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I told you in my last blog about my first birthday wish. The following year, my wish was to start our house on the farm. That way I knew the day I started and could see how long it would take to finish it up. Peggy and I had been talking about where we wanted to build. Several places we talked about had to be scraped because when the creek flooded the water rolled into that area. I guess that is one reason the Lord held us off building, so we could see what we would be facing. After a lot of thought and prayer we decided to build across from where the creek cave is located I had been studying different ways to build where I could do most of the building myself to keep cost down. I had looked at straw bale housing, stress skin panels, metal frame housing, log cabins and a variety of others. One idea that I thought I might be able to do was pole built. Jeff, a guy in our church worked at the electric company and had 16' poles he said I could have. I decided to go that route. My first job was to set the poles and to set the poles I had to dig the holes. On my birthday, July 9, 2004 I turned the first dirt with my post hole digger. I had 9 holes to dig and it was not going to happen overnight. These were not little holes or shallow ones, but I was excited and felt like this was the start of us getting to move to the farm. I know a lot of our family and friends thought I was crazy. There were times I thought I was crazy, but I continued on. The boys did there fair share of digging also. I did get some help from Mr. P who had a fence post digger on three of the holes. The digger went down as far as it could and I had to hand dig the rest of the hole. Any help was great and made things a little bit easier. Where we were building was about 70-80 feet from the creek and was on a slope up toward the road. To lessen the chance that the house would flood we were going to build it on poles 8 foot out of the ground in the front. With the slope of the land the back would only be one foot out of the ground. Close to where we lived, a building had been taken down that was built on poles. I stopped there one day and talked to a guy working there about the poles. He said that I could have them. The boys and I loaded up the chain saw and went and cut them down. They were about 10 foot long and would work for several of our back poles. One day Jeff loaded up some of the poles he had. I now had the poles I needed for the foundation. Looking at those 16 foot poles I was wondering how I was going to get them upright and into the holes! The old saying, “Where there is a will there is a way” included Mr. P for me. Mr. P showed up with his tractor and he had a small boom on it that he used to lift up different things around his farm. We chained a pole on to the boom and raised it up. Slowly we moved it over to the first hole. As he moved it I held onto one end to keep it from tipping. At the hole I pushed down on the end to direct it in the hole as he raised the boom. To my surprise it went right in. Praise the Lord! We did all three front poles that way in a very short time. I was excited to get that done. It was amazing to see those huge poles pointing skyward.
The other six poles the boys and I put in. They were pretty easy to put in, but several we needed to take back out to enlarge the hole. We found that we could take a 3 foot metal pole and wrap a chain around it and the wood pole and pull them straight up. That was a lot easier than trying to hug it and lift it up.
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Several years ago for my birthday Peggy asked me what I wanted to do. Since we bought the farm and had the grist mill, I have become a mill enthusiast. I had looked on a very detailed map and saw several mills listed in VA that was semi close to our farm in TN. I told her I wanted to go look at these old mills and to find one in particular. It was named the same as ours. The story was told to us that the brother to the guy who owned our mill had a mill also in VA. Could this be it? I mapped out our route and on my birthday we headed out for our adventure. It did not take long until we were on some small back roads that went up and down and curved like a snake. We found the first one and it was in fair shape but was not in operation. It was about half the size of ours. We moved on to the next mill which had the same name as ours. We were having trouble finding it and saw a farmer on a tractor coming down the road. We stopped him and he told us where it was and even some history of it. He did say that it was the mill of our owner’ brother. When we got to the mill it looked some like ours, but it did not have a wheel. It was a turbine driven mill. We were told we could go in and look at it by a lady doing some work at the owner’s house and she would have the owner come out. We looked around for about 30 minutes and the owner never did come out so we left. The lady had told us his wife was very sick, so we did not want to bother him. The mill was in need of a lot of work. I hope to make it back there and talk to the owner someday. We left out and went back the way we came in. Up and down some hills and around the snake curves again. We continued our mill adventure and stopped at 3 other mills. None of them were in operation and all were in need of repairs. It was an exciting day and a good learning experience for the boys and for Peggy and me. Our love for old mills is growing with each one we see. As a side note to the mill with the same name as ours. My brother from Ohio was in one week and we went to the farm. He had an Ohio friend that had an old farm that he thought was close to ours, but in VA. We decided to find it. It was about 30 minutes from our farm. Looking on a map it looked like this farm was close to the mill we had gone to. After we looked at his friend’s farm I said let’s go down this road and see if we see this mill. We went about five miles and found it. It was a real surprise to me that we traveled for several hours, up and down and around to find it the first time and here it was just about 35-40 minutes from our farm. |
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I need some help in knowing how to add people to my "friends" list on my blog. I have three on there and to be honest, I do not know how I added them. I would like to add those of you who have left commits for me. Thanks for the help! |
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Last blog I told you about our first time camping at the property. It was an adventure, but we sure enjoyed being at the farm. We decided to go back in mid-October to camp again. We wanted to be up there and enjoy the colors of the fall leaves. This time we planned a little more for our trip than our last campout. We had bought a new three room tent and this would be the first time to use it. We loaded up the vehicle and headed to the farm. Once up there we decided to camp across the creek in a large pasture field. We took stuff across the creek in our four wheel drive truck and started setting up camp. It was just beautiful up there and so peaceful. One piece of equipment we had that we had never used was a Dutch oven. We set up an area that we could use it and some other cast iron skillets on. In searching the property for firewood our youngest son found an old car oil pan. He brought it back to his mother and said, “Look mommy, here is something you can use for a toilet!” It was such a thoughtful idea, but Peggy could not bring herself to use it.
Being late October and in the hills, it got cold when the sun went down. We all bundled up with everything we had. Peggy had made chili that we heated up over the campfire. It was not real late, but it sure was dark up there while we were eating. We were about done with supper when we saw a car slow down and then stop by the mill.
At first I thought it might have been my brother from I told Peggy I was going to go see who it was. I had my shotgun with me and so I picked it and a flashlight up. I headed to a tree I had cut down that was dead that fell across the creek. It was our footpath to get back and forth across the water. I was trying to keep the light from the flashlight to a minimum so the “unknown guest” would not see me. It was an adventure for me trying to walk across a log in the dark carrying a shotgun and keeping the light to a minimum. About the time I got off of the log I heard a women’s voice say, “Henry, don’t shoot! It is the B’s!” The B’s were the family we had met and visited that lived in that county that knew the realtor we worked through to get the farm. We had told them we were coming up, but forgot about them coming as it had gotten so dark. Living up there for about 20 years they knew people shot first and asked questions second. Well, it is not that bad, but she knew she needed to be careful. Boy, I was glad it was somebody I knew. They crossed the log and we had a good time visiting around the campfire. The boys enjoyed playing with their kids in the moonlight. One thing I have learned is that people in the country do things at a different pace then the people in town. It is a slower, more relaxed pace. It is something that I need to still work on and look forward to when we get moved to the farm. The B’s left about 10:30 and we got ready for bed. We had bought a little heater that fit on the little propane tanks you can get from Coleman. Also we borrowed a heater you put on a big propane tank you use on a grill. We started out with the little heater. I was worried some about using the big one in the tent during the night. One thing I found out was that the little tanks last about 3 hours. When I woke up, or was it Peggy poking me to wake up, it was out and boy was it cold. I changed the tank and got it going again. Well morning came and it was time to get up and get breakfast going. First thing was to get some coffee going and water for hot chocolate. Peggy had brought enough food to feed two families, but being a Southern girl, that is how they are. “Better to have too much than not enough!” We started cooking eggs, sausage and sausage gravy. Those of you not from the south and do not know about biscuits and gravy, boy you are missing out on something. You might wonder how we were going to have biscuits. Well that is where the Dutch oven comes in.
I have been reading on Dutch oven cooking and had learned about cooking biscuits in them. I brought a pan to put inside and went and found three small rocks to put in the bottom of the oven. The rocks kept the pan off the bottom of the oven to keep the biscuits from burning and also allow hot air to flow under them to help in cooking. About 25 minutes after I put them on I opened the top to check on them. To my surprise (and the rest of the family) they were beautiful! I could not believe that they turned out so well. Well we had a great breakfast of eggs, sausage, coffee, biscuits and gravy!
We had a great day at the farm just enjoying the beauty of God’s creation and the blessing He had given us in the farm. Next I will tell you about my two birthday wishes. |
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After we bought the 100 acres, we went to the farm every time that we could. We started pulling vines off the mill and the old store that sits 100 feet from the mill. It was where the miller would sell some of the grain he had milled. The boys were fascinated about the cave that was right across the creek. We did not want them to go into it until we had it checked out by some spelunkers (those who explore caves). I contacted some local spelunkers and they agreed to come and “explore” our cave. The boys were all excited and looking forward to going in. They were going to come up on a Saturday and meet us in a nearby town at 9:30 AM. I came up with the idea of going up on Friday and camping the night and driving into town the next morning to meet them. We decided to take our car and our small 4-wheel drive truck. We loaded them up with a tent and some other camping gear and headed off to the farm. What an exciting time – our first camping trip on the property. Did I mention that Peggy was NOT a big camping person? I must have forgotten. Well, we got up to the farm and it was around 5:30, but it was getting dark real fast. We parked the car up by the mill and drove the truck down to some bottom land by the creek. At this time there were still cattle on the property as a local farmer had it leased from the previous owner. So we had to be careful where we stepped and where we were going to set up the tent. We had a small pup tent that would hold the four of us. We set it up by the lights of the truck. About 7:30 it was pitch dark that far out in the country so we decided to go to bed. As we laid there for a few minutes Peggy said, “Henry I want to go home! Just take me to the car and I will drive back home!” Home was an hour and an half away and she had never driven those roads in the dark. There was no way I was going to let her go. She asked several more times, but I always managed to calm her down. Finally we all fell asleep. Some time during the night I heard a gun shot. Oh great! Just what I needed for Peggy to hear! Fortunately, she did not hear it. I must say that Peggy was a trooper and hung in there great. About 4 in the morning I woke up to rain. I started thinking could I get the truck out of here or would it be stuck? Would the creek rise and flood its’ bank and flood our tent? My mind was going crazy. By 4:30 everybody was awake and we decided to get up and get in the truck. Once we were up we made a plan to head into town so off we went. I never knew that Hardees was open at 5:30 in the morning. We went in and ordered some breakfast. By 6:00 we were ready to leave and explore some of the local area. One thing we decided was to go north about 30 minutes to a larger town in KY. By 6:30 we were touring the local Wal-Mart. Just what every family wants to do on a rainy Saturday morning at 6:30. After touring Wal-Mart we toured the town and then headed back to meet our spelunkers. We arrived back at the meeting spot at 9:00 and they showed up about 15 minutes later. Once back at the farm the weather had cleared and the spelunkers crawled into the cave. It had a small opening, but then opened up into a larger room. After they checked it out, we let the boys go in the cave with them. They loved it. The spelunkers had a camera and they took some wonderful pictures. Peggy and I got to see the inside without going in. (As a side note, I tried to go in another time with the boys. My body was too big to fit the small opening. I also found out that I was somewhat claustrophobic when I got to a point I could not turn my head to the left or right or lift it up or down.) There is a small stream that runs in the cave. The boys have been in it many times since the spelunkers were there. They enjoy taking others in and showing them God’s handy work. One “kid” that went in recently was Geoff the Great Igarashi. I still do not know how he made it through that opening. Next time I will tell you about our second campout. |
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Thanks to Coie Ig and my son Tyler I have learned how to put pictures on my blog. Here is one of our grist mill. As far as we can figure, it is over 100 years old. It has been setting idle for about 60 years. Our goal is to restore it and see that wheel run again. We have tried to get some grant money, but so far nothing has been approved. We started making soap about one year ago and we are using all proceeds from our soap sales to go in helping restore it. We hope to have a store on HomeschoolBuy soon.
This is a drawing of the mill by artist Diane Brown, a friend of ours from Ohio. She did the drawing from several pictures. Maybe one day it will look this way.
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I moved from One spring I sent my registration in 3 months early to a father/son retreat. They were filled up. Peggy said why not do your own retreat? Well that birthed a ministry for me. We had our first f/s where we were living. We had about 15 attend. The next retreat we did had about 18 attend plus plenty of rain. They seemed to be a great success and I had a lot of good comments about them. When we bought the property I decided to move the f/s retreats to there. My thought was would men travel that far for a retreat? Most of our advertisement was through homeschool e-mail. More and more people were contacting me about the retreat. We charged a fee for the retreat basically to cover the cost of food. We feed them real well. Peggy did all the cooking and did a great job. Our first retreat at the farm we had 25 attend. That fall we had another retreat and had 28 attend. A guy from our church came up to help Peggy cook. With this many men and boys it was stretching our ability to feed them and also bring and store the food for two days. In our retreats we would have a guest speaker speak three times to challenge the dads and sons to grow in their relationship with the Lord and with each other. We also provide plenty of activities for the dad and sons to work and do things together. I guess one of the activities the boys like most is to get into the 40 foot wide creek on our farm. We always tell the dads to bring plenty of extra clothes as they will need them. The next retreat we had about 60 scheduled to come. The boys and I went up on Thursday to get things ready. We spent about 3 hours putting up a huge tarp which we use in case of rain. Well, during the night I heard it raining … and raining … and raining! I got up about 5 and looked outside. Our tarp was flat on the ground and the creek was about to come over it’s bank. The weather forecast was for 80% chance of rain on Friday. Our creek empties into a river about 2/10th of a mile down the road. The river backwashes and floods some of our bottom land where we had the retreat planned. I made a decision for safety reasons to cancel the f/s. I called Peggy and had her e-mail everybody and call several. It was such a disappointment for us and I know for a lot of the other dads and sons. One thing we had decided to do different for this f/s was to not charge anything, but have each dad bring their own food. Bringing the food and cooking for 60 people would have been almost impossible for Peggy. We rescheduled the retreat for the fall and had about 38 showed up on Labor Day. That was a real surprise for me. This spring we did another f/s and had 51 show up. The dads that have been coming to the f/s retreats asked about doing a father/daughter retreat. So we did our first f/d retreat and had 41 show up. Not having any daughters I was surprised about how rugged some of them were. We always do a gun safety talk at our retreats and then let the dads and sons do some target shooting. We did the same for the daughters. I must say, I think the daughters were better shots than the sons. When the Lord blessed us with our farm we knew He wanted us to use it to ministry to others. The retreats have been one way the Lord has allowed us to do this. |
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When I first saw the spring I was amazed. One thought I had was maybe this could be bottled. My brother-in-law had looked into bottling water from some springs he had. I thought I would take him up there and let him look at the spring. One thing I had learned from the realtor that the strip of land in front of the creek before you got to the spring was owned by a Mr. P. The realtor also had mentioned that a neighbor lady had told him that Mr. P was in foreclosure. That morning before I left to go to the property I prayed that the Lord would allow me to meet Mr. P. My brother-in-law and I were standing actually on Mr. P’s property looking across the creek at the spring. I heard somebody behind me say, “Hello.” I turned around and saw a 60+ year old man standing there. I said, “Are you Mr. P?” He said yes and we shook hands. I introduced myself and told him that we had just purchased the land that the spring was on. As we talked I asked him if we could have a right away across his property to the spring or would he be interested in selling that strip of land. He said as long as he had the property I could have a right of way. I asked him what he meant by “as long as he had the property”. He said he has given it back to the bank. Mr. P gave me permission to contact the bank about his property. I was looking into maybe buying from him 1 to 1 ½ acres of land. As some time went by Mr. P came to me and asked if I would be interested in buying all his land. I asked him how much he had and I was surprised about the amount. Because I had talked to the bank I knew how much he owed on it. He also had several other loans on some equipment and livestock. Peggy and I talked about it. I went up one day and walked Mr. P’s property with him. I found out that he was 64 years old. Let me tell you, Mr. P could out work 3 or 4 of us put together. He had lived a life of a farmer and worked hard. We walked his property for about 2 hours. It was gorgeous! There were some beautiful views of the TN mountains. From one area you could see into the valleys of VA. When I got home I shared everything with Peggy. We prayed about it and was wondering what the Lord was up to. We decided to talk with Mr. P about what he would want for it. Mr. P said he would take what he owed on the property plus paying off his other loans. In short we ended up getting his property for about half per acre that we paid for the 100 acres. Mr. P had always lived on the property from the time he was a child. I can still remember standing close to the creek on his property and the Lord whispering in my ear, “If this was your father, how would you want somebody to treat him?” I decided right then to ask him if he still wanted to live in his house. He said yes. I told him he could live there as long as he wanted and I would not charge him anything. All I ask was that he would look over the property and that he would help me if I needed help around the farm. Because we had recently bought the other property, we worked out a deal with Mr. P and his bank to buy his land on a lease/purchase agreement. We had a lawyer draw up the deal and we now had two farms. Peggy and I keep asking each other what the Lord had in store for us. We wanted to have land for the boys to leave them an inheritance, but we also knew we wanted to use the land to minister to other Christians. Next I will tell you how we first did that. |
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Several months before we even looked at our property, I helped a friend with finding a new employer. My friend was in the banking industry doing mortgages. He was looking to change banks. I told him I went to church with a board member of a local bank. He e-mailed me his resume and I drove it down to my church friend. He said they were looking for somebody in the area the guy lived. Well, my friend got the job. The Lord was setting things up for us. I had talked to my banking friend (who I will call Bill) about the property we had found. He pulled our credit score and said it was so high that we would not have a problem getting a loan. He asked how much did I want to put down and I said nothing. He said no problem. After our biding, I went to Bill and he put us a package together. We got the loan on the land for nothing down and a good interest rate. This was unheard of. Before closing, Bill called me one day and said we had a problem. The property was in two tracts, not one. One tract was 95 acres and one was 5 acres. The 5 acre tract was where the old mill sits. That tract had a title problem. It was never transferred to the present owner with a legal document. Bill wanted to know what we wanted to do. We ended up closing on the 95 acres and waited on the 5 acres to get the title fixed. By doing that we ended up having that 5 acre tract free and clear from a mortgage. We had a map of the property that had the spring marked on it. I tried to find it several times, but never could locate it based on the map. One day I decided to walk the length of the property to see if I could find the spring. Our property runs for about a mile along a ridge. Almost at the end of the property I finally found it. It was more than I ever expected. When I thought of a spring, I thought of a small amount of water coming out of the ground or the side of a hill. Was I shocked! The locals know about this spring. When I found it, the opening of the spring was up some on the side of a ridge. It had several black ½ inch pipes coming out of it that brought water down to where the creek is. These pipes were used by the locals to fill up 600 gallon tanks on the back of flat bed trucks. Some use the water for watering cattle, for irrigation or personal water. Boy, there was some water coming out of that spring! Later I did an experiment to get an idea of how much water was coming out of the spring. I filled a 5 gallon bucket up in 7 seconds. That was the water coming out of two pipes. There is a third pipe and water flowing out of the mouth, also. By my calculation, I figured that the spring was putting out 200-300,000 gallons of water each day. We have it tested three times and it has always turned up pure. When we first started looking for land my brother from There was only one concern! The spring was land locked for us. We had to cross another man’s property to be able to get to it. Another problem? No, another working of the Lord!
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When we got home Peggy and I talked about number 900. We loved it, but it was over “the Ridge”. I started thinking was there another way to get to it? I pulled out a map and to my surprise there was another way to get there. We decided to go during the week back up to the property and go this new way. Wow, were we surprised. This road was four lanes ¾ of the way. We still went over the first mountain ridge that we had gone over the other way, but it was not straight up and down. Then we had to turn on another road and go 17 miles out in the country. It was curvy, but flat. We did not have to go over “the Ridge” and this way was actually closer to another, larger town in a different county. As we looked back we saw the Lord’s hand in this whole thing. We thought we wanted to be on the other side of “the Ridge”, but He knew we should be on the opposite side. We are so glad for His guidance. It is so much easier to get to the farm and to get in and out for family and friends on this side. We parked close to the place we parked the first time. We started to walk down the creek again. As we got close to the cave I stopped and I looked surprise. I pointed to the cave and asked the boys, “What is that?” “It’s a cave, it’s a cave!” I can still hear that ringing in my ears and see them in my mind. They were so excited. They had prayed for one and the gracious Lord gave two little guys one. Since then we have found two other small caves on the property. More on the creek cave later. When we got home we knew we would love to buy the property, but there was one problem. About 3-4 years into our marriage we felt the Lord leading us to be debt free, including a home. We had sold a house and could not find one to buy so we rented. We have continued to rent even until today. We did not have the money to pay cash for the property or even much for a down payment. We decided to pray and fast and seek counsel from like minded friends. To keep this short, after prayer, fasting and counseling, we felt freedom from the Lord to borrow funds to purchase the property. We contacted the realtor and started the biding process. My brother from OH had bought several rentals and he gave me some advice on bidding. Peggy’s brother also gave us some good advice on how to get the best deal. We were excited, but also very nervous. We knew how much we wanted to pay and started our bidding low. To take a detour for a minute, there was 5 acres that connect to our property. There was a couple from NC bidding on it. When we first looked at number 900 it was listed as 100 acres, but by the time we had started bidding on it it was 83 acres. Seventeen acres was cut off and the couple from NC was buying it. Those 17 acres were pretty steep and he wanted it to hunt on. It also had a spring on it that none of us had seen even the realtor. |
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Knowing we were going to move from Grandma’s old place, we wanted to buy some land so our boys would still have some land to roam on. We knew we could not afford anything around where we lived. It was a tourist area and land was very expensive. We had heard an acre of land on a main road had sold for one million dollars. Also, traffic was getting worse each day and each season. People would ask how far we lived from town. My response would be 5 minutes to 2 hours, depending on the traffic. Being from With these two concerns for us, we contacted the realtor from our friend’s church. We arranged a time to go look at some property. Let me tell you how the county lays. To get to the county seat, you have to go over a mountain ridge which is pretty straight up and down. The town is surrounded by ridges. The area is one of the poorest in the state, I guess because of the way it is situated. There is very little industry in the area and people have to travel for work opportunities. With prices of land a whole lot less than where we lived, we wanted to try and get at least 50 acres. With the realtor we looked at several pieces of property. One was a gorgeous piece of land that had a stream running through it. The stream was stocked with trout each year. It was close to 100 acres, but most of the land was on a ridge that the realtor could not even take us on. It was located close to the county seat. We also looked at some property that was over “the Ridge”. This was a part of the county that was cut off from the rest of the county because you had to go up and over “the Ridge”. It had switchbacks on it. For you Flat Landers let me tell you what a switchback is. It is were the road makes such a sharp turn that you can see you kids in the back seat and wave to them without turning your head. “The Ridge” is straighter up and down then the other ridge getting into the county seat. The properties we looked at where beautiful, but thinking about going over “the Ridge” each time to go to town weighed on our minds. We went home with the realtor’s website that I would check occasionally. One day I was looking at it and number 900 popped up. It showed a picture of a field and a beautiful stream. It mentioned in the write up that the property also had an old grist mill on it. I showed it to my wife and we both got excited. Then we asked the question, I wonder if it is over “the Ridge”? I called the realtor and guess what? It was over “the Ridge”. Our hearts sunk, but we decided to go look at it anyway. We met the realtor and followed him up and down over “the Ridge”. We waved at the boys as we went around the switchbacks. Then we drove “forever” and finally came to number 900. We passed the mill which sets about 2 feet from the road (and that is no joke). It was all over grown with Virginia creeper. You could hardly see it. We found a little pull off on the gravel road and parked our cars. We crossed an old barbed wire fence and saw the 40 foot wide creek. It was beautiful! The land was owned by a husband and wife that lived in To back up a second. We had told the boys to pray specific for what they wanted in our new property. The family we had first visited in this county, they had a cave on their property. Our boys loved it, so our boys had been praying for a cave. As we walked down the creek towards the mill I looked to my right across the creek. Was it what I thought it was? It was an opening in the side of the mountain, but covered some with vegetation. I did not call attention to it to the boys. I did not want to get them excited about the cave, not knowing if we would bid on it because of it being over “the Ridge”. The realtor had not been on the property and did not know much about it. There was an old logging road behind a barn on the other side of the creek. We decided to walk it. It seemed to go for ever up the side of the mountain. Finally, we got to the top. There were some beautiful views. The Lord sure had His hand on this place. We went back down and looked at the outside of the mill. It was a huge 3 story mill with a large metal wheel. After that we headed out. Went forever back to “the Ridge”. Went straight up and down, waved at the boys on the switchbacks and headed back to our tourist town. What were we going to do? |
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Where do I start to tell our homestead story? As we look back, we can see the Lord’s hand on us in so many ways. Peggy, my wife of 24 years and I have tried to follow the Lord’s leading in our life as we sensed His direction. In 1999 we moved from a large city and a large church to Peggy’s grandmother’s old farm of 30 acres. Grandma had died and Peggy’s brother had bought the farm. I spent a year remolding the old farmhouse for us to live in. Peggy’s brother at the time had been financial successful and bought the place to keep it in the family. We thought it would be good to have our two boys out in the country and to experience farm living. I guess that was the start of our homestead adventure. We already had a dog Smoky and a flop-eared rabbit. Friends of ours that have 15 children (about 9 at that time) had a chicken that they had to get rid of. When I picked up Chirpy they told me that “she” would be laying in about 2 weeks. Well about 2 weeks later I heard the first sounds of a crow. Hmmm, hens do not crow! Each passing day saw Chirpy changing from a hen to rooster. Well, he has become a beloved member of the family and we are known as “the people who have the rooster”. The boys have taught Chirpy to play soccer where he will kick a ball, chase after a boot thrown and stand at attention. He is over 7 years old. People ask how long roosters live and I tell them must do not make it past 4-6 weeks before they meet the frying pan. There are a lot of stories I could tell on Chirpy which I will do another day. Another pet we were given was a lamb from my uncle and aunt in To back track a little, living at grandma’s place had taken a turn. To keep this blog shorter, we knew it was time to move and let Peggy’s brother have the house. Our church had an empty parsonage that they let us rent. We moved and started our search with the aforementioned realtor. Better close for now. More later on finding “number 900”. |
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After some encouragement from friends Geoff and Jen, I am joining the world of blogging. I am not sure of what I am doing, but I guess over time I will learn more about this new world. As I type, one thing that concerns me is that I can not find the spell check button. One reason I wanted to start blogging is to give my boys a recorded history of some of my thoughts that they can review in years to come. My father died in a car accident when I was 12 and I do not have any letters or recorded thoughts from him. I would treasure them today. Over time I will try to tell your our homestead story that we are working on. We live in a tourist area of TN right now. Several years ago the Lord blessed us with a farm (as we call it) out in the country. It is 17 miles from the nearest town and one and half hours from where we live now. It is in a beautiful area of the mountains and is close to a river. On the farm is an old grist mill. It was built around 1900 (not sure of the date) and it has set empty for about 60+ years. Our desire is to restore it and see the 18 foot water wheel turning again. When I learn how to put pictures on here I will post a few of the mill. Better close for now.
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