Blog posts will be few in June

Hello friends,

Due to moving, having no reliable internet and not wanting to move our computer into a construction zone our blog posts will be spotty this month. I hope to have the new office set up and high speed internet running at the farm by mid-July at the latest. Sorry for the neglect of the blog, but we will get back to it as much as we can, so stay tuned!

Dreaming of Trim!

I'm not kidding, I have been dreaming about trim over the last several nights. We started the week cleaning, patching and priming the pine plank floor in the west upstairs of the farmhouse. We also discussed getting our mail forwarded to the Janesville Home Depot since that is where I reside many days.

Since Tuesday Bryce and I have been sorting, cleaning, moving, sorting again, getting upset with trim and finally really enjoying trim. The Farmhouse is quite large and taking the trim down last year has been the single largest task to date for me (Jen), but sorting through it to get it back up has been almost as much work. Our fantastic carpenter Charlie is able to reuse the 160 year old original and very elaborate trim even though many of the rooms have changed and all of the exterior walls have been furred in to accommodate insulation. Just to give you an idea of how much trim we have picture a 2 car garage filled floor to ceiling with window trim, door trim, baseboards and doors and that is what we have! To make it even more interesting not all of the trim was labeled, and some even miss-labeled (those trim removal days got long). On top of this many our room dimensions have changed. It's like putting together a giant thousand piece puzzle where the picture has changed since you started. It really is quite fun and gives a huge sense of accomplishment when you know you have a full room set with all the trim it needs.

Moving Day!

Well, we are moving to a new neighborhood tomorrow. June 5, 2010 is the big day to haul most of our belongings across the IL/WI state line. Our new neighbors are pictured above. They are nice girls! We will miss many things about our friendly little neighborhood, but we are moving on to follow the dreams that have been a long time in the making. We are certainly ready for the transition considering that we have been renovating the farm house for 3 years and living in two different places for as long. However, the change does not come without it's share of emotions and difficulties. A few tears were shed by Elli and I (Jen) on her last day of kindergarten as she said goodbye to her best little friends for the last time.

We are beginning a new chapter in our lives, almost a whole new book! We hope and plan to make Jordan Prairie our forever home and make the beautiful little plot of fertile land our life's work. We are blessed! Blessed to have the "Gift of Good Land" if I can steel a book title from Wendel Berry. We are blessed to have support from so many family and friends. We are blessed to have each other and the amazing opportunity to raise our little girls in the country!

I hope that you will follow along on the adventure as we grow and learn as farmers, parents and stewards of the land. If you are following our journey on this blog let us know, we would love to hear your comments and questions! Thanks ~ Jen

Meatloaf Muffins with Barbecue Sauce

Here is a quick and fun recipe from Rachael Ray. Meatloaf muffins, we found it on the Food Network site here. Of course use Riemer Family Farm lean ground beef and we prefer Trader Joe's Barbecue Sauce.

Farm House Master Bedroom

Here is the progression of the master bedroom. You can see the foam insulation in the walls and roof deck of the attic. This foam insulation was installed by Meier Energy solutions and is a soybean based product. It is not only super efficient, but also a more renewable option to the normally petroleum based product. The second picture shows the "blue board" gypsum based plaster board. Finally the plaster base coat and finish coat went on. It looks so great with the tray ceiling and the tornado finish on the high part of the ceiling. Our hope was to make the master bedroom a bit of a unique and relaxing space and I think we are well on our way.

Finally a photo of our beautiful girls with the vibrant heirloom peonies. We moved a load of our belongings from Crystal Lake to Brodhead including our little garden bench. The rest goes up this weekend! We are so excited to start our farm adventure in earnest.