BEEN BUSY BUT THE SUNSETS ARE WORTH IT

 Sorry for our absence.  It's been busy.  Still unpacking and moving stuff but making process.

Caught this sunset last night.  It was going down fast and it had been a long day but wow...

...sunsets like this we wouldn't trade for anything in the world now.  We are definitely in our element.  Now, we just need to get the house finished, ha.

Hope you all are having a great weekend!

WE HAVE A WELL SHED NEW HOUSE UPDATE

There was another concrete project we had done and it was for a special reason that we can now show you.

This was the way our well was installed.  They don't put anything big underneath, it was just a 3x3 concrete pad that came standard.

So, when the driveway was being worked on, we had them expand the area to hold an 84"x84"...

...slab!!  They poured concrete all around it.  This was the day of the pour...

...and this was after it had cured but before they removed the forms.  By the way, it was sprinkling this particular day, ha.

You may ask, why did you need to have a bigger slab poured?  Well (no pun intended, ha), we decided to get a well shed to protect our investment!

They installed it the other day...

And here it is!

It looks great!  It's exactly what we wanted.  We had the slab poured to be a little bigger than the building itself so that I can mow/edge around it without striking the building and damaging it. They also bolted it into the concrete so it's not going to blow over in a windstorm.

Best of all...

The shape matches the barn and mower shed!

It's built by a company called Polar Sheds.  They make sheds for this exact purpose.  It will protect our equipment from freezing temps (we can put a heater or light bulb out there if needed).

From their website:

"Our well houses are constructed with polystyrene between metal panels. The walls, roof and trim use an upcycled product commonly known as a sandwich panel.  The panels are 1.75" thick and consist of two sheets of 26-gauge primed steel with solid core polystyrene in between."

Here is the thickness, you can see it here on the door, the walls are the same way.  It has a latch so we can lock it if needed and even has a nice drip edge/drip cap above the door.

There is also an eye hook on the top and that way, if the well tank or pump ever need major servicing, it can be easily lifted off the slab.  A well service vehicle has the winch with crane to do this since they routinely pull pumps and tanks.

We should have no need to worry about freezing temps around the well equipment.  Also, it will all be out of our monsoon rains (and that has already been tested and the concrete stayed dry).  Lastly, it will be out of the blazing sun in the Summer.  Win/win/win!

Now, we just need it to match.  We're sensing some red and white painting in our future!

THANKSGIVING DINNER 2025

 Our first Thanksgiving in the new house is in the books.

It was quiet, just the two of us, but we got to use our new kitchen.  We considered it a dry run for next year's entertaining festivities.

We cracked open a bottle of wine...a Pinot Grigio that paired well with turkey.

2nd Man made some rolls, they were delicious!

I handled the snacks. Tried to go with as healthy as possible.  Mixed nuts (no salt), zero fat chips, a dip made with Beau Monde seasoning but using greek yogurt and the mayo we discovered that's so good, so it's virtually zero saturated fat, and then sausage balls, a holiday tradition, made with turkey sausage and 2% milk fat cheese.  We have to say, we didn't miss the regular versions, it was terrific!

I broke out our special "can-berry" dish (don't hate on those of us that like canned cranberry sauce!, ha).

I also made us a Caprese salad...fresh tomatoes (including those brown variety we found a few months back), basil, mozzarella and then drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

The turkey that 2nd Man roasted came out perfectly (more on that in a future post).

He also made the stuffing and giblet gravy (totally forgot to get a picture of those).

I roasted some Brussels sprouts with turkey bacon and balsamic vinegar.

I set the table, we had all the food on the island and we jumped in!

The salad first.  SO good!

And then the main event (took the skin off the turkey for serving of course).

We were full and happy...

We are indeed all of these...

We are home.

We are grateful.

We are blessed.

And we are thankful.

Hope you all had a wonderful long weekend.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING 2025

 We are finally in our forever home for our first Thanksgiving.  Turkey is in the oven (one of them), yeast rolls are rising, everything else is prepped and ready to go, and we have some nice jazz music playing over our ceiling speakers.  Oh, and the doors to the screened in porch are open with someone on a property nearby burning their fireplace so we get to enjoy the fireplace smell without having to clean it up, ha.

It's wonderful and we are so grateful.

We are also thankful for all of you coming along with us on this journey.  It's been a process getting here but hey, fun times are ahead, that's for sure!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU ALL!

RAINY WEATHER A VIEW AND A TURKEY UPDATE

Thankgiving Day is almost upon us!

Here is a morning of coffee (and hot tea for me) on the screened in porch.  No big table yet but we're using an end table and a couple of chairs.  We'll never get tired of this view, that's for sure!

We had some heavy rain the other day, in fact, it was our first big thunderstorm since being out here.  It was pretty intense, and there was about an hour of tornado warnings (radar indicated tornado) but thankfully, everything was fine for us, the storms went the other direction and did unfortunately cause some damage.  

The plants are happy with the rain for sure.

The next morning, when I was heading to work, it was wet and very foggy!  But again, wouldn't trade this view now for anything.  Quiet and peaceful...

Dry brining turkeys update:

Here they are as of last night.  Two 13.5lb turkeys doing their thing.  The skin is tightening up and getting more translucent.  They are rubbed with olive oil and then seasoned inside and out and under the skin with our blend of seasoning.  They should taste amazing and we can't wait!

Tomorrow, they hit the ovens!

Happy Thanksgiving Eve!

THANKSGIVING PREP UNDERWAY IN THE NEW HOUSE

Our first Thanksgiving in the new house at the farm is coming soon.  

We can think of no better way to wake up and have a cup of coffee and breakfast while looking out the window at this!

We aren't having anyone over as the rest of the house isn't ready for that.  The dining room table is still a landing zone for unpacking from the garage and the screened in porch dining table is still in the storage unit, ha.

We cleaned off the island so we could prep our turkeys!  We have SO much room.  Now we can begin work on meal prepping for Thanksgiving!

We are doing our tradition of dry brining in the fridge for several days prior and now that we have the space with our garage refrigerator, we are doing two this year.  One for us for Thanksgiving and one for roasting and taking all the meat off to stock the freezer for turkey meals through the year.

And if I find some on clearance after Thanksgiving, there might be more since we have the space.

We rub the turkeys with olive oil and our farmhouse blend of spices and then pop them in the fridge.

They both fit perfectly!  This was something we could never have done before without the space (and double ovens to cook them) so it's a win/win for sure!

Hope your Thanksgiving week is off to a good start!

NEW FRUIT TREES AND BUSHES

Our "new" county has an annual fruit tree sale via their master gardening group.  It's a fundraiser of sorts and they choose varieties that are perfect for our area.  They sent out a list of what is available, and you order and then pick up a month or so later.  I chose what we wanted/needed and placed my order.  It was a rainy day when I needed to pick them up (the following pics were after the rain, ha).

I drove the truck to the location (nearby small town) and I must say, they had a well-oiled machine at the pick-up location, that's for sure!  I drove in, they checked my ID, verified our order and radioed ahead to another spot where they started picking the items.  Then, I drove over there, they checked again and loaded them into the back of the truck.  While they were loading, someone stood at the driver's window and explained when to plant, how to protect, etc for each plant we selected.  Pretty cool!  I made it back in just a light rain.

Here are the six we got:

A "panamint nectarine" to replace the one we lost last year.

A "mid pride peach" also to replace another one.

We had four blueberry bushes, one of them was not doing well so we opted to get a replacement for it.  We think the one that we had to get rid of was not suited for our climate.  This one is a "jewel blueberry", perfect for our area.

We only have one plum currently and an empty bed next to that one.  Needed a second one so we chose a "Santa Rosa plum".

Here's something new.  Of course, we do have dewberries growing wild on our property but we're going to try this as a little something extra.  This is a "Natchez blackberry", a thornless variety.  It will be fun to see how it is to grow some blackberries and how different they are from the wild dewberries.

And for 2nd Man, I bought a "Satsuma mandarin orange".  He loves them as snacks and now that we are here full time, we can keep our citrus protected as needed.  This one won't go in the ground just yet; we'll get a large pot for it so we can move it as needed.  Maybe once it gets bigger, we can move it into the ground and just cover it in Winter.  We can keep it lit with the C9 Christmas bulbs that we have for that purpose.

Next Spring, I will get a lime and a Meyer lemon.

Here is an example of a couple of spots.  I have already cleared them out (did that last weekend!).  They'll be ready for planting next Spring, once Winter is done with us.  There are a couple I can plant now, but it might be easier to wait until the Spring with so much else going on getting settled into the new house.  Anyway, in these two, the peach will go in the square bed, and the round one will be for the blueberry.  The others have been cleared.

This leaves us needing to only replace one more.  That crazy apple tree that is all bent in the wrong direction.  It's just not growing right and it's not producing fruit properly, but that one will require a bit of work.  It's a Spring project for sure.  Or maybe the removal is a good cool weather Winter project and the planting of the new one will be a Spring project.

WE ARE LOVING LIFE

 It was a lot of hard work getting here, but we are here and wow, we are loving every moment of it.  We are at peace and enjoying our new life.

The builders came and removed all the debris, the dumpster and the porta potty and now we have our wonderful view back...

This is the view from the kitchen sink.

Outside it is nice and quiet and peaceful once again.

2nd Man is loving the kitchen.  This was the day we closed.  Unfortunately, it's a bit crazy now as we unpack but more pics when it's more organized.

Speaking of...

...if you look at our previous pics, you can see we have made quite a bit of progress.  Of course, a lot of it is us bringing it inside the house and then putting it on a horizontal surface so we can figure out what goes where.  Slow and steady but it's progress!

We've also gotten some of the furniture from the old farmhouse out of the barn and shed.  I loaded these chairs into the truck and drove them to the back of the house.  We washed them and got them all nice and clean.  These are the chairs that will go around the table on the screened in porch (the table is in the nearby storage unit, we'll work on that soon).

While I was outside working, the "neighbors" came to say hi.  Or maybe they were just nosey about who moved in next door, ha!

The sunsets alone are worth it!

My drive to work it about an hour each way.  Not too bad.  The only downside is that this time of year, I get home in the dark.  So I can't do anything outside (well, much, I do water as needed) until the weekend.

Another thing, time seems to go slower out here and we love that.  We get up early on the weekends, I've been able to do stuff outside whenever I want,  we've run some errands to little nearby towns to learn the grocery stores and shops, we're getting things put up and we're eating some healthy good food.

Not gonna lie, it's wonderful out here.

CARDINALS COME TO VISIT

The day we closed on the house, we stopped by afterward with our keys to lock it all up.

We looked out the dining room window and this cardinal was sitting there looking into the house.  

The day we moved in, we looked out the kitchen window and this cardinal was on the front porch railing.

In the days since we've moved in, we have several cardinals all hanging around the house all the time.  We remember a story about cardinals coming to visit are loved ones who have passed coming by to say hello.  We'd like to believe our parents or maybe even Ma who owned this place before us, are coming to visit us and wish us well in our new adventure.

We are LOVING life here.  I'll write more of an update Tuesday, but for now, just know that we are in our element and life is good!

As a bonus, here is some good food:

For our first real breakfast/brunch in the new house we had this.  Scrambled egg whites (plus one whole egg for the color) with potatoes, jalapeño, cilantro and onion...homemade corn tortillas, a smashed avocado and some homemade salsa to finish it all off.

#lifeisgood

SOME MORE APPLIANCES

 We had some appliances delivered after we closed.  The first two were refrigerators.  We have always wanted a second fridge for the garage for extra space.  We found a Frigidaire model that was "garage ready" meaning it's made to be in the extreme temps of a garage (hot summer/cold winter).

This is it in place.  We put it next to the utility sink which is right next to the door going outside to the grilling/cooking porch.  It will be convenient for carrying food in and out to that area.

Here is the inside.  Now keep in mind, this is all refrigerator, no freezer space.  We just wanted to have the space for drinks and then a spot for doing our marinating and dry brining of turkeys/chicken.  Also, a space for fruit and produce that need to be refrigerated.  Should be very convenient.

Then inside, we got the matching (to our other appliances) refrigerator.  We decided we didn't want ice/water in the door; we like the clean look outside...

...and the extra space it gives inside with no ice in the door.  There is still water inside in the door, you can see it there on the left door, but we'll have our water machine in the pantry as well.  There is ice in the lower freezer section.  You might ask, you have lots of fridge space but what about freezer space?  Well, the lower one here will be for stuff we use regularly and often but you know me and my vacuum sealer and prepping food for later...

We got a second freezer.   It actually is the match to the garage refrigerator.  They are made to be used side by side if needed.  It's basic but like the fridge, this one is all freezer.  We will have a LOT of space for stuff.  We put it in the laundry room. 

Our goal, between the pantry and our fridge and freezer space, is to get stocked up and then we will only have to go to the store for specific things.  As you can see, already getting things in here (unorganized, ha).  These are some of the things from the prior freezer (the rest is currently in the bottom freezer drawer of the main fridge in the kitchen).  Soon, the goal will be to get this organized.  Stay tuned!

And yes, for those curious, we are getting a generator to keep these three appliances running in the event of power outage.

We're getting settled in!  Slowly but surely!