two weeks!

We found a renter to sublet our lease so we'll be moving in two weeks instead of two months. It's hard to fathom this right now. We hauled six of our eight chickens, along with their coop, over to the farm today and I wandered around trying to imagine actually living there. I took pictures of the studio and tried to imagine actually sleeping there. I messed around with the animals and tried to imagine actually working there. And came up short.

(I think the chickens were skeptical, too.)

We had some good conversation with Patrice about mutual expectations for this arrangements. The understanding is that Jeremy and I will be doing most of the work. We'll be handling the animals, growing a huge garden, and building or repairing the grounds as needed. Fencing is a constant problem, and we'll be building suitable accommodations for the layer chickens right away. Patrice is planning to raise a great many Freedom Rangers soon -- this is a meat bird comparable to the Cornish Cross but without all the problems -- and they will need housing as well. We need to develop a rainwater catchment system. We need to start composting the manure mucking up the animals' environment. We need to fill out the orchard and plant perennials. We need to jump through the hoops necessary to register with the farmers market so we can start selling off some of the 20-dozen eggs Patrice has lying around. We need to set up the beehives so the bees will have a home when they come around in April.

We need to do a hundred thousand things.

But first, we need to figure out what stays and what goes. We've done away with the easy stuff -- now it's down to the hard stuff. I took pictures of the studio today and I've got to say, it's bigger than I remember. Also, there are no walls. I didn't remember that. There are studs and it's insulated but the Sheetrock hasn't been laid yet. So that will be one of our first projects. And we can get some plumbing up there, enough to have a kitchen sink and bathtub, though we're sticking with the composting toilet -- which also needs to be built.

Like I said, a hundred thousand things.

I've been joking that we should call the place Broke Ass Farm, 'cause that's exactly what we all are. We're a raggedy bunch: a single mother plus a family living on a teacher's income. We're going to be living a salvaged existence at Broke Ass Farm and I, for one, cannot wait.

Here we go!