"Adventures, Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!"

 Times, they are a changing...At least here on the farm, they are! Last time I wrote was 6 months ago and I said we were getting the farm ready to sell.  Well, we are STILL getting the farm ready, but we've made a lot of progress and are almost done.

Way back at the first of November, we made an offer on a piece of land just a few miles from family but a long ways from home.  It is a complicated 'short sale' and we are still waiting!  It seems as though it might finally be resolved one way or another this next week, but time will tell.

We sit in the mornings with our coffee in hand and chat about the business of the day.  "Are we up for this adventure?"  "Can we build another house?"  "Are we too OLD for all this???"  and other mornings, we ARE those long ago 20-year-olds, newly married and ready for whatever life and the Good Lord put in our path!

If all goes accordingly, at the new 18 acre farm, we will 'gut' a little cabin (picture above) & re-model the inside; build a garage and put our home up for sale in preparation to move.  Once the house is sold, we will simultaneously move our 39+ year accumulation of STUFF to the 'new' place, live in a cabin and build a new house!  Whew!

Sigh.  I have a history of panic attacks/anxiety disorder and this long wait & thoughts of moving are keeping me right on the edge, for sure.  You can bet that prayers for peace & health are right there on the top of my list every day!  God is faithful and I'm holding together...mostly.  I recently read a line from one of Elisabeth Elliott's books that really struck me and I'm trying to remind myself of it when I start to get overwhelmed:  "Just do the next thing."  Biblical, for sure, as He tells us not to be anxious about tomorrow.  It's always tempting to imagine all the things ahead (both good and bad!) but really, we just need to get through today.

We won't plant a garden this year - that right there will be really strange.  We've always had a garden...as a matter of fact, I can't remember a year we did't have at least a small one.  I'm planning to stop my Ebay & Etsy stores if our purchase goes through and we've whittled our farm animal population way down.  I've still got 8 keeper rabbits, 8 members of the goat herd and a handful of hens.

 The best part about moving is that we'll be closer to our grandbaby & more family.  He is, of course, the cutest child ever to exist - even cuter than my own children were!  And, to make the future even brighter, he is going to be a big brother in August!  Blessing upon blessing!

So, simpler, more down to earth farm life for today:  I sewed up a bunch of primitive pigs this morning, made a backing for a quilt that I'm going to put on my quilting frame, made Veggie Beef Soup & Focaccia bread for dinner and chased a baby goat all over the bottom of the field (outside the fence!) until we finally caught her and deposited her back in the field with her mama!  The sad bleating was what alerted us to her plight, but she did NOT appreciate us trying to rescue her, nonetheless!  The others were VERY helpful - gathering round and dancing about in goat-ful glee that we had come out to play!

 We are enjoying homemade cocoa almost every evening now that the goats are milking again - unsweetened cocoa powder, honey, our own vanilla and goat milk!  What could be better?  (Maybe toast and jam to go with?)

We've been (shhh, don't tell anyone!) buying cheap Vodka at our Costco store....and making extracts!!!   We've got bottles of vanilla and now some AMAZING bottles of orange extract as well!  Such fun!  You'd have laughed to see us trying to find Vodka the first time - I've never bought alcohol in my life and we had to look at a lot of bottles before we found it.  Who knew there were so many varieties, lol??

Well, that's the update from the Hilltop.  All is well and we're learning patience (are we?).  Well, we're trying!  Until next time....

"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not to thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy path."   Proverbs 3:5-6 

P.S.  I ask you, is he not the most precious and adorable, sweet & lovable, cute, smart and smilingest (is that a word??) boy you've ever SEEN????  This Grammy is smitten (could you tell?).