November, the Chickens and Me

It’s been awhile since I talked about what has been going on with me personally.  Things have just been strange in my life. And I haven’t wanted to talk about it because I haven’t been really sure of anything.  So I will start at the beginning. Well, the beginning of the summer.

As you know I have been dreaming forever of owning a few acres of land.  I looked for almost a year for a nice plot of land. It’s really difficult where I live to find land that you can have full water rights on. Most of the acreage I have found for sale only allows you to water 1/2 acre of your property. Plus the land couldn’t be too expensive or too small. Ideally I wanted about 2-3 acres. I looked at tons of houses with land on them too. However my husband likes a nice house and didn’t want a fixer-upper or a manufactured home. I didn’t care either way, I just wanted the land. I could totally live in a shack if I had some land to play with. I just want be a little more self-sufficient. And I want my kids to take 4-H animals to the fair too.

So, this summer we found a 5 acre lot of land with full water rights AND for a great price. So we placed our earnest money down, and started looking into construction loans. We found a house we wanted to build and talked with the banks for financing the whole land and construction. They approved us to do this and carry our own home (have both loans) until our home sold. So we continued, placed deposit money down with the home builder. BUT, the bank came back and said they would prefer our house to sell first before starting everything. So… we quickly got our house ready to sell and listed it by owner for a week. Then we prayed and hoped this was the direction the Lord would have us take in our lives.

Didn’t have much action so we listed our home on the MLS listing a few weeks later. We had 2-3 showings each week but no one made any offers for 2 months – needless to say we were pretty stressed! Worried we would lose out on the land.  So we listed then with a real estate agent at the beginning of October and sadly the house didn’t get an offer.

Luckily the land owners have been really patient with us and willing to wait for our house to sell.

We decided to look into another route to get our land. Getting the land loan straight out. And after some paper work and a few weeks of waiting we finally were able to purchase the land! It just closed this past week. And I couldn’t be happier.

5 acres!

This is what my land looks like. This picture of course was in the summer. Isn’t it lovely?

Many times I have prayed and fasted during this whole process for help in selling our house, help in knowing if this was the right path for our family, and help with feeling peace through the stress of it all. I started to wonder why we weren’t getting any offers on our house so that this would all work out quickly. Honestly I wasn’t getting my answer from God and that confused me at the time because He has always answered my prayers before. I have a personal relationship with my Father in Heaven and it’s the BEST part of life for me. I rely on Him for everything. Whenever I am not sure what to do or need help I have asked Him and His answers have come through the power of the Holy Ghost either whispering to my mind & heart or by a warm wonderful feeling.

But at one point we hadn’t sold our house, feeling a bit down and was pondering about what to do. The idea of trying to buy the land came to my mind. This idea of course would be ideal because we could pay off the land before building. That would mean lower house payments and more financial freedom. I had been told however that  you need a LOT of money down for land loans, which I didn’t have. So I hadn’t gone that route before. But my husband and I went down and applied.  We were able to get a line of credit for the down on the loan and got the loan so it worked out beautifully. This way is the ideal path because we can pay down the loan first! Which is financially a much better way and I feel great about it.  So I know now that it was all in His hands, and this path we took of buying the land was the path He wanted us to go on.

So now that you know what has been happening in my life…you will understand why I haven’t posted much. I just couldn’t officially say I owned the 5 acres of land because it was still up in the air all summer long. I didn’t garden much or talk about this because I was focused on selling my house. My life has basically been on pause.

If you are curious, this summer in my garden I grew tomatoes and basil. Had some garlic too before the chickens dug them all up.

And the chickens? They are all very well! But it has started getting COLD here. One day the chickens just hung out inside the top of the coop all day long.

Miss Dawn has totally found her place with other chickens. In fact I haven’t seen any pecking at all lately. It’s awesome.

And she is my new favorite. She is so full of curiosity and spunk. And she is so sweet too.

Miss Lacey is still the queen of the chickens. Where she goes the others usually follow.

Miss Pepper seems to be doing great too, and even though I think she is still the lowest on the end of the pecking order she doesn’t seem to get pecked much anymore.

And Miss Goldie is my most chicken-ist chicken. She is so scared all the time – constantly still runs away whenever anyone comes near. And the sun faded her feathers this summer so her colors aren’t as vibrant. I keep hoping she will molt and grow some new ones.

They laid eggs all summer long – usually every other day. But with the cold weather here now I am lucky to get an egg each day.

And they are still the sweetest girls ever.

I am so excited about my new adventure ahead. 5 acres!!! My head feels like it will explode. I can have the freedom to do whatever I want. It will be so amazing. I can have more animals, a really big garden, orchard and even a barn perhaps. I will share some pictures I took of my land sometime soon.

Thanks for listening, and sorry for keeping this all to myself for so long. I am a bit of an introvert, so it’s often hard to share anything personal about myself online. I have to force myself sometimes when it comes to my personal life. In fact, I think I should try to do a “real me” series for you all in the future. So you will learn all my imperfections, many of the deep feelings of my heart, and how my life as a blogger really is. That is if I can get enough nerve to write it. Ha!