My little Garden

One of the reasons we wanted to move to the country was because we wanted space for a big garden.  Living in the HOA had been the biggest challenge for me, I was suppose to ask permission to plant things, come up with a detailed plan and submit it to the HOA Board for review and approval...did I?  No, I thought it was silly...I planted what I wanted to plant and got compliments on the yard on a regular basis.  Hardly anyone planted anything in there yards, there was very little landscaping in any of the backyards on the walking trail.  I got in trouble numerous times with the HOA, and, well I was tired of dealing with their rules.  We kept our property looking very good, but getting ticketed for having empty pots on the back porch really pissed me off!  They weren't really empty, they had perennials in them...and I had to move them, they were heavy.

I wanted to plant at least a few things the first spring we were in the country house.  We had been working a lot on the inside of the house so I knew that it would have to be kind of small scale the first year.  We had a number of cinder blocks from the rain barrels at the Dallas house, we used them to make a small raised bed.  I dug out the grass and we got some garden soil and compost and mixed it up.  We planted tomatoes, cucumbers, cantaloupe, watermelon, and peppers to start.

My little garden, freshly planted

I ended up using a variety of materials to try and keep the dogs out of it, they really liked to lay in the fresh dirt and dug a few things up.  I selected an area that got morning and some afternoon sun but not a lot of sun late in the afternoon.  It need up being a really good spot, the plants did really well.

A few weeks later

The plants were really doing well in the chosen spot...so well that it got crowded really quickly.  We did get a lot of tomatoes and several cantaloupe, enough cucumbers for salads...and a lot of watermelons on the vine.  I never grew watermelon, they started splitting before they got ripe.  I am going to try a different spot this year...far away from the tomatoes! 

Ready for the Chickens

After much research about chicken breeds and local availability, we chose Easter Eggers and Rhode Island Red Pullets to start our chicken adventure.  These breeds are both suppose to be egg-cellent egg layers, cold and heat hardy, friendly and will free range or stay in a coop without a problem.  We found a local source for the hens...took a large dog carrier and met the man selling the chickens at his roadside place about 13 miles from the house.  I was really worried about raising chickens in the beginning.  I still have a lot to learn.  One of those things was what a striaght-run of chickens is.  What Crosses are.  And how long does it take for a hen to mature enough to start laying eggs.  I still need to learn about illnesses and wound care.  But we have had the original chickens for almost 7 months and they are doing well.  In other words, I have not let any of them get eaten by the dogs, the hawks or snakes...and none of them have had any illnesses that I am aware of.  The blue legged chickens are the Easter Eggers, and the Rhode Island Reds have tannish legs.  But, after wanting 6 laying hens...we only got 4 and 2 Roosters.  So, when you get chickens, don't get straight-run if you want all hens...there is a good possibility you will get a few roosters in the mix.  I am OK with it now, but was upset when we got 2 out of the 6 in the beginning.  It is hard to tell until they mature if they are males or females.  But the boys are pretty good looking and having the 2 roosters I will eventually be able to have fertile eggs and raise baby chicks of my own.  

The Girls in their new home

Bailee is interested in what we put in there

Big Red checking out the coop area

Poofy Face

Learning to go down the ramp

Food in the feeder and checking out the run

Nest boxes are filling up quickly

Curious about the camera

Big Red and Red Racer

We are little, but we CAN get on the Roost in the Run

The Finished Monster

When I started the Chicken Tractor, I did everything by hand.  I was using a hand saw, a hammer and a tape measure.  The electric table saw and miter saw finally came out when my husband started helping, It made it a lot easier to cut plywood.  I just had a problem getting it out of our garage shed...going up and down stairs with equipment is a bit of a problem for me at this point, they are kinda of heavy and my knees were still bothering me from going up and down the ladder when we painted the inside of the house.  We did use a wireless hand drill and screws to put the chicken tractor together, it makes for a very sturdy structure.

I put the cage wire on with large fence staples by hand.  Later on we got out the compressor and my husband showed me how to use the stapler for that.  I put additional staples in with it...yeah, it was much faster, and yes...it takes less time.  So I started tacking down the wire with it and using the fence staples for extra strength.  My husband made the large four foot by four foot door on the front of the chicken tractor. I made a smaller door at the rear under the coop section while he was doing that...I had a different vision for the front door, but so as not to use as much wood, he made it differently.  I am glad it is larger now, the only problem I have with it, is that the ground is so uneven out here, the door is hard to open at times.  The door does make a good fence when open, I can use the door and put the additional run I made up to the open door to give the chickens 8 more feet of space to semi free range.  I can drag the run around the yard to green areas for them to clean up...they eat everything in an area, every weed, blade of grass, grub, grasshopper and whatever else there is.  It is great for clearing garden areas.

Chicken Tractor getting it's wheels

The run roost, it is a closet pole!

My husband made the front door

Plenty of venting for hot Texas Summers

Polycarbonate tinted roof on the run (leftovers from another project at the old house)

Sliding door for coop access to the chickens

The rear door to the run

Nest box access door

The ramp to the coop

Nest boxes before pine shavings

The Completed Chicken Tractor

Our dog Kensie is wondering what this is

Large access door for cleaning the coop

With the door open you can get to the whole coop inside

The Monster Chicken Tractor

Coop side view of nest box door open

Ready for Chickens!

My Crew, Bailee and Kensie

Nest Boxes, Roosts and Floors...Oh My!

It took longer than I planned to "create" a chicken tractor with a coop on it. Heck it is mostly framing and wire.  Who would have thought it would take ten days once we started on it.  Part of that was because I did not create a proper materials list.  I do suggest that you come up with a definite plan and create a detailed materials list if you ever decide to make a chicken tractor.  You can use pressure treated wood, don't let anyone tell you different, and I suggest that you do...chickens poop all over it, so it needs to be cleaned often, to keep chickens healthy. If you like to have an easier time of it, make sure you create it so that the poop will wash out a door or hatch of some sort.  I highly recommend using sheet vinyl on the floor of a raised coop...and running it up the wall a bit, 6 inches is probably good.  Make sure you use the best material for the job or you will be fixing it often.  If you don't use pressure treated wood, you may get mildew or mold...and that is not good for chickens.  Yes, I do speak from experience.  I wanted pressure treated plywood, but the people at the store must have pulled a fast one on my husband because I have black mold growing on the outside of the coop now and the plywood is de-lamenating on the ramp up into the coop...so I will have to fix that.

A chicken roost is suppose to be 2 feet off of the ground or floor...that is the recommended height.  It is also suppose to have two feet above the roost so that a chicken can flap their wings while on the roost.  So I calculated that the coop part had to be at least four feet tall.  Chickens sleep on roosts...at least mine do, so you have to keep that in mind when you place the roost, because everything under it will get pooped on.  You also have to take in consideration the weight of full grown chickens, when building a roost...lets say 8 pounds, that is very heavy for most chickens...but it is better to calculate on the heavy side.  Lets say you have a 48 inch roost, each chicken needs at least 8 inches of space to roost...they do bunch together.  So, you could have 6 chickens on a roost that is 4 feet long...so that is almost 50 pounds of weight on the roost at any one time.  I used a 2"x2" piece of green or pressure treated pine...it bows slightly now that my chickens are grown and I may need to put a support in the center of it...or switch to a 2"x4".  If you have never built a chicken coop, it is a learning process.  Oh, and don't use cedar wood on any parts that a chicken might chew on, the oils can make them sick.  I have also learned that cedar shavings are not to be used in the coop either...I had thought about it to keep insects down to a minimum, but again it will probably make them sick.  I use pine shavings in the coop and have put dry pine needles in the run at times, but mine has a wire floor...it helps when it rains and keeps the chickens dryer.

My husband went and bought additional wood for me several times, he brought back vinyl flooring for the coop floor.  It was peel and stick tiles and I do not recommend putting them on rough plywood, if you want to use peel and stick you need a smooth surface to have them adhere well.  We put the nest boxes on top and those are screwed into the wood, so they have not lifted from that area and I got the extra large kennel tray and put it on the bottom under the roost.  The vinyl on the side walls did come off, but I didn't bother trying to put them back on after the first few attempts. That is why I recommend using sheet vinyl, it can by glued down and the upper edges tacked down.

I have found out that hens like to lay eggs in the same nest boxes other chickens have lain eggs in.  But you need to provide at least 1 nest box for every 3 or 4 hens or they will lay wherever they want.  Since my coop is 4 feet wide we made 4 nest boxes by basically putting plywood dividers one foot apart in between 2"x2" strips on the outside wall and placing a 2"x4"  on edge in front of the nest boxes to keep the bedding inside.  We were building our chicken tractor for six hens...or so we thought.  We didn't even know what kind of chickens we would find in our area, at least, not yet.

Monster in the Making

I wanted to make sure that the chicken tractor I was building would not fall apart, the frame is pressure treated wood, the bottom part of the frame I used 2"x6"x 12' pieces for the long sides...I originally planned to make it more like a sled so that I could pull it to different areas.  It really ended up being too heavy for that, so we decided to put wheels on it...I ordered some 10" never flat wheels thinking I could make the chicken tractor something like a wheel barrow...using handles to lift and move it, but...my husband built the door on the front in a way that it was not possible.  The chicken tractor is six feet tall at the tallest point, 4 feet wide and 12 feet long.  The coop section is built 2 feet off of the ground and is about 4 feet square with the roof at a slant so water drains off toward the back.  I changed up my plans and modified the design a few times, part at my husbands urging...partly because I had only an outside view drawn and forgot a few things.  Hey, I had never built anything like this before...and sometimes you have to be flexible.

I made the sides first, 2"x4"'s for the main parts of the frame, 2"x2" for the stays to staple the wire mesh for support.

We used what we thought we pressure treated plywood on the coop section, but I think part of it was regular plywood, I have not painted it because I thought it was pressure treated...I will have to do something about it soon.  We used 3/4 inch plywood on the bottom of the coop and I think 1/2 inch plywood on the sides trimmed with cedar we had to because the door was warped and the additional wood straightened it out.  We used vinyl flooring inside of the coop and nest boxes, but I got a plastic tray that I can remove to make it easier to clean.  I believe it is for an extra large dog crate.

When you build a coop or tractor, you have to have plenty of access to all areas.  You need to be able to get to the food and water easily, you need to make it easy to clean out...chickens poop ALOT, chickens like to roost when they sleep...I thought they slept in the nest boxes, nope.  You also need to be able to get to your chickens if they are hurt or sick.  You also need to protect them from harm, they dig...and so do dogs, so it is a good idea to use a sturdy wire mesh instead of chicken wire.  I used 1/4" mesh on the sides of the chicken tractor, because I have dogs...and I didn't want them getting ahold of the chicken by the toe and biting off parts or pulling them out of the holes.  In hind site I wish I had used 1/2" square mesh so grasshoppers could get in the tractor easier and if I wanted to throw mealworms or scratch grains in I could.  We used 2"x4" welded wire fencing on the bottom of the chicken tractor, so nothing can dig up underneath and have a chicken dinner.

In Texas, we have very hot summers.  We wanted to try and give the chickens plenty of shade and didn't want a metal roof on the coop part.  We used something called Ondura, it is a lighter weight roofing material that does not transfer heat...or so it says on the coop roof.  We had some leftover smoke polycarbonate that we used on top of the chicken run to protect them from too much sun and the rain.  I have heard that chickens can drown from standing in the rain...I am not sure about that, but better safe than sorry.  I don't want to contribute to any chickens death because we didn't build something properly.

To Build or Not to Build?

We knew we wanted to raise chickens, but...well...we didn't know a thing about them.  I mean, other than my next door neighbor having a few in her backyard when I was a kid I had not seen chickens except at the stock show.  So we had to do some research and figure out things like a coop, what kind of chickens would be good in the Texas heat and humidity, what to feed them, how many we wanted to try to raise, should we raise them from chicks or just get adults, what about heat lamps and brooders?  How many should we get to start with?  What kind of chickens would be good for egg laying?  We really didn't want them for meat, not yet anyway...we wanted to make sure we could handle a few before we got too envolved in chickens, what if we were bad at taking care of them or the dogs ate them?  We also needed to figure out where in the world to get chickens.

We read a lot about chickens and coops trying to figure out the best coop to build or buy. I read about a variety of chicken breeds trying to find good breeds that could handle the hot weather of a Texas Summer and the cold we have in some of our Winters.  I didn't want chickens to die from heat stroke or freeze to death on my watch.  I looked into getting chickens on line, but it didn't seem like a nice thing to do to them...mailing them in the heat of summer?  I figured we are in the country we should be able to find some chickens close to us for sale.  My husband put me in charge of animals...and their housing.
So I got to work figuring out a plan for a chicken tractor/coop...he did some research and told me that chicken tractors were healthier for the chickens, you can move them to fresh areas so the chickens can forage for food and it cuts back on feed costs.  It also helps improve the soil by fertilizing it naturally and they turn the soil by scratching and eat the grubs and other insects that might otherwise eat crops or flowers.

First I looked on line at chicken tractors and coops to see how much they cost, and how big of a coop would hold 6 chickens?  They are expensive and most of the reviews for the less expensive coops and tractors were not good, they fell apart quickly...I figured if I built my own, it would be sturdy and last longer.  I didn't figure it would be that hard to do, I could use tools...I just needed a plan and to figure out the materials.  I read a lot, height requirements so they could flap their wings, how high a roost needs to be, access doors for cleaning and retrieving eggs, that chickens are pretty stupid...and would stand in the rain and drown sometimes.  What kinds of materials are dangerous for chickens, how to build a ramp to access the coop, nest boxes and how many and the size, and more.

So, I found a picture of a chicken coop that I liked and I modified it a little and tried to come up with a materials list.  I ordered a few things on line and then my husband and I made the drive to Texarkana for wood, roofing and hardware like hinges and galvanized hammer in staples.  Little did we realize how many trips we would make to get more wood...

Some of the materials for the chicken tractor

I started on the chicken tractor and things sort of evolved, so that we could have a bit better access to clean and to keep the floor from rotting.  We wanted to use pressure treated wood but when my husband went to get plywood he came back with other than pressure treated wood and some of it was too thin.  We needed to protect the chickens from coyotes with this coop.

One side with the wire on it, I decided to use 1/4 x 1/4" wage wire instead of chicken wire.

Our To Do or Wish List...

We really would like to build a storm shelter/root cellar, produce at least half of our food from a large garden, have enough solar and or wind energy that if our regular power goes out we can still have electricity, fence our property so that the dogs can run around on it without going on to other people's land, raise enough chickens that we have meat and eggs from them, raise a goat or three for milk to make cheese, build a goat pen and shelter, build a large chicken coop and fence off a free-range area for them.  We would like to plant a multi-fruit orchard and vineyard, have a large herb garden, plant pecan trees or other nut bearing trees and flowers to attract bees.  I want to build a top bar hive and raise bees...of course a lot of this will be way in the future and I will have to learn how to do much of this.

Our house actually needs more work too, we painted the whole house, but...it needs a lot of touch up work done.  I would like to replace most of the ceiling fans and light fixtures. We have bare bulb fixtures in the closets that have light, and there are two closets that need lighting.  Some of the light fixtures have one bulb capability for a large room and they need two to three lights, the rooms seem really dark even with the light on.  There are some walls that could use electrical outlets, we have had to run extension cords to plug in lights or a TV, and we need electrical to the sheds.  The kitchen pantry needs to be expanded, I am not sure what they were thinking when they built it, the good news is that  the room next to it has a weird area that we could expand into...it may have been for a desk or bookshelf, but it is behind the door when you walk into the room.  We need more plumbing work done, to what extent I am not sure...I don't know why they used irrigation pipes for the plumbing when they built the house, but I do know you have to run the water for awhile before it tastes decent.  So, we will have to do something about that eventually...right now we filter our water.

We still need to level the cabinets in the kitchen and attach the countertop to them.  We need to level the range after that.  We need to re plumb the dishwasher and patch the wall behind the dishwasher and the kitchen sink.  Get two more toilets bolted down, they tend to move.

We want to redo all three of the bathrooms, we can use them, they are functional...but they all have issues.  We would like to change out the spa tub in the Master Bath and walls to a large walk in shower, it is just so big and doesn't work right anyway...it would be nice if the bathroom was larger too, and two sinks would be nice.  I would love to replace the flooring in the bathrooms, and change the bathtub and shower combination in a guest bath to something a bit nicer, same in the other bathroom...I am not liking the fiberglass or acrylic that is in there, it must have been damaged and they patched it, when I cleaned it, chunks came out of the bottom and I can see cracks.  This is a partial list, but it is things we have discussed...just need the money to do the projects and time.

The big ugly tub/shower combination in the master bathroom...it needs to go!

Preparing For Storms

Multiple people told us that sometimes when it stormed and was windy, a lot of trees would fall and the power may be out for several days at a time.  We have a lot of trees out here in the Piney Woods, we are also in tornado alley.  We were in tornado ally in Dallas too...but, the trees in our yard were small and the power lines were under ground.

We are in the country, in a rural area if anything happened we would be on our own for awhile.  In Dallas we were subject to rolling blackouts during the summer at times, we thought it might be good to get prepared for the possibility of being without electricity for awhile.  We bought a generator so that we could have power for the fridge/freezer and lights.  We also have electric for our heat, but we have hookups for propane heat, so we bought a propane heater in case it goes out in the winter.  Crew also wanted some solar power, we thought we could get in on rebate programs or get in on special deals...those types of things are not available to rural areas like they are in large Metroplexes.  But I will get to that later...the solar project.

When we moved in and started cleaning up the yard, we found a bunch of gutters laying out back almost buried by pine needles and dirt.  We had some pretty bad storms and had discovered that the drainage was not good around the house...we needed to install the gutters.  We had some issues though, we found a bag of brackets but no fasteners to put them up with.We had to figure out what to use.  Normally...with a normal house screws or nails would work, but we have a metal house, so we had to do some research.  We tried calling the number on our building, but the lady that answered could not answer the question, and we left our number but no one ever called us back. Finally my son found some information about using pop rivets.  So now we needed the equipment to attach the gutters.  I order a lot of things on line these days, so I started looking for a pop-riveter and rivets too.  It didn't take but a few days for them to arrive.  Trying to get them attached to the house was another story...they are on, but they are not exactly on straight.  Crew and I worked on them for a few days and we couldn't put one section up because there was no real way to attach it to the house.

The back porch after screening and getting the gutters put up with gravel put down for drainage

We had storms that made the Gazebo lean way over so we had to basically strap it down, it rained so hard a few times that the water gushed over the tops of the gutters and made  deep indentations and holes in the ground around the house.  We have bought a number of bags of gravel to fill in the holes and to help with drainage, but one of these days we may have to put in some French drains to move the water away from the house better.  It is not uncommon to get 4 inches of rain in a day.  We have had up to 8 inches in a 24 hour period.  We have very sandy soil so it washes away easily. 

Fall and Winter are the rainy season in this part of Texas, or so we are told.  We have had a lot of rain.  This Summer our pond lost at least 2/3 of the water if not more...we could walk across the center of it and not get wet, we actually were afraid that the fish might die if we didn't get rain soon.  We didn't have to wait to long after we became concerned though we got the 8 inches of rain, and a few days after we received 4 more inches of rain...the pond filled up and the creek left its banks.  I actually had a river running at the edge of our cleared area that we call the back yard.  We have been fortunate that we have not had to much bad weather, although we have lost power several times the longest outage so far has been 20 minutes.

We really want to build a storm shelter, but our metal house is suppose to be able to withstand 160 mile an hour winds...so for now, we will work on other projects.

Storm clouds rolling in from the South

And Then There Were Two

We had a number of people stop by the house and introduce themselves, invite us to church, invite us to functions, we appreciated their taking time to stop and welcome us, but we had so much we needed to do, we just kept on working.  We had the owners Ex-wife stop by, it was not good...she said it was her house. It happened several times, she wanted to come in and show her boyfriend "her house", we didn't let her in.  The man who dug the pond and did work on the septic system stopped by...we had questions, he didn't remember much about the septic, other than it needed work, they hadn't done it right.

We had the lady who moved out, who we were told rented the house stop by...she told us she did a lot of work on the pond and stocked it.  She was going to buy it, but they gave her 30 days to come up with the money or get out.  She was not happy about that at all, but we didn't know anything about it.  She saw Kensie (Dog#1) and said she had one hanging around her house, that she had been feeding, about the same size and color...could we take it?  She said she couldn't keep it, it was too big and her husband wouldn't let her have a dog that big...she already had two.  We had been thinking about getting a companion for Kensie and this dog was free.  I followed her down to her house...which was actually a small FEMA trailer.  She had bought land about two miles from our house, on the same street with a much bigger pond. She was saving to build a house...but now I knew why she couldn't keep the dog.  She called her "Baby", she was very thin but had lots of energy, almost white, and very friendly.  I scooped her up in my arms, put her in my truck  and took her home.  We decided to call her Bailee, she and Kensie were almost identical in size and age.

Bailee, we found out was not housebroken, but she was a quick learner.  She was hungry and thirsty, she was a bit wild and use to being an outside dog.  It was really hot outside at that time, she became an inside dog pretty quickly and Kensie had someone about the same age to play with while we continued to work on the house and the yard.  We kinda of figured she had never had any shots or been fixed, when I took her to the vet and got her shots they said they couldn't tell if she had been fixed and they thought she was still very young.  We could wait and see if she went into heet and we would know for sure.  Bailee would get into the street, she would wander off and be gone for long periods...we got a training collar to help her learn commands and boundaries.  It has tones for being good, a warning, and different levels of shock for when she was doing something she should not be doing.  She learned very quickly, and we rarely ever had to use the shock feature.  Now, we can put the collar on her and she just behaves, she knows what it is.  We used it on Kensie too...and when they are within hearing distance of each other when we press the warning tone, they both come running.

Bailee our Catahoula  on the left, Kensie our Lab on the right

Bailee, we found out through research, is at least part Chatahoula Cur, possibly a ghost variety.  Bailee has a lot of black spots on her skin and faint black spots on her coat, she has gotten a bit darker since we got her.  Chatahoula's are very muscular hunting dogs that in a pack will take down wild boar, their nickname is "Hog Dog".  This was confirmed at the vet.  So, now we have a pair of dogs, similar in size and color.  Kensie is lighter weight, slender and runs like the wind.  Bailee is muscular, thick boned, strong and smart.

More Projects

Crew wired up the "garage" and because it was so hot outside at the time, he didn't want to crawl around in the attic, so for now we are using the electricity from the back porch to light the building.  He also had built the workbenches and shelving units and had started putting all of the garage stuff from the back porch up in an organized manor so that we could actually find things we needed.

Crew working in the "garage"

When the temperature is 100, and the humidity is high, even with the insulation the "garage" is super hot to try and do anything in.  We tried blocking the attic area with pieces of foam insulation, but with no windows there is no ventilation really.  We hope to put a couple of windows in it one of these days.

One of my projects was to re screen the back porch.  The back porch is 12 feet deep and the screened section is 25 feet long.  First I had to try and power wash the porch, it was framed with pressure treated wood, but there was actually moss growing all over it.  Our cats like to be outside and we wanted to be able to let them out there, and right at that moment there were a lot of holes they could escape out of...and a lot of trash and old building materials.  We had not found a trash service and Crew had been burning some trash, but a lot could not be burned.  

The screened porch before being redone

We had to hire someone to haul all the old flooring and remodeling trash off for us, someone had also dropped off a lot of trash on the back porch.  After all of the Junk was gone I got to work on the porch. We tried to use materials we already had so I ended up screening the front part more than once.  For the bottom section of the porch I used sunshade fabric, I had it hanging on the gazebo at the Dallas house like curtains.  The top section I used regular black screening that I had gotten to cover my plants so that birds would not eat my raspberries and blackberries.  First I had to remove the old screen, the wood lattice and fifty million nails and staples.  I pressure washed the wood, but it looked bad still so I used bleach water and a scrub brush and a lot of elbow grease and cleaned the wood until it was practically white.  Too bad I had to re screen this section again...but I got a lot of practice after Kensie tore holes through the top screen in pretty much every section.  I re screened the top with pet screen the second time...no breakthroughs yet, so the moral to the story is, if you have a dog that jumps...and a screened porch, make the investment for pet screen so you don't have to redo yours a second time!

We need a garage!

One of the bad aspects of moving from the 1500 square foot house in Dallas to the 2400 square foot Country house was that it had no garage.  We really needed a garage.  We used the Tuff shed for all of the stuff from our storage units and the attic.  Well we used it for a lot of stuff, but we ran out of room.  I had a lot of things in the garage in Dallas.  I had my workbench set up for doing stained glass, I had a lot of my crafting items out there too, and tools that I used.  I had purchased quite a few tools to make my life easier when making repairs and building things...and then I built a workbench, I also had rescued a glass top desk I wanted to use as a light table for the stained glass, and I wanted to learn soldering to make jewelry and was in the process for acquiring tools for that too.

We had a storage area that we put my workbench and some of my tools and glass, it was also the storage room that we put the water heater in, and some shelving, and paint, and tools, and camping equipment and wood, and of course the lawn equipment for ease of use.  It is full of different stuff, there is more...just know that it is full, and if you need much out of there you have to pretty much unload it to get to things on the shelves.  Our last load from the U-Haul was also sitting on the back porch.  The back porch is covered and screened in (sort of) but the humidity is high and we needed to have somewhere dry to store things and to work on projects.  We knew the date we were suppose to sign the papers on the other house, so we went shopping for our "garage".

We looked at Home Depot and Lowes in Texarkana at buildings, and we looked at several road side spots that sold different styles and sizes of buildings.  We weren't real happy with the people at Tuff Shed, so we thought we would try someone different.  We ended up getting a pre-constructed wooden building because the metal buildings required a slab to sit on, we didn't have a slab where my husband wanted the building and it was not level either.  The place we ordered the building from said they would level the building when they dropped it off.  I think it was about two weeks later that they brought the building out, and we had room for the garage type items.  But, Crew wanted to put insulation in the building and we needed stairs to get into it...we headed to Lowe's for supplies.

Our Garage/Shop...a work in progress

Crew wanted lights too, and shelving, this was Crew's project...I helped, but I had projects of my own...I had shelves to line, boxes to unpack, hardware to install.  Crew got foam board insulation, it required cutting...it was funny seeing him with all those styrofoam beads stuck to him

Putting the Dallas House on the Market

At the Dallas house we had replaced the complete heating and cooling system, the water heater, a valve in the shower, all of the windows that had lost the seal, all of the sills on those windows, I had already replaced most of the light fixtures, a new kitchen faucet and garbage disposal, the toilets had been replaced with low water usage "right height" will flush a bucket of golf ball toilets, we had put fresh paint throughout the house, painted the gazebo over the back porch, and cleaned up the spa and put new pads on it...plus all of the landscaping I had done.  We had replaced the carpet in the living room with Brazilian Cherry hardwood and the Master bedroom door was replaced with a steel door for security and was insulated so the room was quieter when someone was watching TV.  We had plantation blinds on the windows and room darkening insulated curtains on the tallest of windows (102 inch curtains we didn't need in the country). We had built an 8'x10' shed in the back yard that met the homeowners association specs.  I left my composter and my raised beds full of herbs, and the garden was ready to plant on the side of the house.

The house we were leaving was better than new, everything we had done was upgraded from the builders versions.  Oh, and we had replaced the ice maker and the thermostat on the oven which we were leaving for the new owner.  I had also laid a bunch of decking in the attic to get to the fireplace, when Crew was in Afghanistan we had record high temperatures and there had been a lot of very loud popping noises going on up there.  I had gotten the home warranty people out there on that too and made them work on it, we actually had a board poke up through the roof...sort of.  They got tired of me calling and complaining and the guy actually told me to stop calling him, the boards twisting and warping was an act of god and he would not fix anything else.  I went in the attic and made repairs and secured things I thought needed securing with screws...oh and I fixed a bunch of nail pops in the master bedroom ceiling when I painted...they did not even use the right kind of nails to put the Sheetrock up!  I read the home warranty paperwork nail pops were not covered.  I fixed it with sheet rock screws after pulling out all the nails that kept popping through the plaster.

Needless to say, we sunk a lot of money into upgrades and repairs and we knew that we would not get what we put into the house out of it.  I watch a lot of HGTV so I knew what we needed to do to get it sold and we were tired of making payments on both places.

Crew went out by himself and did the floors at the Dallas house, cleaned up the floors in the garage and mopped the tile floors.  We had settled on a listing price with the realtor and given her the key.  We got a call soon after that from our Realty company that our neighbor reported a sprinkler head was shooting water up in the air in the backyard.  One more thing we had to fix...that and the spa!  We still had to replace the parts on the spa.  We got the realtor to go by and turn off the sprinkler system until we could get someone out to repair it.  Crew had to go out and replace the part on the spa and he took his bag of sprinkler parts to see if he could make the repair.  Neither worked.

We had the spa on the listing for the house, so we had to fix it or remove the spa...and I called our lawn company to make the sprinkler repair.  The first day we put the house on the market, we received two offers on it and accepted one of those.  But, we still had to make payments and repairs until the house papers were signed.  The listing remained active until then and there were a number of showings until paperwork was done.  We explained to the buyer that the spa was not working and we would have it removed...thank goodness she just said it was fine to leave it, we really didn't want to pay to have it hauled off.  In the end, we didn't even get what we actually paid for the house...sad, but we could not keep paying two of everything.  If the sale fell through, we had additional buyers interested...but, we were almost done and all we had to do is wait for the closing.

The Third and Last U-Haul

We really needed to get the Dallas House on the Market, all this time we have been making two house payments and paying two sets of utilities...the sooner we can sell the Dallas house the better!  We had a feeling it would sell quickly once we put it on the market, we just needed to get the remaining stuff loaded up for the trip back to the country.  This time we were bringing the 3 cats back with us too.  Once we do that, we won't have anyone to take care of them in the country.

We got another surprise when we got to the house in Dallas...the floor in the laundry room is wet.  The wall is also wet...not good, not good at all.  I called Mark to see if he could come fix it, he would come out as soon as he could.  We had a Realtor coming out to look at the house and discuss getting it on the market for sale, we needed it fixed before she came out. 

Mark ended up having to replace the faucet in the laundry room and had to cut into the wall to do it, it had a leak and all the Sheetrock was squishy.  We wanted the house to be perfect when we put it on the market or at least close to it.  He got the faucet and Sheetrock replaced before the realtor got there, but still needed to texture the wall so I could paint.  We just told her what was going on and it would be ready for her to take pictures for our listing in a few days.  That wasn't the only thing wrong though...Crew went to check the spa and we had some kind of yellow algae growing in it.  He put chemicals in it to clean it, and the spa wouldn't come on!  Mark took a look at that for us too...told us what it could be so we could get the parts...oh and we had already replaced the heater on it too, we had noticed it wasn't working on one of our previous trips.

I dug up the herbs and put them in pots to take to the country house, but Crew thought they would be a selling feature and I ended up replanting them.  We worked on the yard, mowed and weeded, cleaned the floor in the shed and put everything we were taking in the garage to get an idea of the size truck we needed.  I cleaned while Crew moved items to the garage.  We were ready for the realtor, well except the laundry room...I couldn't paint until the texturing was dry.  The Realtor came and was very impressed at the condition of the house, she wanted keys right then but we needed a couple more days and told her we would drop them by the office on our way out of town after we cleaned.  We still needed to clean the carpet and tile floors, but we wanted all the animals out first.  She made a few suggestions having to do with the yard and garden beds.  I actually made labels for all of the plants and flowers with the names of the plants and colors of flowers when they bloomed, we put fresh mulch in a few beds and hired someone to take care of the yard while the house was being shown.  She suggested a list price for the house and we argued with her over it, it was not enough...a matter of fact it pissed us off.  She said she would walk the neighborhood and get comps and see if what we wanted to list it for would be appropriate.  

We stayed another night, I reserved a U-Haul and Crew went and got us something to eat while I painted the wall in the laundry room.  In the morning I got up early, put another coat of paint on the wall in the laundry room and we left to get our last U-Haul truck.  All in all we got 3 U-Hauls, the biggest they had and moved bit by bit along with the pickup bed full every time we drove to the country house.  Since we had everything in the garage packing up the truck was not quite as bad.  At least this time we were getting an earlier start back to the country...and this time we had Kensie and our 3 cats.  Crew had two of the cats in the U-Haul and I had our cat Prada and Kensie with me in the pickup truck.  Prada likes to talk, and she talked almost non-stop the whole trip...I had her carrier on the seat next to me and I finally set it on the floor and she settled down.  We were on our way to our new home in the country with the remainder of our household goods.

My First Country Garden

We decided to stay at the country house for a few days before heading back to Dallas.  We needed to finish getting items out of the yard and make a few decisions on what to take and what to leave.  I had herbs growing in my raised beds in Dallas, onions, strawberries and plants I thought about digging up part of to transplant.

We took the rain barrels from the Dallas house and all the cinder blocks they were sitting on...I decided to use them for a raised bed garden at our country house.  We needed to make a trip to the store for some garden soil and veggie plants.  It was kind of late to be starting a garden, but we did it anyway.  Crew went and got some things for one of his house projects and I asked him to get a few more cinder blocks and garden soil.  After I got the bed dug up and the soil amended I was ready for plants.  We went to Texarkana to  visit Home Depot and Lowes.  We got a variety of tomatoes, some melons, cucumbers, and peppers.  I had brought my Blackberries, Raspberries and a few other potted plants with us already.

Our dog Kensie tried to help me plant the veggies, she kept digging in the garden so I knew a fence around the garden would be required.  We didn't get any fencing at Home Depot so I used what I had laying around that we had brought from the house in Dallas.  I had picked a level spot in the back of spot where the gazebo sat.  There may have been a garden back there before, I am not sure...the soil was pretty black and looked pretty good when I dug the grass out for my raised bed.  There was a faucet close by so that I could water when I needed to and room to expand the garden when I had more time.  In Texas, you also want some shade during the day in the summer when it is hot...or the plants will burn up.  I was surprised at how quickly everything grew.

My first garden at our new homestead in the country

This picture was taken a few weeks later, the plants grew very fast and I was shocked...I was going to need a bigger garden!

More Work Needed

We stayed pretty busy the next few days.  We got the truck unloaded of course, but we still had a lot of projects to do while we had the help.  My son Jeremy wanted to learn a bit about repairs while he was here, we had already done a lot of them and I think he was a little disappointed.  There was a lot of work going on during the days, but we would relax at night and got to visit.  I am not sure who all did what at that time.  We had to go pick up the last section of the butcherblock countertop for the kitchen from Lumber Liquidators, Mark wanted to finish up more of the plumbing issues, we wanted to run network wires to the room that we wanted to use as an office, we had a gazebo we really wanted put up...and so much more that we still are not finished with everything today.

The boys really had a hard time drilling into the cement to attach the posts for the gazebo, and went through a ton of bits trying to get it done. There were many trips made to the hardware store trying to find enough of the right kind of bit to get it done.  We love sitting outside when it is nice outside and Crew and I knew it would be hard for the two of us to erect the gazebo by ourselves.  There was also a break in the fence by the cement pad and we needed to fix it so that Kensie could go out and not have to worry about all the dogs that were running free out here.

The boys putting up the gazebo on the 20'x20' cement pad behind the house

Our gazebo is pretty big, but one of these days we know it will need to be replaced...we would like to have a barbecue island out here on the pad and a solid structure to sit under to keep the rain off.  We have lived through a Summer out here now, the Mosquitos are terrible so it will need to be screened in if we want to stop wearing so much bug spray.  We had some black iron fencing that we used as a temporary fix to get out to the gazebo, it just sticks in the ground with stakes, but we had it around the gazebo at the Dallas house to keep the dogs off the porch...this was to keep Kensie in...and hopefully other dogs out.

The gazebo after it was completed and the fence was up...and we took care of the grass.