The Grain Bin

In typical Dave and Megan fashion, we decided on a bit of a whim to drive 3 hours with the kids to go check out a grain bin on Craigslist. The price was right and it seemed like a good cheap and fast way to get some storage space until we could build a shop.

The reality of doing this with three little kids was a bit overwhelming. We drove up in the evening, spent the night in a hotel, and got up early the next day to meet a friend for the ‘take down’.

 

 

After a dozen phone calls we managed to find someone with grain bin jacks. We picked them up and the boys began the arduous task of dismantling the bin one layer at a time.  I hit the road for the three hour car trip to pick up the trailer. When I came back, things seemed to be moving along!

It took them eight hours to get it down. We finally got home that night at midnight. Tired, dirty, and hoping this was a good idea, we fell into bed.  This project would be so much easier if we just had the ability to build what we needed.  Now we have to pour a slab, put this crazy thing back together, sprayfoam it, and then finally be able to use it for storage.  We certainly do not need another project, but we do need storage and we do need to turn our house into a home without the living room being full of tools.   To quote the five year old when he came downstairs one morning,  “This place is a mess. It looks like a garage in here!”.  Ah, the infinite wisdom and lack of filter…..

Another day in the crazy life at Simbow Farm….

 

If You Give a Couple a Homestead

So I am sure that most of you have had an opportunity to read some of the children’s books by Laura Numeroff and Felicia Bond. If you are not familiar with them, take a look at our favorite, If You Give a Moose a Muffin [Laura Numeroff, Felicia Bond]. Dave and I decided that this book is similar to our daily life right now in so many ways, but without the yummy muffin as a reward! I have decided that instead of whining about the craziness of our lives every single day, I should just turn it into a parody based on these books. So here is the Sims on the Homestead version……

If you give your husband and kids some eggs and toast, they will want some juice to go with it.
To get the juice you will have to bundle up in winter gear and go out to the camper to get it from the fridge.
When you get out to the camper, you will realize that they may want a yogurt also.
You grab the juice and yogurt and take them into the house.
To eat the yogurt and drink the coffee, they need a mug and some spoons.
To get a mug and a spoon, you have to wash some dishes.
To wash some dishes, you discover that you need more water.
You go out to pump more water from your barrel to your jug.
While you are out there, you remember that you both like to have creamer in the coffee.
You go back to the camper to get the creamer.
When you are back inside the house, you start to wash the dishes.
You see water running towards you on the floor and realize that the gray water bucket has run over.
You go back outside to empty the bucket.
While you are out there, you know you might as well get some firewood for the wood stove.
You carry the bucket of wood and empty water bucket into the house.
It is still too dark to do the dishes without light, so you grab your headlamp.
It is out of batteries. The batteries are charging in the camper.
You bundle up and go back to the camper AGAIN to get the batteries.
You take the juice back to put in the fridge and trudge back to the house with your headlamp and new batteries.
You replace the water bucket, wash the dishes, and serve coffee, yogurt, and eggs and toast.
When eating breakfast and drinking coffee, you realize that the kids might like another glass of juice…..

Flashback to Another Adventure

I was going through some things today in our process to simplify and de-clutter our lives.  I came across a notebook with a single journal entry from our time in the summer of 2009 when we moved to West Virginia and lived in a modified horse trailer in a campground for 3 months……

My thoughts were suddenly broken by Dave’s voice as he looked at me, bewildered, and said, “What is the purpose of all of this?”.  I felt temporarily confused as I swam out of my own reveries. “The purpose of what?”, I inquired.  His hands flew up in frustration as he gestured all around us.  “This, all of this, living for three months in a horse trailer.  What lesson is there in all of this?”.  I looked down at my camp chair, the mud on my jeans, up at the blue tarp over our picnic table, and then at the horse trailer itself, our home.  It made me tired.  Why is it that some of life’s most valuable lessons come out of such struggles?  I wondered, too, why the lessons themselves are so long in coming.  At first, I was slightly embarrassed when people I hardly knew would ask where we were living.  I would mumble about rentals being difficult to find and try to change the subject.  Now I just say it matter-of-factly, “We live in a campground”………

End of entry.  Funny how some things just never change!  It makes me ponder our lives, to think of what it is about the two of us that leads us into such crazy adventures.  What makes us different? Most people would not live in a campground for three months, or move across the country with two kids and camp for ten weeks while building a house? Most people would not live in a 100-year-old house in Alaska and haul water, fuel, and commute by snowmachine (snowmobile). I know that we are not most people, but what is it, I wonder, that makes us different? It must have been the same with pioneers back in the old days, moving West with their families, or the Pilgrims, going across an ocean by boat to a new land. Sometimes we find ourselves wishing that we could just be content with ‘normal’. But alas, here we are, in the middle of another crazy adventure. This time, however, is vastly different than previous ones, because this time, we have been able to see the lessons, as they happen, and thank God for bringing them to us to make us grow into better people and a stronger family.