Well, it's almost moving time. We have been working our booties off trying to get the house in New Market move-in ready. We have the house primed and 2 bedrooms have color. The house had so much tar / smoke on the walls and ceiling that it took a ton of Kilz. I think we finally managed to put enough on it so it wouldn't bleed through. We ripped out a piece of cabinet about the kitchen sink which opened up that side of the kitchen tremendously. It will make a huge difference once we get the new windows installed. They should arrive sometime tomorrow and I have to pick them up sometime before my parents get back up here on Tuesday of next week. Mom was a HUGE help this past week. There is no way we could have gotten as much done as we did without her. I'm so thankful she is such a talented woman!

Our garden in New Market is doing fabulous! Our cucumbers are going crazy and I'm pretty sure we will have way more than we can eat. Our peas, okra, and herbs we planted a couple weeks ago are starting to come up nicely. My one pumpkin plant is trailing everywhere and we have two baby watermelons coming along. We have harvested several jalapeno and banana peppers from our pepper plants. Our squash plant at our current house is also producing like crazy! We just harvested 4.5 lbs from it this morning alone! I'm afraid we may have let a couple of those get too big though and they won't be as good. Oh well.

Our horses have been a little neglected lately since we haven't had time to do much at our current house because we've been at the new one so much. I'm hoping to get some fencing done this week so we can move them over this weekend. The fencing at the new house is barbed wire and I'm really nervous about it. I have already had to put one horse down in my life because of barbed wire. I really don't have a choice though. The fencing is already in place for the owner's cattle and I'm sure he won't like me changing it for the horses. It is electric though so I'm hoping the will just stay away from it. The first scratch though it's coming down....I don't care what they say. We are putting t-post caps on top of all the t-posts with a large rope hot wire which will be give the fence more visibility and more shock if they go near it. The fence we put up to separate the pasture into 2 will only be the rope hot wire.

There is a little run in shed on the property which will supply the horses' shelter. We are considering dividing it in two because we could then feed in it and keep the horses separated when needed. It would probably make two 10 x 10 stalls. The pasture isn't bad at all. Very shady but in the big pasture there are huge blackberry bushes with ferocious thorns. Hopefully Ronan won't figure out what they are and get too cut up by them. But I will have the antibiotic ointment ready......

I'm really looking forward to living in New Market. It is a very quiet, farm community with nice views and rollings hills. It has one red light and a ton of churches, haha. Jefferson City is only about a 5 minutes drive east though....and so is the Tractor Supply....which probably will be bad.

Spring is in the air and summer is banging on the door!

I have been slacking on my blogging lately. I've had a lot of things going on and just haven't had time. Let me give you an update on everything!

We have found a rental house. It is located in New Market, TN. It's needs a little work but the landlords are fabulous and have agreed to let us have 1000 deducted from rent to make improvements on the house. That does not include new windows or paint that we will also be installing. My parents are planning to come up next week to help with repairs. Since dad is a homebuilder, he will install the windows and repair any other big things that need to be done. The house is a 3 bedroom, 1 bath brick rancher. It has about 50 acres around it dedicated to cattle. We have about 4 acres that we will fence off for our two horses. There is a small run-in shed close to the house that we can convert into two small stalls. It will be just fine. Steven and I have been driving out every weekend to garden. We have created a small garden with about 7-8 rows. We still have many plants growing in containers at our old house. Here is a list of everything we are currently growing:

Containers:
Sweet Corn
Squash
Iceburg Lettuce
1 tomato plant with about 40 (no kidding) tomatoes on it!
4 strawberry plants
3 blueberry bushes, all different varieties for pollination
1 thornless blackberry vine
1 grape vine
several beefsteak tomato plants that are still very tiny
1 Watermelon plant
1 eggplant
2 pots of trellised peas
Cilantro
2 Oregano plants
Dill
Rosemary
Lavender
Several flowers in pots

At the new house in the garden:
Silver Queen corn
2 varieties of onion
Green Bell Pepper
Jalapeno peppers
Banana peppers, hot and sweet varieties
Cucumbers
Several varieties of beans
a couple of strawberry plants we found growing at the house
Christmas melon - in a raised bed
Cantelope - in a raised bed
Pumpkin
Buttercup squash
Zucchini
Okra
Brocolli
New potatoes - In a potato box
Sweet potatoes

I think that is about it but it is possible I forgot something!

We have also ordered our fall seeds. We are planning to plant many different rare varieties of vegetables which I will list later.

Other things that have been going on:

I've received a promotion at work. I went from being an administrative assistant to the Controller. It is definitely a lot more responsibility but I love it so far. I think my brain works better the more pressure it has to deal with.

So, between packing for the move, getting ready for the renovations to the new house, my new job, and life in general....I have no time to blog. But, I will try to upload some pictures of our harvest so far....It's not much but we're so proud!