Posted on by Emily

Day 597

Greetings!

We’ve done some mulching.

Bu has done a lot of napping.

And testing of benches.

I think I have a bench addiction.

We prepped and planted a garden. Josh did the prepping and I did the planting.

In addition to these seeds, I also planted a variety of tomatoes, peppers, and some speckled lima beans (my favorite!).

Things are progressing nicely as we’ve had a lot of rain. So far, the solar-powered electric fence is working well and keeping out critters.

Check out my beets!

This is the garden after two weeks!

If it were up to Josh, the entire garden would have been corn. We settled on 3 out of 12 rows being corn.

I’d also like to report that some of the shutters have been hung. Due to the weather, this process of hanging the shutters is going on three weeks long now and not even half of them are hung. And the painters won’t be back to finish the columns until after the shutters are hung and the screened porch is complete.

I can’t talk about it.

The screening of the porch has progressed more steadily. All screens are in and now we just need a few final trim pieces to finish it up. Please take note of the large horse fly that is *inside* the screened porch…

This photo was taken on a peaceful morning walk the day before my first brush with death since living in the wilderness.

The following morning, I was walking along our road, by the creek, when I noticed a turkey on the creek bank about 20 feet away. I was thinking to myself what a lovely moment in nature this was just as the turkey spotted me and then started squawking and flying right at me.

I began shouting in the deepest and most menacing voice I could muster and put my arms out wide as I backed up the way I had come. The turkey stopped flying when she was about 5 feet from my face but kept charging, flapping her wings, and carrying on until she had forced me 50 feet up the road.

She then retreated to the brush on the other side of the road opposite the creek, circling a spot about 10 feet from where she first spotted me. Evidently I had come between her and her babies though I didn’t know it.

I think I’ll be adding a whistle and some pepper spray to my keychain.

Home sweet home.

And, finally, our Starlink satellite arrived today! There is hope for better internet service.

Posted on by Emily

Day 532

Hello!

I didn’t realize it had been a hundred years since I last posted. Sorry about that.

It turns out moving your home and business is not for the faint of heart.

Highlights from the past month:

  • we are in the new house
  • we closed on the old house
  • we survived
  • Bu is adjusting well (likely because he’s getting to sleep with us)
  • both Josh and I have received our first dose of vaccine

This is where we left off last…

March 12:

Who knew we could cram over two hundred boxes worth of stuff into a ranch house?

The weather had been beautiful all week and then, of course, the day of our move was rainy.

It took the movers over six hours to pack the two trucks. Somewhere along the line, they decided they needed an additional truck and accused us of accumulating more stuff because the estimator said we would only need two trucks. We assured them that, if anything, we had purged stuff. They sorted out the third truck, sent another guy, and by 4PM(!), we were headed to the new house. We bought them pizza and with renewed energy, they unloaded the trucks in half the time it took them to load.

Fun plot twist: we still hadn’t received approval on our final inspection at this point, so we couldn’t actually unpack, set up, and move in.

So, our house looked like this for the next week.

During that week, which I took “off”, I went and collected final items from our old house, hounded the builder to get things done to satisfy the inspector, set up a temporary office headquarters at my parents’ house, closed on our old house with a power of attorney for Josh, and moved in with my parents while Josh was out of town all week for work. Oh, and for kicks, I agreed to do a cleanse with my sister.

Our old house also did a cleanse and was unrecognizable with out our three trucks worth of stuff.

I will miss our view of downtown Nashville.

It was a great first house, which I bought planning to live there three-five years. Three rounds of renovation, six years, and a husband later, we sold the house to a couple who will take good care of it.

I will say, it seems like a lifetime ago that we lived there.

Because we live here now! We officially moved in March 20 after receiving approval on the afternoon of the 19th.

Our satellite internet was installed nearly one week later, which meant I was basically living in 1992 until then.

(still waiting on them to put on the shutters and finish painting the exterior – which is killing me)

The screened porch is framed, awaiting a few adjustments, and then it will be painted and screened. I can’t wait to use this space, especially as the weather improves! Though, as you can see in this photo, we’ve had some extreme weather lately.

A week into living in the house, we had record levels of rain and flooding, accompanied by some of the brightest lightning I’ve ever seen and sizeable hail.

Thankfully, we made it through without damage.

Most mornings look like this, with the sunrise gently waking us. No, that’s not fog, it’s the window film that is still on the outside of our windows.

It’s on the punch list, along with 82 other items.

Still some final interior painting to finish up…

The butler’s pantry is going to be one of my favorite spots in the house, but right now it just looks creepy.

The rest of the house is coming together, with Bu supervising all of the unpacking from a comfortable perch.

Getting reacquainted with all of the upholstery…right after I had cleaned it.

These chairs will go in the library (inherited from my parents’ house) and the rug from our old bedroom is too small, but for now they are helping to make the living room feel like a real room.

Approximately one hundred of the two hundred boxes were kitchen items. Window treatments are in the works!

The dining room is feeling a little sparse. We need six more chairs to fill out the table, but we used it for Easter and it was perfect for social distancing!

The laundry room is being put to good use. Bu assists with washing and folding each load.

Tonight will be Bu’s first night in his room and not in our room. Yesterday, we assembled his new cat tree, which we thought did not come with instructions until we had it 80% together and then the instructions somehow materialized.

I’m convinced Bu was sitting on them.

Taking his new tree for a spin. I had to order a “large cat” tree with perches large enough for Mr. Seventeen pounds.

I guess it’s time to move his sign from the master suite to the pet suite. Hopefully the punch list will be wrapped up soon and we’ll no longer need this sign!