I cannot believe how incredibly lazy I have been at posting on this blog. Over six months of silence -- It is a wonder that the blog site owners didn't just dump it all together.

There is no way to go back and catch up so I will just jump right in here.

The big news dominating our life is Neil's promotion and our attempt to buy our own farm.
For the past 10 years, we have lived and worked on this farm. It is the longest that I have ever lived in one place for my whole life. Neil is gone from this farm at least half of the time now. It has been a hard adjustment for me and the two youngest kids. The two older ones go off to college several days a weeks so they are busy with their own changes in life. So, the "little boys" and I end up here alone....... we don't like it. There is a new man hired to work here-- Ben from South Africa--- but he is just not Dad. Nice guy but it is hard for us to get used to someone strange being on the farm. For the first time in a decade, I have to be careful about wandering around in my nightgown....... I had to dig out my robe.

Since Ben will be taking over the day to day workings of this farm, he needs to live here. This is the time for us to branch our and get our own place. We started looking for a small farm-- about 40 acres--- and somehow this has bloomed into a full fledged farm of 155 acres. We have a contract and we are negotiating for financing now. Heaven help me! I am scared to do it and scared not to......

This has lead to a massive packing, cleaning, storing, tossing time in this house. I have found all kinds of things that I forgot about and many more things that I WISH that I could forget about. Even if we don't manage to swing the financing on this farm, we HAVE to go somewhere.

We have sold a few horses, sold a few cows, sold a few goats ad a guy is coming to buy a bunch of chickens tomorrow. Planning a yard sale as soon as the Arctic weather moves on out. The house is pretty much an obstacle course of stacked boxes--- mostly books.

I hope to do better at chronicling this big adventure.
Tana Mc