Big Changes and birthday update from my Secret Pal!

So much has happened in the last week or two that I haven't had even a moment to sit down and write about it.

First a little background. Hubby and I are from Utah. (me in a slightly more roundabout way than him) I moved to VA to come help out with my parents, hubby joined me later after 8 (yes you read that right) years of divorce. I guess we finally grew up enough to be together. (yes, we are morons, thanks for asking).

Anyways, VA is not the home of our dreams. In fact where we live we can only afford because my parents gave us their old house and bought another. We pay the mortgage on their first home. Without this house we'd heave to rent an overpriced apartment or try to figure out how to buy a teeny townhome for a half million.

Dad gave us the news earlier in the year, he is retiring on March 31, 2007 and he and mom are moving to East Tennessee near my godmother. My uncle is coming up to join them. Although hubby and I would LOVE to move there, the economy is very depressed so jobs would be difficult if not impossible to find. My uncle and parents will have their retirement income and mom and dad will have the income from the sale of their homes to buy another house with.

Originally our plan was to move to another location of my company, probably Buffalo New York. Then I saw a few of the listings that my parents were looking at in TN. 4 acres, working farm. 17 acres, perfect for farming. etc.

They are buying acreage! Or at least looking at it. When I told the folks that we could not move to TN they seemed disappointed, but they understood the reasons. When I looked at the listings I jokingly told my mother that we would just move down and work their acreage for them. Our ultimate goal is to own a farm anyways. Mom reacted a little differently than I expected.

"Is that what it would take to get you down there with us?"

I tell her perhaps, and I will run it past hubby. After much deliberation we decide that if the folks get acreage we will find a way to farm it for them. But on the other hand, if the can't find decent acreage, we'll still have to go to buffalo, or we may look for a co-of homesteading type are and get some land there. Either way of course, this means some big changes at home. We've started to thin out our crap, tried to figure out ways to save money and last but not least, my birthday present from hubby.

4 Welsummer Chickens. YAY! I get fresh eggs this summer when they start laying!!!!!!! They are so sweet, we named them omelet, Wiley (the fast runner, like Roadrunner!), Barbecue, and Chalet (after Swiss Chalet, for those of you who aren't familiar, it is a Canadian restaurant chain with the Best. Chicken. Ever.)

I'll admit, we know very little about farming, but we are willing to learn. hubby even struck up a deal with a local alpaca farmto trade labor for learning. This also means though that we will need to be saving up a lot of money to get rid of old debts and get us through the first couple of years. Hubby has decided to quit working at the hotel where he made a pittance salary, and go back to the group home where he was making really good money, but worked longer hours. On the upside, the group home is moving to a working goat farm, and we will be able to learn a lot from that too. Besides that I miss the boys.

We have checked out so many library books on self sufficiency and homesteading that I'm sure we are on a government list somewhere but we've been learning more and more. And I can't wait to give it a start!



In knitting news...

Well, Honestly I haven't knit much at all. I knitted my drag queen yarn from a previous post into a lovely but still in progress scarf. I'm just dead on inspiration for knitting lately I guess. I've been spinning a mot. But even my results with spinning have been less than satisfactory lately. I guess with everything else going on, my heart just hasn't been in it.

My Secret pal though, wa so lovely! Not only did she send me an ecard, I got a package in the mail containing a knitting journal and designer chocolate! The chocolates are even wrapped with Knitting ribbon! I will hopefully have pics up soon.

Thank you Secret Pal!!!!!!!!!

Well, off to scour more fleece.