This month was all about moving into our new home, getting to know our new town, and finally setting in! It was a busy month full of projects all week long but we have found so much joy through it because it is our forever home and it’s all coming together perfectly!
Don’t forget to Pin this image for later!
Frozen Pipes & Power Outage
Let’s start with the bad news first and then move on to the good news!
The first few weeks of the month the temperatures were still below 20 degrees F each night. Unfortunately, the walls of our house are thinner than we realized and so our pipes will freeze up and we’ll be without water if we don’t keep it dripping throughout the night.
The structure that Landon built the house from is just so old it is so easy for the cold air to seep in. Don’t worry, we’ll be reinsulating the walls this summer, so we won’t have this problem again come next winter!
We also had a power outage one night and it made us realize we really were a wilderness family! (Have you seen the movie?) With only one bar of reception, we were able to text our neighbors and they offered help with firewood and the phone number to the power company if we needed it. We have the best neighbors and are so thankful for them!
It came on after only a few hours and don’t worry, we plan on buying a generator soon!
Old House Officially Sold
Our old house in Wisconsin has officially sold! Glory to God!
We are so thankful the sale of the house still went through despite some hiccups and we sold it for our asking price – which is just amazing! We are using the money we earned from the sale to purchase a lot of our necessary tools for our new lifestyle including a snowblower, a tiller, washer and dryer, items for the tiny house, gravel for the driveway, materials for a small addition to the tiny house, and so much more!
We also put a huge lump sum payment towards our mortgage and should be debt-free completely in 5-6 years, Lord-willing! That is our next big goal before we build a new house more inland. We want to be debt-free so bad since we are living on one income now.
Lastly, we built up our emergency fund again and paid off some medical bills! We are ready to get going with our new lifestyle.
Tiny House Living
So many of you have inquired about how living in the tiny house is going! Honestly…we love it!!
The past few months we lived out of basically just our kitchen and bedroom in our old house so we got used to it beforehand. We live with only what we need, and it is so refreshing – it really feels like the most simple living possible!
Even with a newborn baby, it is totally manageable, and enjoyable believe it or not! The only annoyance we have with the tiny home is that we don’t have a door to shut if Landon is working and Harmony is crying. We only have a loft currently where our bed is. (Yes, just like Little House on the Prairie!) And that is exactly the reason we are adding on a small room to the side of the tiny house this summer. It will be a place for Landon to work quietly when it is necessary, especially as Harmony gets bigger and naps less.
I am planning tons of awesome content for the blog soon all about our tiny house living. If you want to read about a specific topic, please leave a comment below and let me know! We have also officially decided to keep the barn a barn and not turn it into a house. It is just too old to make the necessary updates, and honestly, we need a barn anyways!
Organizing The Barn
Ah, we have worked so hard at getting the barn organized and we are just about done. It feels so good.
One room in the barn is filled with chrome wire shelving. All of our extra items, like pillows, blankets, outdoor equipment, extra clothing and baby gear, and more, are all organized into Rubbermaid totes on the shelving. So now when we need something that can’t be stored in the tiny house, all we have to do is go to the bard and grab it out of the respective bin.
A small utility room also on the lower level has turned into our laundry room! It’s a perfect spot for the new washer and dryer and I am especially happy with how easy it is to do laundry now. The short walk to the barn is a good excuse to get outside anyway.
The upstairs of the barn has turned into Landon’s workroom. We purchased a huge worktable for him and shelving to organize scrap wood, metal, and other tools and items.
We’ll be adding a garage door to the barn as well so we have somewhere to store our car during the seven months of winter up here!
There are three more rooms on the lower level. One has the lawnmower and four-wheeler. Another will be a butchering room for deer, fish, and rabbits. And the last has become our rabbitry…
Bethsaida Rabbitry
Landon worked so hard before and after work for a few days creating the most beautiful rabbitry system! The rabbits love their new home and we are expanding to 4 females and 2 males.
With four females giving birth each month, that means we could 40 rabbits born at a time. We will definitely keep most of the meat ourselves, but we also plan on selling quite a bit of it to locals here through Craigslist and the Farmer’s market.
We currently have two mamas due very soon and the previous litter of 8 has grown to almost the point of processing. We listed the rabbits for sale on Craigslist as well to see if anyone wanted to purchase one, which would help offset our cost.
We sold two of the rabbits already for $40 apiece and basically offset the cost for the food we feed them – meaning free meat! We hoping to do that again soon with the next litter.
We also ate our first rabbit this month that we completely raised ourselves. The one we ate is from our first litter of two. We kept one as a new breeder. It was so delicious!
Were also listing the manure for sale as the gardening season is coming up and it is considered “gardeners gold!”
P.S. There is nothing new with the chickens – only that Landon built the most beautiful chicken coop for me out of an old building on the land and we are getting 17 to 23 eggs a day! We don’t know what to do with all of them and are giving so many away!
Visiting Churches and MOPS
We’ve been visiting churches each week to see where God might lead us to plant our roots and build community. We haven’t found a home church yet if you could be praying for us!
However, at a bigger church in the area, I was able to join the MOPS group, which stands for Mothers of Preschoolers. I love that I can have community with other moms in the same season of life as me. We are praying that we can make some new friendships through MOPS soon too.
Projects
Other projects currently include Landon working on all the electrical of the barn. There were wires in place when we purchased it, but now it’s just a matter of connecting them all, adding lightbulbs, and making it all work!
Landon also purchased an old vintage boat from someone down the road and is working on fixing it up soon! He also built more pantry space in the kitchen and the space is now so much more functional.
And, we now have Michigan licenses and license plates. It is official!
A Day In Marquette
We had a beautiful 60-degree day one Saturday this month and we decided to take full advantage of it by exploring Marquette. Neither of us had been there before and since it’s our closest town with a Menard’s, Lowe’s, Meijer, and Target, we thought it was about time we went exploring!
A travel guide will be coming to the blog soon with the exact route we took but we saw some pretty amazing sights! It was so fun being all together as a family, hiking, visiting waterfalls, and seeing the town! We even stopped for some Buffalo Wild Wings to celebrate!
Ainslie Visiting
My twin sister Ainslie came to visit and we had a blast! It was her first time meeting Harmony and seeing our tiny house.
We snowshoed our land one day and tried to show her all the sights of the Keweenaw Peninsula but enjoyed a nice drive instead. Because all the snow was melting but it wasn’t quite summer yet, everything from the Porcupine Mountains to Copper Harbor was closed down.
We had a blast just hanging out with her though and catching up!
Well, that’s everything for the March 2021 update! Feel free to drop a comment below and see you next month!
Kelsey at GoodPointGrandma
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I love this so much!! My parents are actually in the middle of getting a sheep farm up and running – in the planning stage at the moment, but it should be by the end of the year. It’s not exactly the same you’re doing, but it’s similar, and it’s so interesting how many people are going back to homesteading and farming/raising livestock.
Ah I want sheep one day! Yes it is…it seems like everyone is craving a more simply lifestyle without technology now that we have so much of it(:
Wow, I am always so impressed with how much you do each month! So many projects and improvements and with a newborn is just amazing. I am definitely interested in reading about your tiny house experiences too.
Ah, thanks…it definitely is a lot of work but we enjoy it! Great – tiny house blog posts are coming soon!
Wow, you and your husband do so much in a just a month, and with a baby too! If I lived nearby, I would definitely take some of those fresh eggs off your hands for cooking and baking. We go through so many at my house.
I bet with all your amazing recipes…that is certainly when eggs come in handy. I wish I could ship them to you (:
This is awesome, Kelsey! Congrats on selling your first home. I know the feeling of relief and gratitude for that. It was the best feeling when we sold our first home.
Thanks, Summer – yes it is such a relief and I am sure glad it is all done. Moving is a lot of work!
It sounds like it was a pretty good month! So much going on, but it sounds so exciting!
Yes! (: