Beginning Our Journey Home

Beginning Our Journey Home

We have a surprise for you! We are moving! When? We still aren't sure, but it's going to happen! This past month Sam and I did something we thought wouldn't happen for a long, long time. We found our forever home. Or at least the home that we plan on raising our kids in and living in well into retirement! 

Sam promised me before we got married when we found our forever home that we could name it "The Island" because I always wanted to live on an island far away from everyone in my own little paradise. When we moved into this house we named it "The MinIsland", short for Mini-Island, because it was our almost perfect home. The only thing missing was our family. Ironically, I think we will keep the name "MinIsland" for our next home, too, because we love it so much! So without further ado, let me introduce you to the new MinIsland Farm. 

The farm destined to be the new MinIsland is located in Harrodsburg, Kentucky. It's a 17 acre farm in the middle of town (two minutes from Kroger, one minute form our church) with two barns, a pond, 2 underground springs, and an in-ground pool. The house itself is 2900 sqft with 6 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. The main part was built in the late '60's with an addition added in the '70s. It is unlike our current house in in that the inside is majorly outdated, in need of serious repair, lacking heating to parts of the house and air conditioning to the whole house. It is similar to our current house in that it seems like a custom built home with a good quality structure and a sense of home. Unlike all the other houses we have casually glanced at over the past four years as we dreamed of moving back, we can actually imagine our kids growing up here. We can transform this house to be the house that we've always dreamed of! All it needs is a little (okay, a lot. I will admit.) of love. 

We are still working out contract details, but the closing date should be towards the end of September. In the meantime, we are listing the Georgia house we are currently living in with a realtor as soon as the photographer comes to take pictures of the place. Here's praying that everything works out according to God's plan. 

In other news, Emily and Aaron (you can check them out on thedoughtydog.blogspot.com) came for a visit! While they were here, they helped us put a new undercarriage on the chicken coop. 

Before:

It was an ordeal to get the coop on the new frame. We had to jack up the ends so that we could prop the coop up on boards and cut off the old base.  Quick to say. Hard to do. I think it took three hours. 

Rylee was adorable keeping watch. We kept her in the shade and she watched the puppies and the chickens play in the yard.

The finished product! Unfortunately, now, a couple weeks later, the tires are warping (they are solid rubber instead of inflated) because we underestimated how heavy the coop is. We are going to have to get larger tires. Still, it was cool while it lasted, and the frame works great! We can actually steer the coop while moving it, now.

While we were working, I brought out some homemade chèvre goat cheese to snack on. Boy was it delicious! 

Here's a picture of making the cheese. It's even more straightforward than making yogurt. 

Since they came down a couple days after Emily's birthday, I made a spiced cake for Emily. She and I practiced decorating the cake with the new icing piping tools I got for Christmas. This was the result. 

We always enjoy when family visits, and hopefully they don't get too upset that we always end up doing projects while they are here. We rather enjoy doing projects with family. 

Rylee is eating all sorts of new things. She can eat spaghetti all by herself, now. 

My friend Elizabeth and her son Clark came over and helped me make spaghetti sauce. It turned out WAY better than last year. I can't even explain how yummy it is. So smooth. So fresh!

Rylee and Clarke played together after we finished the prep. (We threw everything in a crockpot to cook for 24 hours). 

The almost end product. I pureed the onion and garlic chunks you can see in the picture here and let it continue cooking for about 3 more hours until it was the perfect thick consistency. 

The garden is booming. Beans are finally coming in. The peppers are ripening. Tiny tomatoes are getting bigger! I hope they get big enough that we can make more spaghetti sauce before we move. 

The realtor we are listing with came over and looked at our house. At her suggestion, we replaced the ramp to the shed--something we had originally planned to do but weren't sure we needed to do anymore. 

I forgot to take a picture of how terrible it looked before. It was just plywood that was warped and rotting with old roof shingles as the covering. We ripped all of that up. 

It was super hot out, so we stripped Rylee down to her diaper and tried to keep her cool. We even drug the water hose over to cool us all off.

Rylee's a great helper!

Lily. 

Once we got all the boards up, Sam stained them. 

While he was working, I tried to keep the progressively-getting-fussier Rylee occupied in the stroller. She was bored sitting in it normally, so we tried out the bottom tray. 

All we have left to do is put down the no-slip tape so that the lawnmower won't slip trying to go up. And we maaay need to add another coat of stain. We aren't sure, yet. 

Sam got a picture of all the chickens in the yard! We still have 19 hens with 2 roosters. 

I'm about to strangle this hen. The Egyptian Fayoumi was supposed to start laying in June. It's now mid August and she still hasn't laid her first egg. The other chickens are just as far behind, though. They were supposed to lay this month, and most of them aren't close.

I made sopapillas! From scratch! Let me tell you, they were delicious! Deep fried homemade flour tortillas rolled in cinnamon and sugar and drizzled with honey. I won't lie. I ate them as half of my dinner.

Lastly, in an effort to be more productive in life (and just happier in general), I'm currently trying out giving up watching TV during the day. So what do you do when you are stressed (trying to straighten out all the different people involved with buying/selling two houses)? You weave a basket. 

The green color will fade over time as the pine needles dry out and turn brown, and I'm curious to see how it holds up over time. In the meantime, it makes the perfect container for our chip clips.

SPICED CAKE WITH CINNAMON BUTTERCREAM ICING

Ingredients

4 medium sweet potatoes, which should yield 2 ½ cups mashed once cooked

2 apples 

2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

¼ teaspoon table salt

2 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

½ teaspoon allspice

1½ cups butter

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup brown sugar

4 large eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Grease and flour two 9” round cake pounds.
3. Peel and dice apples and sweet potatoes. Boil sweet potatoes for 5 minutes then add apples to the pot. Boil both until soft. Puree in blender until smooth. 
4. In a medium bowl, sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. 
5. Soften butter in microwave just until the middle of the stick starts to run. Cream the butter with the sugars until fluffy. 
6. Add the eggs one at a time before adding vanilla, apple sauce, and sweet potatoes. 
7. Add vanilla and pureed apple and sweet potato to mixture. 
8. Add flour mixture a little at a time and mix until just combined. 
9. Divide batter between the two pans and bake at 350 for 50 minutes. 

*This recipe is delicious paired with a cinnamon buttercream frosting. 

Pax Domini cum spirito tuo temper sit,

Torey, Sam & Rylee

Do you or someone you know live near Colbert, Georgia? 
Do you want to eat farm-fresh eggs from happy, healthy hens? 

Check out our shop!