different version..."Eddie Kootcha Katcha Kamma Tostanera Tostanoa Samma Kamma Wacky Brown...fell into the well, fell into the well, fell into the deep dark well."

Fortunately, none of us fell.  :-) But I did have the interesting experience of climbing down a fairly shallow well.  Only 14 ft deep; but still enough to defintely test the fortitude of someone scared of heights!  We took two cinder blocks, and threaded a 2x4 through one of them resting on one side of the well, through the rungs of our ladder, and then through the other cinder block on the other side, with the ladder then suspended in the well.  It went about 10 feet down.  The well is about 3 ft in diameter give or take a bit.  So, down I went.  That was when I realized that the ladder didn't go all the way down. I stood there on the last rung for awhile after telling David, "I cannot do this."  And then I got brave, and climbed down the rest of the way using the rocks that line the well as places to step.  Standing on the bottom was a whole nother deal, though.  I put one foot down, and sank most of the way to my knee in mud.  Took a stick, and probed the bottom...felt mostly solid about 2 feet down, but in a couple of places, I could still jam the stick even deeper.  So...is this normal?  What is usually at the bottom of a well?  I have no idea.  I guess it's time to start talking to my dad again.  He was a well driller, way back when.    Not as way back as this well, though. 

Anyway, I got totally filthy, and it was a bit scary, and was way more excersize for my legs than I have had in quite a while, so I felt a bit sore the next day.   I guess I should work well climbing into my daily schedule to get in shape, eh? 

At this point, I think it's time to call in a professional well cleaner-outer, and see what they say.  The biggest thing will be - I think - in raising the well above ground level, so that surface water run-off won't be getting into the well.  I'm not sure how that would be done. 

Mel, as to your wonderment about finding out why there are two wells.....I am quite sure that these wells pre-date any well registration they have here.  I don't think they started keeping track until the late 80s!   My best guess is that they had one on each side, one for the house, and one for livestock on the other side of the creek.  Hard to say.  We haven't had much luck finding out much about the history of the place.  Did find some info, though, at the library in a book on the history of Caldwell county.  Got a name, but not much else.  Part of a big family in the area.  Married, they think he adopted two children.  And that's all the info we got. 

Discoveries at the homestead

The weekend was a great one....beautiful, sunny, and warm!  We spent a good deal of time out at the property on Saturday, and it was in the mid-60s most of the day. 

We went out bright and early Saturday morning to meet a soil morphologist and a guy with a little digging machine to do a test on the soil to see what sort of a septic system we will need to put in.  The good news is that we have options.  There is an area down towards the creek - but not too close! - that they said has 'some of the best soil we've seen in a long time', as far as its suitability for putting in a traditional drainfield system.  Up by where the house will go is much more clay-ey, and in that direction would work great for a lagoon, if that is what we want.  So now it will come down to what I'm sure will be the overlying theme of this whole project - aesthetics vs. cost.   A lagoon costs less to put in than a traditional system.  At least, that's what we've been told.  So now we need to get some actual bids, to find out some specific details.

But, for now, our project has started with its first official expense.  I figure I will try to log ever last cent we spend here, for our own reference, and for the sake of anyone else who ever wants to try anything like it.  (We've been very frustrated by the lack of specifics that we have been able to find.  We get lots of , "Pretty inexpensive", or "Fairly costly", or "not much at all", or "Only another 25% more to get...."  But when it comes down to hard numbers, everyone seems to be seriously lacking. 

So, the cost of a soil morphology test:  (and here's the latest blessing)

We were quoted $250 for the test guy's fee + $180 for the digger guy's fee.  The test guy actually only billed us $200.  All I can figure is he took pity on a large family (with pretty cute kids, I might add, ;-)) with a small budget.  He was the nicest guy, and I would highly recommend him to anyone in the area needing this kind of work done. 
So, grand total for that: $380.

The second discovery of the day out at the homesite was the extent of the crevice filled with old dumped stuff.  During the summer, we could only see a very small portion.  In fact, we had just been saying how lucky we were that the amount of dumped trash was so minimal. Well, we found more.  It almost looks like someone long ago had started to dig out the perimeter of a pond - the area is just a long, winding, almost a full circle, but not quite, trench, filled with goodness knows what - half the old homestead house, it looks like!  A lot of old lathe, broken windows, some metal farmish looking stuff, and a whole lot of wood and branches.  So we'll have quite the project of pulling out all the wood that is burnable, and figuring out what to do with the rest.  It's quite brushy and prickly in that area, but this time of the year is the best as far as all the undergrowth being down, so probably next year around this time will be when we'll tackle that.   For now, I'm just glad that it's totally out of the way as far as building...it's on the other side of the creek. 

But...while we were over there, we discovered......a second well!  We had heard that there might be one, but had never seen anything.  But, there it was, all fenced off like the first one, just so overgrown with brush that we had missed it before.  It's right in the middle of the almost-circle dump-trench.  We measured it, and it is about the same depth and diameter of the first well - about 13-14' deep, and about 3' across, hand-dug, rock-lined.  This one is at a lower elevation by several feet, and that may be what accounts for it having quite a bit more standing water in it; 7 feet of standing water, as opposed to the one closer to the house site, which only has about 3 feet. (Although, we checked that quite awhile ago....maybe it has more now, too?) 

Anyway, we're thrilled to have a second well, and today we're borrowing a friend's generator, and we're going to go out with a sump pump and a ladder and a bucket and some other sundry things, and see what we do about pumping out, cleaning out, and seeing how quickly they refill.  Wish us luck!

Joshua

I mentioned in my last post some concerns we have about mold and toxic materials in older homes. 

We took Joshua to a DAN! doctor last month.  He is an osteopath that specializes in allergies and environmental medicine.  We were happy with the type of practitioner he seems to be; a good combination of allopathic medicine, with all the access to prescription medicine and lab tests that goes with that, along with a healthy dose of willingness to participate in "quackery" (his words), if it works, and helps his patients.

After a very thorough history and a couple of hour long appt where he observed Joshua very carefully, he definitely thinks that Joshua may be dealing with some allergies, either inhalent, food, or both.  He sent us home with a test kit for a urine test that will test for several things that I can't remember, and also for gluten and casein peptides.  While a positive result for those peptides doesn't mean definitively that he is allergic to (or intolerant to) gluten and casien, it is a pretty strong indication, enough so that if we do get positive results, we will pull gluten from his diet as well as the casien that we have already eliminated. (As a side note, if my understanding is correct, for the test to be accurate regarding casien, we'll have to give it to him again for a few days prior to the test.  Oh, my....talk about asking for trouble!  Oh well...)

This doctor will also be doing some standard skin-prick allergy testing like I had done in highschool (I was allergic to so many things, cats, dogs, pollen of many varieties, wool, feathers, trees, grasses, mold, dustmites...you name it, it was probably on the list.)  To do this testing, though, we will probably have to sedate him, as I don't see him sitting nice and still while strange ladies with gloves on come at him with needles. 

Coming from the west coast, and living in a house with a chronically damp basement, this doctor suspects that mold may be a problem for Joshua, as well as dust-mites.  There are so many possibilities for allergens...

And last but not least, the "quackery"...sublingual challenges of a sort that I read about in the Doris Rapp book, "Is this your child" many years ago.   I don't remember how they are supposed to work, but I will just trust that they do.  We brought home one of the little dropper bottles, and have been practicing with Joshua, having him hold the drops under his tongue for the length of the "ABC song", before swallowing.  (We included an elaborate explanation involving invisible monter-buggies in his food, and how this water will help us know if there are any monster buggies hding in his food, and will help us "get them!" if there are any.)

So...now the only hard part is having enough faith to go ahead and spend the money for this testing.  We're anticipating that to complete the testing that I've described above will run close to $1000.  We do have the money...but with David so newly self-employed, it's pretty scary to spend it, knowing that it could be months before more money is coming in.  

So, all of this wonderment about allergies makes us particularly concerned about building materials, and old homes.  Is it perhaps an incredible blessing that the property we were led to had no house on it?  Surely, if it had, we would have just planned on living in and fixing up whatever home was on the property.  And perhaps we would have been stuck living in a house that would make Joshua sick.  Hard to say, but if allergies are causing some of his problems, it is a scenario that we easily could have gotten stuck in.  Praise the Lord that we are not. 

But, with all of this in mind, we really do need to find out for sure if there are things like mold, or formaldehyde off-gassing, or anything like that, that Joshua is reacting to, before we either begin building, or make plans to move an older home onto our property.    

So we pray that the Lord will bless David with work, and soon. 

And, in the meantime, I'm supposed to keep a detailed food and symptom diary for Joshua, for 2 weeks.  And because it's so easy to lose anything that I actually write down on paper, I'll be keeping it here.  So, feel free to skip those entries, unless you're really interested in knowing what we eat, and the variety of ways that Joshua gets himself in trouble..;-) 

Options

We had a great visit from my husband's father and brother last week.  They are out here from Seattle, looking for a home to buy as an investment, or just a small place that they could just have to be here to stay in whenever they come to visit.  We found an absolutely beautiful home a town about 4 miles from our property.  None of us will be getting it, but it sure is beautiful! 

But, while they were in town, the realtor that they were working with mentioned that there are 4 homes in town that, in approximately 3 months, will need to be either moved, or demolished, to make room for some expansion of a neighboring property. 
Dad was told that these homes would "go for nothing, or next to nothing". 
So, perhaps building from scratch won't be necessary?  Talk about instant gratification housing!  Just pick it up, drive it down the road, plop it down, pour a foundation, connect all the pipes, and you're done! 

We don't know much about these homes.  We've driven by and seen them from the outside, but I don't know how long it will be until we can see the insides.  There are huge benefits to moving a home, but some drawbacks as well; energy efficiency for one, and having to settle for whatever floor plan they come with, for the most part. (Of course remodeling is always an option, as far as finances allow.)  But we also have concerns about mold, and toxic building materials in older homes.  But I'll save that for another post.

For now, we are so grateful that we have so many good options available to us, and we'll just pray that we can know which direction the Lord would have us go with it.