A Productive Weekend at the Farm

When did it get so cold in Tennessee?

We spent the last two days at the farm, working outside and playing with the animals. Holiday House is coming along, with so much progress being made every week. But with all the progress comes a lot of demo clean up, and our yard surrounding the cottage had seen better days, so we focused on that first.

PJ planted trees, moved some dirt, and loaded a bunch of building supplies that had just been sitting in the front yard and brought them to our storage building on the farm. Meanwhile, I focused on a bunch of scrap wood that had been taken off the siding of the house that we’re saving for another project. PJ hardly throws anything away, especially when building materials are so pricey these days (every little bit counts!).

Suddenly, as the days went on, things began to look less junky and it started to feel so much better. For months, we had gotten used to the farm looking a certain way (cluttered and messy are two words that come to mind) and didn’t realize how much better it would look with just a little bit of picking up.

The kids played on the hay bales while we moved the chicken lot from the side of the pavilion to the fenced in acre behind it. It’s something PJ has been wanting to do for a while now, but we just weren’t sure where we were going to put them. We took apart the chicken coop piece by piece and found a new home for it in the corner of the fenced in lot, and put it all back together again. Once it was in place, we began shoveling all of the wood chips that we loaded into the back of PJ’s truck into the chicken coop so it wouldn’t be so muddy and messy. Plus it just looks a lot better!

Then, one by one, PJ caught all of our chickens, handed them to me, and I put them in the new lot. It felt good to cross that off of PJ’s to-do list and make the farm look better in the process. I told PJ how much I love being out there, that I can see why he enjoys working out there every day. There was such an invigorating sense of peace and calm, even amongst all the chicken poop and mud. The sun was shining so bright and the wind chill was so strong, but I felt alive, inspired, and honestly…at home.

And what a good feeling it is to feel at home somewhere other than your house.