Moving In and Moving On

We are now living in the house, and the FEMA trailer is gone. We are still unpacking, but hoping to get started on our pathetic attempt at homesteading soon. Here is where we stand right now:

1.        I read Square Foot Gardening on the recommendation of a friend, and I am pretty optimistic about it. I hope to get started soon.

2.       Our bees left us. We are still sad about this, but we have made a new priest friend at the local monastery that used to manage 400 hives. He says he can hook us up.

3.       There is way too much lawn mowing required on four acres. Getting a goat has been moved to the top of the list of homesteading tasks to accomplish.

4.       I took a winemaking class, bought the supplies, and plan to start that next month so that I can have wine in time for the holidays. Guess what we will be giving out for Christmas. We will probably require signing of a legal waiver. I want to print labels for it that say “Casa DeLuca” or whatever is Latin for “Not Responsible for Blindess”. I will have to look that up.

That is about it as far as homesteading goes. For now the main focus is unpacking, figuring out how to arrange furniture, and relishing the small victories like getting dinner on the table, getting the kids to bed, and actually sweeping the floor. Every time I move, I swear I will never do it again. This time actually looks pretty hopeful. 

FEMA Trailer Life

Well, the end of June has come and gone some time ago. With August fast approaching, we are going on our fifth week of living in a FEMA trailer. No, contrary to rumor, we have not been the victim of any natural disaster, just the victim of optimism. We actually bought the FEMA trailer as soon as we bought the house from a local dealer who buys them from auction. We intended it to be guest quarters since the house is fairly small, but now that we have been living in it ourselves, we are not sure it will fit the bill.

The primary problem with it is that FEMA trailers have seen way more hard living than your average 7-year-old private family-owned trailer. So the couch, booth seats, and table are way more unlevel, uncomfortable, and warped than any I have experienced. Whereas a similarly aged trailer would have been used a few weekends a year, this one has been used non-stop for several years.

Second, in an effort to make them very quickly and very cheaply, and knowing the government was the buyer, and knowing the person receiving them was incredibly desperate with very little avenue for complaint, they were made with very little storage. I have been in many different travel trailers; I know where the cabinets and drawers are supposed to be. Honestly, I would say at least 50% of them were never installed in FEMA trailers, and I understand why. There are no cabinets above the bed, no drawers underneath the closet, no cabinet above the toilet, no cabinets above the couch, no cabinet to hold your television, etc.

For example, here is a picture of the kitchen cabinetry:

Notice that the frame was clearly intended to hold more doors and drawers, yet a recessed flat piece was put in many places to cover otherwise useful, now empty space. I imagine this saved GulfStream a lot of money and the government a lot of time. I somehow missed this when I bought it.

Another cost saving measure: I have exactly one linear foot of counter space. So not cool since I live here. Also, there are not near enough electrical outlets. There are four, and two of them are located so that your cords have to be over a sink.

All that being said, there are 2 really awesome things about FEMA trailers. First, they have full-size, real refrigerators with freezers. For a family who actually cooks most meals in their trailer, this is indispensable for us. Second, it has a real full-size porcelain toilet. Most travel trailers have small plastic "toilets" that are really somewhere between an outhouse and chamber pot in terms of civility.

Anyway there is my answer is someone asks me if they should buy a FEMA trailer. If it is like $1000 I say go for it, but here they are selling in the 4K range, so I think I overpaid. Live and learn, but it has given us a place to live for a while. Speaking of which, the contractor is saying the house will be done by August 1st. We will see.

Oh, and the bees left us. I have no idea why. They seemed happy at first and then every day there were less and less of them. At least they are not dead. Or at least we can't find the bodies.

The Demolition Begins

Today was the first day of ripping down falling ceilings, peeling wallpaper from paneling, removing soffits, removing brick "fireplaces," and removing ceiling fans. Several things were discovered:

1. Most of the paneling is not salvageable due to the wallpaper removal not going very well. I consider this great news. Sheetrock here we come.

2. A meth head got into the attic and removed all the wiring. I am pretty sure they were on drugs while removing it because there was no copper in the wiring. They left the expensive whole house fan unit. They ripped the socket for the stove right out of the wall. We have to re-do the electrical anyway, so this isn't the huge loss it would be other wise.

3. Two of the bedrooms do have the original wood ceiling under the tiles that we ripped down. We plan to just re-paint the wood in there and in the living room.

4. The coolest discovery is that we found an old, original stone fireplace behind the yellow brick facade that was behind the 1960s electric heater in the living room. It looks really awesome. We will have it inspected to see if it needs repair, but regardless we are keeping it for looks if for nothing else. It is surrounded by a raw wood wall made of flat horizontal pieces. We are considering keeping this as the wall in the living room, but frankly I am a little scared to do this. I am afraid it will look too rough and that kids will get splinters...but I can't decide.

5. The bees are alive! And Richard successfully fed them without getting stung. And without a bee suit! I am so proud of him.

The contractor still thinks he can have all the work done by the end of June. I still have major doubts, but we did get a travel trailer on the property already, so we may just have to live in there a while.

Bee Happy

Well, we are real beekeepers now. And by "real beekeepers" I mean there is a really irate hive slowly dying and plotting against us in a box on our property. To get the beekeeping homesteading badge, I have to keep them alive long enough to actually get some honey. The professional we hired to move them from the master bedroom to the far edge of the property said they had about a 50% chance of success. However, he never met me or read this blog before giving that outlook to Richard, so honestly I'm putting it more in the 5%-10% range.

Though we have always wanted to keep bees, it definitely was not the homesteading project we planned to tackle first. We wanted to start with mowing the lawn and maybe growing some zucchini, then advance to chickens, and in 10 years get brave enough to keep bees, but God had different plans. I am not kidding that having a gigantic bee hive in the master bedroom was a big selling point to Richard. Who am I to rain on his bee parade? Okay, let's keep bees, I say. We will see how it goes.

Floorplan Finalizing

After viewing the house a second time on Wednesday to get a formal quote from the contractor, I am feeling much better about it. The first time I saw it, it seemed very funky and that it would take so much to actually like it. Slowly I am becoming charmed by it, and we decided not to change a lot of the things we had planned on changing originally.

The floorplan will change very little. The place that is supposed to be the dining nook is too small. Some people would be trapped until others were done eating, so we will knock down the wall that separates it from the living room. Doing this will also give us more flexibility with furniture placement so that the table does not absolutely have to go in that corner.

With the kitchen we will take out a few feet of wall between it and the living room. We would like to totally take out the wall to create an island, but that would mean losing too much cabinet space. We will remove one overhead cabinet above the bar that partially separates the kitchen from the former dining nook. It will make it seem less closed off, and the cabinet was just a big box, no shelves, and was really too high for me to reach any way.

Above all the cabinets is a sloped soffit covered in 1970s paneling. Why sloped? Why paneling? Why did they do this at all? I don't know. The answers (in order) are probably: We thought it looked cool. Everyone else was doing it. Then I won't have to dust up there any more. I totally get the last answer, but right now it feels like the ceiling is trying to come to a point right above your head. Also, any time you can take a sledgehammer to paneling is a good time. Plus, it will give me storage space above my cabinets.

We are putting a door between one of the bedrooms and living room. Right now, you can only get to the second bedroom by passing through the first bedroom. I see this a lot in old houses, and I cannot figure out the reason. Was it to keep a better eye on your kids? I guess before the rampant moral decay of our culture, being sure you knew where your kids were at all times was a very noble duty. I actually really like that the two bedrooms are connected by a door. It fits our family's values. It makes it more like one big family bedroom.

One big change is adding a half bath in what is currently a corner in the living room. Right now the one bathroom is only accessible by going through a third bedroom or by going through our bedroom plus a laundry room. Though originally we were going to add a full bath, we decided against it because 1.) We don't want to lose that much space in the living room, 2.) You can't run two showers at the same time anyway, 3.) it will save money, and 4.) any future buyers who find 1.5 bathrooms a deal breaker probably won't look at a 1300 square foot home anyway.

I will try to post some actual pictures next time. I only got a couple pictures because I started getting attacked by bees and running around like a crazy person and screaming "I don't like bees! I don't like bees!" Richard was outside with the kids at the time, so I am not sure who I was talking to, but it felt good to express myself.

The Excitement Builds

We are getting pretty excited about having four acres for our “homestead.” I cannot even say that out loud without laughing at myself. Yes, there will be some major plant massacres on that property when I get my hands on it. I eventually want to try to raise livestock, but I will put it off for a while. I don’t want this blog getting too macabre too quickly. I can see it now: And here’s another photo of another dead goat. Maybe they are supposed to be watered like plants? Oh well, live and learn. I mean, I will be living and learning, not the goats…or chickens…or cows…

How does one even bury a cow? (shudder) I hope I never have to write a post with that title. Okay, it has already gotten too macabre.

Moving on to something more positive, I am actually becoming optimistic and even a bit excited about raising a growing family in 1295 square feet. Only in modern times would that amount of space be considered a sacrifice for a family of four. According to the US census bureau, in 1950 the average new home being built was 983 square feet. In 1983 (the year I was born) it was up to 1725. In 2010 it was 2392. That’s down from the high of 2519 in 2008.

I am looking forward to the challenge of being creative with space and being forced to keep clutter to a minimum. That is something Richard and I agree on: we both hate clutter. Neither of us are the type of people that like to amass things. Our biggest problem is probably toys, so that will be a fun conversation to have with the grandparents. After 2.5 years and 2 children, I believe we have bought exactly 4 toys. And yet our children have a full toy chest and a full closet of toys. I actually told some people not to buy anything for Violet’s first birthday party, cruel mother that I am. That went over like a lead balloon. It didn’t work, and I looked like a jerk. 

How Does My Garden Grow?

It doesn’t, frankly, at least not for very long. In January I ordered some heirloom seeds online because that is what homesteaders do, right? I was really nervous about all the details since I have no idea what I am doing, and seed packets have only one or two sentences of explanation. I kept reading each seed packet over and over again to try to come up with a plan. I felt lost. The fifth time I started reading each pack I thought, “What am I doing?” I don’t think most people try to memorize seed packets and close their eyes to see if they remember how soon after last frost to put them in the ground. But that’s what I was doing. Then I decided to just paraphrase what the packet said in my own words and write the summary on the front of each packet. I don’t know why; I guess because I have a strange compulsion to make things very complicated. Then I went through each packet and put them in order of when they should be sown based on my summaries. Then I reread all my summaries and figured out that January 24^th would be my first date of sowing. 

Of course I did nothing on that day. But eventually I did start some red bell pepper plants in a couple containers in my living room that I planned to transplant outside. The packet said to surface sow. I guessed that meant to sort of just drop them in or barely cover…I wasn’t sure which. So I just gave a handful of seeds to my 2-year-old and had her drop them in. Then we sort of rolled our hands around in the soil. I figured out of the 20 or so we dropped in, certainly 1 or 2 would be the right depth. I put the two pots in front of a window and moved on with my life. 

A few weeks later I planted some broccoli and cauliflower in big pots in the garage with the intention of moving them outside once the weather warmed up. I kind of forgot about them. One grew really leggy, and the other never germinated. I moved them both outside regardless, and nothing is really happening on that front. Big surprise.

I also planted some spinach in a little round flower bed in our back yard, which is not fun to do when it is 40 degrees outside with a toddler, and your infant is inside sleeping which he usually only does for no more than 15 minutes at a time. I majorly rushed through the whole thing, not even reading the seed packet while doing it. Despite that, a few weeks later the spinach was actually doing okay, I think. There were several different things growing in there, and I am confident at least one of them was spinach. Add "distinguishing between weeds and what you actually want to grow" to the list of skills I should acquire.

A few weeks ago while my parents were visiting, I had my dad help transplant the peppers to our front door flower bed since I had no idea how to do it. He asked me how my other stuff was doing. I mentioned to him that the spinach out back was the only thing that might actually have a chance. His face totally fell.

“That round little bed by the swing set?”

“Yeah”

“I’m sorry.”

He looked the way you would expect a good father to look as he is delivering the news that he has crushed his baby girl’s dreams beyond all repair. 

“Violet kept wanting me to jump up and down in it, so we did. I didn't realize you had planted anything there. Sorry. Whatever was there is definitely gone now. I’m really sorry.”

See, I have a 2-year-old, and she is very bossy. My parents are very easy-going and loving people, so they do exactly as she commands them with no complaint and no regard for reason. 

I pretty much just gave up after that. My dad felt really guilty, but I thought it was a more glorious death for the spinach than what was otherwise in store for it. To make it up to me, he brought me up some well grown, robust tomato plants from his garden. He actually has gardening skills. They are still alive, but not producing or growing. They only look a little sad. I watered them today for the first time since he brought them a couple weeks ago. His at home which are the exact same age are producing little green tomatoes right now. Not mine. What a shocker. I am starting to think that watering may be my problem, like maybe I should do it every day or something. Currently I water once every couple weeks at most, or after they are dead, or more commonly never. That plan just has not been working for me.