What are we thankful for....

10. Dry weather for working on the barn
9. Warm weather for working on the barn
8. Home depot. Chris noted the other day that he averages a new tool each week
7. Warm puppy on cold mornings.
6. 4 wheel drive. We traded in the fancy schmancy car for a GMC with AWD.
5. Straw. We used it to insulate under the trailer, protect the strawberries, asparagus ans artichokes, and plant 90lbs of grass seed.
4. Wildlife. Every day we we see amazing wildlife, from squirrels to turkeys, white deer to huge woodpeckers. Life in the woods is better that we expected.
3. Brothers who love to play with each other and get along well. We don't always have this, but when we do, we are thankful.
2. Friends and family, some of you stop buy to help out, or just check on the progress. We get so much encouragement from everyone who likes to keep tabs on our adventure. Thanks for the constant support.
1. Our health, after 1 pneumonia and 2 bronchitis this fall we are all thankful to be healthy again and back up on the ladders hanging siding.

Wildlife

Today is a cold Saturday morning.  26 oF  We are happy to have running water today.  We had two days recently when the water froze.  Chris built a wooden box around the water spigot and put  light bulb in it and that seems to keep things just warm enough.
As we wait for things to warm up a bit before we go out to the barn we have seen quite a bit of wild life this morning.

Two foxes have be around.  They hung out around the trailer for a good bit.  Long enough to look up that fox season is for fox chase only and we can't kill them.  To bad, cause the look like they'd make a nice warm coat!

Then we saw the white deer and her friends just behind the trailer.  They looked at us for a while then moved on.  Deer season starts in 6 days.

We have bird feeders just by our kitchen window with safflower seeds and one with wood pecker mix.  Just this morning we have seen: Carolina Chic-a-dee, Tufted Titmouse, Downy Woodpecker, Red-bellied Woodpecker, White breasted Nuthatch, Mourning Dove, Purple Finch.

We also have two squirrels who frequent the bird feeder who the boys have named fatso1 and fatso2.

In the time it took to type this it has warmed enough to go out and work.  We'll be hanging more siding and working on the garden reconstruction.

Have a great weekend!

6 months of camping

It is hard to believe we have passed the 6 month mark.  We have learned a lot of things these past months....

• I am an expert at small space storage.
• Happy people are made with hot showers, grumpy people are made with cold ones.  After 6 months we finally got the hot water heater working on a regular basis.  It clearly improved everyone's disposition.
• Water Pipes can freeze at 32 degrees.  With the recent snow one pipe froze, but did not burst.  This week my todo list includes a trailer full of straw to close up the bottom of the trailer.
• Building anything takes longer than you think.  After 6 months I would have thought we'd be started on the house by now.  Too many glitches and hopefully we will start before the year ends.
• RV toilet does not create the same sense of contentment as a regular toilet.  It is sort of sad that when we go to home depot the kids are excited to use the real pottys.
• One small dog can bring his weight in dirt indoors in any 24hr period.
• Eating out is our primary dinner option. Cooking with a 1 sq ft of counter space is not easy.  Try it.  Our oven barely fits a tombstone pizza and there is no way we are cooking a turkey this thanksgiving.
• We love some wild animals, turkey, deer, fox, woodpeckers, owls, hawks, but not raccoons, skunk, and groundhogs. 
• When the sun is out so are we.  Any chance to escape to the out of doors is capitalized on.  The boys rarely fight when they are outside and the smell better too.  Recently I have often quoted my grandma N.  "Go outside and blow the stink off ya".
• Love really does grow best in small spaces.  Since we are forced to always be in each others business we seem to know more about what is going on with each other and care more about it.

So the past 6 months truly have been both a learning experience and a pleasure.  Maybe we don't need to build a house.....NOT