Monday, June 17, 2013

An Update...

Shame on me for not updating sooner!  I am so sorry, I just left everyone hanging.  LOL.  So I am cheating and posting a note I sent to someone earlier today :)

Good morning!
We are still working on unpacking, it's quite the monumental task!

We are almost done with the kitchen and dining room. This kitchen has about 1/3 of the cabinets of our kitchen in FL so we have been trying to find places for things. Tony and Sam set up a couple of shelving units in the basement for crock pots and the like. Last night Tony picked up a china cabinet from someone on Craig's List. It's not very deep but I think it will hold all of our every day dishes. I guess I will just keep all of our wedding china and glassware packed up for now. I am so thankful for a basement! Today I am going to finish unpacking all the dishes and sort out what stays out and what goes in the basement and then rewrap everything and rebox what goes downstairs.

We discovered, the first night we slept here, that we had some kind of critters living here. The next day we discovered droppings in the boys room and the following evening Tony saw bats flying out of the end of the house. Ugh. We had a pest control guy come out. He specializes in wildlife removal. He checked the house really well and we have three roof peaks and the bats are living in all of them There are also many places where the soffit doesn't meet as tightly with the house as it should (common with this log style house) and there are lots of places for bats to hang out... He (Kreg) is going to seal up all the openings and then put escape only door/trap type things on the openings where they are coming out. The bats can come out of the house but will not be able to go back in. Then he can seal up those openings. He can not do this for a couple of weeks because this is pup season and these bats are protected. He is not allowed, legally, to do anything to potentially harm a single bat.  Bats outside are great!  Bats on your house... pooping IN your house... not great. 

And we only have two acres here and it is not fenced. Last Friday a surveyor came and spend half the day marking the boundry lines for us. Mostly through the woods. So Saturday a guy came and walked the lines to give us a quote on Bobcatting the boundry lines so we can see where to fence. He is also going to give a price on doing the fencing. He said he will use the boys as his crew. That would be good for them as we are self-taught fencers and I'm sure there are better ways than what we have come up with. Ha ha.So we need to get the fencing done so the dogs and chickens (especially the dogs) can roam around. They have been in 10x10 foot kennels or tied to trees for over two months.

There is a creek on the property and the children are having a lot of fun playing there. We also have lightning bugs and they love catching them in the evenings. It doesn't get dark until after 9:00 so it's been nice having lots of evening outdoor play. The weather is nice, there have been a few hot days but not as hot as FL and not as humid.

Speaking of humid... we really need to be able to use the basement space for a school room and it was too humid down there. It's cool enough though. Tony bought a dehumidifier for down there and it's working really well. Hopefully we can do a little work down there and move all the bookshelves and books down there. The bookshelves are just all stacked together in the living room right now and the books are still boxed up.

This house has many less actual rooms than our FL house so figuring out how best to arrange things has been a challenge. The master bedroom is huge. Just humongous huge. So it will be half sewing room. I really don't like that much but it's the only option so I guess I will learn to like it. Ha ha!

I don't know if I told you that Tony's little commuter car died a few weeks after we moved here. He was running errands.  The car was fine.  He made one stop, got back in the car and it was making a horrid racket. He was right across the road from our Realtor's office.  He (the broker) had a car dolly that he loaned to Tony so he could tow the car to the broker's mechanic.  The mechanic discovered a rod had broken.  As many miles as the car had it just wasn't worth the money to fix it.  :( He has been commuting in the truck. Friday it started running hot so he pulled over on his way home. He and the boys figured out the problem. The seal around the housing for the thermostat is bad and leaking. I think that's what it's called. When Sam was removing the nuts from the bolt that holds it in place he broke the bolt off in half. So now they have to figure out how to get the broken bolt out so they can replace the part that needs to be replaced. They are learning a lot about engines and I am glad for that!

So, how's that for an update?  LOL.  I will try to get some unpacking in process pictures up soon!  Our email and phone contacts are still the same so don't be strangers!  And if you are ever in this part of the country, please stop by!  :)