Moving into Fall

Time is Running Out

Well, as Fall approaches, our time on the farm is slowly ending. With no furnace we can't work through the winter. Our goal at this point is to finish one last bedroom and prepare it for winter. Last weekend we had to go up on Saturday morning instead of Friday night because I was part of Art on the Plaza in West Allis. I also had to pay a bill in the morning and so we got a late start and did not actually arrive there until around 11:00 a.m.

Regardless, we still got a lot accomplished. While Greg tackled the electric in the bedroom, I sanded the walls and ceiling. I was able to prime everything except for the ceiling before we left. Greg was able to finish all of the electricity. The week before we found another great fan light for the room at the Restore and so we are looking forward to finishing the room and installing that.

It was also Cheese Days in Monroe and we wanted to check that out. We managed to make it to the festival on Sunday for about an hour and saw the parade. I got to try Limburger cheese for the first time. Which, I did not think had a horrible odor like I was told... and I enjoyed the flavor. After that, we drove home to West Allis.

While at the farm on Saturday night we had a visitor. Greg will introduce you to him.

Laurie

Yes, we had a visitor.  We were cooking a late dinner, and chatting about what we had accomplished, and Laurie saw a shadow fly by.  And then again......

Suddenly, she jumped up, grabbed her purse and ran out.  I followed.  She had seen a bat.  We had seen one in April, but have not seen any since.  I went in, turned on all the lights, and found our cute friend hanging in what was the dining room.

I decided to close off the room as much as I could, so his only exit was the front door, which Laurie (who was still outside with her purse) agreed to open as he came. No matter what kind of noise or action I took, he decided to just hang in there.  I finally nudged him with a long piece of drywall. He flew around and landed on a screen I had used to block off the kitchen.  After a moment, he (or she, I never got close enough to check) was off again, circled the room twice and found the space I was unable to block into the living room and parlor.  

He disappeared.

I looked in every place the bat could be hiding, and he could not be found.  Eventually, Laurie came in with her purse, we locked the door and went to bed, with our bedroom door firmly closed.

-Greg  

PS Good thing I had my purse! (Laurie).

Water, Electric, and More.

Took Friday off of work so we had a three day weekend on the farm.  In the past, that meant just an extra day struggling in the bathroom.  But with the bathroom done, it seems like things are moving along more quickly.

On Friday morning, after a good nights sleep in the teardrop, I started with the water.  As you can see from many pictures of the farm, we have yellow rock everywhere.

No surprise, it is also in the water. The drain pipes I removed were FILLED with the yellow rock, and water left sitting in a bucket leaves the yellow sediment at the bottom.

*Normally, I would insert a picture here of the bathtub filled with yellow water, but the only one we have is one with a person bathing.  If it is Laurie, she wouldn't want me to post it here, and if it is me, you wouldn't want to see it*

So I bought, and inserted this weekend, an inline filter.  It actually went well, and I finished quickly.

Well, with that task done, I quickly moved on to the next.  A few weeks ago, in a storm, wind took off about 7 shingles from a ridge on the roof.  I know enough about roofing to make the repair, but the steepness of the roof, and the height of our home did make me pause.  Added to this, is Laurie's constant belief that I will hurt myself in ordinary tasks, and cannot be trusted (Okay, there was the incident with the circular saw, and well, lets just move on).

The actual work did not take long, and I was done in about an hour, but It was high, and steep, and well, it is done.

The rest of the weekend was spent mowing the lawn, watering trees, working on the garden and.....

The master bedroom has been completed.  That means that working a few weekends a month, for 3 months, has given us updated plumbing, a new bathroom, 6 outlets upstairs when there were none, and two roomsx completed and rewired.

In any job of this size, it is REALLY easy to get frustrated with how long things are taking.  Laurie and I both have dreams of the house done, a few dogs, chickens, and sheep.  A horse or two, and a pony for the grand kids.  Steers grazing.

And Artists.

Artists everywhere, painting, sculpting, exchanging ideas, and community.

But I digress.

When the dreams run deep, it is hard to see all the steps needed to reach those dreams, and to take them patiently.

But we will.

-Greg

Little Birdies Alive and Well

Amazing Life

We spent the weekend at the farm. The highlight was watching the baby birds in the nest right outside our door. Mom and Dad both working so hard to provide food. The nest seems to be getting a bit crowded with five growing babies in it now. Each struggles to pop up its head when they sense Mom or Dad approaching with something to eat. So amazing to watch their five yellow beaks open wide to let the food inside. 

We won't be back for two weeks now. I hope we can see them fly next time we visit. I hope we don't miss it!

Laurie

All are hungry,

two have been fed.

I want more!

Exploring our Land

A Walk around our Property

One day after going into town for dinner we decided to take a walk around our property.  Greg had done this before but this was the first for me. As we walked I took a few short videos. However, at this time I cannot figure out how to get the videos on this blog; they seem to be too large. Therefore, at least for now, I am posting pics from various distances while walking the perimeter.

It took us about an hour to walk the land - 15 acres. 

Beginning our walk,

getting a little further away;

the house is getting smaller.

You can barely make out the house now.

Higher up on the mound, you can see a spec of white.

Laurie

In the Beginning

In the Beginning

It all started in 2007 when I (Laurie Pledl) met Greg.  We met online through Yahoo Personals. Greg had a hobby farm before and he was dreaming of having one again.  I love animals and have always enjoyed farms but I never really thought about owning one.  As our relationships grew, so did this dream.  Greg quickly found out that he met someone whose dreams become realities, if at all possible. We married in 2008.

 Greg's other dream was to build a teardrop trailer.  I heard him talk about it for years and saw him research it many times.  Finally, with my encouragement, we started building.  I bought him some plans online for his birthday.  Greg found out that it was not that difficult to do and we discovered that we work well together. Our teardrop has been done for about 8 years now and we have traveled many places with it.  Some of our longer vacations in the teardrop include: the Outer Banks, NC, Maryland, Utah, California, Virginia, and Florida.  The teardrop has also played a huge role in our farm dream.  In fact, I would have to say that our farm dream could not have become a reality without our teardrop.

For five years Greg and I searched First Weber Realty online for farms.  We found a few we liked and went to look at several properties.  It was simply remaining a dream. It was getting tiring and frustrating for me. I believe Greg enjoyed the looking and dreaming more than me.  All of a sudden, a property we had looked at before showed up again.  The price was down a bit but probably still a little more expensive than we could afford.  What intrigued us was that it was listed as an old Montgomery Ward house, it had 15 acres and it was in the drift less area of Wisconsin (a part of Wisconsin in the western part of the State that was not covered by glaciers in the ice age).  We made an appointment to see it.  We looked at the house in February, 2018.  There was snow on the ground and it was cold.  The house clearly needed a lot of work. It had stood vacant for over 8 years.  However, the potential for this house was plentiful. What sold me on this property was not only the house but also the area.  In researching the nearby city of Monroe, I discovered it was quite a quaint with an artistic flare.  It has a great town square and some really fun shops and places to eat. It is also not far from Madison, WI.  As a graduate from U.W. Madison, I was thrilled.  Greg can live out in isolation and have no one else to talk to but I, however, would go stir crazy.  This place was looking better to me all of the time. We started to think about it more seriously. 

Before we even put in an offer, we had the well tested.  The current owner did not want to deal with any contingencies due to a few previous deals falling through.  The water tested fine and we put in our offer.  It was considerably lower than the asking price but Greg had figured out that we would have to put about $55,000 into it.  We decided to leave it to fate and put in a low bid based on what we could afford.  To our amazement and surprise, the offer was accepted.  Then we had to start jumping through some hoops; loan companies have a lot of them.  Our credit was really good though and so we were able to make the jumps like thoroughbreds. The expenses began to multiply.  Even before closing we discovered we had to put in a septic system.  We decided that this was not a bad expense to get out of the way. We closed on our farm on April 27th, 2018.

This blog will be the making of our farm dream come true.  We will share our progress of fixing up this old 1915 house and making it great once again. Stay tuned for our struggles and excitement as Greg and I create our dream farm.