It has been way too long since my last “Moving On” post, and we’ve had quite a few adventures since Part 1! So, shall I catch you guys up on the news? Alrighty then. đ
Let’s see, where did I leave off? Oh yes, right before our cousins came to help us paint. Well… they actually didn’t paint much, but my aunt did. XD The kids played Dutch Blitz when we weren’t needed. We’ve all been playing Dutch Blitz a TON lately, and it’s so much fun! Have you played? Not many people have that I know, of but sadly it’s pretty hard to explain without showing you… 
Trust me, though, it’s great. XD
So now the Cedar House is all painted and furnished and it looks GREAT! We still have a few things to fix up before it debuts as an Airbnb, but it’s come a long way. (For instance, we replaced that carpet in the picture above after I took the photo.) Would you guys like to see a tour of the house once it’s finished?
Another thing we’ve been doing is learning to use the rebaling machinery. Part of what we do at the new farm is sell hay and straw, as well as make people’s large, unmanageable bales into smaller ones. Dad runs the machinery, the boys usually get the haybales prepared, and the girls usually stack them on a trailer. It’s hard work, lifting hundreds of 40-pound bales, but it’s good for us. đ
The hay pictures are all in black and white because the light and surroundings usually weren’t the prettiest. XD I think they look really neat in B&W, though!
I guess Logan did help stack that time… maybe because I was taking pictures. XD
A few weeks ago we semi-officially moved down to our new place. We still have to go back to our old farm to pack up stuff and work once in a while, but we’re mainly down here now. đ
Since we’re mostly going to be down here, we brought all the live things we have to care for: namely, pets and plants. đ I really loved how the plants looked in the back of my car for some reason. XD Does it looks Pinterest-y to you?
They looked so pretty against the cedar siding. đ
We also brought the bunnies up! Most of the bunnies stayed huddled together at the back of the truck, but Basil was hilarious – she hopped up on a cat crate (with no cat inside) we put there and stayed on top almost the whole time. What made it funny was it was really windy up there, and her fur got blown about every which way, like she was under one of those super strong hand dryers that ripple your skin. XD She didn’t seem to mind, though. Maybe she liked the fresh air.
We also brought the cats down, but that was a little more… um, interesting. They were RATHER scared, and once Jinx decided he simply couldn’t wait to use the litter box till we arrived, so… yeah. He didn’t wait. IT WAS BAD. XD XD Ah well, we survived, and the cats are safely in the Cedar House now. đ Maggie, our yellow lab, is quite enjoying the new space too, I think!
Dad had to stop to check on a vehicle at one point and I got some more lovely pictures of mountains at the overlook. †You could see everything SO clearly!
Finally we arrived at the pineapple gates. I don’t know why there are pineapples at the farm entrance, but it’s pretty funny. Especially because one of the pineapples is literally yellow and green with lichen, and in exactly the right places! XD
In case you’re wondering if we have animals at our new farm, we don’t. Except for pets, of course. đ We’ll probably get chickens later (just not 24,000 like we used to have!), but for now the only livestock are the cows in the leased pastures. They’re not ours, but they are pretty cute. đ They also look lovely in the golden hour! Then again, what doesn’t?
When we first started staying in the Cedar House we didn’t have many forms of entertainment, so Mom thought of Four Square! We laid out the pattern in masking tape on the basement floor, and we’ve been having a lot of fun playing it as a family. đ
Another fun thing to do here is go fishing! We haven’t caught fish every time, but once we caught nearly a dozen in one day! That was fun. I’ll have more pictures from fishing in a later post.
Ooh, and one super fun surprise we found was a box of really old letters! Part of the big farmhouse was built in the 1850s, and I believe the farm itself is even older. We found some letters from the 1880s! Isn’t that amazing? This letter is one of my favorites, although it’s from 1922, so not quite as old. But LOOK AT THE HANDWRITING. (I blocked out part of the address.)
Isn’t that amazing?! We haven’t read it yet because it’s in German, but we should really translate it sometime. đ
Now I shall end this post with a sunset over the pond. †I love sunsets in general, and reflected sunsets are twice the beauty!
Phew, that was a lot to cover in one post. I hope I didn’t leave anything important out… XD Oh well, I can always tuck it in later if need be. I hope you enjoyed the update and the pictures, and tell me…
Have you had interesting experiences traveling with pets? Have you played Dutch Blitz or Four Square? And would you be interested in a post with more about the Cedar House when it’s finished, or about more old letters and other interesting artifacts we’ve found?
Stay tuned for more posts like this in the future, because we still have the big house to finish fixing up. Man, it’s taking a while. There’s just soooo much to paint and work on. Ah well, it’s going to be incredible when it’s finished, and I can’t wait to move in!
Well, thanks for reading and I hope you have a lovely day, dears!
***Allison***
Isn’t it cute? This is the second house on the farm, and the one we will use as a guest house (and possibly an Airbnb later!). We’re fixing it up first so we can stay there while we fix up the main house, which will need more big-picture repair, like the roof and ceilings.
The walls were marked up pretty badly and in definite need of a fresh coat of paint. Heh heh.
It looks so much better now! We painted it “Intense White” from Benjamin Moore, but the name is rather misleading because it’s more like a nice, light gray. My grandmother (in the picture below)Â is super good at painting and she comes up and helps us often. đ I rather like this picture. â„
Oh, and speaking of painting, we painted this popcorn ceiling (you can kind of see it in that picture) in an upstairs bedroom, and the next day, it was coming down. The popcorn texture was just peeling off the ceiling, so we had to scrape it all off and sand it down. AND THEN IT HAPPENED AGAIN in the living room. It was awful, especially the fact that plaster dust gets seriously everywhere. The house was coated in it after we were done, and we had to clean hard and long to get rid of it. Woohoo.
Moral of the story: NEVER PUT UP POPCORN CEILINGS.
We got creative and decided to decorate a jar and tin can with painter’s tape. XD
Isn’t this next picture so cute? I just find it amusing that my seven-year-old sister would do this in her free time. :’)
Strangely enough, there are ladybugs all over the house, especially in the corners of the walls. But hey, I’m not complaining – I’d much rather have ladybugs than flies or spiders or stinkbugs. *shrugs*
One evening when we were getting a bedroom ready to be painted, we found these strange round stickers on the wall. We all wondered what they were there for, because they were scattered all over the room and kind of blended in with the paint – they didn’t really seem to serve a purpose. But then one of the kids (I think it was me đ ) thought to turn off the lights and it was beautiful! The stickers were glow-in-the-dark, and it felt like standing in space because there were so many “stars” on the walls.
Since we (the kids) thought they were so neat, we peeled off all the stickers and put them on a basement wall in the main house. đ
Well, that’s about it for this part. I have several more pictures and adventures for later, so stay tuned! đ
Allison Marie 