Well, it’s hard to believe it is already the end of 2014, what a hectic year. Time has certainly flown by; I can hardly believe we’ve been living in Virginia an entire year now!
Some things have gone as planned this year – we managed to hit the one-year mark as parents. It was a major milestone for our baby, but, I’d say, it was an equally major milestone for us as parents. I mean, keeping a baby in good health for an entire year is no easy feat … although millions of people around the world manage to do it all the time, so maybe it is. … Regardless, we were proud to reach that mark, and celebrated with cake, hamburgers and beer!
PKB did not enjoy her cake as much as I expected.
Meanwhile, projects around the house have not gone as planned. A matter of fact, they’ve nearly been completely neglected until recently. It’s difficult when it’s dark by the time you get home from work, and often times weekends revolve around taking care of a baby or are spent getting the day-to-day operations done, like cutting grass and raking leaves.
I have gathered the items (through trade, purchase and dumpster diving) to put together a compost tumbler (as described here) and plan to get that up and running in the near future. We’ve also recently started clearing out some of the land to make room for our chicken coop and garden. We cut down several large trees, which a lot of work goes into cutting down a tall tree, especially when your home is within the falling distance. But, no sweat, we cut a wedge in one side, and then cut on the side of the direction we wanted the tree to fall, and managed to get that done without any scares or close calls. Now, it’s just a matter of cutting up those trees into firewood, and clearing out all the smaller brush.
The clearing process is in the works.
I hope to get a lot of the clearing done over the New Year’s holiday and weekend, assuming the weather holds up. We’ve had a lot of rain/snow/ice so far this fall and young winter. We received 7 inches of snow the day before Thanksgiving, and have had three or four days of heavy ice; but that’s life up on the mountain for ya.
It was quite an adjustment going from Texas to our rental in Central Virginia, which I expected, but I didn’t have an appreciation for the adjustment going from our rental to our home on the mountain. Our elevation is about 2,300 feet now, compared to about 700 at our rental. And while we’ve already had a few days of heavy ice, I can only recall one day of bad ice all of last winter. But, I’ve said this a hundred times already, and I’ll say it again, we are learning as we go, and I can already see signs of improvement. I’ll admit, I was freaking out a little that first morning I stepped out and everything was coated in ice; the following ice mornings, I just grabbed some salt and went to work like it was no big deal, and we managed just fine.
I can say I am excited to see what 2015 brings. I don’t really believe in new year’s resolutions, but I will say one of my goals is to make good progress on all of my projects planned for the house and land … and to blog more often!
