Outside: Before and After

 This blog has to end somewhere...and today is that day. There are millions and millions of things that will be done to the house and to the farm that could be blogged (and many things that we have already done that I won't ever get around to photographing...) In theory I could continue this site and have endless stories and adventures about baseball fields set up in the front yard, the garden, the hens, the long list of livestock we plan on obtaining. I could share about curtains and holiday decorations and furniture that I plan on re-doing. But I think I'm done. Anything I want to remember I will share over on the other blog. But I want to get at least one pic of the outside on here. I am ordering a blogbook today so that I will have all of these before and afters to browse through with my family and reminisce about this crazy adventure.
BEFORE:

AFTER:

Honestly, it isn't fair to say this is the after pick. Except for new paint and roof, we haven't really accomplished what we want to on the front. We work on the landscaping daily and what was once a dense jungle is slowly looking better. I know it's a process, but by the end of this summer it will look so good!
We are so, so happy in this house. Every single day one of us remarks how much we love it, how happy we are here, how beautiful it is. We love it. Just last night Brad asked me, "Did you ever think growing up that you would be married to a Seminole State professor and live in this house with 3 kids?" I told him not in a million years. Because I didn't. I could have never imagined that this would be my life. I'm not sure what I thought my life would be, but whatever I thought, what it is is so much better.

The orchard.

I wasn't really that confident when we put in our orchard...but it was the very first thing I wanted to do when we decided to move back to the farm. I knew it would take 4-5 years for the trees to fruit and well, I'm not all that patient. So, we put the trees in last year before we had even moved to Seminole. We lost about 5 trees after our first winter, but all of them never really looked alive to begin with so it wasn't really our fault. :) Those have been replaced and now all 24 fruit trees are alive, blooming, and beautiful. We have peaches, plums, cherries, apricots, apples and pears. Over spring break we irrigated it ourselves, re-mulched it and then added the hand-painted barnwood signs to make it complete. I love that this is what I see every time I'm outside.