Changes

Well, it seems the more we think about stuff, the more we overthink it and then end up adding and discussing more options. We wanted to build maybe a log cabin on the property - whew! Not going to happen.  They are just as, if not more than, expensive as the subdivision houses going up around us that are wood (bang! bang!) and then chipboard and then siding, and costing $300-$400 thousand dollars.  Ridiculous! I'm not putting us in the poor house for something like that.

So, last Friday, we went and looked at some modular homes.  They are stick built and have sheetrock walls, so can be wallpapered if I want to go that route.  They are pretty spacious and I really like the kitchens in a couple of them.  The neat thing is, the guy who owns the business said he can modify for me so I have some wider hallways for a mobility scooter, should I end up needing one indoors in a couple of years, and change out other stuff too. About 1/3 of the price of the cabins and build-on-your-land houses.

We're 95% leaning towards that now, and once we close on the land we'll go back and sit down with him and discuss all our options to make it work for me.  The one we like most is a 4 bedroom - and that FINALLY means I can get my train set all put together,

in its own room,

all nice and cosy

and be able to enjoy it ...

and get back to finishing up some of the models that I put away when we started trying to pack away to renovate this place. I have a turntable, engine houses and a gas station to build! I had to stop because Brunel wouldn't leave things alone, jumped up on my modelling table, knocked things down, messed up some of the cardboard models (like my war memorial), so the project ended up on hold awaiting its own dog-free spot.

Another room will be a gym, with my bike and my seated stepper in, out of the living room and everyone's way, and methinks a massage chair would go nicely in there too :)

There's even a mud room with a doggie wash area! Oh yes, that'll come in handy. Not that ours will be enamoured but oh well, dirty dogs need bathing!

We have our new beds so don't need fresh ones, I so love my bed, it really helps with my lymphoedema and blood pressure.

The kitchen, well, I won't need a fridge freezer as we have the 3 here to take with us. I'll be having to run down all the contents over the next couple of months though and then start restocking again once they're installed in the new place.

It seems moving is a great and easy way to declutter :) You get to start from scratch all over again. And even at my age, I am excited about this. I am so looking forward to it.

On Sunday, we went over to pop some treatment tabs down the septic tanks, so as to get them cleaned up a bit before we move there, since they've not been used in awhile, and lo. There was a young couple wandering around the property. They said they were buying it too! I immediately got a hold of our realtor, and she contacted the seller who said that, although they had received other offers, that ours was the only one accepted and that they should not have been on the property. Ruby later clarified that because we have signed and exchanged contracts that the seller backing out would be a lawsuit for breach of contract, and that since we already have a closing date, not to worry. The seller's realtor was quick to "oh no, no, no, your clients are the only ones with a contract". I felt bad for the young couple, as the lass seemed as in love with the place as I am.

With it pouring down with rain since the middle of the night, and non-stop ever since, and due to keep on like that until Wednesday, we plan on doing a drive by on Wednesday evening to see how flooded the marshland area gets, and to see the flow in the creek.

Planning, Planning, and More Planning

 Getting ready for our new place is exciting, but we'll be taking it easy and doing "stuff" slowly because I want everything done "properly" and not rushed. Once we've closed, and it is really ours, the first project will be fencing the front. I've found some lovely black railings and an arched double gate

that opens to 12 feet wide that Mark can do the honours and make open electronically.  We want to set them in brickwork kind of like this example above. The one here has made my life so much easier, and has proved convenient for the rest of the family as well, when it's raining or cold and they don't want to be out in it.

I plan on bringing the fence around and partway up the "drive" (dirt track!) and then having the gate there, about 20 feet in from the road so's folks aren't on the road waiting for the gate to open.

Once the fence is done, and Spring arrives, we will plant roses behind the fence and behind them, a few feet and parallel to the spaces between the rose bushes, a row of gardenias (these will eventually grow to be like a hedge). Then, a few feet behind those, a row of privacy trees.  I haven't decided on which ones I like the most yet, or which have the least problems. I hate seeing a row of privacy trees where 2 or 3 are yellowed and dying, and it seems some varieties are more prone to do that, than others.

Coming in from the gate, to the right, I'm going to have a mini orchard and today placed an order for 5 fruit trees, to be delivered in early Spring. All are multiple varieties on one root - 4-on-1 plum/pluot, 2-on-1 cherry, 4-on-1 pear, 4-on-1 apple and 4-on-1 fruit salad.  The pear and apple are considered "constant harvest" as the varieties blossom and fruit at different times for a longer harvesting periods. 

Then, we will be moving our grapevines from here and will have a couple of rows of grapevines running from the driveway in the direction of the creek. I may have to buy a few more in Spring to complete the rows.

We'll be moving a lot of plants from here to there throughout Spring. Gardenias and roses mainly, but also some young trees we'd planted this past year, and I'm continuing to start gardenias from cuttings off our 2 original bushes so that we can have them along many of the fencelines around the property.

We'll have 2, possibly 3 beehives this year, and they will be at the top end of the property, close to where Mark is going to dig out some of the swamp, when we have an excess of dry weather, to form a natural pond. We really need it dry and cracking in order for him to be able to do that, and we want to put a solar pump and fountain in the middle of it, before he then "breaks though" to the creek to allow the water from there to flood in. At the same time, we'll be putting in various aquatic plants that naturally clean all the different minerals and pollutants from the water, so that, over time it will be beneficial to the rest of the swamp as well. And all naturally!

The bees will definitely have an abundant supply of food and water sources.

I'd been talking about getting milkweed so as to help Monarch butterflies ... and lo and behold, there are a smattering of them throughout the property, and yesterday I even saw a couple fluttering around each other, like they were playing. It was nice to see.

We're also going to add to the morning glories that are there as we were blessed to see a hummingbird on one over the weekend.

It's really a paradise there.

So Much Has been Going On

I fell in love about 8 weeks ago. Love makes you do silly things.  Sometimes things you might regret but you charge ahead regardless. I did that, and then I paused and waited patiently for a sign that this was the right thing to do. A week ago last Thursday, 11 days ago now, I got that sign, and thus began a mad and crazy rush of doing everything on a "must do" list, in order to procure the object of my attentions.

Hmmmm, I can hear you thinking.  What is she on about? 

Well, our little bit of heaven, in the boonies, has been shattered by the encroaching onslaught of 2 subdivisions close by making traffic horrible on our tiny winding road, and then the house being built right up near our back field fence, and rudely facing onto our property. I am no longer in my happy place here, so we have found us almost 9 acres out in Belton that is STILL in the boonies, to move to. It's even got a creek running along one side.

We exchanged contracts at the beginning of last week and are now waiting to close December 9th (possibly earlier if we get all our ducks in a row before then).

Yesterday, we were out there mowing so that we can have someone come out this week to do some testing and make sure that the septics are working as they should (so that we don't need to pay for a new one!) and that we can have a well dug. The current owners gave us permission to mow since the grass is 3-4 feet high and it was either, allow us on the property to do it, or they'd have to. 

My mate, Kwacha, came with us and my granddaughter, Nicolette, met us out there. While Mark mowed a little (the tractor mower deck started smoking so he had to stop. Found out, once we got home, some string or something had wrapped around it and the belt, so he got it sorted and we are going back over, this morning) us girls discussed my vision for this property. They both understood my peace there.

Mark wandered back over to the stream and took some more pictures for me, even as I planned the first project for once it's truly ours - the front fencing and electronic gate with gardenias and roses along the fenceline and then a row or 2 of trees for privacy. We are going to do an indent, so that the gate is not at the roadside but maybe 20 feet or so on the property, so that we can get off the road easily. 

From the beginning, I said that if this property was meant to be ours, it would happen. If it was meant to be it would be ... God has been really good to us and everything fell into place within a week, once we decided to go for it.

Itt's probably going to take us around a year or so to get it ready for us to start building, but come Spring we'll be planting bushes, fruit trees, veggies, loads (and I mean LOADS!) of gardenias and roses, and we'll have 3 bee hives up and going. We've also seen milkweed on the property, so are going to nurture that so as to, hopefully, help the Monarch butterfly population.

 

Getting Ready For Spring

 This weekend, and earlier today, I've been busy starting rose cuttings (yellow and pink) and planting some rooted gardenia cuttings in buckets, ready for planting out in Spring. I still have more to do later (2 more containers of gardenia cuttings rooting in water, to plant) and then will wash out the containers and have hubby cut me some more to start some more rooting. I want to have a load of scented plants ready for Spring, so that we can have them all around the yard.  

I've ordered some bulbs as well, daffs, wood hyacinths, tulips and crocus, and 2 peony roots.

Everything geared towards Fall plantings for Spring bloomings, and Spring plantings for blooming through Summer - all BEE FOOD :) 

We may have lost our bees this year, to that dratted wax moth infestation but it was an experience we have def learned from.  Next year, we will buy 2 more queens and their bees, and they will have plenty of beautiful flowers to enjoy. As well as the trees.

Over the next couple of weeks, we'll be planting some of the new growth from under the fig and cannabifolia (butterfly) trees, in buckets. Again for transplanting in Spring.

I do love my fragrant bushes and trees.

Marketing - Ah The Joys Of!

I'm usually pretty complacent about my health issues but, in wanting to go out and market myself and my books, right now it is such an obstacle and that annoys me no end. I'd love to be going into schools, daycares and libraries to do readings to little ones, but I can't guarantee how I'll be feeling in an hour or so, let alone make plans for a few days or weeks ahead. It would be awful to schedule something, and then I'm having tachycardia or A-Fib, or my blood pressure is way high and not responding quickly to extra meds, and then to have to cancel and let people down. So,what can be done?

Well, some people do lives on Facebook, but I've always hated being on camera, so I've had to be a bit sneaky.  I've been recording myself reading my writings, and putting them on youtube with an illustration pertaining to the content. That way people can listen to me and my creations, without me having to be on camera.

I'm also asking folks who've read my books and poetry if they'd write reviews for me, and then I'm sharing those.

I took a chance and boosted a post on Facebook, with a targeted audience of parents of young children, so I'm now waiting to see if that will help me get my books out to more people.

Finally, I'm asking friends and followers on social media to share my posts so that I reach folks that I don't know personally, or who aren't my followers on social media.

We shall see how this progresses.

What Were My Favourite Children's Books?

 I was an early reader, and from the get-go, I was hooked. Back then, I'm 70 now, there weren't all the paraphrased versions of the classics, so (between the ages of 7 and 11) I read most of the classics by Dickens, the Bronte sisters, Captain Marryat, Anna Sewell et.al. and some more contemporary, like Marguerite Henry and even Louis L'Amour.

My favourites back then were Brighty of the Grand Canyon, Jane Eyre, Lorna Doone, The Children of the New Forest and Oliver Twist. 

My Brighty copy was bought secondhand and was a dingy red hardback, that seemed huge to my 7 year old self, but I loved that book and read, and re-read, it over and over. It had awesome illustrations but sadly I don't remember the illustrator. 

I'm not sure what happened to it, whether my mum may still have it stashed away, since she has shelves full of old Ladybird Books, which were also my favourites and encompassed so many subjects.

My nan had bought it for me, and also regularly spent 2/6d on various Ladybird Books that were about things that interested me. Stone Age Man in Britain was one of them, and on annual holidays with my grandparents we toured Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall visiting historic sites - including burial mounds, caves with stalactites and stalagmites, places in the books that I read, and relics of the Industrial Revolution.

On those trips, on our first night out of London, we'd camp in the New Forest, which obviously fuelled my love of Captain Maryatt's book. In Somerset we'd visit Exmoor, the Doone Valley and Oare Church, the settings of R.D. Blackmore's novel.

I can't imagine not being able to have read those books, they fired up my imagination and created a lust for more, and for exploring the settings.

So, when I had my children, one of my first tasks in their toddler/preschool years was reading to them, and then teaching them to read and write before they started school.

At that point, I fell in love with Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar. As did my kids! They loved poking their fingers in the holes. Others on their bookshelf - Goodnight Moon, The Velveteen Rabbit, Thomas The Tank Engine (and I actually spent some time with the Reverend Awdry in Wisbech in the 70s), Richard Scarry Books and the Berenstain Bears books.

I actually used Bears In The Night as one of the books when I was teaching my three to read, because of its simplicity and repetition.

By the time my granddaughters were born (after I'd moved to America) I'd also become a fan of Dr Seuss, especially Green Eggs and Ham although I happily read his others to them, and the children I babysat, because I loved the cadence they introduced children to.

I am still an avid reader, I usually have 2 or 3 books on the go at any one time. My tastes are many and varied, as are the authors that I enjoy. 

The Cover Is Done!

 Today I received the cover image for "Mister McAfferty's Cat" and I am so chuffed, I think it looks great. Blueberry have done an amazing job. Richa, my illustrator, was fantastic.

Now, just a minor detail needing revision for the inside and we will be publishing!. Time to get excited all over again.