FAMILY LAND

This past weekend Tim’s sister Sarah, her husband and their four girls came to visit us at Hidden Meadow. It was their first time seeing our new home, and I can’t imagine a weekend packed with more fall fun and adventure. We watched a military parade at VMI, carved pumpkins, roasted pumpkin seeds, baked snickerdoodle cookies and chocolate chip banana bread, roasted chestnuts, (yes seriously) drank apple cider and pumpkin beer, and s’mored on the bonfire, all to a backdrop of fresh fall colors and temperatures. We even snuck in a final swim before the temperatures began to cool off. The girls played with the chickens and goats, swung from the hickory tree, walked the land, and collected pears, eggs and chestnuts. We also got together with old friends Kevin and Jessie who live an hour away from the farm.

Allie and Morgen stuck with classic Jack o’lanterns, Tim did VMI, (show off) I carved a cow which ended up more like a deer for Vikki!

We visited a favorite produce stand in town to pick out our pumpkins (and pose on the straw horse)! I also got an incredible fig preserve too which I spread over Camembert cheese and rosemary crackers for a little amuse bouche that night, delicious!

It was fun to watch the military parade at VMI. It was parent’s weekend, so it was packed! Afterwards we met up for dinner with old friends Kevin and Jessie and their three girls. I kept it a surprise for Sarah that they were coming, and it was great to get the gang back together after so many years!

But the weekend was also memorable in other ways, for the first three days Sarah kept telling the girls to look out for bears, yet we saw none. Then on the final night, all their wishing came true, as a young bear decided to visit Hidden Meadow and plunder our trash can. Tim and I somehow slept through the ruckus in the early morning hours but awoke to everyone’s tales of the cheeky bear making several visits to our deck and taking his favorite snacks into the neighboring pastures. (below is not the actual bear, but one similar in size and cheekiness)

bear-in-cup

The trash can has since been relegated back indoors and the old broken compost tub removed. Billy (the bear) tried to come back Sunday night at sunset, but we were ready for him with all the pots and pans and zero items around the house to tempt his appetite. He sulked off into the woods and hasn’t been seen since. Phew.

In case you’re wondering what this week’s title of Family Land means, let me explain. So we joked over the weekend about how some families brag about having “family land” and how now our families would say they have 34 acres in the Shenandoah Valley of family land. But joking aside I really want Hidden Meadow to be “family land”. It probably stems from the incredible example of my Mom and Roger with our family farm in Tennessee. They have always been intentional of letting whoever needs to, stay on the farm, whether in the guest cabin or the basement apartment. And I think it’s cool that all three of us kids with our spouses, have called the farm home at different points in our marriages. I love the idea of a farm being a gathering point, a place for special events, holidays, and times of need or rejuvenation. We want to be good stewards of this special place. And because of that, it will always be open to our family. Both our blood family, and our friend family. Our doors are open to you all.

After such a packed weekend, I was hoping for a quiet week to recover. But that was not in the cards. A full work schedule, a sick chicken, and a leak in our upstairs bath kept me on my toes all week.

The leak story goes like this. On Wednesday I was working away happily at the table and I heard a rustling in the pantry. I first thought it was the cats, and kept designing away. (Side note I once had an boss who called graphic design, “just pushing fonts and photos around” As maddening as it was it the time, it still makes me chuckle, so yes here I was “pushing fonts and photos around” with gusto when I heard the rustling again, this time both Atticus and Oscar were in the living room, so I grew suspicious.

I headed into the pantry prepared for anything but was dismayed with what I saw…water dripping from the ceiling onto my stash of reusable grocery bags below. My first thought was that it was coming from the upstairs toilet which was directly above. Our older plumbing was a little overwhelmed with eight people over the weekend and had some clogging issues. So to me it made sense that something got damaged, and now there was a leak. I turned the water off, emptied the toilet, and still the water dripped below. I headed outside and saw our back gutter was clogged, so up the ladder I scampered and pulled the clog out of the downspout. I was feeling very pleased with myself at this point, I got this homeowner malarkey.

But still, the dripping continued. So up to the bathroom I ran and after pulling out the drawers in one of our bathroom cabinets, I felt some damp near the wall. So I did what any self-respecting southern girl would do, I grabbed a hammer and started demo-ing the cabinet. I detached it from the wall, and moved it in one piece. Definitely feeling some moisture now where the floor met the exterior wall. So I grabbed my trusty hammer again, and put it straight through the drywall (super satisfying btw). Then I saw it, drips coming down on the plastic lining in front of the insulation.

And so…well I’ll just post the photo now, I went from a 4 inch hole at the base of the wall, to this:

So before you just assume I went a little crazy, which let’s be honest, maybe I did. I did have a reason behind the madness. I knew the rain was only going to last a little longer that day and I wanted to find out where it was getting into the wall. I discovered that it was dripping down from where the wall meets the ceiling, suspiciously centered below our bathroom skylight.

So that’s where we are right now. The wall is torn up, the rain is coming down again, and the water is plunking happily away into my pots and bowls. Tim is currently removing more drywall below the skylight to hopefully pinpoint the source of the leak. We also have the contact info of the contractor who installed the skylight and roof five years ago. So we’ll probably be giving them a call tomorrow to come see what is amiss. I will say, the demo-ing makes me unbelievably happy because a bathroom remodel was further down on our list, but now is moved right to the top of the priorities, meaning a BATHTUB for me sooner rather than later. That’s right, there is currently no bathtub in this house and it is the source of my greatest unhappiness.

SO. Watch this space, new floor tile (hopefully with in floor heating), new tiled shower, and a beautiful soaking clawfoot tub are on their way to me in the coming months. As for the other updates, yes I sadly have a sick chicken. Amy (who I’m beginning to think I should have called Beth) has been poorly for about a week. It started with her losing her balance, and now she seems to be losing the use of her legs. It’s so sad friends. Her appetite is still great, and she’s very alert and responsive. But if she doesn’t improve at all over the next week, hard decisions will have to be made. I know we’re “farmers” now, (ha! hardly) but killing a chicken is still something that I will struggle greatly with.

Oh one last fun report on the community front. I got together with neighbor Sara yesterday and we made 20+ jars of pear jam. I can’t tell you how excited I was to use all the pears from our tree, and as its been YEARS since I helped my mom with canning, I was so happy to tackle it with someone more experienced. We used very little sugar (1/2 cup), pectin in two of the three batches, and a lot of fresh ginger and lemon to create some delicious spicy pear blends. We modified this recipe. I can’t wait to slather some on freshly baked sourdough, or crackers with a little gorgonzola. Or even spoon some of the pectin free jam onto some ice cream or gluten free pancakes.