Almost finished!!!

This is the brick pile now....at the house in town.  (some of my pictures are distorting and I have no idea
why)

 This was it when we first started.

 And this is all we can fit in the truck before it gets too heavy.  

 I have no idea how to thank this lady for all of the help she has given me.

 We have one more day to work on bricks...and that's it.  I told her I'd do it by myself but I wouldn't want her to miss that feeling of jubilation when you pick up the last brick!  It'd be like running a race, but letting someone else cross the finish line for you.  Right?

 And this is the brick piles in the country!

And I might add...this (above photo) is how BOYS stack bricks.....

 and this is how GIRLS stack bricks!

 Oh and one last thing....these bricks....in this pic....way a TON..

each. one. of. them. weigh. a. ton!

Cindy

Brick moving update

Vacation agenda....not on vacation anymore...still moving bricks.

 People keep asking me if we are finished moving bricks yet.  One friend said, "I thought you were doing that Tuesday."  We did do that Tuesday.  And Wednesday.  And next Monday. 

 NO WE ARE NOT DONE!  Here is the ORIGINAL pile.  The pile we are moving.  You can only put so many in the truck because they are heavy.

This is a huge pile, but if you have ever made anything out of bricks, you know it takes A LOT of bricks to make anything.   

On Sunday, Dave stopped by our house in town.  As he was walking into our back yard, two people started walking OUT of our back yard!   They were the new neighbors next door that we haven't met yet.  They were just checking the place out.  Then they said, "I noticed you let a pile of bricks behind, mind if we take them."  Ummm, yes.

So, after getting stuck in the mud, my Shug told me I was going to learn to drive the tractor.  I transferred the bricks from the back of the truck to the tractor and took it back to the brick pile.  Can't anything just be easy?

Yesterday I moved three loads and I did not have to use the tractor.  The rain has stopped, the ground is dry, and I pulled the truck right up to the brick pile.  My arm is killing me.  Three loads is a lot of bricks to move in one day.  But I'm going to get that marked off the list.  I'm determined.

Cindy Bee

Am I cut out for this country life?

Many of you have asked why we would want to move from the other house....thank you!  It means a lot that you like our other house.  We love it.  And we are hoping that whoever buys it will love it as much as we did.  Truth is, we never planned on moving.  We never really wanted to move from that house.  We just fell in love with some land in the country and couldn't keep up with the land in the country and the house in town.  Were we rich folk, we probably would have kept both and hired help.  But we're not rich.  Hence, we are building a house on our own (For the most part), on the land we fell in love with, and selling our house in town.  I just told someone the other day
Sometimes you gotta give up the life you have, to get the life you want.
And no, I didn't make that up myself.  I wish I did though!

And no, those are not my chickens.  I have a story coming here.  Peeps, I'm wondering if I'm cut out for country life.  Seriously. 
The other night I was on the phone with the realtor.  Dave starts yelling at me to "get out here....call the neighbors."  A huge German Shepherd ran their cat up a tree (it missed getting it by about six inches) and then started after their chickens.  I quickly got off the phone, called the neighbors who were on the other side of town, and we started chasing the German Shepherd away.  The dog actually had a chicken in it's mouth, but he dropped it when we yelled and started running after it.  Now peeps, I do not run. I have big boobs.  Big boobed women do not run well. 
 Then the dog went after another chicken.
 I took off running and yelling. 
 Lordy do you know how long it's been since I last ran...or yelled?  Me either.
There were a lot of feathers.  
There were still 11 chickens out there hiding in the woods.  
I scared the dog off!  He took off running through the field.
My Shug said, "man you can really yell!"
I was afraid for those chicks!
No one got hurt and when the neighbors came pulling in the driveway, the other chickens came out of the woods.  It was so cute
And later that evening, the neighbor  came over and thanked us with these lovely eggs as a gift!

 And I gotta tell ya, I don't know which blog to post to with stories like this.  The bee lady or the house blog.  

So, I have a HUGE pile of Kokomo bricks at the other house.  Several years ago, the city tore up the remaining brick streets in town, and they announced that anyone that wanted bricks to go get them.  We were going to build a huge patio out of them.  

We actually did build a patio, but never made it as big as we planned.  We do use the bricks for a lot of landscaping though.

  

So I am moving in the process of moving them from one house to the other.  

And a friend of mine asked me the other day if I wanted to join a gym with her.  I told her I have a way to exercise for free, and we'd be outside,  and she went for it!  (I will try to remember to get a pic of the pile this morning)  And we were so proud of ourselves for unloading this pile of bricks and stacking them so neatly.

 These pictures will mostly speak for themselves....

So, she was saying "pleh" and she explains...when they ask for help they say it backwards.  I don't know why it struck me so funny, but it did.  And I started laughing so hard that I almost wet my pants.   Just say it....Pleh.....Doesn't it sound pathetic?  You can't even yell it really.  It doesn't have the same oooomph that HELP! does.

 My friend trying to take pictures without the neighbor seeing her actually taking the pictures.
He said nary a word, by the way, when he pulled up with his tractor.  He just shook his head.

 What should have taken a couple of hours, took from 10:00 until 2:00ish.  
Then I decided since it was sunny out, for once, I would get into my beehives.  When I was by the garage, getting my bee gear, I heard the raccoon again.  So I sent my Shug a text.  "I hear coon in soffit"



















I gotta tell ya, my Shug was not in the best of moods when he came home from work.  Not to worry.  He did not fire that gun.  Instead of sitting there waiting, he went to the neighbors house to return his ball and hitch from the back of the truck (that they put on to pull me out of the mud) and they gave him a much needed beer.  He returned in a good mood.  Apparently, I was the talk of the neighborhood.  Everyone needs people to laugh with.










But...as I was unloading bee gear, I was thinking....if I were in town,
I'd be living in a house, not a room.
 I wouldn't be trying to get a MOTHER AND HER BABIES out of our soffitt.
 I wouldn't be stuck in the mud because I wouldn't be moving bricks.
I wouldn't be chasing chicks or dogs.

  I'd probably be relaxing, sitting, drinking this wine that I bought for the label.  I have no idea if it's any good. I was too tired last night to drink it.  I went to bed and slept through the entire night.


But I gotta ask...am I cut out for this country life?

Cindy

Our house in town is on the market.

 THIS....
 
 is NOT the house on hilltop farm.  It's out house in town.  And what you cannot see in this picture



is the garage.  You can see it in this thumbnail size picture below.  I got it off of the realtor.com website.

 This post is loaded with pictures.  I wanted to save pictures of our house in town and this is the best way I know to do it. 
We bought the house off of the original owners.  The man had just passed away and the woman was 92 and in a nursing home.  When we got the house, 19 years ago, it did not have this room jutting off of the back, or the two/two story garage and the back yard was plain with a few bushes.  No fence.  No patio.
And the reason we have not been working on our house in the country is because we have been getting this house ready to sell.  We emptied the house, then cleaned and painted some of the rooms.

 This first set of pictures are from the realtor.com website.  Yes, we finally have the house listed.  It took a long time to get it emptied out.  When we bought the house it was full.  We both had our own households to move in, and we lived here 19 years.  It's the first time we've seen it empty!

 The room with the five windows on the left is my man's garage.  Every man LOVES this house.  Wonder why?  I don't think they even see the house.

 Dave built the hammock stand and landscaped the back yard.

 This is inside the potting shed he built for me.

 greenhouse made from recycled materials

 kitchen

 living room

 Main level of the garage

upstairs in the garage.  It would be a great studio.

 bedroom

view of pond and potting shed

 view looking through arbor at potting shed

 upstairs bathroom

 bedroom

 downstairs bathroom

 

Here are the pictures I took.  This is the front entryway

 This is the three seasons sun room.  Mom and I painted every one of those window frames.  70 in all.

 inside and out.  Dave scraped them first.

 I love this room.  This house was built in the early 40's.

 sun room

 

 I love this old knotty pine.  You just don't see wood like this anymore.

entry into the house leads to living room
 

 living room

 mail slot.  Our mail is delivered right inside our house.

 built in cabinet at the end of downstairs hallway

 we completely gutted this bathroom and remodeled it.  Tin ceiling

 The glass block window was already there and I refused to let it go

 so we installed a garden tub instead of a shower

 this is the original chimney in the house going through the bathroom.  We exposed the brick.

 Closets were small in the 40's but this one was deep, so Dave built shelves behind the rack you hang clothes on.

 The floors in the house is hardwood and original to the house

 This is looking out into the backyard from the downstairs bedroom window

 in the kitchen looking into the sitting/dining room that we added on.
 

 In the dining/sitting room looking into the kitchen

 Kitchen cabinets are original.  I like leaving the character of the house the same as when it was built.  So when we added on or did work on the house, we tried to keep with the character of the 40's.  We did add a farmers sink.

 This is a better look at the room we added on.  It looks into the back yard.

 skylights

 Basement.  Laundry room is in the basement.  It's a good size laundry room.

 with outlets all around if you wanted to set up a workshop.  The outlets are table height.

Dave made the patio out of original Kokomo brick

 side view of the garage.  (muddy time of year.  If you look at my other blog you'll see we are in the midst of a huge flood right now)

 hardwood stairs leading to upstairs bedrooms

 upstairs bathroom

 view from upstairs of back yard

 linen closet in bathroom

 nooks and crannies in the bedrooms

attic space in both bedrooms upstairs

and behind the closet at the end of the hall.  (great place to hide out!)

So there you have it.  Our house in town is done.  It's been a long, long haul.  We cleaned out every nook, every cranny, every drawer, closet, shed, garage, room.  We then cleaned the rooms.  Painted some of them, refused to paint some of them!  Worked in the yard and got the pond running.  And left the house of our dreams to live in one room in a basement while we build the house of our dreams.  So when people ask, "What is taking so long."  This should give you an idea. And I'm not going to say it's been easy.  IT....HAS.....NOT.
We are getting along just fine.  Amazing.
We are tired.
This has probably been the most stressful part of the entire process.  We just wanted the house done, and on the market by spring.  The weather has not cooperated at all.  This has been the longest winter ever, and now our town is flooded.  Plus, we don't have room to store all of this stuff in our new house.  I've had two garage-type sales, I've pitched and tossed, I've sold and given stuff away.  

We are muddling through and feel a huge relief right now just to have the one house almost done.
 I still have to move two beehives to the country, and a huge pile of bricks.  I've given up on the brick moving party! (heavy sigh of relief from all of you!)  Dave is taking a week off this week and we'll finish up.  We also plan on sleeping in...relaxing....maybe getting out of town for a day...

In the meantime, say bye bye to the house in town, pray it will sell quickly, and we are back at working on our country home soon.

Cindy