On August 31st we leave Wilmington for the land in Silk Hope. The replacement produce manager has been hired on at Tidal Creek. Kristin is working out her work plans. Inspections for septic and electric are going on this week, and we hope to have final house plans in our hands by this Friday.

The plan is to live in part of the old house while we build the new house. We’ll work on parts of the old house in order that it is more livable for Danielle and Noel when they arrive in the winter. For now we are ripping out the water logged wall boards, fixing the leaky roof and generally making the house not so much of a mold and mildew factory. The hope is to make the place livable for friends and family in the future, so repairs need to be of pretty consistent quality.

I spent some of this weekend clearing some of the vines that had grown into all of the windows and parts of the roof. The porch roof is starting to separate from the house because the vines grew up between the house and the singles.

The roof on the back of the house has some bad leak issues. Some old fixes have no become real problems.

And siding is coming apart where water now runs into the house…

…exposing insulation and interior wood…

…providing great habitat for termites.

And the worst part is the unintentional skylight in the side porch’s roof. It really adds aesthetic value to the place. And the aesthetic smell of wet fiberglass insulation makes it a real keeper.

The inside of the house is another battle. From a neighbor’s description of the place, it is basically layer upon layer of fixes, cover-ups and DIY patches. Once I started tearing out some old paperboard, I could see what he was talking about. The existing roof is built over at least one other roof. I haven’t gotten far enough into to everything to see what else is involved. It is quite funny so far. How all the pieces of wood fit together is also great comedy. I felt like I was in a tree fort that a bunch of neighborhood kids put together out of scrap board and bent nails.

But all is not old. We received our first delivery of AAC block which will become the first floor of the new house.

While all this fixing up of the old house, building the new house and starting the new job is going on, we’re also supposed to be starting a farm. More on that soon…