Magic Scabbards, DIY Galaxy Slime and Progressive Workouts

Since we’re doing Medieval history this year, our read alouds have all thus far been picked from Memoria Press’s knights and castles-type books (love Memoria Press’s literature workbooks). We just finished Robinhood and are now doing Robert Green’s King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Robinhood (ironically) was a little more plausible-sounding than King Arthur and so I have to answer lots of questions like “Wait, how do you encapsulate a sword inside a stone?” and, “Why is there a hand coming out of the water?”. In the chapter we just read, Arthur gets his famous Excalibur sword, but no one talks about the fact that the scabbard that comes with it is magic. Not only is it encrusted in jewels, but if you wear it, it gives you restorative healing powers. Forget the sword, I need this scabbard in my life.

I woke up early this morning so I could get a workout in and then take a walk with Jim. (The sunrise was gorgeous, but I don’t recommend the whole early morning exercise thing as a habit). I don’t know how people maintain that schedule on purpose and regularly, I’m an NPC until at least 10 am. Thursdays are intense though, and I sometimes manage to squeeze in yogalates at the gym while the kids are in jiu-jitsu class… then I do the adult jiu-jitsu class with Charlie (although at the rate I’m progressing I will probably die a white belt). Of course today would be the day I dragged my stressed out, weary body into a calming session of yoga…only to find everyone doing jumping jacks and pushups because I’d forgotten tonight was the start of the new HIIT workout. God bless our instructor, but she made Jillian Michaels look like Mohandas Gandhi. I no longer can lift my arms, and jiu-jitsu was basically me impersonating an elderly octopus, but no one can say I didn’t hang in there until the end (actually I loved it and I hope we do the HIIT more often, but maybe I’ll skip the morning workout).

My day of progressive workouts wasn’t the most stressful part of my day though. I don’t know if I’m the world’s coolest mom or the stupidest, but I made galaxy slime today with five kids under the age of eleven. In my defense, the homeschool curriculum had it listed as a thing to do this week, and it looked fun. I’ve always wanted to make the really awesome slime with all the glitter and the nice clear glue, but I clearly did not think this one through entirely. I’m pretty sure I lost ten years of my life. It didn’t help that we were doing it at someone else’s house and there was slime and glitter getting flung everywhere. Every time someone said, “Mrs. Ramsey…LOOK!” I flinched because I knew a chair or someone’s hair or some fabric covering was about to get taken out by half-activated slime artillery (accidentally of course). They were so excited and thrilled, they couldn’t contain themselves. I console myself with the knowledge that they at least learned how to operate and use a kitchen scale, and how to convert between grams and oz., but seriously, I needed a yoga session after that enterprise.

Do you think the boys will notice if their galaxy slime magically disappears into a black hole?

Back To School, Crocheting For Boys, and The Last Jar Of Applesauce

We went back to school this week. CC generally takes a long Christmas break, but this is the first year that break fell mostly after Christmas and I must say I think I prefer it this way. It was really nice to have an actual break…sleep in…read books…reorganize closets. The only problem is that I kind of enjoyed wallowing in my hibernationess and I’m not ready to be a real person again. I know I can’t complain because we only have three crazy days a week, but those three days feel like an Olympic sport that starts in the wee hours of the mourning and has to be executed perfectly all day long until late into the evening. It would help if I would actually go to bed at night instead of getting sucked into reading a good book….scratch that, they aren’t even “good” books, they’re fluff books that I should have outgrown a long time ago. I feel like I deserve it though because I’m on my sixth reread of Secret Garden and Door In The Wall for CC.

The whole “no electronics” thing is holding strong around here. I think the key was having enough other activities they could do instead and now they don’t even ask for them. We made a family “bored jar” so now if they tell me they’re bored, they have to go pick something out of the jar (which they do on purpose because they like the stuff in the jar). January has been super mild here, so the kids have been playing a ton of football. I am so secretly thrilled, I can barely pretend to be mad about the muddy and destroyed clothes they sheepishly apologize for as they try to stuff them in the washer on the downlow. I also discovered that you can get wiggly kids to sit still for literature if you let them weave while you read. We are studying the industrial revolution this week so we were doing a weaving craft with yarn while talking about the cotton gin and power loom. Lo and behold no one wanted to put it down and they all kept doing it while I read our King Arthur book. I think I’m going to get crochet hooks and yard for everyone. Might as well put them to work…cough…I mean, not that I’m taking any ideas from the industrial revolution.

Meanwhile, Jim is scheming how to legit build a food factory in the barn. I want long stainless steel tables and a commercial kitchen, our little kitchen can’t keep up with the amount of food we go through. We opened our last jar of applesauce, the jam is all long gone. The tomato sauce is quickly disappearing, the salsa is down to the final jars, and it’s only January. I clearly need to do better. At least we still have lots of pickles?

Stop And Smell The Skunk Cabbage Vol. 1

Once upon a time, I co-wrote a blog with a friend and we had a weekly roundup of links called Stop And Smell the Skunk Cabbage. It’s become somewhat of a running theme in my life since then…I even title email series with it. Maybe someday I’ll tattoo it on me (just kidding mom). But for now, here are the things that inspired, entertained, or were just caught my eye

1. These baked meatballs with orzo in a roasted pepper sauce (I’m even getting up at 5:45 am tomorrow to make it so it’s ready when we come home from CC, that’s how bad I want it.)

2. This wool swimsuit. I was thinking wool for a swimsuit sounded weird, but it’s what all the old bathing costumes of yesteryear were made from, and although I think those old bathing dresses look like they could drown someone, I’ve heard (allegedly) that they keep their stretch better, dry faster and are healthier.

3. I’m going to try my hand at making this “simple” “affordable” and “DIY” indoor greenhouse/grow light setup. a) I love buying my garden starts from the Amish lady down the road, but she doesn’t have all the weird things I want to try to plant this year, and b) Our grocery store shelves have been empty of lettuce and spinach and other produce many times in the last few months and so I’d like a more reliable way of getting green stuff into my childrens’ bellies in the winter.

4. These Sperry Saltwater boots. They don’t have my specific color anymore, but I absolutely love them. One of my good friends lives in her pair. They’re really nice, really warm every day/out and about boot. I needed something that wasn’t muck boots, and these are perfect. They’re like winter tennis shoes.

5. This low bass singer guy on youtube, Geoff Castellucci. I could listen to him sing anything. They also have really good deep bass performers at Silver Dollar City, but alas I’m not the Ozark version of Marie Atoinette with my own acapella bluegrass group following me around as I pretend to homestead.

(note: none of these are affiliate links or whatever its various forms are called these days….just a plain old list of interesting things).

Viking haircuts, Chicken Bosses and Family Meetings

We all got haircuts this afternoon, which means I gave my monthly pleading to all the males in my life not to shave their heads or do something equally drastic (my husband is the worst culprit, and I don’t feel like being married to Dougal Mackenzie from Outlander yet). William broke out and asked if he could have a King Alfred haircut, which was a resounding no from his brothers…thank goodness. Why can’t they all just want normal, nice haircuts? I really felt like having boys was going to be easier in this regard.

From haircuts we went out for pizza and our monthly (attempted monthly) board meetings where some well-meaning baby boomer rightfully razzed my kids on their lack of coats. When Robbie informed him he was a Viking and didn’t need a coat, the baby boomer showed him a picture of himself with a giant long white beard down to his knees (which he apparently had just shaved off) and said that he was a real Viking. Will was shook and asked for a coat immediately. Apparently, the prospect of growing a terrifying beard scared him back into coat-wearing.

Every month we sit down around pizza and call a formal board meeting. Each kid is the director of some area of homesteading and we read the minutes from the last meeting and discuss what went well, what didn’t go well and what goals/needs/things they’re going to work on for the next board meeting. Sometimes it turns into a rant fest and we have to reign it in, but it’s always comforting (or convicting) to see how much (or little) we got done. Let it be known, and the record state that James got the most accomplished this month…by a long shot. The kid is a relentless worker.

Some things on the homesteading list resolve themselves. Like we were going to put up a fence around the chicken coop to see if penning up the chickens helped them lay more. They’re free range and we couldn’t tell if they were laying in the woods and places we couldn’t find, eating their eggs, or just not laying at all. I like having free-range chickens because they eat all the bugs and ticks in the yard and they self-medicate by eating and foraging all the herbs they need to stay healthy. With the dogs keeping all of the predators away, it seemed like the best situation…except for the lackadaisical laying. Then the super cold weather hit, egg prices climbed to filet mignon levels…and our chickens started laying eggs again. (?!?) James thinks it’s the better feed he’s bringing home from work, and maybe that’s it. Or maybe the younger chickens have started laying again? Whatever the case, it feels like some sort of magical vending machine, and no one wants to jinx it so the chickens get to remain free for now.

Our family meeting also featured lengthy discussions on how to survive various types of zombie attacks, and frankly, I have zero desire to survive a zombie apocalypse. All I know is that if there’s an emergency I’m grabbing a chicken under each arm before I run for the woods.

Reading Hacks, Saxon Shields and Decapitated T-Posts

Quick(ish) thoughts from today. CC doesn’t officially start back up until Monday. The older boys have physics, logic, literature and a whole ton of stuff that’s due on Monday, but the younger boys finish their math and reading fast and don’t have anything big to do. So today I gave them the Baker Creek seed catalog and told them they could circle three things they wanted to grow. I highly recommend it as a fun kid project. It’s like the toy catalogs of yore, but you can eat the toys and the kids (hopefully) learn a lot in the process. Of course Will chose strawberry watermelons, and Robbie chose some weird French pumpkin so who knows if those finicky things will actually grow in Ozarks where we have rocks instead of soil. I had intended to put down another layer of old rotten hay in the garden, but fertilizer prices and the haying season were straight out of Pharoah’s nightmare last year, so I’m pretty sure everyone is feeding anything and everything to livestock this winter.

Thanks to my sister and brother-in-law, we’re completely sucked in to all things Medieval England right now. They got us hooked on a (heavily edited) show about King Alfred, and so now the boys are stealing my leather and Jim’s plywood, making shields and shouting things like “I am Robert, son of James!”. I knew their old fashioned names were going to come in handy someday. It’s perfect because Medieval history is our focus this year and the dinner table, toothbrushing and all the times in between are filled with worries of Wessex and Northumbria and whether or not the Vikings will attack. (spoiler alert: they always do).

We suffered an attack from a border raid too. Only in this case it wasn’t the Danes, but a giant orange piece of machinery owned by the county. Normally it stays within its boundaries and trims the overhanging branches on the road, but this time it veered a little off course, ventured onto Ramsey land and annihilated our fence. We have a T-post completely decapitated in the prime of its life, and a mess of broken barbed wire tangled on the ground. I’m assuming no reparations will be forthcoming. We’ll just add it to the giant list of things to do.

Sometimes I wish there were Lego instructions on how to homestead instead of a thousand different small (and large) decisions to make. At least we still have a porch and rocking chairs, that seems to be the key to old fashioned Ozark living…all I need is a pipe?

Cheap treadmills, Wearing Worm Poop and Detoxing

I can't very easily go for a run here in the Ozarks, someone always asks me if I'm ok or need any help. I hate running anyway, so it was no big loss. However I did miss the endorphins, stronger joints, and lymphatic health one gets from bouncing down the road intentionally. I also get really bored easily. So I got the brilliant idea to take up jump roping. One can double jump, cross jump, skip jump...the options are endless. It's like a really cheap treadmill that's far more entertaining and enjoyable. The only problem was I didn't have a jumprope so I was just using an old piece of rope in the barn. Jim finally had pity on me and got me the Lamborghini of jumpropes for my birthday and even in this winter weather, I can jumprope in my room (except now I have an audience that lines up on my bed and calls out helpful advice). Ten out of ten reccomend, just beware that if you do it barefoot it hurts when you make a mistake.

During that magical week between Christmas and New Year's I started organizing everyone's clothes (including my own) and decided I was disenchanted with wearing clothing made from recycled plastic that falls apart in one season like keto pancakes. I'm not a purist when it comes to food or clothing, but I started researching all the health benefits of wearing natural fibers. That led to about twenty tabs and the realization my wallet would not support a switch to natural clothing. Another few tabs later and I found myself watching videos on how 100% silk velvet was made, and somehow (I'm not sure how) a package came in the mail with several yards of velvet so soft and luscious I'm pretty sure it's probably a crime to even have it in the house. I think my logic was it's cheaper to make myself healthy natural clothing, than it is to buy it, but that was clearly the delusion of Christmas-break me talking, and not the real version of me who definitely does not have time to sew very expensive worm poop into attire at the moment.

We had our soft open for school today and I wouldn't say it went horribly. Everyone at least got their math and reading done with minimal moaning. I banned electronics last week when it became clear I wasn't the only one suffering from Christmas-break lethargy, but I'm not entirely heartless. I bought the kids a puzzle as a replacement. It has proved problematic though, because although Fortnite has no hold over me, I can't seem to walk past that darn puzzle without putting a few pieces in, so the kids have gotten more productive, and I have gotten less. I wouldn't say they're entirely thrilled with the replacement therapy I've got going on, but the electronics detox is going much better than I expected. They're also playing quite a bit of chess these days, but with that game they're much more apt to start acting it out in real life (except they're not acting). It probably didn't help that we got them all play swords for Christmas.

At least they haven't turned the new velvet into a King's cloak yet?

Wolf Moons, Turkey Tails and New Hobbies I Want

It’s January here in the Ozarks, which means it’s Spring one moment and Winter the next. January’s “Wolf Moon” showed up in all its glory last night, which sounds so ominous it prompted some worried questions from my younger two. I pointed out that all the full moons have nicknames…” Hunter’s moon”, “Harvest moon”, and “Pink moon”, but Will pointed out no one is really worried about the color pink attacking one in their sleep (but apparently moon wolves are a real threat in his mind?). I didn’t realize we got most of the names from Native Americans. Namely the Algonquin tribes from New England. I’m trying to picture my great-great Puritan grandmother casually discussing April’s Pink moon, and it’s just not working for me.

We’ve been taking a one mile walk every day and the minion rebelled against the road route again today, so we tromped off through our forest. I still have to pinch myself that I can walk a mile in my own forest and not even see that much of it. We frequently stopped to look at rocks (in Will’s case), or mushrooms (in my case). The turkey tail mushrooms are out like crazy right now, so even though it took us an hour to walk a mile, at least I came home with full pockets. Turkey Tail is one of those superfood mushrooms that everyone is drinking instead of coffee right now. They allegedly heal your gut, boost your immune system, fix mom-brain, prevent Alzheimers and cure cancer. Between the moon history and the mushroom lessons, I expect next we’ll take up goat yoga.

Instead of writing a list of New Year’s resolutions, I’m going to start a list of all the hobbies I want to take up. This way by the time my youngest is out of the house, I shouldn’t be able to complain I’m bored (if I don’t decide to do something crazy like go to medical school or open an horse rescue).

January’s list thus far:

• Build a loom and learn to weave my own cloth from my own sheep

• Dig a cellar and become an artisanal cheesemaker.

• Learn jewelry making and create heirloom tiaras and necklaces and whatnot to pass down to my posterity (this should go great with the homespun wool clothing)

• Take up wild crafting my own clay to make, glaze and fire bowls/plates/cups.

• Learn stone masonry and build my own stone fence (because I really want medieval fences like the ones I saw in Scotland.)

The tiaras might have to wait, but I’ve already started gathering rocks for my fence. Maybe I should embrace feudalism and have the kids start gathering rocks for me in exchange for protection against those moon wolves.)

Fire Fairies and Some Homesteading Thoughts

The problem with wood fires is the PhD required to keep them going, and that's really oversimplifying the issue. More truthfully, it's like aquring a needy pet or a new baby. Every wood burning stove and fireplace has its personal quirks and preferences. And no fuel is created equal either. There's under seasoned wood, wood that's a little damp, wood that burns quick but not hot, and wood that burns hot but takes an entire emotional support team to stay lit. It's becoming much more clear to me why our ancestors created the existence of house brownies and fairies (and eventually invented central heating). I would have thought so too. I already am veering into the fanicful with my constant conversations with my fire. I feel like I've aquired a fifth child.

Last winter we kept our house toasty hot from November to April. This year we don't even notice it's cold in the house if it's above forty degrees outside. The nice thing about the Ozarks is it fluctuates wildly between seventy degrees and seventeen degrees, so you really don't ever know when you're going to hvae to conjure up a fire.

I can't complain because our woodburning stove is monstrous and ugly but quite efficient. It's in the center of the house so it keeps everything (including plumbing pipes) exceptionally warm. It has 5-7 dampers depending how you're counting so it's basically like playing a pipe organ. Our sweet bohemoth very much dislikes being dirty and throws a tantrum if it's not cleaned out every day. But once it gets going it will burn anything like the fires that consumed the soldiers who tossed in Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Sometimes I swear it will snatch wood right out of my hand and devour it. We can stock it full and it will last the whole night without dying. On the other hand, if you are trying to get absolutely anything done in the morning it will smoke, splutter, throw a hissy fit and otherwise act like a narcissitic sociopath if you don't sooth and coddle it for hours.

That's why we just choose to be cold sometimes.

We moved our pig into the barn, made Thorbin a little elevated platform so he can better bark at coyotes all night, and we built the chickens a better coop. The ducks adore winter as much as the chickens hate it, so they just wander around wherever (they have a coop, but don't always stay in it). I haven't found a season here I dislike, although I confess I am already preparing myself for spring and repeating mantras to myself "I do not mind the ticks. I do not mind the ticks." The best foraging and berry picking happens at the same time as peak tick season, so if you're enjoying any of my herbal tinctures, teas or jams, just know that I picked hundreds of ticks off myself in order to procure them. Even though I am one of the lucky one ticks don't like (they almost never bite me). It is somewhat disconcerting to look down and see hundreds of them on your pants and sleeves. I don't care, it's ok. I can pick them off.

And that is why winter is wonderful (no ticks and it's a nice break from the busy months). Spring is beautiful (so green and colorful but basically Florida for Baby Boomer ticks). Summer is hot and miserable but with lots of fun distractions, and fall is cozy and colorful but with a frantic feeling of trying to get everything done before winter.

I will miss the ice baths and showers once winter is over, but I confess I'm already secretly starting my peppers and scouring seed catalogs on the downlow.

Babies, Babies, Babies!

One of the reasons I didn’t want to homestead is I thought it would be lonely…or at least too lonely and quiet for this ambivert. I should have known better, I don’t think we’ve had a quiet week since we got here. In February the Tallmans came to pick up Karsten and got stuck here in the ice age apocalypse for almost two weeks. I’ve told friends, it was a bit like reenacting a Game Of Thrones version of Noah’s Ark. 6 kids, 2 cats, 1 puppy, and 4 adults in a tiny house taking turns keeping the wood burning stove going around the clock so the pipes wouldn’t freeze and burst. On the plus side, no one was cold, rather it was like living in a Native American sweat house. Most of the kids wore shorts and no shirt. You couldn’t go outside though, even to play much because it was so bitterly cold and we didn’t have the gear to last more than a few minutes without danger of frostbite. In the middle of it all, my pre-ordered box of 25 baby chicks arrived. I don’t know what I was thinking. My research online had said it was perfectly ok to start chicks indoors in February here, but clearly they hadn’t accounted for half the country being taken out by a record breaking storm. Our little “Noah’s Ark” thus grew by 26 extra mouths to feed…albeit tiny cute little chick beak mouths. The only problem was, the ones that survived the U.S. post office promptly all tried to die on my watch (thank you to the unnamed person who put them in a heated truck for me, that helped give me a leg up). We quickly turned the wood burning stove area into a chick NICU, keeping them warm and force feeding them drops of diluted ACV, whipped yolk and molasses. We lost a handful, but thankfully most of them survived. Keeping the cat and the puppy from viewing them as squeaky, tasty snacks was a little more challenging. Looking back, I don’t know how we survived that week, but not only did we have fun, we ate like kings since we had to get creative with the pantry and food stores.

It’s not gotten any calmer since then. My parents arrived to help build our barn, we’ve got some friends parking their RV here while they look for property, and Jim’s dad will be here in a few hours to also help with the barn raising fun. I’m not sure where he’s going to sleep, but he’s of Finnish blood so I’m sure he’ll find a hollow log or bear cave to sleep somewhere (only partly kidding).

We’ve also added some more farm babies to the mix. Another friend hatched some ducklings for us, and a friend of a friend gave us a Great Pyrenees puppy. We apparently do things backwards around here, because usually the livestock begets the need for a Livestock Guardian Dog, but in our case, the LGD necessitated the need for livestock. So now we have 2 sheep and hopefully some incoming lambs.

We’re all in love with Thorbin (our GP puppy) and there’s a large contingency of us who want to bring him in the house and treat him like a royal puffball princess. However, he is happier outside doing his job and we’re grateful at how awesome he’s acclimating to the sheep. We had been told that GP dogs are notorious for being escape artists, but we didn’t realize just how true that is. They were bred that way on purpose because in the old world, they’d be with a shepherd, off in the hills, constantly scouting around and looking for high ground from which to protect the flock. In this modern world of fences and neighbors, that’s somewhat frowned upon so keeping them contained is like going up against a chess master of ancient origins. We thought we had check mated Thorbin only to hear him yelling at us in the middle of the night that he’d gotten stuck again….and then again. Jim and I finally gave up sleeping and worked through the middle of the night, reinforcing the fence and making it safe for the baby furball in training. I didn’t have boots that could handle mud and large amounts of water (I know…I know), but it’s been fine because I am largely impervious to cold and prefer to scamper around barefoot. But spending the night in the freezing drizzle with numb toes and fingers as I twisted wire fencing together went past my idea of a good time. Although Jim and I did get some good laughs in and came up with our own rendition of “What a Wonderful Night”, I kept accidentally stepping in giant mushy piles of dog poop that squeezed up between my toes. Nope to the nope. I now have rubber boots.

All in all I feel like we’re learning a lot and accomplishing a lot. I’m sure we have a lot of ups and down in front of us. I feel like I’m living that Castle Leoch scene in Outlander, where Mrs. Fitzgibbons is dashing around cleaning and cooking and patching everyone up.

Good thing I like cooking and patching…I could do without the cleaning.

BHO is tu is Buachiaill thar an treuid
Iomain fein shin do chleidh ’s do chaimir,
Seun sinn fo do bhrot riomhach reidh;
A Sgeith dhidinn, dion ri ’r mairionn.

{As Thou art the Shepherd over the flock
Tend Thou us to the cot and the fold,
Sain us beneath Thine own glorious mantle;
Thou Shield of protection, guard us for ever,}

Things I love and don't love about moving to Missouri

Well, we’ve been here a little over two months, and no regrets yet. Granted, I sometimes wonder how crazy we were/are to move from our city suburb home in San Diego to squashed between two Amish Farms on a piece of wooded, undeveloped land in the middle of the Missouri Ozarks. Our entire San Diego neighborhood is smaller than my backyard. Sometimes I feel like I’m living in the novel Christy, and sometimes I feel like I’m a millionaire who owns their own Central Park. I can literally go for a run and never leave my own property. Excuse me while I pinch myself over here.

I joke that we live in the “Little House in The Big Woods” because we have six people and a puppy living in a small, slightly decrepit, eleven hundred square ft house, and there’s nothing around us but woods. When the weather is nice, it’s fine. When it’s not I spend my days mopping up mud tracked everywhere and dodging snowballs. I particularly love that my washer and dryer are within tossing distance from the kitchen. If I look at Pinterest, I start to get discouraged, but when I think about my ancestors living in dirt huts or little log cabins, I perk up a bit. Honestly, I wasn’t happy in San Diego, so it’s much easier to have a good perspective. So let the record reflect (for future perusal) things I love and things I don’t love about living here (in no particular order).

Negatives:

1. We inherited two cats. The sellers never mentioned them, but apparently they came with the house. We are not cat people, but we’re learning. The kids have named them Lightning and Tiger. They’re very fat and happy cats, so I assume they’re living their best life as rodent sheriffs.

2. Our back porch is rotting. You have to pretend you’re in an Indiana Jones movie and step on the correct planks otherwise you risk dropping through to the septic tank…which also needs cleaning out and relocating.

3. There is random trash everywhere. The property was maybe a little too well loved and self identified as a garbage dump. The sellers cleaned up most of it, but there’s still a fine dusting of Dorito bags and miller lite sprinkled around. We’re working on it.

4. There is no Thai food here…or sushi.

5. You have to drive between a half hour to an hour to get anywhere. (This doesn’t actually bother me yet because the roads and countryside are so beautiful, but I’m assuming I’ll have to come to terms with it eventually)

6. Our California family and friends aren’t here and we miss them. We console ourselves with lures of visits, and my parents are coming out in a few weeks so there’s that carrot hanging out in front of us. (if you’re reading this, feel free to visit anytime! We offer great accommodations of tent camping and pond baths.)

Affirmatives:

1. We inherited two cats! Which means we have zero problems with mice. (knock on wood) They seem to have developed a vague league with a possum and armadillo. Not sure if this is concerning or not, but they all hang out on the back porch/yard with a bunch of bluebirds and cardinals, making the kids think we live in a real life Disney movie.

2. I learned how to use my wood burning stove! The thing is a behemoth, and after I finally cleaned the chimney, I still couldn’t figure out how to get it lit. I did grow up with a wood burning stove, so this was somewhat embarrassing. A couple from church learned of my dilemma and came over. They gave me a lesson, (my problem was there are FIVE dampers, and I only had the two I knew of open) and they brought us a truckload of fire wood…and eggs…and meat…and donuts, which leads me to my third thing…

3. People are unbelievably nice here. Far nicer than I was expecting since we wear the cone of California shame. So far I’ve been given bacon grease, quilts, farm fresh food and a whole host of other small things, like help with banks, explanations of how things work here, offers of loaner vehicles, tools and chimney equipment etc. I start to tear up if I think about it too much. We haven’t however met our neighbors yet (Amish or otherwise) so there’s that sword of Damocles hanging over my head.

4. Everything is inexpensive here (except for produce). You can take the whole family out to eat for less than $40. The kids are taking Jiu-jitsu which also comes with a gym membership for Jim, Jamie and me for less than a quarter of the price it costs in California. For the first time in my life, I can lay in a tanning bed or sit in a sauna while my children are being taught how to immobilize bad guys. I definitely call it a win win.

5. Our property is gorgeous. I don’t know if it’s one of those things where I just bonded and imprinted on it so I’m biased, or if it actually is that amazing. When we came out in September to look at properties and houses, I always slipped off my shoes and escaped away from the realtors to see if I could really picture myself there…like sense the bones of the place (hey, I know it sound’s super woowoo). This place was just magical. I would be fine if I never had to go anywhere… which really helps with long drives thing. Ahem.

6. Life is (mostly) normal here, like it’s still 2019. Even though 2020 was a great year for us, I didn’t realize how much we missed all of the little things that give us humanity. Crossing fingers that it stays that way, but if not, there’s always the possum and armadillo to talk to. (not counting the woods full of deer and wild turkeys).

The boys are settling in… they thought the armadillo was a bear at first, and they still run around barefoot and half dressed (even in the snow), so nothing’s changed there. Jim’s replaced and rewired a new electrical panel, and we’re working on the baseboards this weekend. All that’s left to do is remodel two bathrooms, build a garage, chicken coop, and well house, move the septic, put in leach lines, plant a garden, put up a fence, tear down an old shed and clear the road going through the woods.

At least we’ve got the fruit trees planted?