Lorihadams-- hi guys...been busy!

valmom

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Oh, my. It's so flat and open where you are! Lovely. I am jealous, I think.
 

lorihadams

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BB- yeah, Tyler was all over that pond!!! He was catching salamanders like a pro! Maddie immediately started taking her shoes off and said "Imma get in that water too mommy!"

Val- the land kind of rolls but the back part where the house will go is pretty flat. We should have a good view overlooking the pasture. It drops off quite a bit behind us towards the pond but it is just beautiful...I can't wait!


Tuesday

Got to go get a check to the appraiser this afternoon, then we will have our money in 2 weeks!!!!!! :weee We can get the gravel on the driveway and get the well and septic done, pour the footers, put in the raised beds and garden fence, get started on the barn and move the house in!!!

Hubby is going to get a load of mulch this afternoon for our current front yard, the chickens have done a number on the flower beds this winter. I've got a loaf of bread in the oven and as soon as that gets done it's off to the courthouse to get some stuff done. Then this evening I have a date with a load of mulch....gotta get it done tonight cause the trailer has to go back to our friends tomorrow.

I'm so excited....I can't believe that in 2 short weeks we can finally get everything started at the property. :celebrate

I can't tell you how good it will be to get rid of a 100,000 mortgage in exchange for like a 20,000 one. I can't even believe it. In a short time we could be completely debt free.... I can't even wrap my head around it. Of course our biggest challenge will be selling our current house, this market is horrid. We are hoping to clear $40,000 from the sale of our house but i am bracing myself for less.
 

lorihadams

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Happy Friday everyone!!!


Well, we got the appraisal for the property.......drumroll please.........$65,000!!! :celebrate

We should be able to get enough money from the property alone to get the house moved and the barn started. Whew....we are supposed to close sometime late next week!

We have decided to simplify the barn....I think we are going to go with a pole barn with a center aisle in the middle of the barn upstairs for hay storage in the tall part of the rafters. AussieSharon's next door neighbor just put in a 36x36 barn and we stopped by there and they showed us the inside. Their's is for horses but it was really nice. I think we'll do an open barn with a permanent staircase inside the feed room and in the other corner we'll put the milking room with a sink and run electric to the whole thing and make it so that we can put in some moveable kidding/isolation pens when needed. That will give us much more useable space for our goaties!!! Hubby has agreed to have 10 goats.....we'll see.... :hide

We got our tax return back and after I pay for the goats I should have enough leftover to pay for 10 months of loan payments while the house is on the market!!! We did an interest only loan to reduce the payments cause when we sell the house we plan on rolling over the money, paying off most or all of the loan.

We've been working hard this week getting as many estimates on stuff as we can....we found another place to get gravel that is $40 a load cheaper than where we got another estimate. When you need 10 loads that's a lot of moula!!!

We met with a friend of ours that is giving us an estimate on the barn. We also visited a good friend of ours Miss Bertie, that will be just down the road from us when we move! She let us live with her for a short time when Chad and I were starting out and then her son rented us an apartment over his horse barn for almost 2 years. She's been really good to us and she is getting on up in age and has a multitude of health issues and needs all the help she can get. We'll be happy to be closer to her....3 minutes versus 30. She now walks with a walker and her feet are swelling something awful so she is afraid to drive. She's also paying someone to mow her yard and Chad put a stop to that real quick and told her to save her money, we would do it for her.....no arguments!

It is pouring rain here at the moment and we are snuggled up on the couch watching the Gaither kid's show....it's really cute!

Maddie's birthday party is tomorrow at granny's house and unfortunately it looks like the temps are going to drop into the 50s. It is supposed to dip into the 30s at night and so we are taking the mallard babies with us....they are about 1/3 of the way feathered out and we don't want to risk leaving them outside with the cold temps. They've been outside in the warmer temps now for a week and seem to be doing well. I have them in our little a-frame coop. They are using one of my corningware dishes as a little pond for now. :love

I have been stockpiling runner duck eggs into one of the nesting boxes in the chicken coop....there's 14 eggs in there....(I got 5 eggs this morning but I only have 4 females???) I dunno. I found my barred rock sitting on them this morning so we'll see if she continues to sit. I hope I can get someone to go broody and hatch me out some little runners :fl
 

lorihadams

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Oh yeah, RIP our guppies....they both went to the great toilet bowl in the sky this morning. We had a brief ceremony in the bathroom at which time Tyler apologized for killing them before flushing them. Now he says he wants a goldfish....good thing they are only 11 cents. :th
 

lorihadams

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I've posted this everywhere.....I'm so excited! My bunnies are free ranging!

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lorihadams

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Monday

We had a nice weekend....went to a farm auction and looked at equipment but didn't see anything we needed. Then took my hubby to the stock auction for the first time. We stayed for 2 hours watching them unload all the animals and even had to help with some runaway goats! The poor girl was trying to yell at the goats like she yelled at the cattle to get them to move out of the holding pen and through the chute into another pen. I looked at her and said, "honey, the only way you're gonna get THAT goat to move is to grab it by the horns and pull." It was so funny. He was NOT going to go where she wanted him to.

We wanted to stay for the auction but they had so much livestock that the auction started way late and we had to leave for Maddie's party. We did see a nice angus bottle baby (mama rejected it) but when we tried to buy it from the guy he said we were too late, someone already bought it right when he pulled in. We only had 5 kids show up for maddie's party but we had a good time.

Mama outdid herself again. Here are pics of Maddie's new quilt...she has curtains to match, just like Tyler. The pictures are a bit pinkish because of the wall color. The background fabric is covered in glitter. The butterflies and flowers are stuffed so they are 3 dimensional and there are bees and ladybugs all over. It really turned out cute!

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lorihadams

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I would love to be able to sew every day.....wonder under is my mother's new best friend! She loves that stuff!

I would love to make and sell baby quilts and tote bags. It is just hard to find the time to do it and find the buyers.....depending on the cost of the fabrics you use you can really put some money into a quilt and by the time you figure in the cost of your labor it is hardly worth it. The tote bags are easier.

I've been thinking of getting some specialty prints and making different themed bags....like chickens, cats, garden prints, stuff like that. People are more willing to shell out $15-20 than they are $80-100 on a quilt. Panels are something else I have been looking at doing. They are quick and easy to do and a little easier to sell. Finding the time to get them done is the hardest part. My mom sews almost every night. She is making a tulip quilt to donate for her local relay for life in June. She is using a panel for the center and then making tulip blocks for the border. It is based on the quilt on the front of the latest Fons & Porter magazine. I can't wait to see it when it's done!
 
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