I wish I was at the farm!

I can't wait until we are living at the farm and I am farming full time. Even though it's raining here, I wish I was at the farm instead of working. I have been sitting here planning my day off tomorrow since I finished my rig check! We have done a lot, but have so much left to do. This Sunday we will have to get up real early. I was hoping to have the walls up before the hubby's grandma came to visit, but I am apparently more ambitious than the amount of time we have. I am hoping tomorrow will be a day filled with pulling nails, and sanding the dry sink. Maybe I'll even get a coat of paint on it! For now my mind is sitting on the deck with a cold drink taking all of this in!

So much work so far!

We have now owned the farm for 2.5 weeks, and although we have a lot left to do, I am pretty happy with where we stand right now! We have gutted both bedrooms and the bathroom. All that remains of the room it once was is the toilet, but as soon ans we get ready to install a new one, that will be gone too. As you probably recall,

Stanley from the dairy up the road offered to take care of our fields for us, so far the front hay field has been cut, and baled. There are big huge round bales scattered about, and it really gives you a better feeling for just how big the farm really is! I think they decided against haying the pasture, but he promised to brush hog whatever he can't use. I would imagine that once all the hay has been done he'll swing back through and cut that down for us.

This is obviously before it was baled, but I got to meet another neighbor, Stanley's grandson Shawn. He did an awesome job!

The highlight of the week has been the purchase of our new to us antique dry sink!

This pic is in our bathroom just about where it is going to go. I think it is perfect for what we are going to do in here, and I LOVE the towel bar next to the mirror! I am going to get a corian counter top to go over the top of the wood in designer white and match the paint to it and paint the whole thing white. I need to add a piece of wood below the mirror to bring it up a little higher, and we are going to put a box behind it to secure the mirror frame and to keep the mirror away from the wall so it can still tilt! We are just super excited the search is over, and we got it for over $75 less than his original asking price! I <3 Craigslist! 

Okay, now the James and the trailer have been packed full of another load to go up to the new house, and I daresay I am holding up the hubby, so off to the farm we go!

It's All Ours!

It has been a whirlwind of a week! Wednesday we FINALLY closed on our dream farm! It has been a long time coming, and it we were a tad to busy starting to get things ready up there to blog! I will say this about the closing though, it was a little anti-climactic, but never the less exciting. We haven't moved in yet, so there is no interwebs, but we are making do. We met our closest farm neighbor within two hours of owning the property. He drove up our driveway, got us up to speed on the local gossip and offered to clean up our hay fields. It took a huge load off our minds, since the other fields in our area are on their second cutting and ours have yet to be touched. We have gotten the kitchen into running order, and tomorrow my parents are coming up to give me a hand in purging the 70's from my bathroom. We picked up a couple of lawn tractors, and got the acre of lawn cleaned up. The kitchen is now clean starting to fill up. We even had our first meal there! So far this farm is turning out to be everything I wanted it to be and more. I just can't wait to move in!

All that's missing is the hot dogs!

So Close We Can Taste It

Finally after all the trouble and drama with the bank and the inspection, we are almost there! Tomorrow is the walk through and closing! I can't believe it, the farm will finally be ours! The superstitious side of me is saying that the reason it has taken this long is that Mercury is no longer in retrograde tomorrow. It is kind of funny that last Friday when I told my mother that we had gotten the "clear to close" from the bank that I would feel better about it if we waited until Wednesday, then by happenstance that is the date that was chosen by the lawyers. I think it is a good sign, or just coincidence, who knows. The main point is that we are closing and I will soon be out of the suburbs! Now I will spend today packing some more and possibly looking at poultry on the internet.

Off to the Bank!

We're one step closer! The appraisal was finally approved by the bank and I am headed off there now in a few minutes with a cheque from my parents. I can't even describe how appreciative I am to my mom and dad for helping us out this way. We would never have been able to get this far without them! I only hope that some day I will be able to help my own future children like this. I wish everyone had parents like mine. I am going to strive to make this new farm successful, so I can prove to them that they made the right choice!

I will admit I am still nervous though. There have been several times that my hubby and I have thought we were completely on our way, only to encounter unexpected setbacks. All I can do right now, is deposit the money and keep my fingers crossed. It wouldn't be the first time the bank said we had bridged all the obstacles and they were wrong. I am sure the sellers are just as eager as us to close on this sale! I am truly hoping that the next time I post it's to say are new farm owners!

Progress!!!!

We finally got a call from the bank today! The appraisal has been accepted. We now have to send them our last pay stubs, as the previous ones expired today, and deposit the money from my parents in our bank account. The next step is a closing date. I was hoping we would be able to close by our anniversary, but I will just be happy if we have a closing date by then! Fingers crossed that all the unexpected humps have been overcome and we will be well on our way to the farm of our dreams!

I love Avon Bottles!

          So, while we still sit here waiting for the appraisal company to respond to whatever ridiculous questions the banks underwriter seems to have. (insert frustrated sigh here) I thought I would change topics a bit. Anyone who knows me a bit will tell you I try to be a responsible shopper. I try and buy new things made in this country, or if I can't, I get them used. My German car is from an American used car dealership, I shop[ at the Goodwill and Salvo etc. So, today while we were shopping for some summer clothes at the Goodwill shop I came across this beautiful Avon Cape Cod Cruet for a mere $1.99. That got me to thinking, I wonder how many people know how to get the perfume smells out of Avon bottles?I certainly don't. So I thought while I sit here and stew over the fact that my dream house is sitting back on the market and my loan is in limbo, I would do a little research on this quandary.
       
          I have found through the vast resources of About.com and the various other sites on the inter webs, that there are several accepted methods to do this. You either fill the bottle with fresh lemon juice, vodka, rubbing alcohol or white vinegar. You let it sit over night, up to a week, then dump it out and wash it with dish detergent, then allow it to air dry. I am going to try this, and I think the white vinegar is the way to go. The only things I am sure I currently have in my house are the vodka and the white vinegar. Let's be honest, who would want to waste perfectly good vodka cleaning out a perfume bottle? Even if I had lemons, which have been awfully expensive this season, I wouldn't want to put the effort into juicing them unless it resulted in lemonade, and I'm sure my Hubby would agree. I probably have rubbing alcohol somewhere, but by the time I found it I would probably forget why I was looking for it, so I will proceed with the white vinegar. The plan is to leave it in until I get home from work tomorrow, dump it out and see how we're progressing. I'll keep y'all updated!


*Update*- The vinegar completely removed the smell from the cruet itself, but not the stopper, so I placed the stopper in a bowl full of vinegar and plan on leaving it there for a day or so. We'll see what happens.