This is the last post I wrote on my old blog. The next post I wrote was the first one on this blog.
May 3, 2014
I really should do better about blogging more often! I have so much to share so it’s gonna be a long one. Grab your cuppa joe and sit back and relax. Here we go…
On Saturday, April 5, 2014, we were finally able to take the trailer to the house pad. We were so excited to be able to get it there. It really made this project seem to get off the ground. We decided that we wanted to spend the night in the trailer that night, so we packed some clothes and camping gear and off we went.
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| The trailer (or RV as we’re calling it – short for Remote Vessel) is finally making it to the homestead! |
We decided to turn the day into a celebration with a BBQ with family and a few friends.
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| We set up the trailer at the edge of the house pad and set up the fire pit and tables and chairs approximately where the house will eventually be. |
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| Flower Girl off exploring on her own |
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| And Princess Girl is becoming quite the fire tender these days. |
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| At 8 years old, she’s all about princesses these days. She was saving up her money to buy herself a crown, but her Daddy and I surprised her with one. She’s earned it for all the help she’s been with her little sister and small cousin the last couple of months! |
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| Thanking Daddy |
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| Sunset from the Homestead |
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| Our little family on our first evening at the homestead since it became more than a dream (we camped there a couple times last summer since it was my Mom’s land – but back then, it was still in the dreaming phase) |
After a so-so night’s sleep (Princess Girl wasn’t used to her bed and finally ended up on the couch and Mamma had a bit too much water to drink the evening before), we got up to greet the morning.
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| Good morning! (Why are the eggs fluorescent?!) Since we didn’t have the propane hooked up to the trailer yet, and for some reason our camp stove was missing it’s propane hose, we had to cook on the BBQ grill. Easier than the fire, though! |
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| The girls on the first morning on “our” land (and yes, I let them snack on chips left over from the day before. I was too busy enjoying the morning to stop and find them something more nutritious. Don’t judge! 🙂 |
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| The hubby decided to do a bit of work while we were there, like cleaning the windows. |
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| Enjoying my coffee (and maybe a couple of those chips) on a beautiful Sunday morning before time to leave for Church. |
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| After church, we stopped by Home Depot and found us some cabinet pulls. That afternoon we installed most of them. It looks so finished now! |
And that was the end of our first weekend. We packed up and headed back home. Had we been more prepared, we would have just stayed one more night. We decided to do that the following weekend.
But before the next weekend came, we signed a very important document – our Mortgage papers! It was officially official! We are buying the land!
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| Here’s the Hubby signing the papers with the Notary. |
So the following weekend started on Friday when my young nephew helped me go up to our property and bring down some beams we were going to need to move our shed. It’s kinda funny because that shed started out at on my parents’ property and is now returning 🙂
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| I didn’t really want beams this long, but they all were either too long or too short. So what do you do when you have a 6 foot long trailer and a 13 foot long board and no saw to shorten the board? You get creative! |
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| My adult nephew (who helped us dig out the culvert and pull all those nails) came by that evening and helped us scoot the shed away from the fence so we could jack it up the next morning to get the trailer under it. |
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| Flower Girl wanted to “hep”, too. |
We got the shed moved over and the next morning my Dad came by with his flatbed trailer and helped us. It was an agonizingly slow process of jack shed up, put blocks under, lower jack. Put jack on blocks, jack up shed, put more blocks under shed, lower jack. Put jack on higher blocks, jack up shed, etc, etc, etc.
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| This is the only picture I got because all the sudden Dad and Hubs needed my help. |
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| But, we finally got it on the trailer! |
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| Yep, my younger nephew came to help out again. On the drive to the property, he fell asleep. Guess we worked him pretty hard (and the day is only half over!) |
And of course we were so busy getting the shed off the trailer once we got there, I didn’t get any pictures of the process.
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| Here it is all jacked up and off the trailer. |
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| Lowering, lowering, lowering, one block at a time. |
That night, The Hubby and I dropped the girls off at my Mom’s (and took showers there, too!), dropped the nephew and his little sister off with their grandparents, and went to dinner with Hubby’s boss and co-workers. We came back to the trailer late that night and crawled into bed exhausted.
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| Our beautiful sunny bed! The window at the head faces East so we get the glorious morning sun! I LOVE having the windows at bed level. It’s almost like sleeping outside. |
So, that day was Sunday again and we met my parents and the girls at church. Afterward, we headed back to the RV and finally had some time to do some organizing and finishing of projects.
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| Putting on the final cabinet pulls |
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| Turning on the stove for the first time since we bought the trailer. |
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| We have fire! |
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| Got the fridge working, too. A little too well, I’d say! |
We spent that evening in the trailer since it was a bit windy and chilly outside. And we were all tired so we went to bed early. The next morning was Monday so the Hubby got up and went to work as usual. The girls and I had a lazy day just enjoying being out there.
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| She made this fire all by herself (with just a few verbal instructions from me). She was so proud. |
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| We went for a short hike to the corner of our property. |
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| We ate lunch outside in the warm spring sunshine. |
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| I love my girls! |
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We then packed up and finally made it home that evening. We were sad to leave especially since we new it would be two weeks before we could return. The following weekend we went to a leadership conference with our church. It was a great weekend, but we looked forward to staying at the Homestead again.
So, as it usually does, Winter returned to Nevada with a vengeance in April. We had been watching the forecast and were prepared, thank goodness, but it was a good shakedown of what we’re going to need to do/have for cold weather living up there.
When we got there on Friday, April 25, it was raining-quickly-turning-to-snow. We not-so-quickly figured out how to put out the awning. My mom and I had done it last Fall, but Joe didn’t know how it worked, so he couldn’t help much but to follow my instructions. And I couldn’t remember the particulars. But we eventually got it out and backed the cars up to it to unload.
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| Flower Girl was thrilled with all the “wati” (ie water) running off the awning |
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| The view down the driveway at 7:00pm. The valley is lost in a haze and the temperature is dropping. |
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| The same view down the drive an hour later. |
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| We had a small catalytic heater for warmth, but also chose to use candles and a kerosene lantern for light because of the heat they also provide. We eventually closed the blinds to hopefully keep out some of the cold. |
The next morning we woke up to a winter wonderland right outside. Flower Girl joined us in bed (while Princess Girl just kept on snoozing in her bed, which she is fully accustomed to now) and the three of us snuggled for quite a while, not wanting to face the chilly morning. But eventually we had to get up.
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| What the hillside outside my bedside window looked like that morning. |
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| As is the custom with these Spring storms, the snow is already melting off. |
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| Looking back toward the valley that Saturday morning. It’s reappeared! |
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| By lunch time, the snow was all gone and it was actually fairly nice outside. (Obviously we found the hose to our camp stove. And despite the fact that the stove in the trailer now works, I was frying chips and didn’t want to stink up the inside.) |
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That afternoon, we headed down into town and bought ourselves a Mr Buddy Heater. We knew we wanted one, and this was just the reason to go out and get it. The smaller heater and the lantern had kept it bearable the night before, but Mr Buddy kept things downright comfy – on the low setting even!
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| Cozying up to warmth! |
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| Of course, it helped that I also baked something in the oven. Yeah, we were downright toasty in there that night! |
The following day was Sunday. And I didn’t take a single picture. Here it is, almost a week later and I don’t really remember what all we did that day. I think we just kinda had a regular day and hung out. Oh, that’s right. We played a couple card games, checked facebook, etc on our phones, read, wrote, and generally just relaxed and enjoyed each other’s company.
That night, the baby had a really restless night and we ended up on the pull-out couch together. It was actually pretty comfy, other than the fact that we didn’t have enough blankets to share. I eventually turned the heater back on and let it run while we slept. By the time Hubby got up to ready for work, the propane canister had run out. By then, Flower Girl was finally sleeping soundly, so I covered her up warmly and went and crawled back in my own warm bed and we all slept for a couple more hours.
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Ugly, but fairly comfortable 🙂 (Edited 2-7-2015 – Awe, I miss that ugly old thing!)
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| 5 vultures came soaring over Castle Rock while the girls and I were spending some time outside in the finally warmer weather. |
And that brings us up to this weekend. We were planning to go up again, but the girls and I got sick with a stomach bug and didn’t feel like packing up and heading up there. Being there would have been fine. The process of getting there was insurmountable. At this point, it’s still like camping every time we go up. Granted, it’s pretty cushy camping, but still a fairly large process to set up and take down “camp” every time we go up. But we’ll get back up there again soon. And hopefully soon enough we’ll be there full time. The house we’re in now has had quite a lot of potential buyers looking at it, so hopefully something will happen on it quickly.
Until next time…adieu
(Edited 2-7-2015: We officially started living on the Homestead on May 18, 2014. And less than two months later, on July 13, 2014 we moved up here to Oregon. I can’t believe we’ve been here for nearly 7 months already. I am enjoying some of the benefits of living in the Pacific Northwest, and the Portland area specifically. But reviewing these old posts have made me long for the day when this Portland Interlude will be over.)
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Castle Rock Homestead 