What exactly has been going on

We moved to Tennessee on March 13th 2010 we have been here for Eleven weeks now. It seems like we have been here for so much longer that that, so much has happened in this small space of time. While we have been here we have remodeled several parts of our house, put in fencing plowed and tilled for a very large garden and went through a big flood. Many would say wow why are you still there with so much that has gone on in such a short amount of time, I wish I had an answer for you but I do not.




Chantelle has decided she wants to go to work & Steven is going to be a stay at home Dad. Being at home with the kids has been a great experience for Dad to be able to work on the farm with the kids by his side. This is not Steven on the tractor but he sure wishes it was



On May 1st-2nd we had a major storm that came through our area that caused a lot of flooding and damage to the area including our own home. Our house sustained a lot of foundation damage that is causing our house to become very unstable. Many of the piers that our house sits on has ether fallen or are tipping towards the front of the house. We have gotten an estimate on getting the foundation fixed and we are looking at $27,000.00 needless to say that is not going to happen anytime soon. We have been looking at the option of having a double wide brought in that will cost about half of that, we have been trying to see if FEMA is providing any funds to help cleanup & pay for the damage repairs. We had an estimate on replacing our bridge that is very dangerous to drive over, we are looking at $ 5,500.00 that would make it so we never had to replace it ever again, we are trying to get a new pipe put in ourselves.





We have been trying to start raising our farm animals we have chickens & goats, it has been a learning experience. Our new Pygmy buck got sick this morning & died this afternoon. J girl was very sad & wanted to know why god would take our goat away from us. It was very sad. :( We have been working with a new friend from church who loves animals & knows all about animal husbandry

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.