Photos of Dirt

 This one really isn't of dirt, but if I started out with just dirt, would I lose your interest?  David took this photo as we were coming out of the woods on our neighbor's farm.  It's a 55 acre farm, right next door to us, and David has loved parts of it for years.  When we go hiking on the back of our property, we are on a hillside.  Just once, David hopped the fence to the neighbor's property and found himself at the top of the hill with a spectacular view.  If you've ever been to our house and looked off our front deck, you know that spectacular views are pretty common here, but this was breathtaking.  He said then, "If this property comes up for sale, I hope we're in a position to buy it."  A couple weeks ago, our neighbor called and said, "I need to sell my farm.  Are you interested?"  We've made an offer, contingent upon financing.  She has accepted the offer.  All our information is being reviewed with Farm Credit Services, and we pray it all works out!  It will be a lot of work--the house on the property needs substantial plumbing work, all new floors, a roof leak (and ceiling hole) to be repaired, paint, and the property has a substantial amount of clean up work needed.  The barns need to have loose metal on the roofs removed and replaced, cleanup, and replacement of the boards around the foundation.  Our hope is that we can get enough out in the loan to make the necessary repairs and then be able to rent the house to help pay for the loan.  Based on our calculations, we could get by without a renter, but it would be extremely tight.  Our long term goal in this venture is to have enough land to give to our children so they can start their adult life without heaps of debt.  It was a great blessing to David and I when my mom gave us half of her property as a wedding present.  We were able to use it as equity for a home and have enjoyed working our land ever since.  With 4 children, it's a little bigger task to do this than it was for my mom (since I'm an only child).  With housing and land prices right now, not to mention interest rates, this may be our best opportunity to make that sort of investment.

 This is a photo of a plumbing line going to what will one day be one of our automatic waterers.  That big black tube is an insulated tube so that the water line as it crosses the frost line will not freeze before it hits the waterer.  When this trench gets filled in, we will need to put concrete around the base of the tube to which we will bolt the waterer.  Since taking this photo, there has been added another line running to the outside of the tube--electrical wire in conduit.  It will provide electricity for a GFCI plug for plugging in heaters for the waterer so the water in it doesn't freeze in the winter.  It is a lot of work getting all of this in place, but I know that it will be worth it!!!  I will never have to break ice out of buckets or haul buckets in the house again!

This is a photo of David working in the mud hole tht has been the location of a leak we keep trying to fix and only succeed at making worse!  And my fuzzy haired shadow above.  We are losing 2.5 gallons of water per hour due to the leak, which works out to be about $20 a month in an elevated water bill.  After multiple attempts at fixing this (and my stress level sky rockets every time we cut into the main line because I have a horrible fear of being without water) we have decided to get help.  I look forward to a backhoe working in this mess, as opposed to me and my ice cream pail.  

 This is Ted, one of the owners of the propane company we use.  He helped install our original propane tank 12 years ago, before his sons were old enough to be of help in his company.  He also helped fill in some of the water line trench behind our house while our new propane tank was being set.  I am so thankful!  We had planned on David pulling the dirt back in the trench with the front loader on the tractor, but the front loader wouldn't reach across the trench to the piles of dirt!  I put several inches of dirt over the water line with a shovel and pulled rocks out of the mix while I was at it.  I still wonder if my left elbow will ever be the same! 

This is our new propane tank getting set in a hole.  Our old tank is on the truck in the background.  The men working with the new tank are the sons of the man in the above photo.  He told me, "I grew my help--four sons!"  As a mother of 4 children, that's pretty neat to hear and see.  It was also neat to watch these brothers work together and with their dad.  I'm excited that when you drive up to our house now, the big white tank will not be the first thing you see! 

I have a gazillion more photos of all this stuff, but it's mostly dirt, and that's not terribly interesting to most people!  I will have a gazillion more photos to share, too, before our projects are all complete!