Spring, is that you?

What a roller-coaster week of weather! Cold, strong winds, snow, sleet, rain, low clouds. I could almost hear the geese cursing as they flew overhead.

We managed to resolve our heating issues, so at least we could stay warm in our Little House in the Big World. And we have exactly the right number of pans and buckets to catch the drips from the rain! Yes, our roof leaks. Something to see to once it warms up enough for sealant to properly cure. This is a borrowed RV, so I'm not about to complain! Free rent is free rent, so putting some equity into the RV is the least we can do.

It's been hard not to go looking to see what else is for sale out there. We don't have money pooled together yet to buy our own RV, and we're still flip-flopping between tow-behind and RV, but it's just so darned tempting to check Craigslist or poke our noses in at a used camper dealer.

We do know one thing: we want a home with bigger tanks. We have a 15-gallon potable water tank, and a combo grey and black water tank. We've been trying to tap our resources sparingly. We don't put any grey-water down the drain if we can avoid it - I do dishes in two tubs and toss the water in the grassy field by the house when I'm done. It adds an extra step, but at least we don't have to drive to the RV dump site every other day!

Wilderheart has been working at another job site for the past week - the realtor we're working with pulled him off his main project to get another home ready for listing right away. He should be finishing up on that site today, then returning to working right outside my door. I do really miss him when he's away, but the reality is that without our move into the LHitBW, I'd be missing him for weeks at a time. This way, we still get to be together as a family in the evenings. It's been a blessing!

Sunday morning silence

Munchie and Papa have gone off to the store for supplies, so I am left here alone in our Little House in the Big World. After living here for almost a week, I was able to reorganize some items to make it a little easier to function. I put away the laundry, re-made the bed with the extra blankets we picked up from the house yesterday, folded up the blankets we borrowed from Munchie's God-Papa (thank Heaven for those blankets!), and put away the clean dishes. Then I went through every cupboard and made sure that the items in those cupboards actually belonged there. 

Now I'm sitting here, alone (The Mutts - who we have been remiss in introducing until now* - are stowed away in the garage of the house for the moment so I could clean), listening to the spring winds blow in, occasionally accompanied by the trill of a meadowlark or punctured by a passing flight of killdeer. 

The house we are fixing up is parked in the middle of a field/marsh area that, at one time, was a horse farm. It is obvious that the house - built in the 1970s, was built to be state-of-the-art at the time, but never, ever updated.

Never.

On the bright side, where there is wall paper, there is only one layer. The woodwork hasn't been painted over a dozen times. It's a rather WYSIWYG home. 

The land around it was sold off, maybe 5-10 years ago, and some McMansions sprung up. Fortunately, the lots are a reasonable size, and this house remains on a fairly nice chunk of land itself. 

It's very peaceful here, and I'm glad that this was our first stop on our new journey. It's been a fairly low-key, yet challenging enough start to keep things real for us (Have I mentioned that the house isn't hooked up to city water yet, but has its well capped? Yeah, so we have to drive to town to refill our water tanks.. kind of a pain...). Yesterday we checked out a nearby RV Park to see if we wanted to live there and have Wilderheart commute the few miles to the house every day. 

We decided - firmly - against it. 

First of all, the reason we're in an RV and not in an apartment or on a friend's couch is so we can keep the family together. Second, the park was far away from town with no easy access - unless I wanted to ride my bike along a highway. And if Chris needed the car to get to work, we'd be stuck. Finally, I had a bad feeling about the place. That is always enough reason for me to stay out of a place. 

Well, since I started this post, my two great loves have rejoined me, and I've been feasting on coffee and doughnuts with Papa while he helped Munchie eat some yogurt and crackers. Oh, what a life!

*We will post about our other two great loves soon!