Summer Sizzle

It finally feels like things are sizzling along with the house!  Of course there have been the inevitable headaches (like the electricians not bringing enough cable to reach the house, the inspector not showing up when we needed, and permits found blowing around in the wind), but no huge disasters have happened, and every day brings us closer to a weather-proof structure.
Last weekend, we had a grand time choosing our flooring, counter tops, tiles, carpets, etc., which really makes the reality set in that we will be living here before winter (trying not to count chickens before they're hatched though!!!).  This weekend we are meeting with the painters to decide on both the exterior and interior colors.  Thrilling! 
I am in a rush, as we are heading out the door for another weekend at NineTrees, so let me finish by posting pics.  Notice the completed shop :-)

The Building Blocks

Trusses Away!

Completed Shop (Ignore the Electrical Trench!)

AdventureDad in his Man Cave

Forest of Interior Walls

Taking Shape!

Guess what our next project is?

Foundations

It is late and I am tired, so "gasp" I am going to keep it short.  We had a couple great developments since the last post... The foundation for the house went in AND has been backfilled, the garage is filled and compacted (ready for cement) and a LOT of dirt was moved to create drainage sloping away from the house on all sides.  The site passed the final pre-build inspection by the construction company, and they should start framing before the end of next week.  I'll believe it when I see it, but the excitement builds!  In addition, more dirt was moved to create better drainage for the barn, and the trusses for the shop went up.  We are hoping the shop will be complete in about 2 weeks.  That is huge for us, because once it is we can have the permanent electricity installed, and we will have a clean, weather-proof place to START MOVING!  With all of the animal and farm related detritus we have to move, an early start is a blessing.
Next, AdventureDad and I started the Great Fencing Project.  We are only fencing (and cross-fencing) the upper 20 acres right now... the "back 30" will have to wait until we get some other more vital projects done, but it is really neat to see the outlines of our property taking shape.
Last but not Least... AdventureDad won out against the competition and got the job in Walla Walla!  He is with the same clinic but the previous job offer was in Hermiston, OR, so this is a lot closer.  We are thrilled, and so proud of the hard work he has done.
Enjoy the pics...

I did a little sewing (the nighties) and the girls got some new tutus...

Our "Gate to Nowhere" 

Trusses are on, waiting for the metal...

Foundation...says it all!

Shopping

I'll start with the construction update... I think I will publish at least the construction part of this blog in hard format so that someday, when the girls are grown and we are feeling nostalgic, we can flip through the pages and remember "way back when" the house wasn't even built yet, and what an adventure it was/is.  I feel so blessed to be living our dream! Although the process of starting with a bare piece of ground and converting it to a farm and a home is a lot of work, a lot of stress, and a lot of money, it is also very exciting and fulfilling.  I feel like we are embarking on a healthy and literally "down to earth" lifestyle, and I can't help but hope that knowing where their food comes from, and learning physical labor and job satisfaction will provide the girls with a solid foundation for whatever the future holds.  (I believe that this aspect in my own upbringing has a lot to do with who I am today... Thanks Mom and Dad!)
So, where are we in the process so far?  Well, we are still waiting for the concrete company to work us into their schedule to pour the house foundations, and with another wet weekend ahead of us, I am sure the delay will be helpful in allowing the pad to dry out once again, but it will be SO NICE once the foundation is poured, because then we can actually start counting days and get a real feel for when the house will be done.  The shop, however is progressing quite nicely.  The girls approved of the "shopping" that has happened so far (see pictures) which includes setting the poles in concrete.  Again, once the ground dries out after this latest downpour, the cement slab will be poured in the floor, then the walls and roof go on (a relatively fast process).  Once the shop is weather-tight, the electrician will come in and viola! we will have real, permanent electricity in the shop and the barn!
AdventureDad and I spent the last weekend picking up the remainder of the hay we cut the previous weekend (thankfully it was a dry week and we were able to leave it in the field!)  We picked up 5 tons of hay, so in addition to the 1 ton we already hauled to Gig Harbor, it is our largest cutting so far.  We actually left a lot of the field uncut this year, as hay is second priority to the house and other tasks (like putting in fencing/animal pens, building a chicken coop, and flooring the barn), but we got enough to keep the horses fed until next hay season, especially since they have a virgin pasture to go out on once they move to the farm. It should take them a month or two to mow that down!  It was a bit of a punishing weekend, because of course to put 5 tons of hay in the barn it means we have to both load it onto, then unload off of, the hay wagon, so we moved 20,000 pounds between the two of us (not to mention another 2,000 pounds in "re-bale" bales that resulted from some baler problems!).  Whew!  Then poor AdventureDad came down with a nasty GI bug that laid him out flat for the ride home and the next day too.  We will be having our Father's Day dinner this coming Sunday :-)
To wrap it all up, we added yet another furry member to the family (because I really needed another warm body to take care of!)  AdventureGirl has been begging us for a pet of her own, and finally saved enough stars on her chart to earn one.  So, hello Peter!  Our new 6-week-old little buck bunny.  Luckily he is pretty adorable, so it isn't too much of a burden.  Sigh!

Meet Peter

Exploring the Shop

Daddy's Shop Will be THIS BIG!

All Kids Really Need is a Pile of Dirt

Yay for Hay!

Making Hay While the Sun Shines!

Whew!  The AdventureFamily was at it again, packing a whole week's worth of activities into a few days.  AdventureDad was able to get a few days off, so we headed out to NineTrees to take advantage of the wonderful weather and truly make hay.  Sounds pretty straight-forward?  Oh no!  Of course the weekend couldn't be that simple!  (We have yet to have a disaster-free hay season.  That may be an oxymoron we are not aware of yet!).  I do have to mention, however, that we arrived at 11 PM Thursday night to find that we now have POWER and WATER!!!!  No more hauling batteries and jerry cans full of fresh water for this family!  WooooHoooo!!!!
Our first scheduled activity was to drive to Richland to pick up AdventureDad's new (and last, for a LONG time!) tractor.  This would be the fourth tractor we have purchased in as many years, granted that one of the aforementioned tractors was ANCIENT and one was merely old.  However, living where and how we do (will be), we need a reliable way to clear snow in the winter (the county won't commit to maintaining our road yet), not to mention till the garden and fields, make hay, drill post holes, move, and lift all things farm-related.  The old tractors were just not reliable enough, so we finally finagled our finances enough to get a new one.  On our way back to the farm with the new tractor in tow, not to mention the new disc mower and snow blower to go with it, we had a blow-out.  One way or another, we have neglected to get a spare for our utility trailer, so we were at the mercy of the Les Schwab service team.  It was a busy day for them, so after waiting an hour or so in the sweltering heat, we finally got a temporary fix and headed back to the tire store for a set of new tires.  We had the tractor in tow, so we took the opportunity to add ballast (liquid weight that goes in the tires for added traction and momentum), and yes, saved one of the old tires as a spare.  Once again on our way, we finally arrived at the farm at almost 8 PM, approximately 7 hours later than we had planned.  So much for mowing hay that day!  AdventureDad decided to set up the mower so that he could get an early start the next morning, but it was a new tractor and a new mower, and Murphy being omnipresent where farm equipment is concerned, something was bound to, and did, go wrong.  While lifting a part of the tractor, it managed to hit part of the hydraulic system, and stripped out some vital threads.  After a gush of hydraulic fluid, we were left with a crippled hydraulic remote (that runs the arm that lifts the mower up and down).  Luckily, the mower was already in the proper position, so the hay cutting could commence.
Second on the list... we put a floor in a section of the barn to give us somewhere dry and level to stack the hay we were about to cut.  This project was actually much quicker and easier than we expected, and a good test run for the rest of the barn.  Yay us!
Our third scheduled activity was the cutting of the hay.  This too had a hiccup, as we were mowing a new part of the field.  AdventureDad found a ditch the hard way, and the impact broke one of the brackets that holds a piece that steadies the mower.  Luckily for us, we have an incredibly helpful neighbor who is also a proficient welder, and he fabricated a new one for us and welded it into place while we were in town looking for hydraulic parts.  Amazing!  Hiccups notwithstanding, the new mower did an amazing job, and AdventureDad is pretty tickled with the whole setup.  The raking and baling went surprisingly well, and with the help of the hot weather and breeze, the hay dried beautifully.  We cut 5 tons of hay, and hauled about 1 ton home to feed to the horses. Not our biggest cutting (we kept it small on purpose this year), but the best quality we have put up yet.  While AdventureDad was baling, I also broke out our small tractor and got our campsite mowed.  Considering that the grass is 4 feet high and the girls can get lost in it, this little detail made life a lot easier for us!
Last but not least, we met with the foreman from the construction company and got the go-ahead for our
foundation!!!  Hopefully the foundation will be poured before the end of June.  There is still hope for an October move-in.  Fingers crossed!  In addition, the crew that is putting up the shop got the holes drilled for the support posts.  That means we will likely have a completed shop before the end of the month... fingers crossed again!  It is so exciting and wonderful to see things progressing, FINALLY!
So, tired, sunburned, filthy, but satisfied, we limped home for a short week of "normal" life here in Gig Harbor before another weekend of "fun on the farm"  this coming weekend.   Catch our breath?  Nah!

Taking the New Hay for a Test Drive

AdventureDad's New Wheels

Temporary Water

The Beginnings of the Shop

Power!!!  Meter is at 0, but not for long...

A Whole Lot of Hole!

Wow, did we have an exciting weekend at the farm!  The pad has been excavated for our house!!!!  Our plan was to get the hole dug, then allow the still damp soil in the bottom to dry in preparation for pouring the cement foundation.  Alas, as usual, things didn't work quite as planned.  Less than a week after excavation, the heavens opened and promptly turned it into a mud bath.  So, now we wait a little longer for that foundation.  Once the cement is poured, things should be able to progress a little more smoothly, but until then it is a waiting game.
In addition to the house progress, the pad for the shop is also going in (again cement-weather dependent, although slightly less so), the driveway has been gravelled and compacted, and wonder of wonders, we got an official county address pole.  We are officially on the map!!!! Woohooo!!!  Also, the meter box should be going in as I type, and that means we should have actual, real electricity before we go out there again.  Talk about a game-changer!  We are rapidly moving from the stone ages into civilization :-)
While we were out there, AdventureDad and I also repaired the much-needed wind break for our baby orchard, and did some heavy-duty tractor shopping.  We live in a remote enough area that the county will not commit to plowing the road in the winter, so the tractor (with snow-blower) will be our link to civilization during the winter.  We made some great progress, and I am sure I will be posting more on that in the future!

Back home in Gig Harbor, I had an exciting day today when my first chick hatched.  Yes, the craziness has progressed to me incubating eggs in an attempt to get some chickens of a hard-to-find breed (in general, hatching eggs are easier to come by than chicks, but the outcome is far from certain after they get scrambled by the post office during shipment!)  It is nerve-wracking, but a lot of fun!  Yes, I am now officially chicken crazy!
O finished her last day of school today in true NW style...  a picnic complete with rains slickers and galoshes.  M's Kindergarten goes until June 18, so we have a little while before summer break officially begins. 
The baby horses are growing like weeds, and I have made pretty good progress halter breaking them, although I am dying for a round pen to work them in.  It is much harder when I have to chase them in and out of all of the nooks and corners in their current pen!  The AdventureGirls are becoming more and more interested in the horses, which makes my heart smile.  I have been reluctant to push them, as I don't want to overdo it and ruin the fun of the horses.  I am hoping my strategy will bear fruit when I can get a nice calm kids horse once we move to the farm!
AdventureDad is literally counting the days until he is done physically with the Army.  The plus side of house construction getting off to a slow start is that our time apart will be much shorter.  Now, we will likely be in the house less than a month when he can come join us at the end of November.  Yay!

I think that is it for now.  Enjoy the photopalooza!!!

Another Use for the Hay Rake

True Robin's Egg Blue!

AdventureGirls in Their Element

The Hole

Windbreak Mark 2

It's Official!

Off to a Slow Start

This spring the major focus for the AdventureFamily has been the construction of our "Someday House".  This is a term lovingly and longingly adopted by a group of fellow military families while discussing our hopes and dreams of someday settling down and belonging somewhere, owning a home we would live in for more than a few years, and generally enjoying the lives we have been working toward, well, all of our lives! 
I think I left the saga with the drilling of the well and praying for our home loan to come through.  We are still waiting, although the wheels have been slowly turning.  We have to get our building permit in order to close our construction loan, and the process has been long and arduous, with the expected errors and delays slowly accumulating.  I think we have all of the knots untied for the moment, so now we wait for the permitting office to do their thing, so that we can do our thing and finally close that loan.  That will be a wonderful day!   It is a little nerve wracking having such a large detail unresolved... it's hard to build our someday house without money!
This last weekend we towed the camper out to be our home base this summer.... Camp 9 Trees has been established for another (and hopefully the last!) season.  We had surprisingly little work to do, although AdventureDad did get some weeds sprayed.  We had a lovely drive home through the blooming apple orchards in the Columbia River Valley, and a beautiful wildflower show through the desert around Hanford.  We ran into a little surprise on the way home with a snow storm over Snoqualmie, and arrived to sun in Gig Harbor (something we never take for granted!). 
Here at home the excitement has been the arrival of the spring chicks.  We started out with the 3 that we had planned.  Then, I discovered that they had given us the wrong breed for one of them, so I went and got one of the right breed (it was one I really wanted to try), so then there were 4.  Just a few days later, Marshmallow, one of last year's hens, became broody.  That means that mother nature was telling her she needed to sit on some eggs.  The problem is that we don't have a rooster, so our eggs aren't fertile.  A broody hen will sit on the nest, not laying and eating and drinking very little, until a chick appears.  That left us with two options;  1.  Employ a "broody buster", a bare wire cage up on blocks with no nest or cozy spots that makes it impossible for a hen to nest.  It only takes a couple days to convince them that being broody is a bit too tough.  2.  Give her some fertile eggs to hatch.  Guess which option I chose?  No, I could not resist the temptation to watch instinct in action and allow her to hatch some eggs.  We have been wanting a Sussex rooster anyhow, so what better way to get one?   So, I drove to the farm where we got Marshmallow and bought 3 Sussex and 1 Orpington egg (another breed I want to try), in hopes that one of them will turn out to be a rooster (the story of egg choice is a bit more complicated, but I will spare you the details!).  So, Marshmallow is now happily installed on her nest full of eggs, and we have 14 more days to go to see how successful she is as a brooder.  If she is a good one, and we end up with a rooster, our days of buying chicks are over :-).  So, instead of 3 chicks, we have 8.  The story of my life!

The stakes marking the house site

The Stakes Marking the Shop Site

The View From Our Future Great Room

Marshmallow Brooding

A New Year

Hello 2013!
The AdventureFamily wrapped up 2012 with a Christmas at home, which was lovely, although tinged with a lot of worry as Grandpa ended up in the ICU following emergency cholecystectomy, renal failure, and pancreatitis on Christmas Eve.  Nana had a short stay in the room right next door with a bowel torsion as well, so it made for a bit of a cliff-hanger.  Thankfully Grandpa is well into his recovery now, Nana is working her way slowly and painfully toward medical management of some motility issues, and life at the Grandparent's is slowly reaching an even keel.  Whew!  It made me realize that this is the first time that I can recall Grandpa ever having been hospitalized, ever.  Pretty good for a guy who is turning 75 in a few days!  It was also the first time that I have truly feared for his life, which is not a nice feeling.  Similar to when Nana was diagnosed with breast cancer, it really made me reflect on my relationship with my parents and brother, and how close we all are as a scattered but loving family.  We are certainly not ready for anyone to go, and with this behind us, it should be a good long time before we have to face "any of that".
One bright side of the tumultuous holidays is that Grandma Honey has once again joined our family for a prolonged stay.  She made an expedited trip out here to pinch-hit for me if I needed to make a rush trip to be with Nana and Grandpa, and agreed to stay to help me through the recovery for my knee surgery.  That means that we celebrated New Year's Day with Grandma Honey, as well as a wonderful visit from AdventureDad's brother Michael and his family.
So we in the AdventureFamily have also had a medically active New Year.  AdventureDad found out early in January that he needed several crowns and some other dental repair work.  He HATES having dental work done, and unfortunately for him, a lot of it has been done in foreign countries or in temporary circumstances that became permanent, so now it is time to fix it up for good.  Of course in the military system, why do in one trip what you can do in three?  so the frequent visits to the dentist began.  He showed up expecting a crown, and left without a tooth after it disintegrated while they were exploring.  After a really rough extraction due to all the pieces embedded in his jaw (thank goodness he was sedated), he was sent home to recover, looking like he came out on the wrong end of a boxing match.  After the site heals, it is back again, and again, and again (I think we totaled at least 6 visits coming up) for the other crowns (hopefully no further extractions), a post and implant, and filling repairs.  Poor guy!  Oh yeah, and they still haven't done  his cleaning!
The AdventureGirls both caught a nasty cold a week ago, which then spread to myself and Grandma Honey (GH from now on).  GH and O are on antibiotics now, while M and myself seem to be recovering.  Thankfully AdventureDad was spared, because he has been working extra hard during my recovery.  That leads to me and my knee.  I ended up getting my ACL reconstructed using a piece of my hamstring tendon on Tues.  This is a very common and straight-forward repair involving drilling a hole in the femur (above the knee) and the tibia (below the knee), then threading a piece of harvested tendon through the holes and securing it there with a button on top and a screw below.  They are able to pull and tunnel the hamstring tendon out through one of the drill incisions when they harvest it, so there is a minimal number of cuts in the skin.  They also removed some bony scar tissue developing on my patella.  The good news is that the meniscus looked great, which made me happy I did the surgery now, since it risks tearing every time my knee goes out.  So, now I am four days post-op (I won't even talk about the first two, which were pretty awful), hobbling around when I need to and elevating/icing the rest of the time.  I start physical therapy on Monday, and I am looking forward to the day when my knee is a bit more recognizable and a lot more functional!
Of course dispersed through all of the medical mayhem, we have been making progress on Nine Trees.  We met early in January with the owner of the company that we chose for our house construction and staked out the house with him.  Now THAT felt like progress!  It was our first visit to the farm that time of year, and was only possible because our wonderful neighbors had cleared the road of the three-foot drifts that had piled up.  Life is certainly going to be a lot more "elemental" when we live on the mountain!  We also got conditionally approved for our construction loan, which, while not yet a sure thing, is a huge step in the right direction!
We also added two new horses to our herd, while losing one.  A dear friend has been in the horse rescue field for a long time, and had built up quite a herd of both rescue and owned horses.  With the poor economy she has been unable to do enough work to support them all, and was faced with rehoming as many as possible before her hay ran out.  Lisbonne and Seville were two babies born last spring, that are half arab, half mustang (my dream mix!).  They are still a few years away from rideable, which is perfect for me and the ages of the girls, and in the meantime I can do all of the groundwork and gentling and have them ready to ride when the time comes.  So, the little ones (which are hard to find homes for because they can't be ridden right away) came to me, and Apple went back to Aunt Jess's.  (Jess was the one who initially enabled my getting Apple all those years ago, talk about a full circle!).  Apple is a stubborn girl, and not kid-horse material, and she will stand a much better chance of finding a good working home in that part of the country.

I am sure I have missed oodles of things, but that is the major-item summary of the year so far.  Happily for us, things are unlikely to slow down as progress on the house picks up in preparation for construction this Spring.  AdventureDad has an important job interview coming up in February, so keep your fingers crossed and I will hopefully have something to report on that next blog!

O and Lisbonne meeting for the first time

Left is Lisbonne, 6-month filly,  Right is Seville, 8 month colt

Meeting Apollo

Fuzzy winter coats.  This is a heat-wave for them!

The monster that ate my knee