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.

More Virginia Snow

In the last few weeks we have really gotten some very strange weather, this area of southern Virginia has never seen so many snow storms over & over again. As much as the snow is disrupting the everyday life of almost everyone the kids sure enjoy it.

Work for Steven has been pretty slow lately, Steven has lost almost 60% of his commissions amount as compared to last year. After looking at our finances & how much money we now don't make we have decided that we will have to stop making the payments & just walk away from the house. Steven is currently working with the bank on some other payment options, if the bank can not come down on the payment by about $900.00 per month then we will have to seek other opportunities elsewhere. While work has been very slow the company has laid off over 13000 people in the last month, they are trying to trim the jobs that are not completely required in order to run the everyday operations. Steven said that for the first time in the companies twelve year history the region that we are in operated above budget by about 90000 so clearly times are getting hard for everyone. About a week ago Chantelle decided in join Avon to try to bring in some extra money, she is having fun talking to everyone about it. Chantelle has her own website youravon.com/chantelleharris if you feel so inclined please take a look.

On a lighter note it is very close to Valentines day, our kids have been hard at work making those cards with cup cakes and candy.



in the past week or so Jenai has been making up songs about Jesus, the song are very cute so I thought I would share one with you

A bit of wintery waether

The last few days there has been some big warnings about severe winter weather coming our way. According to weather bug "Winter Storm Slamming Mid-Atlantic
The same winter storm that brought heavy snow and ice to the southern Plains is moving into the Carolinas and Mid-Atlantic, and will bring up to a foot of snow to the interior Tidewater of the Mid-Atlantic"



When the kids woke up this morning they SCREAMED SNOW they were so excited they could hardly stand it. Steven did not go to work because Verizon Wireless was closed for the day. For all those that live in snow conditions every year you must understand that we only get snow like this every 5-6 years so the city literally shuts because they just don't have the resources on hand to handle to snow on the roads. So needless to say nothing gets plowed and we all just have to wait for it to melt enough to drive on. While our kids freak out about the so we will just enjoy taking pictures and watching them freeze.

Once there was a snow girl snow girl snow girl once there was a snow girl tall tall tall

In the house she melted melted melted in the house she melted small small small

Our totally random spontaneous trip to Tennessee

On Friday January 22nd we decided to take a trip to Tennessee, I know it seems very random. We have been talking for the last several months about moving to Tennessee and starting a chicken and organic vegetable farm. Brokton has been having a very hard time in the city, we feel he would do much better with several acres to run with the birds and the wild animals. As I had said in our previous post about our trip to the farm Brokton did very well he was very calm and seemed to be in a very comfortable place. We have been doing a lot of praying, fasting and pondering on this issue as this will be a major change in our lives.


As crazy as this sounds we have to do what is best for our family, we realize that we will be walking away from a really great job with consistent pay and benefits but our family comes first over any job, fancy house or other worldly things. We are out of debt except for our house. We will be unable to sell our house as we are upside down by about $40,000.00 we will be using money from Steven's 401k to buy property and a house out right, we know this is for our retirement but property is a very good investment. We have had a lot of spiritual experiences as we have prayed about this change, for those of you who understand the power of prayer this will be something you can understand.



As a side note when Steven came back to work after our trip the company had gone and laid off the whole merchandising department and administrative assistants for all of the district managers. This was done with only about a days notice to those involved. The company is doing more with the Senior sales reps giving them more responsibilities so it looks like they will not be needing as many Asst managers.

Here are some pictures from our totally random spontaneous trip to Tennessee

A day on the Farm

On Saturday we took the kids to Full Quiver Farms in Suffolk Va. We wanted the kids to see what it was like to live on a farm. The kids had so much fun, I can honestly say we have never felt so at peace taking the kids some place. While we were there we did not even notice that Brokton was not with us for about thirty five min or so. When we found him he was learning how to shoot homemade bow and arrow with one of the farm families kids



The girls had so much fun feeding the horse and cows, Jenai & Evelyn worked very hard finding the stray eggs that were hidden on the property from chickens that got out.

Look Mama look at the eggs I found. They became pig food they were not very fresh

Evelyn is being oh so careful not to touch the electric fence

Does this look like anyones bedroom

Chicken anyone ? These girls lay eggs all day. wow that is a lot of eggs

African Adventure

Today Steven went on a wild African safari at the Wild Animal park. The flowers were so pretty.

There were some very very strange animals at the park, the Stevielow is the most endangered at the park there is only one left in the whole world

While Steven was on his trip he saw the common shovel nosed migratory worker



Enjoy the slide show

A day in the Deep

Steven went out Deep sea fishing off of the waters of Mexico, he spent half a day reeling in the big fish in 300 feet of water going after the ever elusive Red Snapper.

In the end Steven triumphed over the Red Snapper and came out victorious.

In preperation for the voyage Steven stopped to take on live bait while fighting off the rats with wings.

Steven was thinking he would get help from the seals to fight off the rats but they proved to be very useless. It is very understandable though if I had the option to lay in the sun all day and do nothing I would do the same thing.