Waiting Out the Storms.

11/12/2020

Apologies for our missing out on the October blog. Historically, October is the month that we crash from emotional, physical, and spiritual exhaustion and this one was no exception.

We held our Dixon Creek Supper Club which was designed to say thank you to everyone who worked on the farm over the past year. Smoked pork, laughter, storytelling, and Christmas lights in the rafters of the tobacco barn was the agenda for the night. Although we had to make due with the rain date because of a gulf hurricane, we had a good turnout and was able to express our gratitude for the “sweat equity” put in by everyone there. We ended the night with a bonfire, smores, and tall tales.

Tobacco barn cleaned out and ready to party!

Seating amidst family heirlooms.

b7-1

Clearing campsites for Hipcampers.

Laura’s 1st run at our farm logo. Awesome!

Donated picnic table for campsites and ministry.

Stilll standing after 120 years.

Digging footers was iffy, but the floors are much sturdier.

A peaceful setting…

Thanks so much to Springs Community Church and the Copley family for helping us stay warm and cool!

With some generous gifts, we’ve been able to add some stability to the house and get it ready for winter. Much of the foundational woodwork on the south side of our house had been eaten away by termites and began to settle, giving the floors a slant. With an eye towards additional building additions in the future, we were able to jack up portions of that fallen wall and shore it up with house jacks until we are later able to address it more permanently . at that time, we’ll tear out out some of the flooring in two of the rooms and lay some longer lasting foundations to replace some of the missing/damaged beams and joists.

We finally received the HVAC units we ordered last month and hope to install them in the next two weeks. With that done and the house now having insulation, we should be much toastier this winter than last year. Our friend, Brian Cook, is planning on coming out to help with the installation. We chose these specific units because they are designed to be DIY (do it yourself).

Other projects include incorporating the temporary porch from the camper to shelter the back door of the house from the elements. We also will be moving the livestock to their winter paddocks and extending electric fencing to those new fields. Exciting news is we finally have a person to help get Bob (our donated skid loader) up and running. Once we get that done, it won’t do us much good until spring, but then some serious landscaping and property leveling can happen.

Until next time…