Apples!

Look what I found on the farm!

We knew there was some sort of orchard (we hoped) behind the garage, tremendously overgrown and full of poison ivy. But along the fence, pruned as an espalier, is an apple tree, and on that tree hung two lovely apples. Isn't it a good size?

Are there more apple trees in that wild orchard area? Grape vines? Other fruit trees? We'll wait until this winter to clear the brush, after the poison ivy has subdued a bit. The orchard is full of privet and pine too.

Adam and I worked hard today. He hauled load after load to the farm, borrowing a friend's truck. Much of it was from our garage -- tools, old lumber, big items, even the red dinghy Adam and Julia made a couple of years ago. It all went into the barn.

He's putting our furniture into the garage at the farm until the house is ready this Friday.

The garage has lots and lots of shelving; Adam is in hog heaven! A garage all his own with space for all his tools! He's never had that before -- the shelving, I mean. The old Frenchman who lived here had many saws. He was a handy man, I think.

The new door is hung in the little hallway.

And the sheetrock is up. Did I already show you that? My brain is so foggy I can't recall.

Our contractor has begun scraping the popcorn texture off the living room ceiling. I'm so glad; I loathe that bumpy popcorn look - ugh! I know it was all the rage there for a while, but I prefer a smooth finish. Dust and grease cling to those textured ceilings. Apparently it's scraping off very nicely, and he won't have to hang a new ceiling below the old one.

Some sections must be cut out and replaced though. This one in the dining room. (It leaked on the floor this week during a heavy rain.)

And this section in the living room which looks really horrible.

But as a friend pointed out today, the work left to do is really cosmetic. The bathroom floor will be replaced. The air return vent in the dining room is being moved. But nothing formidable. Even the roof repair, which happens on Tuesday, is no huge deal . I'm so thankful for purchasing a property with so much potential, which was not difficult to repair but was just bad enough to scare the other buyers off and keep the price low.
We're moving away from Oriental, which has its own sadness. The sunset views on the river and creeks are stunning, night after night. I'll miss them.

But I believe we're moving to a place with its own beauty, and I'm very excited to stroll around beneath our behemoth pecan trees in the evening, listening to bees buzz and chickens cluck and knowing we are not renting anymore. We are home.