East Coast Road Trip 2016 (part 1)

S u m m e r   vacay 

to V i r g i n i a! YAY!

via

Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland

(throw in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri on the way back)...

21 states

6600+ miles 

And, oh yeah, we bought  a

M O T O R H O M E 

to take us there!

It was pretty much awesome.

And it pretty much went by waaaaay   tooooo  faaaaaast!

I wish we had taken a month.  Or even two months.

We left July 9th got back July 25th.  2 weeks and 2 days.

Our first stop - on Saturday night, the first night - was 

UTAH!

At Grammie and Grandad's house!

We LOOOOVE visiting there!

My brother Brian and his family were there visiting too.  We loved seeing this little nephew/cousin.

After one short night with them, we left and drove across long 

Wyoming, and into Nebraska where we stayed the night at a rest stop.  The motorhome was right between 2 semi's, and other semi's would stop right next to us all night long to run into the bathroom.  Needless to say I didn't sleep very well.  But I got excited when, in the middle of the night at that rest stop, and even through diesel fumes from the trucks, I could smell humidity!  It was like I could smell the ocean, even though we were the farthest we could get from it in the continental US.  But smelling that, I felt closer to home.

At 6 a.m. Weston woke up, walked from the bed to the driver's seat, opened the curtains, started her (Clementine) up, and started driving.  I joined him.  The kids slept for 2 more hours (benefit of having the motorhome).

I forgot how big the sun is on the horizon.  The sunrise in the middle of Nebraska was gorgeous.

It was so fun driving with the windows open, just he and I awake, and watching the now green and farm-y landscape.  

We were driving East!  Our destination for today, now Monday, was a tiny town in Illinois where one of my former BYUH college roommates lives with her family.  Only about 700 miles.

My amazing mother-in-law sent us with a box with a bunch of small gifts to open, one for each state we went into.  That was seriously so cool.  In Wyoming, I got my own gift: a cheery orange dish towel.  Some of the other gifts were a coloring book, crayons, construction paper, white paper, a book about animals, cookies, and this  history trivia game that was especially great when I was trying to keep Weston awake late on some of our traveling nights.

I haven't added up the number of hours that we were driving, and I don't really want to, but it was a whole lot.

We drove through Iowa with it's beautiful corn fields, green farms, and white winding gravel roads, and into Illinois and finally pulled up to Ranie and Burl's house at about 12:30 a.m.  It was so fun to see them the next morning, and hang out with them, and see their 100 year old farmhouse.  Their yard was so green!  I really love that natural green!

As roommates in Hawaii we were the only 2 (out of the 10 of us) that said "y'all".  She was from Arkansas and I was from Virginia, of course.  I felt a bond with her right off because of it.

Ranie is one of the most fun and sweetest people ever!  She can really make me laugh.  I love to laugh, but, honestly, there are not a lot of people who can make me genuinely laugh;  Like, a real, natural, can't-control-it, out loud laugh (that I remembered I'm not very good at doing anymore).  She can definitely make me do that.  She's good for my soul.  

And it's fun that Weston and Burl get along so well too.  She and her husband Burl have 4 cute kids.  This is her youngest Jesse, or "Messy" Jesse as she calls him.  

  

We have a few pictures of them all lined up like this from over the years.  We just keep having more kids.  We're missing her oldest from the picture, Gracie Belle, who is Kate's buddy.  

Isn't her house dreamy looking?

We left their house and headed toward Palmyra, New York, for the Hill Cumorah Pageant.  We didn't want to rush our time with Ranie's family, and knew we couldn't quite make it all the way to Palmyra that day, so I happily looked for a camping place along Lake Erie.  I was really hoping that it would work out that way.  

We drove through Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and we got to the campground just inside of western New York state at around midnight.  The next morning, after eating waffles, we told the kids we wanted to show them something.  When they first saw the lake, they thought we were at the ocean.  They couldn't wait to get out and run and play (some still in their nightgowns).

Lake Erie!

We tried to set the timer on the camera.  It turned out alright.  Spencer is a goof ball, though.

Serious memory making here, people.

And, by the way, it is so nice to have a hose on the outside of the motorhome to rinse sand off.

So long, beautiful Great Lake!

Now, off to Palmyra, where we'll reunite with some old friends!  Only a 2 hour drive today.  No big deal!

Summer 2013 Video (a year and a half later)

I wanted to put this on here before but I couldn't because I didn't have permission to use the first song I used for the video, even though I legally purchased it on iTunes.  Anyway, I just split it in half.  This is looking way back to the Summer 2013, when I was prego with little Ollie man. 

- Summer 2013 - from Carrie Beth on Vimeo.

The Garden, The Garden Fence, and The Garden Fence Gate

We've been putting a lot of our time this year into growing.

Growing children?  Yes, of course.

Growing cattle?  Yup, uh huh.

But also growing food.

Naturally.

  

What's a homestead without a big garden?  Well, not as legit of a homestead, maybe?  We've done gardens in the past, sort of, but this has been our best so far.  I ordered non-GMO, non-hybrid, heirloom seeds in Janurary or February from Victory Seeds, and started like 50 or more tomato plants, peppers, and a bunch of other stuff.  I only had success with the tomatoes.  I planted 24 of them, and then we had to leave for Texas, and the other plants that were in the starter things next to the planted tomatoes somehow didn't get water.  They were shriveled up and dead by the time we got home.

The garden the week of July 8th:

The corn is popping up behind me in the picture, as are the melons, pumpkins, squash, beans.  (Now - a month and a half later - they are all over the place.)

We added a little sand box to the left of the hen house.

The kids play out there forever, which works great for when I want to be in the garden.

Ezra was yelling that he had to go to the bathroom in the photo above.  He busted himself out right after I took the picture.

Oh, and the weeding opportunities that a garden provides.  Everyone is supposed to weed their age times 10.  We did like 2 days that anything over that was a penny a weed.  Kate was earning some good money.  And she and Ezra even helped Jiles weed 50 extra so that he could earn 50 cents.

The Garden Fence.

I really wanted a nautral fence, and so, after pinning a few on Pinterest, Weston had an idea of what I had in mind.   And we started to work on it.

But Weston had a hard time working on it.  Not because he couldn't do it, but because it was a lot of work to make, and not so sturdy.  He's a rancher.  Fences are a big part of his job.  And to spend time on one to not have it last... That didn't go over so well.

  

So, after having one and a half sections completed, and then it staying like that for like 3 months, and then seeing one of our best friends' garden fence, we tore out the unsturdy natural fence (sniff, sniff - i loved the look) and Weston got to work on a nice sturdy, tall picket fence.

Remember: I am the dreamer, he is the realist.

Section one (with an old door that I wanted to use as a gate):

I love it!

And Weston does, too.  And it goes up fairly quickly (once the posts are in).

The west side with the pumpkins 2 weeks ago:

I cannot wait to plant wildflowers - sun flowers to be specific - along the fence.  Flowers on the outside and herbs on the inside.

The chicken door will be on the outside of the fence with a little yard, but we'll let them into the garden once everything is harvested (probably).

I need to move that white door that's leaning up against the hen house that's been in every picture.

Of course, it is not done yet.  There is still the north side (front side) to put in with the front double gates that will open wide enough for the tractor, that section right there by the coop, and the rest of the east side.  Weston's been busy haying, and we took a trip to Nevada for a family reunion, so it was pushed to the back burner.

I have {sweetly} reminded Weston that 1 cow 1 time could ruin it all.

Like this lady: 

"Excuse me, could you please ruminate somewhere else?"

She was kind enough to oblige, without stepping hoof into the garden.

And now...

The Garden Fence Gate:

It's a door from the old ranch house that used to stand in our house's place.  We lived in the old farmhouse for the first year that we were on the ranch.  It was a sweet little place, but moldy.  Very, very moldy in the basement.  Think mold flowers on the wall.  Spencer's asthma really started when we moved into it.  That's why it was torn down.

The door was a closet door for either Kate's room or the boys' room.  The middle panels feel off just this last winter because they were left on the ground all winter.    

I put it on my operating table:

And got to work.

(How cute is Oliver? He pushes chairs all over the place.)

I cleaned it and painted it with some paint that I already had, and then sealed it with polyurethane.  Weston helped me put on the chicken wire, then we reenforced it a bit, and hung it in the back corner of the garden.

Well, ain't we handy.

We all love it.

Some Pickings:

We've been getting little maters for a few weeks now.

 And now everything else is really coming on.

Yesterday morning the kids and I went out together to see what we could pick.  It was a really cool morning, which was fun and Fall-like.

 Basil

 Dill

Dill is pretty.

All of it is, really.

Even those cracked tomatoes that got too much water (chicken food).

Lots of squash.  

Anyone have a favorite recipe.  We sauteed some up tonight and it was yummy.  (And I put some in my burrito, but I couldn't really taste it because I was paying attention to kids and didn't pay attention to the taste of my dinner.)

 Squash Patch Kids:

A great place to grow 'em.

And you thought I gave birth to them.

Ha! Sure fooled you!

And then Ollie got the boot from the wagon to make room for the bounty.

Busyness in the garden.

Real food is beautiful!

P.S. I finished journaling the trek post if ye care ta take a looksee.