We got the house in Franklin North Carolina

Our closing will be July 26th.  I am researching what chickens to raise.  And hoping the farmer behind me might have some advice or the neighbor next door who seems to have some sort of animal pen in his backyard.  I have no idea how we are going to move after living in this house in Florida for 25 years.  We have both our houses here up for sale with a real estate agent.  My mother's house behind me and ours.  We decided it would be too hard to maintain two homes.  But if our's does not sell, for a while we will be able to have a winter home and a summer home.
The new house has been inspected and so far no big problems have arose.  Everything can be fixed for under
1,000 dollars. We need to rip out the carpet in master bedroom because the rest of the house is all hard wood floors.  I don't know why people want to put carpeting in their bedrooms.  I don't find it that much warmer.  And our little dachshund has rubbed and scratched off most of his fur in the two to three weeks we have been back home in Florida.  Our Vet gave me some allergy medicine (I refuse to put him on steroids)  It is either something in our environment, outdoors or indoors. Because his fur up in North Carolina grew in thick and beautiful. We were living up there for two months and he never looked healthier. I feel bad that I have brought him back and it has made him sick.  I am not sure I posted the video of our new home.  They said the owner will probably not come to the closing and that in fact many closings are now down long distance through email. I never heard of such a thing.  We have appliances to buy and living room furniture.  I cannot wait to start weeding her gardens.

Video on utube of our new home.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivBvHTfIp1I

Made an offer on a house in Franklin

Well, it's not a farmhouse, but it has two acres and is unrestricted.  Lots of garden space, mountain views. And the house and yard are beautiful. And the owner is battling cancer and is just trying to clear her two loans against the house.  Sad.  I hope we can buy it.  The views are so beautiful.  Its up in the mountains in Franklin North Carolina.

Heading for Franklin North Carolina

In the morning we are heading to Franklin North Carolina to camp for a few days to a week and look around with a real estate agent.  It is higher up in Franklin and about 5 degree's cooler.  We did write a back up offer on the old farmhouse. And we will wait and see if that sale goes through.  Maybe the buyers needed time to get enough money.  Maybe they will back out of the deal.  If so, then our bid will go right in behind theirs.  The two story farmhouse still owns my heart.  I got my hair cut the other day. I don't really know what is going on, maybe my thyroid is failing. But I can't seem to gain weight and my hair is getting very dry.  I get my thyroid checked again in October.  I hope we can find a farmhouse this trip.  I am so tired of looking.  It has been so hot here.  I think they broke records.  I saw some lightening bugs tonight.  My little dog was curious because we no longer have them in Florida.  Well, this is all the news.  Onward to Franklin.  Later. 

Murphy North Carolina

Well, I was going to post that we were putting an offer on the old farmhouse that I love. But someone else already has it under contract.  Now I am heart broken.  I will post photos of it but my heart is not in it. The realtor said we can write up a backup offer in case they back out of it.  They have a contingency that they have a long time to back out of it if they want.  But still I feel like it is gone.  I can even write how sad my heart is. We should have made an offer on it right at the beginning.  I will post more when I feel better.

Looking for the Farmhouse

We've been in Murphy North Carolina now for about two weeks now searching for a farmhouse with about 3 to 5 acres or more.  We've seen the right land, with the wrong house, the right house with the wrong land.  And then we saw the one that said, "bring your own tools".  The land was gorgeous but the farmhouse was crumbling.  They should have said, bring your own bulldozer.  I still love the farmhouse I loved on the internet.  We will make a dream offer. If he does not accept it then we move on.  The house inside is ready to move in. But the outside needs new roof, paint, some new siding.  And some sort of heat for upstairs.  It is still my favorite of all the places we have seen.  There was one five acre place with a pond but it had restrictions and a home owners association.  I've been in those. Don't want to live with restrictions again.  Tomorrow we have one to look at up in Copper Hill which is almost on the Tenn. border. That would make a long drive to get groceries.  I am not leaving until we get a closing.  Tired of waiting.  Life is short.  More short than we know.  The dog is doing so well on the trip.  All his fur is grown back and hardly no licking or scratching which makes me think more and more he was allergic to our carpeting at home. So we are sticking to our rule of all hardwood floors. Here is the 1925 farmhouse.  Pray that he accepts Ralphs offer. I dream of living here.  I love this house. It has such warm.  There was much love here once. 

Feeling Well but not looking it

I cannot figure out why I feel good but I keep looking ill.  A year ago I had finished radiation and looked the best ever.  Maybe the radiation just hastened my aging process, after all I will be 65 in July. But I look in the mirror and can't even connect my face now to the me about six months ago when we last visited North Carolina.  Now I have other friends who have had radiation treatments and I do see the difference in their looks and face.  But it depends on where the radiation was.  If it was to the head or chest, then it affects their looks. But if it is radiation to the lower body, the face seems to be spared, but the internal organs are wrecked.  Long term effects of scar tissue, and damage can require surgery as many of my friends have had. It may take ten years, but radiation for colon cancer and breast cancer can leave long term side effects.  So, I guess I will learn to live with my new looks.  And try not to be so vain and age more gracefully.  I am on my laptop this morning so I can add more photographs from the other day.  Less than two weeks and we will be on our way to the mountains and visiting our grandbaby in Pensacola, Florida. I am ready. I am a person who is part gypsy.  We used to move every 5 to 10 years with Ralph's career field with IBM.  I miss that.  I don't enjoy staying in one place. I also love traveling.  Ralph not so much.  Reading the newspaper is dismal and depressing.  It reminds me of my grandmother's life, during the Great Depression, no money,  banks empty.  Grandma raised chickens for eggs and took in sewing.  Grandpa was a sheet metal worker and traveled to make cash.  They lived from hand to mouth.  But no one went hungry.  If before July our government does not deal with our debt, and defaults, you will see banks fail.  Retirement 401 K's will no longer be backed, even social security will be gone.  We realize now we should have gotten the farm last year.  At least if you have water on your property,  wood, and chickens and gardens.  You will eat.  You will have heat.  I hope our nation does not come to that. But it could happen.  I pray not.  For my grandchildren's sake.

Bluebirds.

I have bluebirds.  A house full of baby bluebirds.  I am so in love.  I put out mealworms for the parents. They appreciate the help in feeding.  The house next to the bluebird house has baby chickadee's.  Sometimes the father bluebird gets mixed up and tries to go into the wrong house. And then there is chaos. And a lot of chickadee shrilling and flapping of wings. I will try and get one of my bluebird photographs off of my facebook. I hate that all my photographs are on my laptop and never on this desktop.  We are going to leave May 7th for Murphy North Carolina (where we were for weeks last Oct looking for our farmhouse) But this time we are not coming back until we bought the farm, so to speak.   I may never come back at all. I am sick of no seasons in Florida, sick of heat, sick of no lilac's.  Can't even bring myself to plant zinnia's this year.  But I see some things like my purple cone flowers coming back anyway.  We had flocks of catbirds and Cedar Waxwings stripping our mulberry tree's.  My goal on our new farm is to plant way more stuff the birds eat naturally and buy much less sunflower seed.  I may even grow sunflowers commercially because the price at the store has skyrocketed.  I don't know what's going on.  But I need stock in black oil sunflower seeds.  So off  to farmhouse searching we go.  I had my two year followup with the radiologist in Tampa.  So far, so good. He said, "I think that after two years, you are out of the woods."  But I just live one day at a time and thankful for it.  Hope when we get settled in Murphy camping I will have more time for updating this poor blog.  Later.