Hello little farm!

I've made a big step toward you. We're moving to Asheville!

Actually, Weaverville...about 15 minutes north of Asheville, to a little apartment building on a main drag, about 5 miles from civilization to the west or the Blue Ridge Parkway to the east. A wonderful first step.

Since my farm dream is also about creating a home, I've been thinking about things that will change when we move:

• Our new apartment will have curtains.

This is a biggie. We have vertical blinds on the sliding glass doors here in Jax. They are one of the larger nuisances for keeping clean, keeping the cat out of, keeping the sun from coming through, etc., that I've ever encountered. Granted, we're saved from these plastic bastards by the fact that we don't have a porch at all, which will take some getting used to, but I'm still happy. As for our other windows in Jax, one is covered with a bed sheet and the other with a beach towel. Yes, I am in my 40s; why do you ask?

• There will be plants.

I have 2 ideas so far on this front. The first depends on the actual size of the kitchen/dining area...pretty sure I won't have the room, but a girl can dream. We have these ugly plastic shelves (that have been used in the past as bookcases, but I'm over it), and I want to put one up, either in the dining area or in the 2nd bedroom, and start my herb and vegetable container gardens. If that won't fly at all (or even if it will), I'm also thinking of building cold frames to place outside next to my apartment's front door (with locks to keep out neighbors and critters). What I find hilarious is that I was thinking of hunting for old pallets, like behind Walmart or something, and procuring some old windows from maybe a Habitat for Humanity ReStore to build said cold frames, and when I look up the idea online, I find this..... and I really don't understand American society sometimes.

• We will clean once a week.

This may sound gross, but when you've lived in an apartment as long as we have, and it wasn't new by any stretch to begin with, there comes a point where you just give up. We should have had new cabinets, carpet, and flooring put in long ago, but our complex isn't the greatest at keeping up with long-standing tenants. The pans under the electric eyes on our stove are past cleaning, the stove's been neglected, and the refrigerator leaks on a daily basis. I can't wait to have pride in my domicile again. With Les not smoking, it should be even easier.

• The bookshelf concept...

I'm pretty sure once we move in and get settled, we'll be as poor as church mice. I'm OK with this, but my lord, I don't want to keep my books in boxes anymore! They've been in and out of boxes for years now, in some form or another, whether it's the "well, I'm not reading them right now" wild hair or the "saving for when we have children" boxes....I'm over it! So instead of keeping them in boxes, I'm going to put them in.....boxes! Turned sideways, painted if need be to shield them from actually looking like what they are, stacked on top of one another as high as they'll let me...if this doesn't work, and the thrift stores don't yield anything feasible, we'll go the lumber and cinder block route or stack them.

SO happy to be able to dream like this and have it be within reach! One step at a time.....

Image from here.

A Spot of Pretty

I don't consider myself much of an "old lace" type of person. But when I saw this image on Tumblr today, my first thought was "farmhouse kitchen window".

Just thought you should know.

This dream ain't going noplace.

Image from here.

What Home Means

Getting the brass tacks from the fertility doc yesterday...my gods, it opened my eyes.

I want a house. I want more room and a place to sink my hands into the soil. I want a yard. I want to live further north, but I'm willing to continue to compromise, if it gets us closer to having a child.

What I do not want, is to start a family, have a child, in that apartment.

That means continuing to put the creation of said child on the back burner. It means saving to move and getting the hell out of our apartment. It means finding work where we want to live, and then finding other means of payment beyond that. I know freelancers don't make dick in this economy, so for me, it means selling my book. Editing it first and then sending it out.

It means learning to save. Stopping all frivolous spending. Downsizing our lives. Working our asses off.

I'm ready.

The New Year

Got to see a chicken up close on New Year's Eve. One of my knitting friends has a small flock. A bunch of us met for coffee and..., and she had to come straight from the avian vet, because one of her ladies is under the weather. We hung out, knitting and chatting, in a zen garden (in the middle of scary Springfield, of all places) with a chicken, a bunny, and a 5 year old darting amidst our feet. Good times. I was in awe of all three of those critters.

Another neat encounter over the holidays: went for a long walk around the inlaws' neighborhood with my niece. She stopped at a corner lot to look for the family's dog, because she knows every frickin' animal within a 2-mile radius, it appears. I looked further into their backyard and discovered that at the far end, they had a shed with a bunch of feathered ladies scratching around. Nice setup, clean looking. The old gentleman heard the dog barking, came out, chatted us up, and we went home with 2 fresh-from-the-backyard eggs, one brown shell, one blue. I was hooked; if I hadn't had K with me, I probably would have asked the guy politely if I could go back and check out his setup.

I'm finally ready to fill my brain with the information necessary to get my farm dreams started. I made it a New Year's resolution. It covers everything from simpler living skills to making things by hand to training dogs and livestock husbandry. This will be a year of buying books, creating a reference library to operate my homestead.

An interesting sidenote is that even though I just got a Kindle Fire for Christmas, I have no desire to download those books to it. I'm using it mainly for leisure and scholarly reading - the classics and fluff. For my farm, I want hardcover and softcover books that I can open and peruse. I just know I'll operate better with that style.

I'm reading what I have before I start buying. That will keep me busy for a while, as I own a fat Eliot Coleman that I found at Chamblin's and haven't cracked the cover of yet. Also, got one of Ashley English's books for xmas, and devoured Barnheart as soon as I unwrapped it. Reading that has me wanting to reread Jenna's other two, which I already own, so I'm set on material for a pinch. But I have my eye on the other 3 books by Ashley, some more Eliot Coleman, and will be researching good books regarding owning and training medium size dog breeds, owning and caring for sheep, and country living/homesteading. The Backyard Homestead and its accompanying Farm Animals guide look great too.

Finally FINALLY feels within my grasp...

Image from here.