Adventure Awaits (part 2)!

Now that I had a job in the mountains, the hard part would begin. Leaving my current position, packing, finding a place to live, moving, and finally starting a new job. My head was spinning so fast once I was offered the job that I wasn’t entirely sure where to start. I spoke with my principal to tell her that I would definitely be leaving shortly after the start of the school year (I work in a year-round school) and then submitted my resignation. I began breaking the news to my co-workers, who were all completely shocked. I know it came out of the blue for many of them. The funny thing though was that as I started to tell more people, everyone began telling me how jealous they were of this opportunity. So that makes me think… why don’t more people take that leap of faith to do something they really want to do? I guess sometimes it’s just easier to stay put than to make a major life change. When you only live once, I really think it’s important to make the absolute most of that chance.

However, what’s a job in a faraway place worth without a place to live in? It was time for some serious research. We decided we didn’t want to buy a house right away and would find a place to rent instead. We really want to get to know the area well before we commit to a mortgage in an area we don’t like. If we’d done that when we first moved to our particular area, we would have been incredibly miserable. For now, I had to begin looking for rental properties.

I headed straight to Craigslist to see what could possibly be available. While there were many listings for the area, it was much harder to find a place that would accept pets, let alone a German Shepherd. After watching the ads diligently every day, I finally found four possibilities and lined up appointments to see the houses. It was time for a ROAD TRIP!

We loaded Gabby up in the Expedition early on a Saturday morning for a one day 10 hour round trip adventure. Our first appointment was for 11am and we had 3 more in 1 hour increments after it. The first stop was a 2 bedroom/2 bath cabin with detached garage on 2 acres of land located off a dirt road. We talked extensively with the owners then took a look at the home and immediately fell in love. No matter what else we saw that day, nothing would compare. This home was *exactly* what we were looking for. However, the owners said they were showing the home to one other person who had contacted them before us and they felt they needed to offer them the home first if they were interested. I told her I understood and we would just wait for her to let us know.

We were then off to our second appointment. This house was not nearly as nice and had an unusual driveway. It must have had an angle of probably 50 degrees or more. And although it was listed as having an acre of land, the house was situated on one corner with another house about 10 feet behind it. Definitely NOT what we wanted. We politely declined and headed to the next home where we arrived about 20 minutes early. The home was set back a few feet from a busy street and as we waited to speak with the owner (who was in the middle of showing the house to someone else), we must have counted at least 5 cars go racing by. Again, not exactly our cup of tea, which was fine because the owner finally came out and told us the people before us were going to take it.

Off we went to the last home. It was a very small 2 bedroom/2 bath home on the side of a mountain with a lot the size of a dime and absolutely no room for Gabby. Not to mention, the road getting into the home was so narrow that our Expedition was almost too wide. How in the world would we get a U-Haul up to the house? Again, we politely declined and then hit the road for home. Out of 4 possibilities, only one was what we were looking for and unfortunately, that wasn’t a sure thing. All we could do was wait, and starting looking for more homes.

I few days later, I got a call from the owner of the first house. She wanted to offer us the house! Imagine our relief and excitement. We couldn’t have asked for a better home. I’ll have to drive about 25 minutes each way to work, but the view from the front porch is amazing and we’ll be able to have a HUGE garden along with chickens. The location makes the commute worth it so I definitely won’t complain. Not to mention we’ll be in the middle of a national forest, 10 miles from the Appalachian Trail, and about 30 minutes from a major national park. What could possibly be better for someone who loves the outdoors? Everything was falling into place for our move to the country. Now on to the hard part…. packing.

Adventure Awaits (Part 1)!

When I started this blog over a year ago, the idea was for me to have a place where I could chronicle my family’s adventures in learning how to homestead. Our goal for several years has been to find a place in the country where we could have some land and work toward a self-sufficient lifestyle. We both love the mountains and knew that was where we wanted to be. In the meantime, we would learn what we could on a quarter acre in suburbia.

A couple of months ago, CT came to me and said that we need to do *something*. We needed to figure out a way to make this move to the country a reality. He's not happy with his job and I’m feeling serious burnout after only 3 years of teaching (but that’s a discussion for another day). We both acknowledged that it was time to pull ourselves out of the rat race before we got dragged further in. We decided we would try to make the move by the end of this year. I wasn’t too keen on possibly moving to the mountains in the dead of winter, nor leaving my students in the middle of a school year. I felt it would be better to wait one more year and make the move next summer. CT reminded me that if we kept making excuses about moving that it would simply never happen. There’s always going to be a tomorrow, but we need to live for today. I think my next response shocked him. I told him we would have to move this summer then. It’s easier to find a job as a teacher when I can start at the beginning of a school year and it’s easier as a teacher to work with students from the beginning of the school year. If we were going to do this it was time to jump into the deep end.

I began researching counties in the western part of the state and started looking into open teaching positions in those counties. I quickly found one position that I was very interested in (middle school science) and another I was only semi-interested in (middle school math AND science) so I promptly sent off my resume to both positions and continued to look. I was contacted for a phone interview at both positions within a couple of days. The interview for the science only position would happen a week prior to the math and science position. The interview happened on a Friday and went exceptionally well. They requested my references including my principal’s contact information which meant I had to break the news to my principal that I might be leaving. Although my principal was upset to hear the news, she also understood our need to get to the mountains. She was very supportive and wished me luck in obtaining the position. I have no idea what she told the principal from the new school, but by the following Monday I had a new job. I could hardly believe it!

The first part of our plan to move was in place. Now we had to find a place to live! That was going to be a little more difficult. We currently live about 5 hours away from where I got the job so it wasn’t like we could just drive over and look at houses. Not to mention, we have dogs and that can put a damper on finding a rental. In any case, I’ll write more about our search for a place to live in the part 2!

New Neighbors

For Christmas last year, my dad sent us a beautiful heart-shaped wreath made of natural ingredients like eucalyptus, dried flowers, and sticks. The colors are red, white, and blue so it’s useful year round. I’ve had it on the front door since Christmas and I absolutely love it! Some of the flower colors have faded a little, but it still looks beautiful.

Well, a few weeks ago I noticed some new sticks right in the corner of the heart. Although they were really more like small twigs. It appeared that a bird had found a place for its nest! No big deal, I thought. We don’t actually use our front door a lot since it’s right next to the garage and we typically go out through the garage. So I watched the nest steadily grow over the next few days and listened to the birds happily chirping right outside the door. Then one day I noticed that the nest looked complete so my curious self decided to take a closer look. Much to my surprise, I found a light blue speckled egg inside!

I then watched the nest closely for the next few days. Mama bird sat in her nest chirping away and papa bird (presumably) sat on the corner of the house watching over her. Day after day they were there, chirping back and forth to each other and each day, there was a new egg until we got to a final total of 5. (I missed getting a picture of the day there were 3 since I was gone most of the day).

After looking all over the Internet and in a book of local birds, I’ve decided the birds are house finches. The last egg appeared a bit over a week ago and according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, they have an incubation period of 13 to 14 days and a nesting period of 12-19 days. My best guess is that the first egg was laid about 2 weeks ago. If that’s true then we should start seeing babies in the next few days. We’ve been careful to not approach the nest unless the mother is already gone and especially careful not to touch anything. The nest is high enough up on the door that only other birds would be able to reach it. I really hope that I’ll be able to get pictures of the birds, but I don’t want to scare mama bird away from the nest so I’ll have to be careful. In the meantime, we just enjoy listening to the birds in the morning and we’ll just have to wait and see what happens!

Perpetual Learning Curve

I’ve learned a large number of things over the last few months since I last posted. Among the most important:

• The goal of writing a blog post at least once a week was WAY too ambitious. And knowing my procrastinating self, I should have never made that goal in the first place.
• Gardening is both a frustrating and rewarding endeavor, and takes A LOT of work, which can be difficult for someone who works full-time and is working on a Master’s degree in her spare time.
• Pressure canning is a tricky process and one in which you can never ever cut any corners.
• As much as I would love to raise chickens, the rural (yes, I said rural) town in which I live does not at this time allow backyard hens. Maybe it’s time I learned how to change that.
• There is no possible way in the world that I will ever be as elegant and astute as all of the amazing bloggers that I currently read; however, I can just be me and give my perspective on this new way of life I’m moving toward.

As I mentioned above, I lead a very busy life. I teach 8th grade at a local middle school. I am also the advisor for the drama club. Yes, I know, I’m crazy. You don’t have to tell me that! But the fact is, I really do love working with young adolescents. As frustrating as they can be, they are at a stage in life where they can be truly teachable and it is possible to make a difference. In addition, I am working toward a Masters degree that will give me the certifications I need to teach high school. As much as I love middle school, I’ve found that I’d like to teach more advanced subject matter and be able to take it to a greater depth, which is simply not possible in my current position.

So now that it’s been over a year since I last wrote, and now that I have more visitors due to my Pinterest board, I think it’s about time I tried to give a little more attention to my story. I have an amazing garden this year that I will write about very soon. I have done more canning and have been trying new recipes. I’m working on better menu planning and food budgeting. There is plenty to catch up on and I will attempt to do so in the next few weeks.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope that some of you will join me in my learning adventures!

Learning Curve

Gardening is not a task for someone afraid of learning. You can't simply put plants in the ground and say "Good Luck!". Plants need help along the way and figuring out just how to help them is where the learning part comes in. It's not like plants can come along and say "Hey, I need some nitrogen here!" or "A little more water please". But, they do have ways of alerting you to a problem. My cucumbers are doing just that. I know I don't have the best soil and I also know that I haven't done a whole lot to really improve the soil aside from adding some gardening mix. What I don't know is exactly how to improve the soil for what I'm growing with little to no expense. Granted, I've read a lot of different things that would probably solve my problems, but they all require shelling out a chunk of cash that I just don't have right now.

So back to the cucumbers. Until last week they were looking great. Big green leaves, lots of cukes starting to grow, sturdy vines crawling across the ground. Then we got a couple of days of almost non-stop rain. I thought, "Great! My ground was really needing a good soaking!" Within a day or so though, I noticed all the cucumber leaves, especially those closest to the root, starting to turn splotchy yellow and then very quickly to brown. What in the world?? I thought they needed the water? My first thought was that maybe the hard rain was bruising the leaves, but that didn't make sense. Plant cells have rigid cell walls that are specifically there as a barrier to the elements. Then it was that maybe they just got too much water. But as the yellowing seemed to get worse and spread further down the vine I figured it was neither of those problems. I checked the plants thoroughly for bugs but couldn't find any in the leaves or on the stems that might be causing a problem. Off to the Internet I go to find out what's wrong.

The best thing I can find is that there is a lack of nitrogen in the soil. Our soil here has a fair amount of clay and, like I said, I didn't do a whole lot to supplement it. I did till in a topsoil mix when I was preparing the plot and I planted each seedling with garden soil. I also got a plant food for vegetables that I added in with the initial planting. Everything looked so good for quite awhile! UGH!! I guess for now I'll try a plant food with a higher percentage of nitrogen and clip out the leaves that are dead or dying so they aren't trying to pull in any resources. I still have several very nice cucumbers growing, so the plants aren't completely dead. I'll just keep my fingers crossed and hope they can pull through this. If not, well, lesson learned for next year and I'm really going to miss my fresh cucumber and tomato sandwiches.

Picking Blueberries

One of the things I love about summer in this part of the country is the plethora of fresh berries. Strawberries in May transition to blueberries and blackberries in June and July. There are several pick your own strawberry farms around and of course I have my favorite, but the strawberry season is over now. Blueberry farms are little more scarce; however, there is one down the road from where we live that never ceases to produce the most wonderful berries. Due to the unseasonably warm temperatures this past winter, the berries are in a week or so early, which meant it was time to head to the farm!

Saturday morning, temperatures in the 70s, clear blue skies - a perfect day for berry picking. Hubby and I headed down to the farm with our buckets in hand. As we were walking out to the bushes, we passed several people with overflowing buckets. One couple mentioned it was so easy! We couldn't wait to start picking!

The bushes on the ends of the rows were fairly picked over, but there were lots of green berries which meant there would be lots more to come this year. We chose a row and headed about halfway down before starting to poke through the bushes. What we saw were some of the biggest and most beautiful blueberries! We barely had to touch them and they fell off in our hands. Huge clumps of 8-10 berries at a time, some the size of a quarter! We couldn't help but try a few while we worked. We had to make sure they were ok for eating right?? I couldn't believe how sweet and juicy the berries were! These are definitely going to make for some great recipes.

Can you believe how many berries there are??

Perfect berries!

One full bucket!

It didn't take us long to fill two buckets with berries. Then it was off to weigh the berries and pay for them ($3.00/lb). In all we had about 11 pounds of berries. Not a bad haul for about 30 minutes of work! I'm really not too concerned about their price since there is no way I'm going to find berries like these in the grocery store. Not to mention that spending a morning picking berries with my best friend is one of the best dates in the world so it was well worth the cost.

Now I've got to get these all processed! I'm planning to do some freezing and some drying with this batch. I'll definitely keep some fresh for the next week or so (until we go again next weekend most likely) to have for breakfast with oatmeal and I might just try my hand at a homemade cobbler. I'm tempted to try making jam, but I've never made or had blueberry jam so I'm a little hesitant. In any case, these are a great batch of berries so I'm sure that whatever I decide to do with them, it'll be fantastic!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

I confess! I am a complete and utter newbie when it comes to gardening. I grew up as an Army brat so we were constantly on the move. I didn't live in the same place for longer than a year until I was in high school. I do, however, remember my grandparents having a beautiful garden. I can remember going there to pick corn and peas and green beans and helping my grandmother prepare them for dinner or for canning. It was an important part of their life and they helped me understand at a very young age just how important having a garden is. My problem is that I have a tendency to kill house plants, but I really want to have some fresh veggies that I grew myself.

With that being said, I decided this would be the year that I really dig in my heels and give gardening the old college try. I'm fortunate in that my backyard has full sun for most of the day and I have a nice flat area to use. I'm not so fortunate in that I live in the South and have a backyard full of red clay dirt. No matter what though, I was going to give this a try. Here's the play-by-play so far:

In early March I decided I would try starting seeds indoors. I mean, how hard could it be, really? You buy the starter kits, wet down the little peat moss pods, poke the seeds in, and wait. Well, apparently it's not as I thought because even though my seeds sprouted, they weren't getting solid stems and then I wasn't being so good at hardening them off outside. (That's going to take some learning!) My next decision was to get the land ready and pick up some seedlings at a nearby farmers market.

April 7 - I enlisted the help of a friend with her tiller to get the ground set for planting. It's a not a particularly huge plot so it didn't take too long to get the ground broken - turning in the topsoil however, is another story! But the final product looks good enough to start planting!

Garden Plot (w/Gabby)

Garden Plot 2 (w/Gabby)

April 29 - The next step was to get some plants so off we went to the farmers market. I picked up tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, peppers, jalapenos, and a few different herbs. I also planted some onion seeds and put in a row of marigolds because I've read they're supposed to help with bugs. Then off I went to a nearby garden center for some garden soil and started digging holes. Everything is looking good so far! (For fear of any possible cross pollination, I planted the jalapenos in a pot on the porch so they aren't in the pictures. I'd hate to have jalapeno flavored tomatoes!)

First Plants

Herbs - Greek Basil, Oregano, Dill, Cilantro, and Dark Opal Basil

Onion seeds

Tomatoes - heirloom beefsteak, 2 types of cherry, and roma

May 7 - Now the fun part. Watching the garden grown. Pulling weeds. Watching the garden grow. And so on. A week later I took a few shots since everything was already starting to show substantial growth.

The garden in one week

Cucumbers - Straight Eight (I think!) and Pickling along with zucchini and squash in the back

Tomatoes

At this point, my garden is about 6 weeks into growing and so far so good. I picked 4 cucumbers yesterday and we had them with dinner. They were nice and crunchy and oh so fresh tasting! I think I may have to build something for the cucumbers to vine on before they take over the whole plot. Someone at work suggested getting some bamboo and building teepee with garden twine. I may try to do that sometime next week if I have the time.

May 29 Garden View 1

May 29 Garden View 2

May 29 - Crazy Cucumbers!

May 29 - Tomatoes

I know that I've got a lot of learning to go and that I've probably not done several things right (like starting the cucumbers on a trellis to start). There is a lot of season yet to go this year so I'll keep updating! Hopefully we'll be bringing in some great homegrown veggies this year and maybe even can some homemade salsa.