This post is dedicated to Phyllis, who so gently reminded me it was time for an update! We couldn't ask for better folks to have an owner financing relationship with. Our dreams wouldn't be coming true without you!!
New Growth
The last week has been questionable about whether Spring is on the way here in Madison County, NC, with snow and cold temps lingering for several days. But the fruit trees, Forsythia, Quince, Daffodils, and other blossoming flora are all holding out. Just the week before it was near in the 80's and sunny, and we were traipsing around our woods, poking around to see what's emerging with soil temps rising and all the rain we've had lately. Not a whole lot was coming up in our woods ecosystem, but the sunny bottom land is bursting with Stinging Nettle, Violets, Chickweed, Spring Beauties (pictured right), the beginnings of Golden Ragwort, and loads of Dandelion. Soon the Redbud will paint purplish-pink everywhere in the woody landscape, one of my favorite times of year.
The first time my mom and I drove down from Maine through to North Carolina previewing different colleges, Redbud was in full swing. We asked a local gas station attendant what the beautiful purple colored blooms were everywhere. We didn't believe him when he told us, the flowers weren't red. That memory of Southern Springs drew me right in, along with the constant birds twittering their welcoming back of green and new life, I was already fascinated with the biodiversity here.
New Discoveries
Now, almost 20 years later, I am beginning this new chapter and Spring every year here in the Blue Ridge Mountains is just as magical. Every year I learn about a new native plant, a new tree, a new insect, or animal. We found a flying squirrel has taken up residence in a dead tree pretty close to our house, right off the deer path that winds it's way through our top 19 wooded acres. I had no idea we even had flying squirrels here in Western North Carolina. The beginning of February marked going back to work for me. So this Spring is a journey into a new season of parenthood, adjustment of expectations, and a shift in how I connect with our land and my family. Weekend walks have become regular again in the last month. I am finding I feel very disconnected from David and Calla during the week as my brain is still getting used to flexing in a different way for 6 hours a day, and I am utterly exhausted when it hits 4pm. Then Saturday mornings I wake and I'm thrilled with all the possibilities of planning how we can make the most of our weekend. How can we connect with our land, what kind of adventures can we have? What projects can we work on together with the house?
Spring House Projects
The last month, house and land-wise, have picked up the pace again as the weather warms up. The winter lull and pause with working on the house has been a challenge. Imagine living next to the shell of the house you will soon occupy, but it's just not quite ready yet. It's such a tease! But forward motion feels good as we kicked off warmer weather with seeding the entire flat space with grass seed (close to an acre, if not a little more), and laying straw. Just this simple act of covering all the red-clay mud with something has changed my outlook significantly. I'm not exactly sure what I expected once we had cleared trees from our house pad. Maybe rich turned over topsoil and forest duff? This aspect of working with raw land was the most surprising and unexpected. I'm looking forward to this year being able to address more landscaping and laying of infrastructure to add shape and definition to our homesite.
We passed our framing and rough-in (plumbing, electric, and gas) inspections, and are awaiting the delivery of the rest of our Roxul insulation for the 1st and 2nd floors. David has really enjoyed working with this insulation material as it cuts easy and has gone up really fast. We should be able to sub-out drywall in the next month or so. When David refinished our raw basement space in Colorado, adding drywall gave so much definition to the interior space. It gives me the same feeling of adding shading to a charcoal sketch, and the image jumps up off the page. After drywall, David and I will install the flooring ourselves, and then we'll be moving in! In anticipation of needing a workshop space since the 1st floor inside has functioned this way through the winter after we were dried in, we have started our front porch (marked footer to dig on the right). We'll be able to transition tools out there, make cuts, and eventually set up our table saw. These weekend projects have pulled us out of our winter, small-space living, inactive funk. Here's to getting back to learning and growing and jumping back in!
Stay tuned for more regular updates as we are setting up infrastructure to add internet at our homestead! Please click the follow button up at the top right of the page to receive email updates when I post, and/or follow our journey intermittently on my Instagram account (link to the right)!
