Time Marches On
I swear it was just last week when I wrote my last article but my goodness I just checked and it was April when I last wrote. and the end of August when we last posted our podcast. Geesh!
Here is a recap to bring you up to speed on what has happened in our lives since then:
May: Noah spent the month hanging and finishing 100 sheets of 12 foot drywall that covered the entire first floor walls and ceiling. He knows it took him 66 hours total to hang, mud, sand, and prime the walls because he listened to the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy on audiobooks.
Noah finished his 7th year of teaching high school business.
Elizabeth had 20 graduates obtain their GEDs as she is the leader of the adult learning program for our county!
We listed our house that we had lived in for 9 years for sale.
The oldest three boys were in a play at our local Children’s Theater called “Nonsense in the Northwoods” and discovered what a conspiracy theory is.
Little by little Elizabeth and the kids got our house packed up and took many trips over to the farm and put our belongings in one of our two shipping container storage units.
June: Painting, Painting, Painting!
The inside of the house really took shape. Walls were painted, outlets and lights were installed, and preparation for floor coverings.
We built large aviary for our chickens and enclosed it with chicken wire. The entire are is about 15 feet wide, 30 feet long, and 20 feet tall.
Then the storm hit!
On June 29th we were at the farm working like usual. Elizabeth and the kids had just planted a large pumpkin patch on the Southside of the barn, while I was finishing up the chicken area. I had gotten an alert on my phone and Elizabeth’s dad Pat came out and said a large storm was getting close we should probably call it a day. The sky went from beautiful to terrifying in the mile and a half we spent driving from the farm to our house. Wind was whipping at 60 mph and the thunder and lightening were deafening. We grabbed Annie (Benny’s Corgi), flashlights, and Henry grabbed a box of Yohoos and granola bars and headed to the basement. We lost power and within about a half of an hour the storm moved on.
I drove up to the farm and a giant tree had fallen, but luckily didn’t hit anything. We left for awhile thinking the power would come back on, but it didn’t. I cooked biscuits and gravy on our grill for supper (that was an experience) and we went to bed. We still did not have power the next day, so we spent the day with Elizabeth’s parents. When we still did not have power we decided to grab some things and crash in their basement for the night. Overall, our power was out for 7 days. We abandoned the food in the fridge, but moved a freezer up to the farm because it did have power. It was quite an ordeal but we made the best out of it.
July- On July 1 we moved the goats, dogs, and chickens to their new home at the farm. It was a much better setup for the goats and they had so much more room. I didn’t quite have the perimeter electric fence done, so we kept them in their giant 20x40 pen and fed them hay.
Each summer the kids participate in a running club in Terre Haute. This is an excellent program that the kids go running with their friends twice a week and it culminates with a fourth of July 1 mile run. We were very proud of them as their times improved from last year!
Much of July was spent focusing on moving in the house and the Clay County Fair!
Henry showed Murphy (the Collie) and they had fun running over teeter totters, through hoops, and weaving in and out of cones. Henry worked with Murphy since February and was very happy with his effort!
In between the dog show and the real fair, we were hard at work installing cabinets, the floor coverings were laid, and we finally had TOILETS at the farm!!!
Special shoutout to Flooring America for their outstanding job installing the floors. Noah really debated doing them himself, but we are glad we let the professionals install them and Shane the installer did a fantastic job on the tile, vinyl, and wood in particular! We chose carpet for the living room and master bedroom. Wood floor for the dining room. Ceramic tile in the kitchen and master bathroom. And we went with a vinyl floor in the laundry room.
The 2023 Clay County 4-H Fair was a blast! Henry is our only 4Her at the moment but Elliott gets to join next year. Henry’s Silver Laced Wyandotte received Champion and was in the running for best in show, and his turkey was reserve Grand Champion Meat Bird. Sadly, we took the goats to the fairgrounds and but had to bring them home as we learned that they had contracted a communicable disease. Henry was bummed, as he has spent the whole year working towards this show with his goats. He still participated in the show by helping others show their goats if they had multiples in the same class. We were also so proud of him when they announced that he had been named Jr. Herdsman of the year! This award is based off of the entire years work ethic and devotion to learning more about goats.
We finished the month off by selling our old house and moving into our new house. We have the first floor about 95% completed and still have to do trim and interior doors, and a backsplash. The kids are all living in the front room which will eventually be our living room when the upstairs is finished.
We capped the month off by canoeing down Sugar Creek which flows through beautiful Turkey Run state park on the twins 4th birthday. This was a first for us, but we definitely have plans to do more of this next summer!
August: With Noah’s return to school looming in early August we squeezed as much as we could into those first days of the month. We went with some friends to see the Indianapolis Colts training camp. Noah and the kids ran a timed 40 yard dash, btw Noah is still the fastest in the family!
The highlight of the month might have been a turkey processing demonstration day we hosted at the farm on August 5th. Overall we processed 9 turkeys and 9 roosters and had 28 visitors to the farm to learn about how the process works and get involved at whatever their comfort level was.
The twins wanted a broadway themed birthday party and for the cakes Arthur chose Fiddler on the Roof and Amelia chose Annie.
The kids got into the swing of doing their own school work and enjoyed the new homeschool room at the farm.
In the middle of the month we had visitors from New York come camp at our farm for a week. These were some dear friends from Elizabeth’s college days and we love spending time together whenever we can. We stayed up late playing a board game called Wingspan and talking till early hours of the morning. Noah went to work tired, but it was well worth it! We took the kids bowling (our kids first time), went to the Indiana State Fair, and our friends threw a surprise birthday party for Elizabeth that was chicken themed!
At the end of the month, we took the kids to the Half Century of Progress Show in Rantoul Illinois. This was a Christmas gift for Arthur our tractor lover! We spent the day with friends walking and looking at thousands of tractors and learning about how they farmed 50 years ago. Funny though, everything they were doing, was exactly the kind of things we were doing as our equipment was from the same era.
We ended the month building a new goat area attached to a different barn. To make a long painful story short, we had to essentially replace our goat herd on a new piece of ground because the disease we had that kept us from participating in the 4H fair taints anything including the ground. We slowly moved our old goats on to new owners and bought a bunch of new goats and new breeds. Now we have Pygmy, Boer, Nigerian Dwarf, and Angora goats. We are hoping to milk the Nigerian Dwarfs and collect fiber from the Angoras.
September: The month started with Noah building a new septic drainage field (finger system) that required renting big machines including a mini excavator and skid steer.
Henry bought some new show birds to develop his breeding program of Silver Laced Wyandottes.
Elizabeth and the kids returned to the pumpkin patch for the first time since the storm hit in June and found well over 100 pumpkins of many varieties that we were able to share with our friends and family.
Henry, Elliott, and Benjamin were in another play called “No Strings Attached” which was an adaptation of Pinocchio. They all did great and Henry and Benny were in the same scene together as partners! It was so fun to watch.
The majority of the month was spent moving. Not us this time! Elizabeth’s grandparents Ron and Bernie Beyers decided it was time to move closer to family and bought the house right next to Elizabeth’s parents Pat and Lisa! Elizabeth and the kids took multiple trips per week to help clean and pack the home Ron and Bernie spent 40 years in. It was an emotional move, and a big undertaking, but we are so happy to have them around all the time now!
October: Things were in full swing with the kids doing school and Noah’s first 9 week quarter was coming to a close. Which means Fall Break!
Every year we go to Gulf Shores, Alabama for the fall break with Elizabeth’s family. This almost all of the family on her dad’s side was there. We had a very relaxing week of sun and fun. It is our main vacation every year! Shoutout to Cannon Talbot for holding thing down on the homestead for us. He did a great job of keeping animals fed and watered, and took Annie on some trips to see his Corgi at his house! It was such a relief to know our animals were getting such good care.
We concluded the month with Halloween and we all went as each of our favorite broadway characters. Elizabeth was Elphaba from Wicked, Noah was Old Deuteronomy from Cats, Henry was Joseph from Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat, Elliott was Edward Bloom from Big Fish, Benjamin was Alexander Hamilton from Hamilton, Amelia was Annie, from…Annie, and Arthur was Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof.
Things finally started slowing down in November (thank goodness!). We wrapped the chicken coop with plastic to make them more comfortable for winter.
Elizabeth and Noah went and saw Come From Away, a wonderful musical about how the town of Gander Newfoundland came to the aid of 9,000 travelers stranded due to the air space closing on 9/11.
Henry turned 11 and finally got to have the Harry Potter birthday party he has wanted for years!
One of the coolest things ever happened this month. A great friend of the family named Elmo Hoke was friends with Elizabeth’s Uncle Don who lived at the farm before we did. He would stop by every week or so during construction and talk about how things were coming along. He told me a few months ago he wanted to make something for us for our new home. He built us a beautiful dining table that was 4 feet wide and 9 feet long! It is absolutely gorgeous and made with love. During events we can easily sit 14 around it!
Our sweet Amelia has been growing her hair out for a very long time now and was finally able to donate her beautiful locks to an organization called Wigs for Kids.
Henry and Elliott have been taking piano lessons and are making beautiful music.
Noah caught his breath and began work on the second floor. Noah and the kids got the walls framed over the Thanksgiving break.
Speaking of Thanksgiving, Elizabeth cooked a massive feast for both of our families as we traditionally host Thanksgiving. It was the first in our new house. A wonderful time was had by all!
December- So far: Since then Noah has gotten the second floor roughed wired and plumbed. We have some bids out for HVAC mini-split systems (Noah is considering doing it on his own, but wants to see how it shakes out financially to have a pro do it). This week insulation goes up on the walls and we have a plan to drywall over the Christmas Break.
And that’s just the highlights! We hope to get back to regular posts and podcasts by the end of the month as winter lends itself to having time to do these activities!
Noah and Elizabeth Coley