Our New Farm

It takes a long time to set up a new farm as we are finding out. We bought this farm on July 30 and we still do not have electricity from the local electric company as of today, October 28, 2019.

Our New Farm This Week

Cloudy skies above the greenhouse and garden area. The skies are different and beautiful each day on the new farm.

Cloudy skies above the greenhouse and garden area. The skies are different and beautiful each day on the farm.

Monday, October 28, 2019

They started digging our water well early on Monday.

This morning started early here on our new farm. I awoke at 4:13am because my nose was clogged up. I just couldn't breathe. I decided to sit up on the couch in the living room. My nose soon cleared and I was asleep again. Then Ethel decided that I needed to get up so she jumped up on the couch.

Josh owns KONA and does a great job on windows and carpets.

I needed to get up early and get things ready because KONA Carpet Care was supposed to arrive at 8:30am to clean the carpets and the windows. Sure enough, Josh arrived at the right time, only he was not the first to arrive at our new farm today.

Contractor with David out by the new deck.

One of our contractors from last week showed up around 8am to fix some things from the back deck. He fixed it up and was gone before 9am.

The well folks brought in a lot of vehicles and workers.

More vehicles in our front yard. It was a very busy day!

The water well folks delivered several vehicles on Friday morning to dig our well. The vehicles were here all weekend long. Around 8:10am today, they arrived with more trucks to dig the well. They got started.

Then Josh showed up and started on the windows. He did a fine job.

Surprise! The electric company showed up! We have been waiting since July! Unfortunately, we still don't have electricity.

Shortly after Josh arrived, four trucks marked Karnes Electric showed up! I got very excited! The electric team and the well team started work out in the front yard. The electric team put up three electric poles. The well team began drilling. It was exciting to watch, while at the same time I was trying to work on the computer and watch Josh work.

Bethany, our David's Garden Seeds® team member, came out to the new farm at 9am and got to work planting seeds and taking care of plants in the garden area. David was working in his office, but kept coming out to check on the progress.

The electric company with one of three poles they put up in our yard.

The electric company sent four trucks over for the job.

Getting another electric pole set.

Getting another electric pole set with full photo.

Soon, one of the electric company men came to the door to see if we could get through the gate next door. There is no fence between our yards this far down, but they did not want to drive across the water line in our yard as they would break it with such heavy trucks. David contacted Jorge, our neighbor, and he got the gate open. The electric company went over and set up all three poles. It was fun to watch.

The windows and carpet were done around lunchtime. A black truck drove up. I went outside to see who it was. It was the neighbor lady, Carolyn. She baked some cinnamon rolls and delivered two of them to David and me while they were still hot. They were delicious and homemade.

Our neighbor, Carolyn, made us a delicious homemade treat in the midst of all of the chaos of today! Thank you!

After lunch, the electric and water well teams kept on working. Bethany reorganized my pantry which was wonderful.

The generator people showed up. They fixed our broken generator's water pump and disconnected the rented diesel generator.

The electric company did their portion, packed up, and left before 2pm. We still had no electricity.

The generator people are electricians. They put in what parts they could but told me they did not have all of the parts they needed to hook our house up to the electric.

Bethany left at 3pm. The water people left at 5:30pm.

After repairing our propane generator, they switched off the diesel generator. I thought it would be a matter of minutes before we had power again. After several hours of no power in our house, I went outside to find out what was going on. They did not realize that they forgot to turn a breaker on in the propane generator. So the power is on now, but it is from our propane generator which is all fixed. They took the diesel generator with them.

The generator guys did not leave until about 7:30pm. They said they would be back in the morning with the rest of the parts. Once they are done, the electric company has to come back out and inspect their work. If it is correct, they will flip a switch on one of the poles, and we will have electricity.

Of course, the water well team said it takes a week to drill a well so they will all be back tomorrow. All of the work today took place in our front yard. There were about 20 people. We were amazed at how many people it takes to get things going.

Once the power was back on in the new farm house, I was able to make dinner. We ate around 8pm. It is now 9:25pm and all four of the girls are asleep, crashed out in our media room. David and I are trying to get caught up on our computer work. Of course, more workers will be here in the morning but no one should be inside quite so early.

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Today, not much happened on the new farm except it rained. We woke up and it was raining. It finally stopped but stayed overcast all day long. The temperature got up to the low 70s. I stayed indoors and unpacked and arranged my closet and did laundry. It was very exciting!

Before 8am, the water well team was back at it, sitting out there in the rain. Late in the afternoon, David went over and talked to them. They said they hit water but needed to dig deeper. They left before 6pm and there is still plastic tarp with water in it and several vehicles out in the front yard.

The generator team was here twice, once in the morning and again in the afternoon. They finally let David know they had completed their set up of the electricity and that now it was up to the electric company to come out and inspect their work and hook up our electric meter. David called Karnes Electric and they said the earliest they can come out is Thursday, October 31. That is right folks. We still do not have electricity. This is so reminiscent of Green Acres in so many ways. We have been waiting since July to get power, spending all of our money on propane. That stuff is expensive.

Last week, David was expecting a package of Agribon. It is large so it has to be delivered by freight. The freight company lost it twice. How do we know this? The freight company called twice and told us. Yesterday afternoon, I noticed a very large 18 wheeler parked across the street and a driver got out. I called David and told him his Agribon had arrived. The driver walked all the way over to the house. David drove the SUV over and got the package. A whole lot of it stuck out of the SUV. Agribon is a cover for rows in your garden that will protect your plants from frost. David ordered it just in case for our new farm.

The white 18 wheeler is parked across the street. It is the freight truck bringing the Agribon for David's garden.

The Agribon is lying on the ground by the SUV. David had already unloaded it by the time I got there.

Bethany who works for us at David's Garden Seeds® has been coming out to the new farm almost every day to plant. Yesterday, David set up a table and chair in the yellow shed for her to work at so she does not have to work outside in cold or wet weather. She liked that and got a lot of seeds planted in trays for the greenhouse.

Bethany is in her new farm work area, filling CowPots with soil and then planting seeds to take to the greenhouse. She has A/C and a heater in there. The trash can has soil in it.

Wednesday, October 30, 2019

This morning it is 56 degrees and it is not raining, although we are supposed to get more thunder storms this morning. It is overcast and a sunrise could not be seen. David is out on the new farm working while I am in my office trying to do some computer work. I fed the girls and I need to get dressed soon before the whole world gets here.

This is the third day of digging for water. They hit it yesterday but are digging deeper.

The water well folks are digging again. Bethany is working in the garden. Just a few minutes ago, the electric company installed our meter and we did not even see them. David just noticed the meter is now up on the pole.

The electric meter has been put up on our new farm. However, we still don't have electricity.

We won't have electricity until our electrician/generator company comes back over and hooks the house up to the electricity. I thought the electric company did all of that but that is not so here. Hopefully, they will be able to come today and get us hooked up.

The electricity has been the biggest expense by far. First, we bought a small gasoline powered generator to cool us off some when we were living in the green shed. We had to buy gas every day to keep it going in 100+ degree weather. Then we bought the propane generator for $18,000.00 with fill ups every five days costing between $600 and $800 every time. We have been doing that for five weeks now.

Around noon, the generator guys got here and cut off the generator. So Bethany, David and I were in the kitchen eating lunch--takeout burgers. At 12:54pm today, one of the generator guys knocked on the door and asked if we had power. I flipped a light switch and it worked! We have electricity that doesn't come from a generator! It is a miracle three and a half months in the making! We are grateful that we can stop hemorrhaging money.

The water well guys left at 6:15pm today. This afternoon, they put a lot of thick white pipes down the well. I am writing this at 9:15pm and it is currently 41 degrees Fahrenheit. The low is supposed to go down to 36! I hope it doesn't go any lower or a lot of our fall veggies will not do well.

Thursday, October 31, 2019

Happy Sunrise and Happy Halloween from the new farm! I love how you can see the sun's rays reaching up to start the new day!

When I woke up, it was 36 degrees and cold out on our new farm. The water well crew showed up around 8:30am today. They did some more digging and then started putting fat white pipes down the hole. They finished around 2:30pm by putting a concrete square over a white pipe sticking out of the ground. Then they started taking equipment out of our yard. They got it all out except for the tractor.

The crew was getting ready to pour concrete at the well.

Also, Shelf Confident showed up to finish putting drawer shelves in our media room. The shelves are drawers that pull out so you can see everything you have in them instead of digging around through tons of junk.

Two shelves that pull out were placed in this cabinet.

Three shelves were used in this cabinet.

We heard from our neighbor who plows sand for David. He and his wife have a new baby girl. She was born yesterday! They are over the moon excited for their firstborn, Brooke.

Everyone was gone from our new farm early. I heard on the weather report that the temperature was plunging to 31° F. tonight so I told David. We walked up to the top of the hill on our new farm property. When we came down, David covered a lot of plants with large plastic pots that we had from our oak trees that were put in last Friday.

David closed our front gates so no one would come in and fall in the open holes that are five to six feet deep and are filled with sand and water since it is Halloween. David says the sand from 380 feet down in the earth has a lot of nutrients so he wants to use it for planting. The holes will get filled in as we use the sand in them.

Six foot deep pit with water and sand from up to 380 feet under the ground.

Pit filled with water and sand from up to 380 feet below the ground in our front yard.

Friday, November 1, 2019

When I awoke this morning around 6am, I asked Alexa what the temperature was. She said it was 32 degrees on the new farm, so we thought all of the bush beans planted just a few weeks ago were dead.

I fed the girls and went to get a cup of coffee when I heard a loud truck and some strange noises out front. I thought maybe the water well crew was coming to get their tractor. David saw that it was our trash man coming before 7am for the first time since we have lived here so he raced out and unlocked the gate. The trash man emptied our dumpster, which was overflowing again. A little while later, the water well team came for their tractor.

The well is finally finished on the new farm except for a pump so water can come out.

David told me he noticed my sourdough starter had split, the bottom half being white dough and the top half looked like water. I looked it up online and found that I could blend it back together and then "feed" it. I stirred it back together and then poured it into two bowls. I added water and flour to each bowl, stirred them and placed them by the stove top. Then I covered them with a dishtowel. I am hoping to make another loaf of sourdough bread this evening.

I had to feed my sourdough starter so I split it into two bowls. I will be making some sourdough bread tonight or tomorrow.

After that, I cleaned out the microwave. It is up so high and I am so short (5 feet 0 inches) that I had to get my stepladder. I finally got it clean.

UPS came with four large boxes for David but he unloaded them close to the gate so those boxes have to be brought in.

David's packages piled up.

We got some paperwork from our accountant for the IRS that we needed to sign and mail in right away. We signed them and then drove to Devine and found the post office there. We did some grocery shopping for the weekend and headed home.

I am going to make chili from scratch tomorrow. Hopefully it will still be cool.

We visited the bush beans out in the garden and they are not dead so it must not have hit 32°, even though Alexa said it did.

Our brand new bush bean plants all lived! Yay!

This evening I made a loaf of sour dough bread. It is in the bread maker right now and it looks very good.

Saturday, November 2, 2019

We are early risers out on the farm. Another beautiful sunrise.

Today in the new farm house, I cleaned and organized. I vacuumed half of the house and then was too tired to continue. I also did four loads of laundry. I baked another loaf of sour dough bread and made a pot of chili with beans and beef. It took all day to cook so we had it for dinner. It was delicious if I do say so myself! I spent most of the afternoon reorganizing my office. I also got some David's Garden Seeds® work done on the computer.

David has been asking for the electric can opener that we had at the other house for quite some time. I went into the guest room that right now looks like a nasty mess with so many boxes and found a few that said "kitchen". I opened one and found all of my missing pans. The next one had the missing can opener. So I got a few more boxes unloaded and put away.

Then it was time to set the clocks back an hour. We were so tired but we watched several episodes of Cannon. We are on the final DVD. Then at 10pm, David turned it off.

Sunday, November 3, 2019

This morning, it was very light at 6:30am. It was 38° but soon the temperature rose to 70°. We got ready for church. We went to our church in San Antonio today so we had to leave an hour before it starts. It was a very good service.

After church, we stopped by our business to get some things and make sure everything was okay.

Cutter ants are destroying our plants out here. This was a huge citronella plant.

Another Citronella plant ruined by cutter ants in our raised garden beds.

We came home to the new farm and David took care of some very evil cutter ants who are destroying some of our plants, like my large Citronella plant. They sawed off most of the leaves and some limbs and it is just sitting there all deformed now. Hopefully, David was able to take care of all of those ants before they ruin our ten new oak trees.

Tomorrow, the water well company is supposed to put a pump on the lovely white PVC pipe that is our well so we can get water out of it.

Two weeks from today, it is my birthday. I am getting old. This will be my first non-city birthday. For the week of Thanksgiving, my new farm home will be full of family so I have to get unpacked this week. Believe me, there is still so much to unpack and organize. I just hate not being unpacked.

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