This is it!

The big announcement I’ve been waiting to share with you all…

I was handed the keys to our brand new house and acre of land!

First time homeownership for the win!!!

We’re just starting to move all of our things to the new space, which is about 30 minutes from our rental home of the past seven years. You can accumulate a lot of crap in seven years, you know that? Seven years worth of dust, clutter and joyful living is now tidied and reduced and placed in boxes.

It was very difficult to pack up my apothecary, cradling each little bottle and jar as it was tucked carefully into boxes and bins among newspaper and bubble wrap. Every jar became more precious than usual, and I fretted about whether I’d really NEED it in the coming weeks. The good new is that the new home has an even larger apothecary space for me to use, with tons of rafter room for drying herbs, a counter for working, and many cabinets just waiting to be filled!

Can I even begin to describe the month or so of panic? We put in the offer to buy on Beltane weekend, and our due diligence date was Summer Solstice. That felt pretty groovy, but I’ve been a bit of a nervous wreck during this whole process. Real estate is no joke, y’all.

I can’t wait to show you one of our favorite parts of the property…many barns and sheds and outbuildings that were built by hand by the previous owners. They are still sturdy and we can’t wait to clean them out and put them into good, working order for future construction and house projects!

A few of these buildings are meant for livestock – there’s a single-horse tack barn, a goat shed, and two or three chicken coops! We can’t wait to get chickens again. I’ve missed fresh eggs something fierce!  There’s also a beat up rabbit hutch that we’ll try to repair and refit for quail.

And last but not least, some of our beekeeper friends have offered to give us some splits and swarms next spring, so we’ll be building hives over the winter!  There’s good creeks and we’re near the river, so the bees have water sources. There’s lots of old growth, early pollen producing trees – maples, tulip poplars, pines…the bees should have plenty to harvest, especially once I get to putting in herbs and fruit trees!

*Big Sigh*

Thanks for bearing with me while we have been working so hard on this. I’ll be back to posting soon, and perhaps my next Hangout session will be a live tour of the new yardspace? We’ll see. 🙂