BIG Changes.

Well, Home-made-Home (and our family:-) ) has been going through some major changes ! First and formost; we have moved from Tennessee to Arkansas ! We had been thinking about a move ever since we got flooded so bad back in 2010. We had water about 6 feet deep in our house and repair and clean up from that one flood took us so long. It really set us back about a year and a half on all our projects plus it wiped out all our gardens at that time. We had built the house well above the known flood plane but that year set all new records. I know our move has really surprised a lot of folks as we had really poured a lot of time and love into our Tennessee homestead. We were sad to leave it and all our sweet memories and family there, but are excited to be starting new here in Arkansas.

Finding our new place was so providential. We had been looking for just the right piece of land for months and our place in Tennessee had just sold when we got the news that the track of land we were trying to buy had been sold out from under us. Suddenly we were back at square one. The only thing that kept us from being completely discouraged was that God had to have something even better for us if he had let the deal  fall through at the last minute like that.

He sure did! Just before we needed to move we found our new place. Janet's Dad works at the hospital and a patient there mentioned that he had land for sale. We went to see it and knew right away that this was the place. A little larger than our old place at 15 acres, a 2000 square foot house with a lot of renovation already done ( though there has been plenty of finish work, painting, repair and cleanup for us to do, the house has a new roof and all new floors put in !), a really cool 100 year old barn that is still structurally sound, half open land and half beautiful woods - it was everything we were looking for. It even has a smaller home on the property that we are hoping to get rented out to bring in some extra income. We decided to buy it. We were blessed with a super smooth closing and have moved in. Here are some of the photos we have been taking as we have settled in:

Here is the front of the house. That is an enormous pecan tree behind the house! You can see our new solar panels in the front yard , waiting for their pivoting frame to be built. 

Some of our"country decor" on the front porch. People often think our old fashioned equipment , tools, lanterns, etc. are for show :-)  Little do they know we use this stuff every day!

A view to the back of the house. You can see the old barn and the spring-fed pond for our stock ( by the way - our horses came with us!).

The old barn is so neat! It is on a rock foundation that is made up of some HUGE stones. Lots of the old timbers bear ax-marks where they were hand-hewn. Talk about cool! Dustin is especially excited about restoring it .

Spring has sprung! Lots of flowers of all kinds are coming up all over as this has been a home place a long, long time. We also brought lots of special starts from our homestead in TN . Below is some rock work and planting we did in the front flower bed.

Esther and Ember are enjoying the nice weather and the new swings and our old hammock that their Daddy hung from the plum tree and Bradford pear trees in the side yard .

"Look Mommy, flowers!"

This is the well to the old home place that used to be here. It is still functional! We plan on pluming the water to our house using a solar pump/gravity-flow system.

At the moment it only has a well bucket with a a one-way valve at the bottom. Dustin demonstrates below:-) .

One of the recent projects has been to re-dig the trench in front of the barn.as you can see from the rocks in the picture some one had filled it in years ago. The problem was that without it the rain would run right into the barn - translation: muddy mess. No more though! The new ditch works great!

 There were a lot of deadfall trees and brush to clean up on the place. We have made quite a few bonfires and also have had the blessing of lots of  seasoned firewood for the wood cook stove!

There are so many more things to blog about as we turn this place into our of-grid homestead. And we hope to be better about posting now that we are not in the middle of a move!  In the near future we hope to do some blogs on all the work we have done to the inside of the house, on our new solar array , and last but certainly not least , post some pictures of the whole family including Janet's growing baby- bump! The newest Morgan is due here on Mother's day!





         "Is it a boy or girl Mommy?"
Your guess is as good as ours!

Keep following us as we expand our farm , vision, and our family! :-)

Paint Rock Valley Music Festival

We've been wanting to get this blog out for awhile! This September our family enjoyed getting to be at the Paint Rock Valley Lodge music festival. It was three days of a whole lot of fun!

The Lodge and grounds are covered up with signs of every kind, as you can see.

Some are funny.

 Some are true.

And some just make you go "wha-?" :-) 

There is an "old western town" constructed out back of the lodge where all kinds of fun was going on. Dustin was the town blacksmith for the event. 

Shown above is a "step-by-step" photo showing each step of the process for making a forged leaf key ring, one of Dustin's popular pieces.

Dustin, Lilly, and Ember enjoying one of the cowboy "shoot outs". There where several of these staged throughout the weekend.

Esther enjoyed meeting Cheyenne, the equine member of the River chase posse( the groop that did the shoot outs) She even got a ride:-) 

There were good eats.

Fun and creative crafts.

Great music( three stages all weekend!).

And tons of family fun.

We've been coming to this festival since Esther was a baby and we sure love it! Hopefully the old blacksmith shop will see us in Paint Rock Alabama again!

Making bullets.

As our followers know, we love colonial reenacting and living history. Dustin was very excited recently when we bought bullet molds to make our own ammunition for our muzzleloaders. Here, he dug old bullets out of a stump he had used for target practice to make into new bullets. This is something the pioneers would have done, as lead was too precious to waste.

A close-up of the molds.

Dustin built a small fire and fashioned a stick handle to extend the arm of the melting ladle. The lead begins to melt and becomes liquid quickly.

 Dustin has the molds at ready and quickly pours the molten lead. The metal cools even faster than it melts and if you pause while pouring you will have air spaces that deform the bullets.

Esther with a shiny new round ball. Just let them cool first! Never pop one right out of the mold into your open palm! 

A small stub of extra lead must be snipped off of the balls before they are ready to use. The bullet molds have built-in, handy snippers just for this job.

The results are certainly gratifying: A pile of spent lead is now ready to shoot again. We saved some change and had a lot of fun in the bargain!