Spring is Coming!

We are starting to see the grass come up green once again, which means that spring is not far away! You can see patches in our lawn, as well as in the ditches when you are driving. It is really exciting to see the ground wake up again! We are anxious to turn over our garden and get things planted. Phil has been burning the long grass based on a recommendation from "the guys" at work. It went so fast and took out the majority of the long patches of grass. I asked Phil what he had planned on doing before (because we didn't really know you could burn acres of grass like that) and he admitted he had planned on turning it al over by hand. Wow...and I thought I was ambitious!

I guess the burning is also supposed to take care of mice/rat homes (ick!) that they make during the winter in the folded over grass. I am thankful we have gotten rid of them!

Yard cleanup is still going to take awhile. We have a bunch of old tools and stuff in piles out there. We talked to a scrap metal guy who is going to come and take what we don't want...but now Phil has to decide what he can use and what is just junk. We have a few old grain harvesters, an old broken windmill...it's amazing what you can store on 5 acres! And we haven't even started on the old pig shed! So, that will be our next challenge. Ongoing, of course, with our other inside projects.

And along with Spring comes storms...

We had our first "go to the basement" scare last night. If you are faint of heart about storms, don't read any further. Around 2pm I checked email and saw that there was a storm watch for a few counties. Pretty normal around here. They have really great alerts regarding storms/tornadoes and when we can expect them. So, out of curiosity, I kept watching. As the afternoon progressed, there were 17 counties under tornado watches (none of them being mine, but I kept a very close eye on that website, you can bet!) Around 6:40pm, there were 27 counties on storm watches/ tornado warnings. At 7pm, Uncle Jim (bless him!) called to make sure we had heard there was a storm headed our way. He said that there were possible 70 - 90 mile an hour winds expected, and to not be afraid to head to the basement if we needed to.

So I once again checked online, and sure enough, there was our county, under "storm warning". I was thinking, hey, no big deal. No tornado, no worries, right? Phil remembers the lightning storms from when he was a kid, so was all excited to go out and watch. We sat in our front room, where two of the walls are windows, and watched lightning like I had never seen before. It looked like fireworks off in the distance, brilliant white. Being 7pm, the sky was a dark blue still, and we enjoyed the thrill of a storm for awhile. Then, all of a sudden, the sky went black, and the wind started howling loud. I went from a little excited to terrified, and got Ryan up from bed and went to the basement with Phil. We weren't down there more than five minutes when everything calmed down. It was a short, fast storm, but man it was a little ominous. And we didn't even have a tornado warning!

So, we came upstairs and watched the weather radar online for awhile, thankful that they had such great coverage of storms, that we knew when it was coming, and when it was over. I can't imagine living here back when you had no weather service to tell you when to expect snow, hail, showers, or tornados. I have them sending me emails when there is a watch or a warning in one of my surrounding counties, and of course for DesMoines where we have family. I was amazed at how accurate they were with timing and expectations of the storm. See the email below:

The NWS in des moines has issued asevere thunderstorm
warning for: marshall county in central iowa.Until 730 pm cst..

At 644 pm cst, national weather service doppler radar indicated a severe thunderstorm
capable of producing destructive winds in excess of 70 mph. This storm was
located 9 miles southeast of nevada, or 25 miles northeast of des moines, and moving northeast at 45 mph.The severe thunderstorm will be, 5 miles northwest of rhodes by 655 pm cst. Near state center by 700 pm cst. Near clemons by 705 pm cst. Near albion by 715 pm cst. Near liscomb by 720 pm cst.The locations of st. Anthony and marshalltown airport are also in the path of this severe thunderstorm.A tornado watch remains in effect until 1000 pm cst Thursday evening for southwestern iowa.This storm has a history of producing strong winds across northern polk and southern story counties.

And their assessment was actually really accurate. So, all in all, the "storm" was nothing any seasoned "iowan" would have written home about, but for us new to the area, it proved to be a bit of excitement. I suppose it all comes with the "spring" territory. So, while I am really excited about the whole garden planting thing, I am a little anxious about the storms bringing the rain that will help our garden grow!

In other, more light hearted news, I have been baking! (I know, big shock!) Calli taught me how to make bread and cinnamon rolls...yum! Just had to make sure that oven really works, right?

Fresh from the "oven" at Grossmann Farms!

Newly Updated!

I have just added the pictures from Ryan's birthday, as well as updated the kitchen posting. Be sure when you are done looking at the cute kid, you scroll down to see the finished (well, so far) kitchen!

Happy Reading!

More Ryan Pictures

Thought I would post a few more pictures of Ryan., because, ya know, he is much cuter than the house.



















Mom and Ryan reading birthday cards.


















He got ahold of this M&M bag around Valentine's day. It was his favorite toy for at least two days. Amazing what kids get excited about!




















Phil and Ryan this winter outside our house.

Birthday Boy!

On Monday we celebrated Ryan's FIRST birthday! What a big kid he is becoming! Tip for first-time first-birthdayers: Remember to buy batteries for your digital camera, and learn how to use any recording equipment BEFORE the time you actually need to use it. Ha. Anyway, we had the old "film" standby, which is how we got these images. Also, try having the "party" before the baby's bedtime, they will be a little more tolerant =)




Like most kids, he was much more interested in the wrapping and the string than he was in opening the gifts. However, once we got those toys unwrapped, it was all we could do to get them away from him to get them out of the packaging! See below, Ryan is actually climbing on Phil's feet to try and wrestle for the present!





He has never had cake before, but he certainly was excited to get some...hmm...Phil?






Since we still didn't have an oven, I ended up going over to our Pastor's house to bake a cake (hey, I couldn't just buy one for my little guy!) So, it's not fancy but at least Mom made it!

It did not take long to make a big dent in that cake. He ate about half before calling it quits. It was a great day, except for the whole bit about not capturing it on one of the many sources of media I had at my disposal. Ryan got a lot of wonderful outdoor toys (even a gardening kit and a sandbox!) for this summer. We had a pre-birthday party with our Uncles/Aunts and Grandparents from Iowa. It was really nice getting to see everyone and celebrate with them.

Little man pictures

This is a picture of Ryan with his Grandma Grossmann.
What posting is complete without a few pictures of Ryan? He is quite the little reader...and sometimes he even looks at the book rightside up! I bet you can't read upside down!

What's cookin?

I thought I would post some pictures of our kitchen remodel. We aren't finished yet, but you can get a rough idea of where we are so far. This is what the kitchen looked like when we first moved in. There was really no room to move because there was a huge island in the middle of the room, mostly blocking one door. Everything was green, and those cabinets you see are all metal. The woman in the picture is our real estate agent.








So, we decided that this kitchen just wasn't going to work for us. We decided to take everything out of it. The big box in the middle is our old dishwasher, and the walls are of cement and stone. You can kind of make out the old carpeting - must have been about a 1970 style, or earlier. To do the floors we ended up taking up the carpet, and then scraping up some linoleum that was underneath.







This is what our kitchen looked like a few days ago. We had put up the wainscoting, and all of the flooring is up. We debated painting the floors, but after sanding a bit of the floor, decided to try and see what it would be like if we just finished the floors. I am nervous about upkeep, but Phil assures me that the finish he got is very good. We are going to put many coats on to seal the floor.






So this is where we are now. We have not stained the floors, but the walls are done, and the floor is mostly sanded. We added a fan light fixture to help move air in the summer (and because the old one was terrible!I am so excited with how it is coming out! What a long road, though. My new stove is sitting in the breezeway, waiting for a new room. Hopefully by Ryan's birthday I can bake a cake in it! (There I go again with my lofty goals! Ha!)

UPDATE! We have added curtains (thanks Calli/Mom), stained floors, and we have a WORKING STOVE (thanks Dad/Ken)!!!! Life is good!

A few pictures from the Homestead

A view from our front window during winter. We got some more snow on Tuesday, but it has actually been a very mild winter here. Everyone keeps telling us "wait until we get some real snow!"











A couple of sunsets from our front window. We have no shortage of beautiful scenery out here in the boonies. One benefit of no mountains, trees, neighbors...you see all of the sunrises and sunsets, unless there are clouds, of course.























This is a picture of our living room before we painted, removed carpet, etc. Phil took this photo on his first trip back to Iowa.
















And this is our living room now, after the green shag carpet had been taken up and the walls had been painted, but before all of our stuff filled it up. We have been very fortunate in this house that the floors are all in extremely good shape. We have had to do nothing but put wax on most of them to make them look as good as the floor in this picture.

Oh the tangled webs we weave

With my mother and father in law back to stay with us for two weeks, we thought it would be great to have them help us with a few projects. We have finally finished painting the kitchen, which was started the week we moved in, and have almost completed sanding the floors. We are working on patching a few rooms upstairs, painting, pulling carpet, etc. While this is going on, we are placing our order tonight for our first garden. Oh yes, and the most important piece of the puzzle is that Ryan is turning ONE this week! Big kid!

I don't know why we think we can do everything...but I just don't see any other way. It seems every project we start needs to be tripled in both time and money invested. I think I am being taught patience and perseverence, personally! However, we do have small wins along the way. For example, since we moved in, we have re-done the plumbing the main floor, installed a new water heater, hooked up a new washer and dryer, taken up carpet and painted four rooms downstairs (living room, dining room, den, and front room), among a few other projects here and there. I think we can get so caught up in "now" that we forget that we are just simply on a long road.

But, looking to the next few weeks, until we get that garden planted, it is going to be a challenge! We need to get some special attachment so that the plow will work on Phil's tractor, and we won't be turning any ground until that is running. Then once you start turning ground, I think it is still quite a bit of work to smooth and prep it all. I am so looking forward to spring, though!

That tractor has turned out to be a wonderful purchase! It mows through our long, matted grass and turns it into short, manageable grass! Between that and burning off patches of grass, I can start to dream about what it will look like planted and pretty! With the wide mower deck on the tractor, he drives that thing around mowing like it's nothing. And being so old we don't really have to worry about beating it up. It does need some tune up work, but I think it will work for what we need it to do this year.

Start of a new day

So, I believe we have actually hit the threshold- we are now "real farmers"! This week Phil purchased himself a genuine 1961 Farmall C tractor. Oh how far we have come!

This hits a new point on our quest for simple living...although we have been so busy that it doesn't seem so simple, just different. We made the move from Washington State to Iowa in November, 2005. We wanted to scale down our lives from two incomes to one so I could stay home with our then-7 month old son. We wanted simpler lives, time to enjoy family and life. After much soul searching, we left our two-bedroom, one bathroom home outside of Seattle, and moved into a four bedroom, one one and a half bath 1925 farmhouse on 5 acres.

The house is old...and was last updated in 1970-something...which makes for some interesting carpet and paint, to say the least. However, underneath it all is a beautiful old house full of charm. We just have to uncover it all!

That is the short version of where we are and what we are doing. We are here on a dream and a prayer...believing that God will provide direction and provision for us. We left both of our families and all of our friends at home in Washington, which has been very hard. Before this move, neither of us had lived more than an hour away from home.

Staying home has been another new experience. Having always been career driven, this shift has definitely challenged me in new ways, but also taught me a lot, too. After graduating college, I worked for Target for three years in Human Resources. I loved the challenge, the fast pace, and the "importance" of it all. But on the flip side, with a new baby, I never felt I saw him enough. The house was a mess and no one ate like they should. I always felt divided, never enough for either work or home.

We found our house on the internet, and on a whim took a look at it. Phil flew back because I had to work...and ended up buying a house that I had never seen. Now that's trust! Phil took a job as a finish carpenter to pay bills, and I am able to be at home. In the evenings, we sit by the fireplace and read...and we have every evening and weekend together. For fun, we work on our house and take trips to "town", which is about 45 minutes away. We are definitely country bumpkins now! What a change from living 3 minutes from the grocery store.

So, that kind of catches you up to today...we looked through the seed catalog this morning over coffee. I can't wait to start a garden! I know nothing about it, but found a great website online through Iowa State. Thankfully Phil has done a bit of gardening at home. The greatest part about the whole farming thing is that we have only farmers for neighbors and church friends! So, when we need help, have questions, or whatever, people have been more than anxious to give support! Phil works with some guys that all either grew up on farms or have one currently. Every night he comes home with "The guys said this about the garden" or "they think we need this kind of tiller". One of them is actually giving us a plow and a disc for our tractor, because he simply doesn't need it! Amazing!

Oh yes, on the other side of things, our kitchen is completely gutted...we decided the 1950's metal cabinets just weren't going to cut it, and ended up taking everything out. We have been eating out of a crock pot for three months now, and I finally ordered a stove two days ago. It should be here by the end of the week! I am thrilled! Now all we need to do is finish the floor and hook up the power...small feats, right?

Ok, enought for today. I'm off to unpack a few boxes into a few newly painted closets.