Almost a Month Since My Last Post....!?!

It's been a weird month.
I swear I have written full posts. Witty, engaging, entertaining and informative. Unfortunately, I wrote them all in my head and they never made it to my blog.
So...here's a very abreviated update:
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My next to youngest son (age 25) has moved in to help us get ready for the Big Move North. We are also helping him as he lost his job in Virginia.
We lost 3 animals; Perfection the peachick, and two chickens.

We will miss Perfection. We buried him out in the yard. I found a shoebox and lined it with fabric and we tucked in some peacock feathers ...so he could go to rest with the tail he never had a chance to grow himself.
We are not sure what he died of, but we suspect he ate something that caused him to die.

Our turkeys hatched a chick and we removed the chick and put it in a private coop (the old bunny hutch).
Named it Sammy as we figured that name was good for a girl or a boy. So far, so good.

Our rent-a-goat is doing his job well. I think all the does may have caught. We have him until the middle of the month, so we will rotate him among the girls until his owner picks him up.


The Darlin' Mans retirement plans are stumbling forward. He takes leave Nov. 1st. At that point he will head to Vt and NH to find a house, buy the house and get basic arrangements done for the move.
We have found a good real estate agent in the area and are fine tuning our search for property.

It has been unusually wet the past few weeks. Lots of rain and thunder. The ducks and geese love it, the chickens and goats......not so much.

The alpacas are doing fine. Alberto has been doing a lot of humming to his ladies, but hasn't been trying to mount them. We *think* Alice and Ana are pregnant, but need to get a vet out here to check.

Been *paring down* stuff here. You never realize how much stuff you have that is basically unneeded until you have a move coming soon!

I'll be posting again with a day or two. Have a lot of stuff on my mind.

Life....Intervenes....

Well, my posting schedule for this blog has officially been trashed! So many things happening that a regular schedule is now impossible.
The Darlin' Man has been informed that he will be deployed in August of this year to Iraq. He IS fighting it and trying to stay stateside, but it is 90% certain he will have to go.
We must take the attitude that he will be going and prepare for that likelihood.
So, our next decision is: Where do the kids and I stay or go to during said deployment?
We can stay here...no family members nearby, but the base is here with all the advantages that provides.
We can move to Vermont---where we planned to retire to anyway, and rent, lease to own or buy property/a house.Also, the Darlin' Man has family there.
We can move to some other area of the country where he or I have family near-by.
We discussed it with the kids (they are 17 and 15) to get their imput and discussed it with each other.
The consensus is that Vermont will probably be our best bet.
So, I am currently conducting a long distance real estate search in a specific area of Vermont trying to find a place for us to move to.
We have very specific parameters for each scenario:
If we lease to own or buy, the property MUST have:
10+ acres
Water (spring, drilled well already in place, year round stream/brook)
Be suitable for organic gardening and livestock raising.
No HOAs, restrictions, etc on property.

If we rent the property MUST have:
No HOAs, restrictions
Must allow pets
Have a garden space
3+ bedrooms

We may be able to buy land and just drop a mobile home or modular home on it. We'll build our dream home after the fella gets back. In the meantime (in this scenario), I can build outbuildings, get some chickens and maybe a couple of pigs

I have already identified a few properties and contacted some local Realtors in Vermont to make inquiries.
The kids have taken an interest in the areas we sowed them and are checking out local schools, local recreational activities, etc.
So, now you know why I have been absent from my blog and what I have been doing!
Our timeline on this will be VERY tight. The Darlin' Man finds out within the next week if he will be deployed (absolute 100% certainty). We are hoping for the 10% chance he'll be able to stay stateside this round, but not holding our collective breath here. This is not his first deployment, so he knows the odds.
When he finds out, all arrangements and the move will have to be completed by the second week in August!
I will try to keep up on posting here, and let my readers know if the deployment becomes set in stone. I'll be posting about the strange journey it is to find real estate long distance...how we will decide on a place (probably sight unseen---eek!) and the logistics of moving...and the move will include our preps and most likely at least one goat! (Oh, won't that be fun!?!?)