June 29, 2007
Those pesky appliances
Our current washer and dryer are getting a little long in the tooth. I think we bought them before we got married, so they have to be at least 10 years old. We need to buy new ones for the new house. There is even a first floor laundry room, no more back aches from lugging laundry up and down stairs.
I want to get a front loading washer and a very large capacity dryer. I also want to get the pedestals for them so there won't be quite so much bending involved in doing laundry chores. Do any of you have any suggestions? GE, Whirlpool, Bosch or LG? I really would prefer to buy American. I'm very hesitant to buy Kenmore because I really hate K-Mart, who bought Sears. I'm not positive, but I assume they also bought Kenmore along with Sears? And yes, I know that Kenmore is made by Whirlpool or GE or someone, but I just really, really hate K-Mart.
Time for more coffee!
Posted by Beth at 5:59 AM | Comments (13)
I'm back!
Well, today is the day. Today, John and I sign on the dotted lines about a zillion times, and we will get the keys to our farm.
I'm finding that we really need to name it. John, of course, is partial to Castle Argghhh!, but I'm a little concerned the neighbors might look at us a little funny. Or not.
What do you think? Any ideas?
I think I'll be "farm blogging" quite a lot, now that all my dreams are coming true!
I'm telling you - it's the power of positive thinking! Have faith and don't doubt, and good things happen.
Posted by Beth at 5:26 AM | Comments (6)
June 19, 2007
I'm in Indiana this week
They have been suffering a drought here in Eastern Indiana. The grass is very parched, and it's hot and sticky.
But it's okay, I'm spending all my time in an air-conditioned building!
Richmond, Indiana is an old, old town. There are some amazing old mansions in the city - some are beautifully rehabbed, some not so much.
Just wanted to touch base - gotta go work on more stuff now!
Posted by Beth at 5:06 AM | Comments (1)
June 15, 2007
Need Input!
Out where we will be moving, there is no (gasp) Cable! We have had cable for years, but we are going to have to get our television from satellite when we move, get a regular old land line for a phone and maybe get one of those wireless broadband deals (we are withing site of a cell tower) from Sprint or Verizon.
Anyway - if any of you have satellite TV - what do you like? Dish? DirectTV?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Posted by Beth at 8:12 PM | Comments (12)
Clarification on house sizes
Our current house has about 2600 square feet of living space - that includes the finished part of the basement. Our farm house has 1300 sq feet of living space - not including the basement at all - the basement is unfinished.
We are going to finish the basement just for John's toys. So that will probably bring us back up to 2000 sq feet or more.
And really, with a huge barn, part of which is finished, and I think I'll add another wall or two - I can put my hobby stuff in there.
Our current house it loaded to the gills with furniture (from my old house, things from my parent's home, and all of the stuff John had before he met me).
It's daunting. I honestly have no idea where to start!!!
Posted by Beth at 5:50 AM | Comments (2)
June 14, 2007
The weekend nears . . .
We had the inspection on the house today. Mostly, it's in decent shape - we need to have a load of dirt brought in to even out some areas around the foundation - and after the hell we have gone thru with the foundation of this house, believe me, we will do whatever we need to in order to avoid that kind of nightmare!
We are going to be downsizing, so far as household goods go. Both John and I are pack rats. We have tons of stuff that we don't need, don't use and really don't want.
I know I am going to have to hold at least one big garage sale, probably a couple. We are going from 25,000 2,500(thank you for pointing out that booboo, Barb!) sq feet of living space to about 1400 sq feet of living space (the basement adds the same amount, but needs to be finished.)
So many decisions to make - do I keep my porcelain horse collection? How about my frog collection? Do I keep it or sell it on ebay? We have all kinds of furniture we need to get rid of, it's going to be a lot of work!
It is totally worth it to me to simplify because my hope is that we will spend a lot of time working around our farm, and not miss the stuff that we have now.
Posted by Beth at 9:43 PM | Comments (7)
June 10, 2007
Preparing for country life
Yesterday, we took Houdini and Kiki to the farm so they could run around and check it out. They loved it. Kiki went right into the lake and swam around. There is probably too much string algae - as she kept getting it over her nose. I'll have to talk to the county extension agent about the best way to keep the algae down to a better level.
Houdini does not swim - he runs around the bank of the pond, but he doesn't want to get wet. Ever.
Houdini is so short that he bounds through the tall grass like he is running through deep snow - it slows him down. We were happy to see that Kiki and Houdini would return to us when we called - Houdini takes longer, he's shorter and gets distracted easily.
We didn't stay too awfully long yesterday - we were starting to explore the 'lower' 40 (which I thought was upper, but I was wrong), and it's extremely woodsy, and we noticed all these ticks on our clothes, so we went back to the road and picked ticks off one another and came back home.
Then we picked more ticks from each other and Kiki. I gave both dogs baths, and didn't find any more ticks on them, but John and I are finding ticks still - I suspect they rode on our clothes, as we have each only had one or two actually biting us.
But still - ticks - ick.
Now, I am a strong believer that we should use natural predators to control bad bug populations if at all possible. Mostly because I love toads and frogs, and pesticides tend to kill amphibians. And I don't want to harm the good bugs - like honey bees and ladybugs and walking sticks.
So, I did a little research, and I keep finding references to Guinea Fowl - apparently, they really like to eat ticks. And, they like to be free range - They will go out all day long and eat ticks and then return to their coop for the night. They look to be pretty easy to raise - they are very aggressive towards predators who would kill them, and have been known to actually chase off foxes and coyotes.
So, I have ordered this book - Gardening with Guineas: A Step-By-Step Guide to Raising Guinea Fowl on a Small Scale
Sounds like fun, eh?
Oh, and John is doing all sorts of research on our land - I'm sure he will post about it!
Posted by Beth at 11:23 AM | Comments (16)
June 9, 2007
Well, enough of spending Saturday morning being lazy!
John and I are going to take Kiki and Houdini out to the farm today - see how they like the lake and the woods and even more importantly, see if Houdini will stay with us while we are hiking - I'm pretty sure that Kiki will stay by us, but she has never had the wanderlust that Houdini has!
So, I'm going to put on my jeans and paddock boots and spray myself with bug spray to avoid ticks.
John is charging the battery for the camera.
Hopefully, he will get dressed before we drive out there! Heh.
More pictures later!
Posted by Beth at 9:57 AM | Comments (1)
Stupid, skinny blondes
I can't believe that some people think that Paris Hilton is being treated unfairly. She has been coddled by her parents and by police for too long. She was driving while drunk on a suspended license. The police were nice to her and just charged her with reckless driving. Any regular person would have been charged with a DUI.
Not only that, but she has done it twice. Then she doesn't show up in court - no wonder the judge ordered her to jail.
You know damn well that if any regular person was upset about crying in jail, the warden would say, too bad, so sad.
But even Ann Coulter thinks the Judge is being too mean to poor little Paris Hilton, who couldn't hurt a fly (if she is driving while drunk, she could hurt a lot more than a fly).
Coulter says:
"I think the judge has Judge Ito disease, he wanted to get his name in the paper and he succeeded. And everyone around her, everyone involved in this case is now going to have a story to sell to 'Inside Edition.' I think that no one disputes that anyone else ... a normal citizen wouldn't get 45 days in this case. Even Nicole Richie, who isn't a normal citizen, didn't get a sentence like this."
Must be a stupid, skinny blonde trick.
Posted by Beth at 9:47 AM
Belated Happy Birthday to Kate
Yesterday was Venomous Kate's 40th birthday. She and her handsome hubby were kind enough to invite us to the New Theatre Restaurant in Overland Park, Kansas to celebrate.
If you live anywhere near Kansas City, I highly recommend that you go there. The food is absolutely awesome. I did not expect that at a dinner theatre, I expected 'banquet' food. I was so wrong - the food was the best I've had at any restaurant that I can think of.
Anyway, we did have a great time with Kate and her hubby. Many martinis were consumed. We laughed. We ate. We drank.
Kate's handsome hubby was our designated driver and got us safely home. Thanks, Kate, for inviting us, and believe me, life does begin at 40 - really and truly!
Posted by Beth at 7:11 AM | Comments (2)
June 5, 2007
Well, unless something really odd happens, the farm will soon be ours!
The family of the man who owned the farm has accepted our offer. I can't begin to explain how excited and happy I am - and John, too.
My whole life, I have dreamed of being able to live in the country with enough room for horses and maybe other critters. I hope that Ann, John's mom, is watching from Heaven and is happy how we have spent some of the money she left John and I.
Now, on the practical side - does anyone know how to build horse stalls? We will have a huge barn that was used for dairy cows, so there is a milking area but no stalls. I suspect that Willie and Petey would be rather perturbed if we tried to milk them!
I've been looking on the web for horse stalls, and they appear to be incredibly expensive - $500 for just a door - without the wood. Add 4 walls and the wood for it, and it looks like $1000 or more for one stall - I'd like to have maybe 4 stalls and one wash stall.
So, anyone want to help with that?
Posted by Beth at 7:25 PM | Comments (11)
June 4, 2007
Pictures!
Of the future home of Castle Argghhh! are here.
Posted by Beth at 10:06 AM | Comments (4)
June 3, 2007
Okay, so I lied
Instead of doing practical stuff today, John and I went to a late breakfast at Santa Fe Depot here in Leavenworth, and then we went out to what hopefully will soon be our farm. We walked the fence line on about half the property, and we were really awed by the beauty of this farm. There are lots of woods, 3 stock tanks and one large pond (so far, there may be more stock tanks we have not found yet). There are acres and acres of woods - mostly deciduous trees, but some evergreens.
There are wildflowers and rather high grass - we need to get the horses on it! The fence looks pretty darn good in most areas. It's only along the main road where there are spots that are not so good.
The pond is really big. Big enough that we should probably get a small rowboat and build a tiny dock so we can row out and fish if we like. Oh, and there are frogs, well, at least something that sounds like frogs. And trees - but I think all ponds should have at least one weeping willow, so that is one thing I'll do as soon as we close on the property - plant a couple of willows.
We found several creek beds - all but one look to be occasional - when there is a lot of rain. We saw two skulls - cattle, of course - and found a couple of places where trash had been dumped - which will be cleaned up before we close!
The farm is pretty hilly, and the hills only add to the beauty. The vegetation is just sumptuous and I love it. It took John and I about 2 hours to walk the fence line on about half the farmland. I think it will take longer on the other half, because I believe it is hillier.
I do need a walking stick. John found an old mop handle in the trash, so I used that, and it made it so much easier to climb hills and cross creeks that I am bidding on one on Ebay.
I will be publishing all the pics that we took today on Exposure Manager, and as soon as I do, I'll put up a post with a link.
Castle Argghhh! will be on the prettiest piece of Kansas property around!!!
Posted by Beth at 6:37 PM | Comments (7)
Today is catch up day
Today I am going to finish planting my flowers, catch up on laundry and cleaning and dream about the farm and pray that they accept our offer.
Posted by Beth at 10:09 AM | Comments (2)
June 1, 2007
Well, we did it.
We made an offer on the farm. On our way to meet our buyers' agent, we saw a rainbow. Hope that means they will accept our offer. I'm terribly afraid to get too excited in case they don't accept the offer, or if something bad comes out in the inspection.
I am crossing my fingers and saying my prayers- I have wanted to live on a farm for as long as I can remember. There will be work to be done - the fences need repair, and we will need a safe pasture area for the horses before we move them over to what will hopefully be our new home.
We will have to figure out an awful lot of logistics. And, we will probably hire an architect to tell us where to put up walls in the basement for John's museum and what walls we can knock out upstairs to enlarge the master bedroom.
We are going to have to winnow out a lot of our stuff. We have way too much stuff. John kinda figured that we will move only what we want to keep to the farm, and what we don't want - well, GARAGE SALE time!
Posted by Beth at 10:14 PM | Comments (12)