Making progress.

It's only been a year since we first started talking about looking for retirement land close to my brother-in-law (BIL) instead of close to Bryson City, NC.   We really enjoyed last Memorial Day with BIL and family and the peace and quiet of being on his land. 

Digging trenches for water lines, May 2016

Since then, we've found land that we absolutely love, refurbished an RV that will be our first home on that land, met the best neighbor's in the world, had our trees thinned, a driveway constructed, electricity brought in, and a well dug.  We made good progress on water and septic lines this weekend, and are looking forward to moving the RV to the land by the middle of June.  Then we'll be able to sit in front of our mini-home first thing in the morning and last thing at night and plan where to build the house.

Our first hives are thriving in the woods, and most of our plants are doing well.  Some of my fig cuttings are struggling, and the blueberries never even pushed out the first leaf, but one of the large figs a friend gave us has two baby figs on it.   It has a long way to go to catch up with the fig in our back yard, but we hadn't expected to see fruit this year at all.  Even though the other fig tree doesn't have any fruit yet, I'm very pleased with the way it looks.  By the time we retire, I'm convinced I'll have more than enough figs on those trees to make all the jam I want or need. The two magnolias I planted are thriving.   Three of the daylillies are blooming and the others are doing well, especially considering that they are having to survive without the benefit of an irrigation system!   The gardenias that we planted by the gate are greening up, but there hasn't been much new growth on them since we planted them at Thanksgiving.

Now that the pine trees have been thinned, we are seeing quite a few tulip poplars popping up.  They are a good source of nutrition for the bees, so we're excited to see them.  Of course, the briars are also thriving in all the additional light, but I took care of all the ones between the deck and the bee hives with the weed-eater yesterday!   That trail is too uneven to bush-hog, but I don't mind using the weed-eater as I can cut around any ferns I spot.   The way I feel today, the weed-eater is also going to help me build muscles!

We have another week of school, then hubby has a week of JROTC camp, but after that we'll be able to work our land every weekend until August.   We'll move bees down Thursday evenings after hubby gets off work and maybe even move some of our trees down once we see which areas stay moist even when it doesn't rain.  This weekend was hard work, but so very rewarding.   Our retirement dream becomes more real with every trip.

Putting down roots.

We planted two gardenias by the gate in November, but this weekend we started our orchard with two fig trees we received as a gift and two blueberry bushes.   The fig trees did great in the greenhouse over winter and we moved them outside a couple of weeks ago.  The first leaves opened at the start of this week, so this was a good time to get them in the ground.  The roots were less pot-bound than we thought and there was a good soaking rain overnight.  I think they will do well.  We are so looking forward to adding the trees we ordered from Arbor Day Foundation -- hopefully over spring break.

Our plans for the house change from minute to minute, but we know where the RV will go and we plan to watch the woods go through the seasons from there before we make a final decision on the house.  Every time we visit the farm, we see reasons to place the house in one place, then another, then another.....  It will all work out in time.

We cooked supper and breakfast in the RV and had my brother-in-law (BIL) over for both meals, which was fun, even if I clearly don't yet have the oven figured out.   It didn't help that I thought I heard BIL yell yesterday while he was using the table saw (he just sneezed), so I turned the gas burner and oven off and ran to check on him and then couldn't relight the pilot light on the oven because it was too hot.  So much for biscuits...   Then I burned the biscuits this morning, so I need to find the middle ground between barely cooked and black next time!

As usual, leaving was difficult.  Daylight savings time stole one hour of our day, and then we fiddled around doing bee stuff with BIL until 2 hours after our planned departure.  It was worth it to see how his hives are growing and then to see a series of beautiful rainbows on the drive back home.

Life is good.  We have redbud trees in full bloom down by the creek and more surprises to come, I'm sure, in the coming weeks.