Quick Update & Moving Plans

It's just the four of us again; Husband's Cousin and her Husband moved on to California December 31. It was nice to put the house back in order and start getting everything ready for the big move.

For those of you who don't know, we are planning on moving to Missouri at the end of March. With some friends of ours(hereafter known as Ps133Husband and Ps133Wife or Ps133Friends for both), we purchased five acres of forrested hillside just outside Laurie, Missouri in the beautiful Lake of the Ozarks area. Our friends are currently in Jefferson City, Missouri collecting farming tools and trying to stay warm while working part time at Best Buy.

So, basically our plan is to pack everything we own into a 5x8 enclosed cargo trailer and drive out there, spend a little time with our Ps133Friends and then head on out to the property. Our first priority once we are actually on the land is for Husband to build us a house! McGee and I will enjoy helping of course, but the bulk of the responsibility will lie with him. (Though Bernard might enjoy playing in the mud, she probably won't be all that helpful in the house builiding endeavors.) To keep costs low, in keeping with what we feel the Lord is calling us to do, we will be building a stone house using an adobe/cobb mixture for mortar (basically that is a spiffy way of saying mud and weeds).

We are already getting things ready. Mostly this involves downsizing to the essentials and a few frills (for instance we will be bringing the trampoline that Grandma and Papa got for the girls. I'm not sure which category this would fit into...The girls love to jump! Though Bernard more bounces than jumps. :) ) We are also trying to get used to life without all of the conveniences, such as electric kitchen gadgets. We feel that the Lord is asking us to work our way toward a completely self sufficient farm environment. To do this, we need to minimize costs, such as utilities. We plan to have some solar power and a generator for needful things, but for a lot of things, we want to simplify and learn new ways to do things or learn to do without.

This last part has actually been pretty easy so far. Rather than plug in the electric vegetable steamer, I now use a steamer basket inside a pot. This will make veggie prep a breeze with a woodburning cook stove. We love steamed veggies! Rather than plug in the crock pot, I will just simmer a pot on the stove. You get the idea. The hardest appliance to replace with a non-electric version was the clothes washer. We bought ourselves a good washboard from Lehman's General Store and I started washing our clothes by hand. It didn't take long at all for us to figure out that we had to find another solution. (Even just for our family of four, laundry took a LONG time.) So, we did a little searching and found this great tool to agitate laundry by hand, much like a conventional washer would. This cut our laundry time down significantly, making the switch manageable. Plus, McGee loves to help with laundry now. Her favorite part is agitating the laundry (however, it still needs a good once over from Mama when she is done). We have also found that the clothes get at least as clean and often much cleaner this way than they used to in the washer. Since I already used a laundry line most of the time anyway, that was one less thing to adjust to.

Our third way of preparing for the move is research, research, research. Husband is focusing on studying up on different building methods and such, while our Ps133friends are looking at vegetables and herbs and I am learning all I can about the animals we would like to have on the farm. So far, we most definately want to start with guinea fowl and chickens and eventually have a few sheep. Right now I am learning about guinea fowl and we are pretty stoked about these little birds. Keep your eyes open for a post on my research findings. You just may learn a thing or two, and maybe even wind up wanting a few guineas yourself. :)

All in all, we are excited to see where the Lord takes us and all that is in front of us, though we will miss Grandma and Papa being so close.
Rejoicing in the day that the Lord has made,
My Family
(Wife Speaking)