From City life to farm life.

One of the fist pictures we saw of the home.

When we first started looking at farm land it was out of curiosity. My husband  has always had a desire to work with farm animals and he has always wanted to produce our own food. Being financially stable has always been my goal and his has always been able to provide for our own needs as much as possible. In general we compliments each other with those desires. However I will admit I would rather buy my milk than milk a cow. I rather buy my eggs than go out and gather them and I rather eat steak at Texas Road House than send a cow off to the butcher. But I know my husband desires to do these things for himself so I agreed I would try it out. Now there are a lot of details into how we acquired this particular house and when. The timing of it was definitely a gift from God but did he have to make the timing in the dead of winter?  The house pictures on this post were obviously taken in the Spring! Becasue it doesnt look like this in the Winter at all!

After we sent in the closing money on our house we found  that someone came into the house a stole the brand new furnace that was installed. We were given a discount on the house. the price was dropped from 45k to 42k. and the down payment was dropped in half. We got a good deal from it. But we also knew about the propane heaters in the wall and knew we had a huge propane heater on the property so we figured we could heat the home temporaily through that until we got a new furnace.  We went forward into our plans and on March 7th 2013 we picked up our Uhaul and began to move our family to Claire City SD. Oh boy!

March 8th we were off to SD. our first night we planned to stay in North Platte NE. The drive was pretty easy and we were feeling good about our trip. However, we greatly underestimated the cost of gas on a 26 foot uhaul hauling a car throught the mountians of CO. the first day alone the cost of gas for just the Uhaul was over 300 dollars. and that didnt coun the Van with the kids all in it. We werent even sure how we were goin gto make it. But Our Debit card kept gettting accepted even after we knew it was far from gone. By the time we got SD our toal gas over 800 dollars and we planned for 500.
On March 9th after a stay at two room in Northe Platte we headed out what was goin gto be arrival day to our new home. NOT! Not long after we Left NE we hit SD and Oh boy!.I have never driven through a white out. Aren't ou suppose to stop and not drive through those? Ofcourse however the weather map showe on and off snow showers not complete insanity. We were doing alright throught first part of the drive. It was touchy but nothing for experienced CO winter Drivers both who also dealt with Utah Snow for years. After our first stop we were told that it was getting worse the way we were headed and the Cashier a the Gas Station said good luck. We decided we would take it town by town and stop if it got too bad, Well not more than 10 minutes on the road it hit, The Biggest freak of winter I have ever encountered. I was following my husband on the route to Mission SD. It was only 22 miles from the last stop and it took over 2 hours to do it. I have never been more terrified in my life. I dont know what was more scary. Watching my husband almost go off the road several times or knowing my son was with him and how terrified he must have been. I honked and honked and honk in plea for him to stop. He couldnt hear me at all and I was so angry. I wanted him to stop at the next pull out or driveway or anything he could find and wait it out. But there was never a place to go and in reality stopping would have been worse. We would have been snowed in and covered. It was so bad. At times I could barely see pas the end of my Van and my guide for the road was the back of the car being pulled by the Uhaul. At times I couldn't see the Uhaul and was terrified at every moment I lost site. My battery light went on halfway through the white out drive and by the grace of God we were able to make it to the parking lot of Buschs grocery in Mission SD. Only by God's hand did we make it there alive. The vans alternator was completely out and our VAn would not be able to drove any more. We knew we were going to have to wait out a storm. the grocery store owners were incrediably nice and allowed us to hang out in the deli area were there were tables for as long as we needed to. That was nie considereing we only had the Uhaul for heat and that gas mileage on that sucker was killling us as it was.  The store clerks helped us with weather road and even hotel needs for when we were finally able to get back on the road. We were not going to make it to SD that day.
When the roads were clear we decided to unload every thing from the car that was being pulled on the uhaul and put it in the van. We were going to tow the van and drive the little car through the snow. It worked but it wasn't fun. Driving my van was much more comfortable and felt safer. However I realised that driving a 5th gear car in thewind and snow can be very beneficial. I never felt like I was goin gto tip over!  We also had 3 dogs and 3 turtles we were transporting so trying to take them in the little car was going to be interesting. The dogs had to sit on the kids!



March 10th after a second stay at the Super 8 in Murdo SD 40 miles from Mission SD we were on the road again. March nineth was suppst to be a 9 hour drive day with about 700 miles. We only drove about 140. SO we had alot more to do on the 10th. We made it without any real problems. the roads were still yucky but managable. We arrived in Sisseston SD later afternoon. We grabbed a couple things from the store and headed to the house. We finally came to the Ave that lead to our driveway. and oops. How in the world were we going to get to the house. I attempted to go down the street first. It wasn't going to happen we spent over an hour gettin gme unstuck! So back to town we went to try and find help.  I had put on snow chains on my tires and when we lef tto find help in town my daughter and I realised they were still on. the road we were on certainly didnt need chains. nad it was starting to come loose, so we had to pull over and she pulled the chains off on her own. It took a long time though. and the first one was really stuck. I was so tired I told her to just ge tin the car and we would wait for Todd to noticed we werent behind him. he never noticed. He went on into town. Todd waved down every snow plow guy he could find. they all worked for the state so none of them could help us. But we were blessed to find help in a little steak house in Claire City SD. Tim came out with the tractor and snow plow and not only plowed the street but went above and beyond and plowed our drive way and even a spot for Todd to turn the Uhaul around. Although we had to wait over 2 hours for him to get there and then do the hard job we were very grateful. Thank you Heavenly Father but what we were headed for that night was so much worse. To be continued.