The Farm circa 1983
So today is truly day 1 in Operation Farm Renovation. Let me pre-empt this blog by letting you in on a few secrets. #1 I am deathly afraid of rats & mice. #2 I am also afraid of snakes... like mortally afraid. Like heart stopping afraid.
So we head out to the farm today to clean out the remains of a few years of no one living in the house. You must keep in mind that when my inlaws moved from the farm to town they just sort of left. They left food in the fridge, the freezer and the deep freeze. There are still clothes in the closets and dressers, magazines and books on the tables. Pots on the stove, baking pans in the over and clean dishes in the sink.
Notice the cute sunflower curtains. The upper cabinents on the right in this picture are full of dishes. My wonderful mother in law has the best collection of dishes I have ever seen. That is one thing that I will never lack for is dishes.
So I decide to tackle the master bedroom. There are still clothes on the shelves and in the dressers. My goal is to get out the clothes and to pack up what I believe my mother in law is going to want to keep or at least go through. I have contractor bags - I am ready to go. Found an old boom box and some really cool cassette tapes to listen to. So as I am jamming out to the Dirty Dancing Soundtrack I go in. I begin to pull sweaters from the shelves in the room and all of a sudden I realize there are holes in them and that there is fuzzy stuff everywhere.
Being so brave and full of courage, I go out on the front porch to call in the reinforcements. "JULIA!!!" So Julia comes in and hold the bag open for me as I dump the clothes in the bags. She is reminding me to breathe. Apparently I had not been doing that. We get the shelves emptied and head to the dresser. I am petrified that I am going to open a drawer and something is going to jump out at me. Bear in mind I was a little girl in Florida and I have opened my dresser drawer to have palmetto bugs fly at my head... I am panting with anxiety. I am scared to death to open the drawer. So I open it and nothing. Can you just see me? The sigh of relief. I am thinking the worst of it is over.
Moving to the next dresser I can't get the drawer open. I happen to hear my father in law in the house and ask him if he can open the drawer for me. He is heartbroken to be going through all of this stuff. I feel so dadgum guilty about going through their drawers and their things. He comes in and shows Julia the mother load drawer of her grandmothers jewelry. Then opens the drawer. I am so glad that I couldn't open the drawer. We didn't find anything alive... but there had been an entire village of them at one point. I should have taken pictures but I was too busy hyperventilating on the front porch.
Ande has now joined in on the fun and is having the time of his life. Leaving Grandpa and Julia in the bedroom I ask Ande to grab the cast iron tea kettle from the heater closet. I had wanted to grab it earlier but I could see that fuzz stuff next to it and I just can't tell you how petrified I am. So he courageously reaches in and grabs the tea kettle and pulls it out for me. Opens the lid, closes the lid and we proceed to talk about something else. About that time Adam, my middle child, the curious one... again opens the lid to the tea kettle, "Eww, dead rats. I think they are decayed." I scream and run out the front door off the porch and into the front yard. I am bent over trying not to throw up on my shoes. Ande meanwhile is laughing.
By this time I am not wanting to reach out and touch anything. Being quick on my feet and so witty I say, "Lunchtime!". Nothing like food to change the atmosphere and give me a chance to get out of the house for a while. After lunch I took my time walking Zoe around the property and spent some time taking pictures of Ande and his Dad working on the water reservoir. If you are interested in seeing more pictures check here.
After a while Ande convinced me that we needed to get back into the house and try to make some headway. We started on the back porch room and were able to make some progress back there together. Grandpa came in and was looking through stuff. He never really "got rid" of anything but he was really good at point out stuff and knowing where the good stuff is. Like the brand new stock pot still in plastic, and the large crock that says Grantham on it that their neighbor's son in Florida made for them 25 years ago. There are cookbooks, oh and canned pork sausage from when Pa Tabor was alive... Ande and I have been married for 15 years... Pa had gone on before I ever came on the scene. There is bear in the deep freeze but we haven't gotten to the point that we can get to it yet. Grandpa says it's been in there for about 10 years.
Ande found some of his scout memoriabilia and the boys had a blast checking that out. We also found the dealer slip off of his keys to his 91 GT. We also found some really great old photos of the last 30 years of life out there. I am going to begin to scan them in to add to our story but it won't be tonight.
We are just thankful for God's provision... and for being a God of generations. How humbling it is to know. God is awesome, all knowing and He loves me enough to go ahead years to make a way for us today.
For now though I am going to take a hint from Zoe...
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