Lots of Rain

We have loved living in the midwest so far. It gets a lot more rain than Utah! The storms that sweep through have been amazing. I still can’t believe the amount of water that can dump down in one storm. Check out this video:

Weeds Around the House

But one downside to all of the rain is it helps the weeds to grow like crazy! When we first moved in, the flower beds were completely overrun. And I didn’t deal with it for several weeks because the task just seemed too daunting.

When I finally found the courage to face the weeds, it was a freeing experience both for me and for the poor little plants trying to survive! Check out these crazy pictures!

So the weeding is a work in progress. I have been trying to keep the flowerbeds around the house cleaned up, but there are some other ones out in the middle of the yard that I haven’t even tackled yet. Someday…

Weeds Around the Pond

Another area where the weeds were absolutely out of control was around the pond in front of the house. The pond is probably about 1/2 acre. It’s pretty big and that means for a large perimeter. The weeds were over a foot thick, as tall as Sadie and covered in nasty spider webs. The spiders that came out at night were even nastier. The kids and I were terrified to even walk along next to the pond let alone go swimming or fishing. We knew that was one of the first things we wanted to get cleaned up.

Charlie trimmed them all down with a brush cutter. The kids and I then helped rake everything into piles and load it onto a tarp that we dragged behind the UTV to a big burn pile. It was a huge project, especially in the summer heat and humidity. But it has been so nice having it done! Now it doesn’t take nearly the work to keep it trimmed and the kids have been swimming and fishing in it tons! Sometimes you just have to put in some nice sweaty work and then you can really enjoy the end result!

Concrete in the Outbuilding

I already mentioned the concrete project a little bit in my blog post, Chapter 6 | The Right Focus. You can read it here. Basically, we have a large outbuilding next to the house that has had a spider infested, mouse-droppinged gravel floor. A few weeks ago we had concrete poured and it makes a huge difference! Now we can start using it for storage, temporary boxes, the lawn mower, the UTV, and whatever else we need to while we start the renovation of the house.

It’s amazing the difference a smooth floor can make!

Our Plans

We have lots of plans for the house and are trying to move forward with things a little bit at a time. Everything takes time and money. Ha ha. The big goals are to get the yard cleaned up, especially the wooded area. And then of course, we are wanting to get started on the house addition and renovation. We are still trying to find a builder for that. So wish us luck!

Follow along as we turn this wild 40 acres into our dream homestead/ranch/farm/estate/english manor/hacienda/chateau/HOME!

Until next project!

~ Rachel