Goodbye Evansville, Hello farm life…

The countdown has begun! We are moving away from city life and going to live in the country in 9 days. Things are wrapping up, Everly’s got her last three days of Montessori school this week and Nathan only has 8 days of work left. We are squeezing in last minute health appointments, play dates and running lots of errands all while trying to pack up our house.

The girls have been loading up on the perks of our current living arrangement. Time with friends, visiting their favorite places and soaking up all the joys of our current house. We have a bunch of tadpoles that we hatched from eggs in the sand table right now… they were caught from the pond out back and they are growing fast.

Everly has also been hoping to catch another turtle or two from the pond before we move. We initially caught, measured, observed, numbered and then released the turtles.She hopes to catch a turtle that we’d already numbered so she can see how much it’s grown before we have to leave.

Update: We managed to catch TWO turtles and a frog later today! One of the turtles are one of the ones we numbered. She’s very excited. Here is a video of the fish bowl where our habitat exists for observation in our school room (disregard all the kid noise):

Adalyn is very involved in helping out around the house. She’s honing her motor skills with this. She’s setting the table, wiping things down, collecting eggs, feeding the chickens and helping me keep the turkeys fed, watered and safe from our large flock of chickens. Each day we observe the turkeys and chickens. We believe we have 3 or 4 roosters from the 12 new chicks we added to our flock. We’ve got 2 roosters that are crowing big time all the sudden, the neighbors probably want to kill us… but we’ll be gone in less than two weeks. We also have 2-3 toms out of our 6 turkey poults that were added this year. Luckily the toms aren’t making too many turkey sounds just yet.

As you can see in the video the chicks aren’t really chicks anymore. The breeds of chickens are different and their sexes are interesing to speculate about.

Today the girls picked their first three strawberries from our garden and were elated, so much so that they wouldn’t eat them. They are saving them in the fridge. We also enjoyed some homegrown lettuce yesterday that they picked.

I’m in hard core homeschooling prep mode. I really want to focus on teaching the kiddos while we tackle homesteading. This is partly because Adalyn and Grayson wont have the same Montessori environment that Everly was able to enjoy… so I’m working to provide it in the home.Plus, I’m undecided about how I feel about public schooling for Everly. Certainly the socialization will do her well but I’m not sure if the philosophy and curriculum will help her thrive. So, I’m planning to be of the homeschool mindset for the next several years.The house is slowing looking more packed and ready to move. It feels very daunting that we are moving so quickly but also very good to be getting it done and beginning the next chapter.Oh, did I mention that we choose a house with a fireplace over a house with a microwave, dishwasher and whirlpool tub? It’s true. We’ll be living in the older farm house the once belonged to our employers parents. Cool huh? We love a place with charm and a fireplace! I’m not devastated about the microwave but I’m kind of worried about how having no dishwasher is going to play out. Perhaps the girls can take over the dishes?

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