Learning About Goats

Today I'm going to visit a goat farm. Milking is at 8:30 am.

Mr. Rogers used to sing a song:"Everything goes together, because you're all one piece..." That's the way is seems this farm works. Before the chickens can walk the ground, the grass must be cut down. Since we don't actually have grass yet, (more like sticks and cactus), we would need a $3,000 range mower to do the job without breaking. I wanted to do sheep, but now goats are looking like the ticket. In order to get the goats to cut the grass, we need to put up a fence along the back perimeter. Before we can do the fence, we need to finish building the tool shed because now we can begin moving into the RV. Guess where all the tools are--you guessed it, the RV. I think I'll ask if goats can be tethered.

The Electric Man Comes Today

I've been wanting to get this blog started. Our story has been full of surprises. Here is where we are now:
We put the house in Clearwater up on the market June 08. Lowered the price, lowered the price again, cried, lowered the price again. In November Bill and I looked at each other and wondered how we would be able to buy and build what we wanted if we had nothing left after the sale.

But God gave me a scripture. "Power belongeth unto God."(Ps. 62:11) We decided moving was the goal and we believed God was asking us to trust Him. We lowered the price again and it sold!
The closing finally came after many hurdles and after the holidays. Now we could look at land with serious purpose.

Ten beautiful acres waited for us in the heart of Gilchrist County, just 30 minutes outside of Gainesville. God again provided a title company that worked through a mess of incorrect legal descriptions. Waiting seemed to be my new life's work--waiting, packing, selling and giving things away.

God always has a purpose. During all this time I was able to be there for my mother during the death of my grandmother in February.

By the end of February, we were able to pack up and move near our new property. God again provided in a wonderful way. Friends of my good friend Vonabell Sherman, Rob and Tracy Francis graciously offered us a month to month rental of the little cabin on their land. (The top picture) They've taken such good care of us and it's been a safe place for Micah to be when I've been away at paintouts this spring. Again, God knew what we needed.

So that brings me to today. Today the electrician comes to hook the giant RV (Bondo Bertha as we like to call her) to the electric pole that was erected just yesterday by the nice people at Central Florida Electric. We've begun to build a 10 x 10 tool shed and it's supposed to rain on Thursday. It's about 100 degrees outside at 10am. each morning, so things are going a little slow, but the electricity will mean that we can run the well pump and don't have to carry water out there to flush to toilet. It also means we can run the ac in the RV while we finish painting. (I hope it works.)

During these last four months, we've learned a few things about buying RVs, felling trees, getting stuck in soft sand, and gopher tortoises. We thought we knew a lot about county things. Now we know how very green we are. Thank God for nice neighbors.

As our adventure continues, I'll fill you in on the details. We've only begun!