A Busy Weekend

Hey! What's that title say up there^? It's been a busy weekend. So After all the crazy halibub and hububbiloo (real words) with the housing we has learned that we will be able to move into the barn after all.
This is good because it means

a. we will get used to living in a smaller space again

b. we can start saving more money and

c. did somebody say nanny goat?

 ... they didn't ... but I am.

    Nanny goat.

The first thing we noticed upon looking at the barn is that it looked like shit and was messy as an elderly asian woman perceives her hair to be at all times.  (don't get Yako's hair wet)
And the second thing we noticed i that it needed new paint.

So we spent the entire weekend cleaning out the barn, painting the barn and putting new windows in the barn and laying down floor. See? Look.

Here is Jennifer after laying down our recycled felt lining

There's the wood

This is a particularly tricky spot to lay floor

And here it is all done

Newly painted kitchen

And again sideways

Small walls in front of the entry way

Sideways "coat cubby"

Aaannnnd new windows

Like I said ... busy weekend.

And After Much Confusion

It's been a week of digging through piles of things and hauling off bags to the Goodwill and it still doesn't look like we've made a dent in our clutter. One valuable lesson we have learned is that before, when we had very little space, we believed that that was why our house was messy all the time. But now with three times the space I am seeing the exact same problems we were having before.

Something about human nature, or just our society, causes us to have the need to fill empty space around us, Even when we don't need to. No matter how much space we have we will always have enough junk to fill it because there is always more junk out there.

I'm reminded of a lyric from the show 'Spring Awakening'. "We've all got our junk and my junk is you".
Although out of context that is sort of the way I want to live. Replace my junk with people that I love.

On another note we are going to need to start figuring out which vegetables to plant soon because spring is creeping this way forward. Not sure if that's a real expression but I like the way it sounds. So much to do in a very short amount of time.

 ... creeping this way forward.

A Different Kind of Bed

                     Since the beginning of the Tumbleweed house is still a few months off we have been trying to focus, instead, on our survival skill set. Seeing as to how we live in a rather dirty neighborhood near a city in a house that had burned down with a "store" next to it it's safe to say that the soil here isn't.

Part of me wants to build a raised bed in the yard and fill it with soil but the other part of me wants to do some community recycling. My though is that we could get some old bath tubs or truck beds that tend to litter the streets here and repaint them with an eco-friendly paint. Then we could use THOSE as a raised bed for gardening edibles. Grow some food and help other people de-clutter. Win-win.

On a slightly other not ... another slightly different note?  I want to bring my old mini livestock cages over to the new house. Jen and I built them two autumns ago. We used it for rabbits but I just bet we could use them for some bantams. Not sure what the laws are around here but they can't be that rigid what with all the pit bulls running around off their leashes.

As you can see the rabbits found it cozy enough.

This will, of course, require some more fencing. A few sections of old wooden fence would work perfectly to keep the snoopers out.

Music

Here  is a video of us playing one of our songs in the Smokey Mountains. Not much else to post today.
Been trying to figure out what we do and do not need.

A Change of Plans

It's day two and already we have a big setback. Turns out we will not be able to move back into the house in Senoia after all.

We've decided the best course of action is to rearrange the order in which we execute our plans.

First thing's first. since we will be unable to start saving much right away because of rent and living expenses we are going to start construction on our Tumbleweed house as soon as possible. We can use any extra money to build the house while we are still living here and minimizing as we go. Hopefully the house will be finished by the end of the year.

Once we finish the Tumbleweed we can move in and park it for cheap somewhere and then begin to save for property.

We think with a little help and some smart buying we should be able to build the house on Jennifer's families property for fairly cheap in a little under a year.

We will, however, have to get clever with our farming practice. We're looking at indoor greenhouses and mini greenhouses to possibly use here since the soil is contaminated and we can't afford to buy all new soil to lay down.