Home....

They say "you can never go home again".  And since I left rural Pennsylvania in 1979, I've found that to be true.  Because the "home" you remember is never the same when you go back.  Even if your family still lives in the same house, it's never the same as what you remember.

Here's what my parent's homestead looked like when I was a kid.

My parent's homestead

Can you see the large apple tree between the vegetable garden and the corn field?  It's to the left of the house in this picture.  I loved that tree!  Do you see the church pew at the end of the garden?  The 2 large lilac bushed that have grown together or the one by the end of the drive?  Do you see the clothes line by the back porch?  The swing set? The second clothes line between the pine tree and the chicken coop? The outhouse?  Do you see the horse shed down by the creek?  The large red barn (2 story with hay loft above). 

In rural PA, they spray tar on the road in front of each house.  That's the dark part on the road there by the house and barn.  After many years, that tar is VERY thick.  And hot in the summer.

I don't know the exact date on this photo, but I know it was taken in the late 60's or early 70's.  Because Dad tore that barn down after he got out of the Navy in 1972.

And they remodeled the house in around 1974, put aluminum siding on making the house white then.  And Mom had an orange Nova and Dad had a pick up truck, so that's not the vehicles in this picture.  What kind of car Mom had before 12 or so, I have NO idea.  It was a big Chevy something....

I loved living in that place when I was a little kid.  I loved the creek and the woods.  The lilacs that had grown together to form a nice fort.  The barn and all the wonderful things in it.  The pond out beside the barn (you can't see it in this picture).  I loved the chickens, but then a weasel killed them all one night and we never got anymore.

When I joined the Navy myself, and then I got married to a Maine man... I knew I'd never get back there to that homestead to live.  In a way that saddened me.  But I also knew I could make my homestead somewhere else. 

Once I settled in Washington State, I hoped he'd be interested in buying an old farm.  NO WAY!  He wasn't "living on Old McDonald's Farm" with me.  OK.  I guess I could live with that.  It's not what I'd have preferred, but it's what I agreed to.

And then, that relationship dissolved after illness and 25 years of marriage.  And so I moved to Georgia.  While my husband John and I were driving from Seattle, WA to Ellijay, GA he asked me if I would mind if we moved to Arkansas.  Mind?  Hell no!  I'm leaving the place I'd lived form 17 years... what's one more move?

Anyway, here's where we lived in Ellijay for that first summer and fall we were together.

Kitchen

 

This is the kitchen after I repainted it.  You can see my spinning wheel there on the lower left corner of the picture.  John told me the red & white check reminded him of his grandmother's kitchen.  I liked that.

We asked John's brother Joey to rebuild the addition on the back of the trailer.  Then I painted the floor to look like a rug.  We bought 2 rocking chairs at Ace.  I found that little blue foot stool at an antique store and refurbished it.  I wove that seat on top.  It's actually a shoeshine trolly, it has a cool handle and opens up with storage inside.  It's quite handy.

You can see my little parlor wheel on the table there between the chairs.  And John's treadle sewing machine to the left.


There's also another spinning wheel behind the rocking chairs.

I really enjoyed living in that trailer.  I had a new family to get to know.  A grandchild who globbed on to me.  I'd never had any children of my own, so my Granddaughter is very special to me.  I had found my home.

Ariel

Here she is that first spring.  What a cutie!


Anyway, we decided to make a trip to Arkansas in July or August 2005 to just look around. Joey, Lisa, Jake and Jareb came on the trip with us.  Joe drove his van.  We stayed in Cotter near the beautiful bridge.  That was fun!

We had a lot of laughs that trip.  We also got to do some fishing in the White River.  That was the first time I had been swimming in a river since I'd left PA!  What fun!

Ariel and Penny at the apple house

I set up to do a spinning demonstration at the Panorama Apple House that fall.  It was a great event.  I sold enough yarn and such to pay for the wheel I was spinning on!  That's a nice bonus.

That fall we made another trip to Arkansas, just John and I.  We woke up one morning and said "let's go to AR".  Tammy said she'd feed our cat and so we packed a bag and off we went.  We stayed in Mountain Home that time.  We must have looked at about 20 places.  We looked in Bull Shoals, Jordan, Flippen, Mountain Home, Henderson..  I thought I'd like living in Flippen.  Imagine the sly little smile when you tell someone "I live in Flippen, Arkansas!"

We didn't find what we wanted that time either, so we went back home.  We checked the MLS on the computer.  We talked to agents on the phone. 

We looked at some properties in Ellijay during this same time.  While Arkansas had always been John's dream - moving away from his kids would be hard for him.  So we thought that moving off the same dirt road where they were (and out of his brother Jim's trailer he'd been kind enough to let John live in), was a good idea.  We looked at several placed.  But what we'd pay for a double-wide trailer on 1 1/2 acres of land there, we could buy 100 acres here in Arkansas.  And so Arkansas what our decision.

Between Christmas and New Years in 2005, we decided to make another trip to Arkansas.  We decided to stay in Hardy and look around.  On the last trip we'd seem a property in Violet Hill and another in Evening Shade that looked promising.  And so Hardy is kind of close to either of those.  And Hardy is a cool little town with lots of shops and restaurants. 

Here's the link to Hardy.  Hardy AR


We'd been playing phone tag with a real estate agent in Cherokee Village named Corbin.  We finally connected and made arrangements to look at a 12-sided log house on 42 acres.  We'd tried to find the place by the address... but had no luck.  Corbin was a nice guy, and he took us out there.  Here's what we found.

12-sided log house

This is the first picture I took, as we parked to look around.

John and Corbin went out to the "barn" where the workrooms and stable are.  I went inside.










And this is what I found inside.

I started laughing.  I could imagine all kinds of possibilities.  What a fun house.  A house with a rock in it!

And so, I went out to see what John had found.  And here's what that looked like.

No Littering....

That door is now the door to the right side of our "chicken coop".  This was 2 dog kennels built by the previous owners.  But they make perfect chicken coops for us.

Oh sure, the place needed a lot of work.  We had time.  What else did we have to do but rehabilitate this great place that had been neglected and abused?  Not a damn thing.


And that's how we found "home".

I love living here.  I love looking around and seeing all the work we've done.  I feel such a sense of accomplishment.  I know I've experienced what so many people came to America to experience.  I found a beautiful place and I've made it my own.  I've put my sweat and my energy into it.  And some blood... and more than a few blisters... back pain and knee pain...  And this is what I've received in return.

One morning's harvest

Brandywine tomatoes

Bruce, Dennis and family

The garden

Homesteading is hard work

When people hear the term "homesteading", what do they think of?  Someone moving from the "city" to the "country", putting in a garden & some herbs.  Getting some chickens....  Canning and dehydrating, making pickles, baking bread...  Tilling the garden.  Hoeing the garden.  Watering the garden.  Checking daily for bugs (cabbage worms & tomato worms).  Working on an old house.  Cutting and stacking firewood.  Working on roofs, replacing windows, fixing walls.  Laying walkways.  Buying a tractor.  Felling trees.    Getting a "farm truck".  Believe me, you DON'T just move from the city into the country and become a "hobby farmer" without a willingness to do HARD work and get lots of blisters and an empty bank account.

So, I'd like to do a photo history of rehabilitating our homestead.

It started with finding our dream house on the real estate MLS service.  We were living in Northern Georgia and it was John's dream to move to Arkansas.  This required several trips just looking at property until we found what we wanted.  And here's what we found.

12 sided oak log house on 42 acres

Notice the outbuilding in the back?  That's where John set up his workshop.  There are 2 rooms (one with a wood heater).  And there are 2 horse stables.  And a space for hay storage.  The hay storage became a general storage room, mostly for large appliances and lumber.  The larger stable became the "garage" for tractor, lawn mower and golf cart.  The smaller stable is more general storage (think chicken wire, ply wood...).

The interior of the house had been totally stripped in 2000 by the DEA following a drug raid.  I understand they were prepared for a bloody shootout with the druggies and even had a TANK here.  Heck, the house IS 6x6 oak logs...  A real fortress. 

There's an addition/den and enclosed "patio" also.

Den with driftwood

The driftwood was immediately removed and helped fuel the fireplace & burning the knee deep leaves around the place.

So, as I said the interior was totally stripped.  We had the kitchen counter, 2 toilets and a claw-foot tub.  There's also a cool 70's style freestanding fireplace.  And the main feature of the house is the fact that it's built around a ROCK.  In fact, that's how our "farm" got it's name.  When we were closing on the place, the title company kept asking us for the name of our "ranch".  Ranch??  What ranch??  Well, it seems that in Arkansas, if you own 40 acres or more; it's a ranch.  Oh.  OK.   So, our "ranch" is named Big Rock Farm.  Because we have BIG ROCKS.  And we're only going to grow BIG ROCKS.

Anyway, here's what the interior looked like.

You can't tell from this picture, but there's a very large hole in the wall between the sink and the toilet.

The sink wasn't there when we purchased the house.  But we did find in out in the pasture behind the workshop.  So, John (being the very handy guy that he is) installed it!  I'm so glad I married a handy man... 

That makes me think of Red Green... But that's a story for another day!

So here's the Big Rock. 

We found a very nice woodstove out in the yard, under a tree.  It's only got 3 legs.  As best as we can tell, this woodstove had been installed ON the rock - thus using it as a thermal mass.

 We've since talked to some people who knew the people who actually built this house & they told us that the woodstove was indeed ON the rock.  And that was the only heat intended for the whole house.




Here's what the great room looked like.

Here again you can see the big rock.











And now for the den.

Here you can see the freestanding fireplace, the threshold into the enclosed "patio", and the clawfoot tub.  We put the wood flooring down.  We got it locally, from the recycling center.  We have the same flooring in the great room.







We had no landscaping.  No garden.  Holes in the walls, no ceiling....  And we were happy!

Laying out the border for the walkway and flower beds

 We found bricks lying around everwhere.  So, I started laying them out for the border for the flower beds and the walkway I wanted to lay.

Where the druggies had their "garden"

We wanted to have a garden, but we didn't know WHAT the druggies had been growing in their "garden", so we took all this fencing down and tilled the ground.  And then we just left it, to become part of the yard.








And now, I'd like to show you what 7 years of work have completed.

Our main walkway and flower garden.

The Big Rock with propane heater.

Dining/kitchen area.

While John was busy cleaning out the workshop, I started laying the stone walkway from stone plied around in the pasture.  I think it came out pretty well.










We invested in a propane tank and 2 propane heaters.  One went in the den/guest room.  And the other went on the Big Rock.  I really like the way it looks.










The kitchen island was a dresser we found out in the workshop.  We repainted it.  It had no top, but the piece of butcher block was also lying out in the workshop.  And so, we had a complete kitchen island.  I bought the reconditioned hoosier at a local antique store.  And I painted the entire great room in the same color scheme to tie everything together.

Living area with our handmade loom

We turned one corner of the great room into my "fiber corner".  I have my weaving loom (which John and I built) and my spinning wheels in this part of the room.  Sadly, because of my health issues I decided it was time to stop weaving.  Happily, I was able to pass the loom on to a dear friend who is using it.  That's a good thing.  And John's handiwork is still being used by someone who loves it.

Bird cages

We turned the old dog kennels into big cages.  We have Rhode Island Red chickens, Brahma Cochin chickens, guinea fowl and bantam chickens.  And sometimes we have quail.

John in the garden

And, here's the garden.  This picture is from 2010.  That hickory tree has since come down in a wind storm.  It did hit the fence and the roof of the small outbuilding just to the left of the garden.  But that tree provided a lot of firewood and lumber.

Anyway, that's all for today.  Hope you liked looking at the pictures. 

We've done alot of work.  But we've loved it!