THE GREENHOUSE IS DONE!!!
Check it out!
Designed and built by Geoff and I almost entirely of salvaged materials!  We did have to buy some bolts and a little plastic, but this baby cost us under $100!

 On Sunday I got a surge of motivation/frustration and decided it was getting DONE!  Angel helped watch me work for hours in the yard!

 The view from the back, it's 18 feet long and 12 feet wide.

 The door came from the old Cheney house, and all the wood was found in the barn/along the road

The view from the front door!

 Angel displaying her work...

I'm so excited that it's done!
Also... Geoff wanted me to put this gem on the blog:  I don't know how to move the video over here so here's a link. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10102665668470834

Yet another month has flown by!  Last month we had a great time at Wheatland Music Festival!  Thanks dad for the tickets!

Geoff moved in last month on the 21st, and started his new job the same day!  He has been working a LOT of hours and we haven't had much time to do anything for a while...  50+ hours a week has taken it's toll.  He has been harvesting sugar beets and corn, learning the mechanics of semi trucks and lots of stuff about farming.

Up until Becky and Duncan's wedding we were super busy, Geoff with writing the ceremony, and I with wedding showers, bachelorette party and helping set up for the wedding itself.  The wedding went really well, Geoff did a great job marrying them!  The ceremony was lots of fun and we are both relieved our duties are over! :)  We can't believe we forgot to get a picture of us at the wedding, I guess we were really busy!

Angel celebrated her 9th birthday this month!  She had a great time celebrating at Becky and Duncan's wedding.

I've been out bow hunting a fair amount and have seen quite a few deer.  I only had one day that I had a shot at anything and it was a big buck!  I hit him and tracked him for hours and never found him :(  Since then it's been hard to get in the woods with all the rain, I'm still hoping to get at least one deer this year though.

The greenhouse has FINALLY seen some progress:

Last Saturday we built all the trusses and erected them.  That was quite a bit of work as the plans I drew up were just a hair off, so I wound up having to figure out angles and lengths on the fly, and then just duplicate them.  The first one turned out a little wonky, but the rest were near perfect.  This week I started putting in a brick platform at the entry door, and put on a couple more horizontal pieces to support the plastic from tearing through at the corners.  The plastic needs to be on by the weekend, so we have a bit more work to do to close in the ends and all the gaps at the bottom by then, but we are making fast progress on it.  It may be too late to plant this year, I'm not sure.  I'm sure my mom will tell me though!  

I planted garlic there this month as well, our first crop is in the ground!  Here's hoping it grows well!

Geoff really wants to put up a video of us performing Love Shack at the Ithaca Winery... maybe next time!  Now you have something to look forward to?

Wow!  It's been a busy month for us both!  I have been working way too much in my opinion because of the harvest coming in and Geoff has been stressed out with his transition to living here.

We have made some progress on the greenhouse, but not enough.  We tore up all the sod in the greenhouse and shook the dirt out of it, which was pretty backbreaking but totally worth it.  My garden wizard mom lent us her broadfork, which made it possible to lift the sod out and shake the good dirt and worm castings out while getting rid of all the nasty quack grass rhizomes.

The finished product looked really awesome!  I got a load of bunny manure on labor day weekend and put a layer on top of the dirt.  As soon as we get the trusses up, we will be ready to plant.  We had better get them up SOON though, we are quickly running out of time.

We also picked up a bunch of really nice local garlic at the farmer's market and plan to plant it soon.  Our first crops will soon be in the ground!

The same weekend we tore up the sod we had a bonfire fueled by the old house:

The last couple of weekends have been busy with Wheatland Music Festival and a friend's wedding, and this weekend Geoff makes the move!  He got a job here with a friend who has a crop farming business and will be starting right away.  We are very excited and just a little stressed!  In the meantime all of the corn around the house has come down and I'm getting ready for bow-season.  We are both preparing for our good friends' wedding, which Geoff will be officiating and I will be maid of honor in!  We are both REALLY hoping things calm down soon!

I've decided to create a blog to keep our family and friends updated on our lives (out here in the middle of nowhere, USA)... so here goes.

Sometime in April/May I moved out here to Ithaca, MI to an old family farm that was owned until recently by the Cheney family.  I don't know much about its history but I know it's over 100 years old.  How do I know that?  Because of this:

The old farm house sits right behind the modular home I am living in.  Dad, Geoff, and I have picked through its contents and found quite a few treasures.  Someone just walked out of this house some time in the late seventies I'm guessing (because of the age of the magazines left in it) and left almost everything in it.  A few things I found in the OLD house:

Collectible vintage canning jars!  I have found quite a few of these, as well as postcards, pictures, and other odds and ends.  A few pieces of primitive furniture came out of there as well.  The house is also full of great materials Geoff and I have started to reclaim.  Last weekend we started tearing down the chimney.  It was pretty much falling apart, so we started at the top with a hoe, knocking bricks down the back side of the house and picking them up.  Then I got brave and climbed up there and started heaving them down into the lawn.  Here is a picture of the house without a chimney:

In one afternoon we made it from the top, through the upstairs level and down into the living room:

So far we have removed, cleaned mortar off of, and stacked 330 full bricks and many many more have broken.  

This chimney goes all the way to the basement so we figure we are maybe 1/3 of the way done with that little project.  We plan to create a brick walkway/patio, as well as a pathway in the greenhouse with these reclaimed bricks.  The OLD house also has some great wood floors that are in good shape that we will try to reclaim as well before the thing gets knocked down.

The rest of the property looks like this:

Our house:

Oh so kindly provided by my employer :)

We are surrounded by about 400 acres of corn!  We have a house across the road with potential for neighbors but it is for sale, so for now it is quiet as can be around here.

We also have a very old barn, see?

The smaller shed in the foreground will become our chicken coop after we repair the roof. 

Our other project (we decided we are only allowed two at a time) is a greenhouse that we are building with salvaged materials found in the barn and begged from friends and family.

So far we have put in the anchors to keep it from running away.  This weekend we will begin building the trusses.

It will be 12' by 18' and house greens and other veggies over the winter.

Upcoming projects?  We have several!  One of which is to transplant and trellis the raspberry tangle that is going on behind the shed:

I still haven't figured out if it's best to transplant these things in fall or spring, so any input would be appreciated.

My lovely dog Angel is eating grass in front of the raspberry tangle... there's also a rose bush in there I wouldn't mind moving.

Here's another picture of Angel, and a blurry glimpse of the inside of the house:

This summer I have taken up canning with a vengeance, part of our goal to be as self sufficient as possible.  In the last two weeks I have put up over 40 pounds of tomatoes (salsa and pasta sauce) with plans to can more this weekend.  I have also canned pickles and strawberry jam, and have frozen corn, cantaloupe, pesto, blueberries and strawberries.

Right now we are working on finding Geoff a job so he can move here.  The goal is some time in late September. Updates on that will be forthcoming.

This fall we will begin to prepare for a season of growing as much food as possible here.  We are very excited about our homestead and are really enjoying working hard together :)