Quick run to TN

Alex here. I made a quick run to Four Feathers Farm in order to bring back a load of "stuff" from the cabin. I got in about 1:30am on Saturday and when I opened the gate, the "Welcome to Four Feathers Farm" sign fell off. I took that as a sign that we are meant to sell the place.

It looked like it has been raining quite a bit already that night and it was just starting to come down again, so I quickly got into the cabin and tried to get to sleep. A steady rain was coming down and all I could think about was how much I missed the sound of it on the metal roof. I probably stayed awake for about and hour and a half, tossing and turning and listening to the rain.

I started off my Saturday loading up anything that could go to the dump. Turns out we had a lot that could go to the dump and I ended up piling the 16 foot trailer about four feet high. I tried cutting some of the tall weeds around the cabin with the walk behind weed eater but my carburetor problems came back and I ended up pulling out the starter cord.

I met with the realtor briefly and pointed out the direction of the springs and creek. Then I headed to the dump. After the dump I finally made it to Hardee's for something to eat then went to Walmart for a weedeater that worked. After that I went to our neighbor Mike's house to pick up the gates we loaned him. Unfortunately, they were still being used. We took down most of them but I ended up leaving about three that were needed to keep their horse in his pasture.

I did some cutting with the new weed eater, but I purchased a low end unit and the phrase, "You get what you pay for" came back to haunt me. It was way too small for what I needed to do but I was at least able to get around the cabin cut so it didn't get sucked back into the wilderness any time soon.

I met several of our neighbors throughout the day and had dinner at Judy and Mike's house. Their daughter Jessie cooked a wonderful meal. I have never seen her cook but she is due with her second child in September and must be getting into that nesting phase.

Everyone was genuinely sad to find out that we are selling our place. I really felt bad telling them but they all seemed to expect it. We'll never have neighbors as great as them.

I partially loaded the truck and trailer into the night and continued into the morning. I started back with loading in the morning and got the cabin emptied out. Then I went to move the trailer behind the house so I could get the tiller and scrape blade loaded and got the trailer frame stuck on a stump. I ended up disconnecting it from the truck and lucky for me the back of the truck was loaded down, otherwise I would have had that stuck in the mud from Friday night's rain. I moved the truck to the other side of the trailer and using a tow chain, jerked on the trailer until it came free along with pulling about half of the stump out the ground. I really enjoy having a big truck.

Anyway, I get everything elso loaded up and headed out by noon. My truck was running very hot on the way back and at the KY welcome center I found out that you actually need to have water in the radiator for it to stay cool. After about 45 miinutes of letting my engine cool, I added several gallons of water to the truck and made it the rest of the way home without any further incidents.

The sorry state of affairs

Alex said the farm looks decrepit with the grass at three feet high. We do have 800 gallons of water caught from the rainwater catch system though. That's pretty cool.

He and Hayes blew in Saturday night to get the box blade to return to Lisa then got a variety of other things we need for our Falmouth farm. More still to do.

The gardener obviously quit

Hayes, Chooj and I arrived to a bushy 4 Feathers Farm Friday night. In jest, I said,"That gardener sure is lousy!" I was afraid to walk anywhere!

Fat Boy showed up Saturday morning. We thought he was gone for good but he lounged on the porch and let us pet him. He's not too feral then. It was just two summers ago that he was letting his fellow kittens nurse him. Weird. Weird, weird, weird.

My neighbor Bruce came to help me load farm gates and other stuff from the shed that we need at the Kentucky homestead. He told me Hohenwald had a bank robbery and it was "SO inside job!" What excitement! The robber lightend our local bank of $370,000.

Our phoebe turned her babies out and is sitting on five new eggs. We disturbed her terribly and I know she's glad we left.

Our rainwater catch is working great. Our cistern has more than 400 gallons of water in it!

Phoebe feeding babies

April 27, 2008
We worked hard this weekend! It took us 30 minutes to get out of the parking lot Thursday evening (“I forgot the keys.” “I forgot the fuel filter.”) and we arrived at the farm six hours later to hear the whippoorwills. I just love hearing them sing. Alex sat outside to read a bit and listened to a lone coyote hunting close by. He surmises it was after our cats.
The first thing we did Friday was check on our bird family nesting on the air conditioner. Sure enough, four babies had hatched and we watched them all weekend as the parents fed them moths and other various bugs. Upon our return home, we discovered this is a family of eastern phoebes.
Alex tilled a couple of our neighbors’ gardens and I tried to weed wack until it broke. After that I took down fencing, pulled weeds, hung my painted windows and such until I noticed a brilliantly scarlet-colored bird. I called my friend Bernadette in Georgia to ask what other kind of red bird is around besides a cardinal. Turns out it was a summer tanager and it flew around all weekend so it must have a nest. Alex noticed bluebirds in one of our boxes too.
An early morning thunderstorm woke me Saturday and I listened to upland chorus frogs sing it in. It was a good thing we harvested frog eggs on our last visit since the remaining tadpoles were fighting for survival in one small mud puddle. Our tadpoles are doing swimmingly well on the porch.
We tilled around the kids’ playset, scraped the driveway and Alex bushhogged the pasture. On our way to town, I spotted a good-sized snapping turtle so we turned around and all got out to investigate. Alex let it bite at his boot (with his toes curled in) and it was determined to beat up Alex so we eventually left it alone and went on to lunch.
We missed our opportunity to meet with the bulldozer guy so after visiting briefly with our neighbors, we packed up and got on the road Saturday night.
Hayes and I hung our heads out the windows and said goodbye to everything: “Goodbye, house. Goodbye, cats. Goodbye, trees. Goodbye, goodbye.”

Painted windows at the cabin

Hayes catching frogs

Rain water collection system