Loving Farm

We closed on the purchase of Loving Farm on April Fool’s Day, 2020. Interestingly enough, we sold the city house on Friday the 13th, 2020. As soon as I heard that Friday, November 13th would be the date to close, something inside of me knew it was going to happen. It is 2020, after all!

Having completed the duck run and coop, Perriee left her job at the end of September, as we were putting the house on the market. We rented a few U-hauls to move our stuff, 15 feet at a time. With the pandemic in full swing, and being able to work from home all of the time, it just made sense to scale it back and take the plunge to move to the country. We are literally Making Time for Tipi now! The intentions that have been set are coming to fruition and we could not be more pleased!

#lotsaflocka

We think the ducks have something called, “gapeworm” and are going to be heading to vet via Howard on Tuesday. I made the appointment on a Tuesday, but they had a week long wait, or we would have had him seen sooner. He is going as the family representative, since ultimately, how we treat him for whatever he has, will be done to all four of them. It has been stressful, per usual to find a vet in the vicinity. I called some places close by, but no one sees duckies, so he will have an hour ride ahead of him to get to a doc that saw June before for a stuck egg. A dream would be for someone to come here to see them. Fingers crossed that it is a manageable treatment. They are all eating and drinking and spry, so not the emergency in “vet speak”.

Our current projects are focused on keeping the pipes warm, with some insulation and getting the house’s legs stabilized by having some pier and beam reinforcement done in the basement. There is a large stone missing from one of the piers and maybe someone removed a supportive wall at some point. We are on the list for February unless there is a cancellation. The people we hired seem super organized and professional – a husband and wife couple.

It has been getting cooler, so we had to get the pilot lit on the propane furnace. Both of our propane heaters are amazing. They are by-far my favorite features of this house. I have always wanted a gas fireplace, and now we have two of them! The electric is on in the trailer and the barn now too. We feel the progress and somehow, amidst it all, I am finding more moments of relaxation and self care. I think it is good.

Homework

Tip your Uhaul movers. During one of our truck moves, we hired movers through Uhaul so we could save our backs on the large items (picnic table, matress/boxspring, dressers, etc.). Compared to having a mover drive the truck, it was several hundred dollars difference to drive the truck ourselves and have someone else do the lifting. Something felt like it was a gig type job and they were getting little more than base pay and hopefully some insurance if they got hurt on the job.

We have almost had our new property for 4 months now and overall, it has been wonderful. The pandemic sucks, the racial injustice in this country persists like the plague, but we are grateful to have the distraction of what we call for now, Loving Farm. If you are not familiar, the Lovings were the couple who fought the state of Virginia to be allowed to marry in 1967. They were a mixed race couple, and at the time, it was illegal for them to be together because of it. When the anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling passed this June, it was clear that we should name the place after them.

Our current projects at Loving Farm:

Building the duck run.

It seems that due to the pandemic, I may not be going back to work for a while, and we really want to be there more right now, so we are building the Fresh Eggs Daily inspired poultry run so we can move the duckies out there. All of the posts have been sunk into concrete and we have some welded wire on deck to start wrapping it up with. We just need to keep these duckies alive here in the city so they get to hang out there when it is finished. Although there are 4 acres of land there, we think it is best to make them a predator proof run to hang out in to keep them extra safe from all creatures who find them to be so delicious.

New windows.

We sold our souls a couple of weeks ago to have a house full of windows installed at the house. Is it expensive? Hell yes. Will we be able to open every window so our friends and family can visit during pandemic time and have adequate airflow? Hell yes. Right now, without air conditioning, the house actually stays relatively comfortable with only being able to open two doors and turn on some ceiling fans. We have not even tried to open any of the windows that are there. They might fall out! All of the frames are very rotten and yes, we know how to replace them, but this is one area that a professional can handle. We could not even find the quality of the windows we are getting anyplace else, and lets be realistic about the time it will save us as well. Having these new windows will be a real game changer.

Propane, the clean burning fuel!

We are all set up with a new full propane tank. The guy who installed it even got us down from two tanks to only needing one! The other company still needs to come get the old ones, but we are ready for winter (for the most part). He even fired up the big furnace in the living room, which we honestly did not even know would still work.

Hot and cold running water.

All of the plumbing in the house is replaced and we have a brand new hot water tank. Saying we are mostly ready for winter, we still need a plan to make sure the tank stays warm in its spot underneath the house, where there is no direct heat.

Ripped down a deck.

Perriee took the back deck down while I planted some wildflower seeds that we bought from American Meadows and other plants that were gifted to us by a friend. The deck was not safe, and we can’t wait to rebuild it!

That pretty much sums up our progress over the last four months. Toss in some mental anguish from the pandemic, working to keep the Black Lives Matter message alive, the regular 9-5, phone banking for Charles Booker, and taking care of the city house, and it really looks like we have been busy.

Homework: Have one difficult conversation.

Speaking up for what is right is not easy but this is not the time to let it wait. In the last couple of months I forced myself to have a couple. My goal is not to change someone’s mind about racial injustice, but to speak up about it. I cannot take responsibility for someone else’s point of view, but i do have control over sharing my thoughts, especially with people I care about who I do not want to be left behind on the wrong side of history. My goal was to ask for an ear to hear me and to do my best to listen to their words in return. Think about it. If you can get someone to hear you, no matter what, even if they openly disagree with you, they HEARD the words. It is impossible to UNHEAR them. They will think about it. It could help. However small the needle moves, we have to keep pushing it. The Lovings did, and I would not be married to my soulmate today, were it not for them.

Tag: Loving Farm

Friday the 13th.