The Flood of 2010

Last Saturday we had a really big storm come through, there was more water all at one time than we had seen for a very long time. When the rain had receded we saw that God had performed a great miracle for us. In from of our house was have a drainage ditch with a metal culvert that runs under the drive way. After the storms had stopped we surveyed the damage, we found that some wire that we were using to mark our fencing with had come off and gotten into the ditch. When we looked at the wire that was wrapped around a tree branch as big as your thumb, the wire was wrapped around a chair frame. We can see that god was watching out for us, he truly knows are trials and what we need even when we do not.

Here is the branch that was holding back the debris in the ditch, also here is the pile that was being held back by the wire.




Now that last Saturdays storm was gone we had a week of sunshine and clear weather. On Friday night we heard that there was a chance that we might be getting some rain for the next few days. The rains came & came hard they were more than expected. We went to Lafayette TN to do some shopping when we came home a few hours later to feed our goats we found that the rain was flooding out our yard, we decided at that point that we could no longer stay at the house durring the storm. We loaded up the things we thought we would most need and went to a hotel.

There was so much water falling it made some really pretty waterfalls



After we had stayed a night in the hotel Steven went back to the house to see what damage had been done. When he got there everything with the house was just fine. There was some debris in front of the culvert but that was about it.



Steven tried to pick out the debris in order to clear a way for the water to better flow through, shortly after he had started it began to rain very heavily. Steven went inside the house gathered a few things and felt a very strong feeling that he needed to get off of the property right away. Steven got in his truck & drove over the bridge.

Within a mater of about two minutes after leaving the property this was what happened. If he had not followed the promptings of the spirit he would have become trapped. We pray that it will all turn out good in the end, I know that if we have faith in our lord all will be well.."Trust in the lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thin own understand , In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct they paths" Proverbs 3:5-6

Goat Berries

Now that the goats are on the way back to recovery, we have decided to test the kids knowledge on what they have learned so far about taking care of goats.







It looks like we might have to take the kids back to the class room for a review on goats what do you think?

Our sick little goats

Our goats are sick we took some videos of us taking care of the goats and the steps we took to nurse them back to health.







Overall its been a very educational experience. When you are on a farm the education never stops.

Feeding Time

Today we found out that our little goats have worms,lice and maybe even salmonella. We went to the farmers CO-OP to get them some medications to help them stay alive, we do not want our goats to die.

New Animals On The Farm

Meet the newest members of our Family, Salt & Pepper. These little guys are bottle fed baby brush goats, we got them because their mommies refused to feed them. Our farm is starting to take off and grow.

We have also recently received eleven chickens to start off with. Five of the chickens are old enough to lay eggs and four of them will start soon and the other two wont lay cause they are roosters.

Recently we have been working on cutting down the very high weeds that lead to the waterfall this picture was taken before all of the growth has appeared.

It seems like just as soon as we cut down the weeds piles of trash appear, it would appear as though someone really did not like to take their trash to the transfer station.

Tick Tack

We have been on the Farm now for about a month, it seems like we have been here so much longer. We have gotten so much done in such a short amount of time, so much that we would have never thought of doing given different circumstances When you are put in situations where you are forced to either fix it up or do without you just learn how to do it whether you know how to or not. Since we have been here we have found out that there are a lot of really giving people who are willing to give you so much & help you with whatever need if you just ask. We had a friend named By Golly come by & bush hog our property for us in order to prepare for out Garden, he will be coming back next week to plow everything up so that we can plant.



We have started building our barn, we had someone suggest we build it out of pallets in order to keep the costs down. After checking around with some of the local mills we found one who was not only willing to give us most of the pallets we needed for free but also all of the firewood we needed.




So whats the deal with the sign?

This is an actual sign that we saw in an area we were in. Talk about confusing! So here is a list of what we can remember that we have done on the house and on the farm. (In no specific order.)

*Remodeled upstairs bath.

*Make Downstairs bath usable (it was GROSS!!!)

*Put in wood floor in downstairs bath

*New Carpet

*Wood floor in kitchen (almost done- Thanks Brian!)

*Moved plumbing from laundry room to garage.

*Re-wired parts of the house.

*Dug holes for our fence- On a side note it was not as difficult as digging holes in Tooele. There ts was rocky and dry, at least here the ground is wet!

*Collect firewood for FREE!

*Stack firewood-Chantelle did most of it.

*Catch up on laundry. (at least 3 different times)

*Build chicken coups.

*Chase chickens.

*Learn that chickens come back on their own if you let them alone.

*Learn that chickens will go in their coup on their own at night if they have a small door.

*Heard a chicken snore. Yes, it did snore!

*Build new stairs (Again Thanks Brian.)

*Got 2 goat watching dogs Pyrenese (Huge and Hairy)

*Enjoyed a visit from Josette and Family. (Not sure if Brian enjoyed it.)

*Clean out the waterfall (at least 4 times)

*Explore 5.86 acres of property that takes in 3 different very steep hills.

*Use slate rock as hotplates on the table (Josette's idea)

*Contemplate how to have a date stamp on a chicken's butt so that they will date stamp the egg.

*Laugh with our children.

*Enjoy time as a family

*Have our property bushhogged.

*Mow some areas by hand before we gave up and asked someone to bush hog.

*Roll a 7ft log over the tall reeds and weeds. (That was fun.)

*Pick of ticks at least 3 times a day.

*Tell children to stop freaking out about bugs. (It's not working yet.)

*Unpack a few boxes

*Put up closet bars

*Chasing mice

*trapping mice

*Are you tired reading this yet?

*So are we.

Since we have been here we sleep better ever night. We miss the loved ones that aren't here with us to enjoy this beautiful place.

Our new life on Fed-up-Farms

The last time we posted to this blog it was snowing & very cold in Virginia. Since that day we have made some major changes in our life & the way we live, we did not become Amish or join some strange cult; no we simply moved to Tennessee to start a farm. The House that we bought is a big fixer upper, it is a three bedroom two bath house that sits on almost six acres, most of the property is full of trees but we have about two acres that are cleared. Since we moved in on March 12th it has rained a lot, in fact so much that our moving truck got stuck in the mud on the first day.


The truck was very over loaded & that really did not help the situation at all.

We had to spend about five days in a hotel when we first got here, because it had been so muddy our carpet had been delayed for the install. We have had our share of electrical & plumbing issues as well, the water to our house is fed by a spring, the water lines have not been taken care of at all in the last year & a half since someone lived in the house. Our water heater broke down on Tuesday & shot steam all over the closet that it was in, the water heater was still within that manufactures warranty so we called & they sent us new heating elements wiring panels & blow valve. Steven pulled out the water heater got all the parts replaced & his brother in law helped him wire it back up. While Steven was vacuuming up the water mess the old wood sub floor was getting sucked up as well, yes it was rotted out, Steven put in a new sub floor got all the plumbing hooked back up & got the ot water running again.


We have starting the processes of updating the house, we are putting in a new kitchen floor, we are replacing both toilets and putting in two new showers. One of the biggest problems we have had here is the ladybug infestation, lady bugs had taken up residence in the walls of our home, we bombed the house last Monday & came back to thousands of dead lady bugs all over the place, i guess there are much worse things that we could have in the walls.

Chantelle's sister & husband felt very bad that we have had so much work to do all alone, Brian took time off of work & they drove out help us renovate this old house, last we also had a new friend Andrew come by & help us with some of the isues that we have had. It has been so nice to meet so many good people who are just so willing to help you in any way possible.