mountains – Farm, Family and Fireflies

Change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end. For the most part a good majority of people hate or detest change; in fact many people will admit change results in anxiety. Compound that with BIG change, and it can result in big issues.

I have always been the type person that isn’t afraid to try new things, my husband says he doesn’t like change, but I wouldn’t say it causes him terrible anxiety, just takes him a little bit to get use to whatever has changed. In fact, our whole marriage has been full of change, redoing and trying new things.

When we met and got married we each had our own homes, we both sold our homes and bought a new one together. It was only a few miles from both of our other houses, so on the scale it was a small change. We started our marriage with the remodeling of this home we purchased together. We completely redid the house and brought Dylan home from the hospital to this home.

651 Sedgewick Way

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A year later, we had another change we opted sell this newly remodeled home, for a home that was about 30 minutes from all of our families in an area and county that neither him or I knew anything about. I know as I type this 30 minutes doesn’t seem like anything, but to someone who lived in three different homes within a 5 mile radius of my parents home, this house was a HUGE change for us. We thrived after sometime, and made Lutz, FL our home for 9 years. We remodeled that house…. This was the start of a pattern, buying and redoing. Kayton was brought home from the hospital to this home, and we enjoyed getting to know a whole new area.

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After sometime, and some family health problems with my grandmother, we decided it was time to move back “home.” Home for me was Tarpon Springs, FL, I was raised my entire life in that area, graduated from school there, and knew the town and roads like the back of my hand. We fell in love with a home that was in a waterfront community, in a serene gorgeous location. Being able to see the beautiful Gulf of Mexico and smell the salt air everyday was just amazing really. This home we redid from top to bottom, and really were thrilled with the results. It felt really good to finally be home, and although we never had any regrets about our move to Lutz this move back felt very right. We settled in and were living closer to our families again, the kids adjusted very well to their new schools they made some new friends, we weren’t too far from their “home” so we felt like we were in a good place.

After three years of finally being home, the bug for change bit my parents. You see we had been caring for my grandmother who was in the final fight with her battle with Melanoma, and after we lost her, they did a little reflecting and thought it was time for them to experience a change.

My childhood home, and my parents home for 34 years.

They had been in the same house for 34 years, my childhood home. They were convinced that a little town they had visited on that years anniversary was the town we were all going to move to. I on the other hand thought they were well CRAZY really. To say they were direct with their hints is quite the understatement, they first convinced the children, my husband needed very little convincing and he was on board, I on the other hand, I will say it again, I thought they were CRAZY! Why on earth would I move to a little town in Georgia I had never heard of, that was 1 hour away from even a Lowes or Home Depot. I WAS NOT MOVING! January 2016, we lost my beloved grandmother, and decided as a family to take a little trip to the mountains of Franklin, NC. A small town I had been coming to since I was a little girl. A town we had visited as a family before. My husband had designed a home that the client agreed we could come to, in order to just breath and decompress after a very emotional few months. When we arrived to this home, it was for sale, which caught us all off guard. At the end of this visit, I felt I had the best idea EVER! We would buy this home with my parents, and they could get their fix, they could become snowbirds, come to North Carolina during the hot Florida summers, and spend the winters in Florida, when my father retired. They really seemed to also be in agreement with this FANTASTIC idea, and we ended up making that plan a reality. We bought that mountain home, and redid it, made it a place that we would love to come and visit and share with others.

Now here is when things took a drastic turn. With every trip we took to North Carolina, to buy furniture, to remodel, to paint, to do whatever needed to be done to make this place our 2nd home, we left a piece of ourselves in those mountains. We would plan on staying a week, and we would stay 2, from January-May we were in North Carolina almost as much as we were in Florida and we started having really serious conversations about how much we LOVE the mountain life. My parents, then decided that really they didn’t want to go back and forth when my father retired. They really loved it in North Carolina too, and why not just sell everything in Florida and move to North Carolina. Now the reality of that suggestion didn’t sit well with me, I was torn. All I had ever know was in that sunshine state, yes we had traveled all over the place, but Florida was always the place we went home to, how can we just leave that behind. Jody was all for this move, he said he could work anywhere, that he always wanted to live in North Carolina, and that maybe it should be something we really think and talk about as a family. When the kids became privy to this idea, they were all for it, they had fallen in LOVE with North Carolina, but were also not wanting to leave their friends.

So what do you think I did, I mean I couldn’t fight 5 people who were all for moving personally, I had to show them this idea was just unrealistic and not a good idea at all. How was I going to be able to do that? Easy! I was going to start looking at real estate, I needed to show everyone that what we were looking for did not exist. You see if I was going to change, it had to be DRAMATIC. Nothing could resemble home, I had the ocean, the space, the town, shopping, convenience, and familiarity. So if this big move was going to happen, it better be worth it. So I found a couple of houses and got in touch with this savvy real estate agent Evan Harrell who unfortunately knew his stuff, and knew his town. After looking at some houses and finding nothing I had succeeded, this was a BAD BAD BAD IDEA! Then the words no one who is proving people wrong want to hear…. Give me a list of what you are looking for and if it’s out there I will find it. As I roll my eyes, and try to think of things I need like an elephant shower house and a llama petting zoo (for Jody of course). I also was curious and thought, if I give him a list could he really find what we are looking for? Okay, just for the fun of it here is our list:

1. I want an old farmhouse
2. We want at least 10 acres
3. Barn
4. Creek or River on the property
5. A place to build my parents home
6. Needs to have a huge kitchen
7. Minimum of 4 bedrooms
8. A view
9. Flat area to ride our horses we didn’t have yet
10. Good cell service and internet because of work

I mean it wasn’t that hard right? As we departed from the car, he said he would look up some stuff and asked if we could meet the next day. Well the next day we were suppose to head back, but what is one more day. I had a case to build here and needed to see that this place didn’t exist. When we met the next day, we headed out to two houses, which were both big belly flops. The pressure was off, what we were looking for, didn’t exist and I could stay in my coastal town.

As we continued driving, along a beautiful river, and rounded bend after bend, with one gorgeous backdrop after the next, we pulled into a gravel driveway with an old white farmhouse, big black barn, and one of the prettiest pastures I had ever seen. Most people would say they could hear a pin drop, I heard the kids squeal, and a few choice words going off in my brain. WAIT …. WHAT? Where are we? How did he find this place, I had looked at every house on Zillow and realtor.com this place never ever came up. To say the place was the checklist match, would be an understatement. Now inside the bones, the vision I could see it. Many others must not have been able to but I saw it, I saw how amazing this house could be, it needed to be restored, reloved, and redid. And you know what, I was just the person to do it. Within 24 hours, and one more visit to that farm, we submitted an offer. After some countering, discussions, pleading via a letter to the then owner, that 140 year old Farmhouse became ours. It was the beginning of our Farm, the continuation of our Family, and the perfect place to view fireflies nightly.

We restored this old house, reloved old things that had been covered up, and redid every aspect of our home. Moving was not a walk in the park, it was difficult, it was emotional, but it has been a welcomed change. I know what Evan, heck I know what everyone was thinking when we said we wanted to move up and have a farm. It’s probably a cross between the movie City Slickers and the TV show The Beverly Hillbillies.

But we are sure learning a lot, we have made this place our home, we have brought a lot of life back to this farm, have survived and flourished our first year here and quickly realized, “If you are brave enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new hello.”

Contingency. Something that is dependent on the fulfillment of a condition. For example, I’m really excited about moving to North Carolina because I will finally get my very own horse. Kayton’s excitement for moving was contingent on having her very own horse. For all those women out there who were once little girls, I think most if not all of us have dreamed of having our own horse, we imagine ourselves riding with the wind in our hair. Kayton’s dream wasn’t much different from many others out there.

We “thought” we were a horse family. Dylan had been going to the stables since he was 5 and taking riding lessons, many if not most of our trips and vacations as a family involved horse back riding. Both Dylan and Kayton spent 2 weeks out of every summer for 4 or 5 years at a local horse camp back in Florida, Horse Power for Kids. We all knew about tack, grooming, mucking stalls, and how most horses seemed to have a mind of their own. What all of that equates to in terms of owning your own horse is NOTHING!

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There were steps that had to happen before we just ran out and bought a horse or horses. We had a very old barn that was a shell. My husband drew up some plans to not only put stalls in this 100-year-old barn but, also expand it. We got some great help building these stalls and bringing our thoughts and design to life, all the while continuing to do research on the must haves, and several months of daily pictures of the horse that each of the kids wanted. Now just like anything else, there are many choices in the horse world about the type of horse, where you will choose to get the horse from, what you are willing to pay etc etc etc. Enough to really make you crazy in the process. Because we felt we had something to offer, stalls, land, “knowledge”, and love we felt like there had to be horses out there that would make all of us happy. Kayton wanted a black and white horse, Dylan wanted a fast horse, Jody wanted a big horse, I wanted a sweet obedient horse, the list of desires was ever increasing and our list of choices seemed to shrink with every desire we voiced. We contacted a horse rescue, and seemed to find two that would fit perfectly with our family, after jumping through a few hoops, it appeared those horses were already homed. After a few more weeks, we found a woman in Loudon, TN who was taking in horses that the owners just didn’t want or couldn’t raise them anymore. We found what we thought was the perfect horse for us. She was a gorgeous Bay and White Paint horse who was named Carousel. After speaking to the woman, and letting her know we were looking for 3 more horses she informed me that she felt she had at least two more she had just taken in that had been abandoned but were gentle and already broke (meaning they had been ridden before). There are many details to this story that for the sake of not boring you to tears I will omit.

After the kids and I went to visit Loudon, TN, we found exactly every horse we had wanted. The 4th horse happened to be my horse, he was a gorgeous paint named Bull Hancock. Bull chose me, when walking the pasture in Loudon, he sought me out, and escorted me through the acres the children and I walked that day. I was sold; he was the horse for me. We made arrangements with her to come back and pick up all 4 horses, all paints, two black and whites, and two Bay and Whites. Jody made arrangements to borrow a horse trailer and we returned two weeks later.

Now for those who have never pulled a horse trailer, like well us, this was a task. One that involved fingernails in the dash, a lot of watch out, you’re going too fast around this turn, we have no service and the GPS is out, and I don’t think we are in North Carolina anymore Toto. Jody on the other hand was confident he had it handled. I was not! This 3-hour drive there with an empty trailer was stressful, what were we thinking! Now we have to load 4 horses into this borrowed trailer and drive all the way back. Upon arrival, we were told that two of the horses who were going to be rubbing all the way back to North Carolina, had never been introduced, ARE YOU KIDDING ME! We were also informed that the trailer we had borrowed which was a slant load trailer, was not ideal for 4 horses let alone 4 horses of this size. I wanted to cry, in fact reflecting on this is makes me anxious, I don’t know how I did it without crying. The kids on the other hand were over the moon excited; we were FINALLY getting their horses.

My Bull was the last to come out of the stalls, as I went to load him in the trailer Jody and I noticed he was limping, something you never want to see with a horse, let alone a horse you were about to take home. When we mentioned it, we were simply told he looked a little stiff. We were apprehensive but also knew we had a wonderful vet and we would have her come and check him out right away. The ride home was to date one of the worst drive homes EVER, think of everything that you would not want to happen while coming home with four, 1000 lb. living things in a trailer. First the sun had set and it was dark, then the realization that the trailer had no lights, then 4 horses nipping and kicking at each other causing us to fishtail on mountain roads, then being paced by a police officer at 20mph because of a road closure due to an accident. That three-hour trip took 6 and by the time we arrived back at the farm, it was almost midnight. We were all DONE! We put the horses in their new stalls, gave them lots of water, and were thankful that we made it home in one piece.

Like everything else on the farm, there was a learning curve with the horses. We had to earn their trust, they had to figure out the new routine here, get use to one another, get use to their new home, and figure out the pecking order. I quickly discovered that horses are kind of like really big dogs, and they all have their own personalities. As the first day or two passed, we really saw Bull favoring that leg, and felt he really needed to be evaluated by our vet. Well it wasn’t good news, basically he had to go on anti inflammatories and he was lame in the leg, I was told not to ride him, but we really didn’t know what was wrong with him. We continued treatment, our vet continued keeping close tabs and giving us advice about what to do next. As the weeks turned into a couple of months, Bull continued to get worse instead of better, despite the best care, and every effort he just kept behaving in a way that was not the horse I saw in the pasture that day. He was charging us in the pasture, while I was grooming him one evening along his spine he reacted and kicked me down in the stall. Pain killers, stall rest, anti inflammatory, shots, the list went on and on, an honest conversation happened where we were informed something bigger than what we saw was happening, our vet felt something was gravely wrong with Bull’s spine. Now this is not what you want to hear, Bull was my boy, he was part of our family, and was loved and adored in the few months he was here. We had to make a decision that was in the best interest of Bull so he wouldn’t suffer and for us along with the other horses. After the decision was made, our vet was correct it appeared once she was really able to examine Bull, he had a broken back, that bone must have been pinching a nerve and causing a slew of other problems. Bull is now buried here at the farm, he was the first animal we have ever lost as a family, and will never be forgotten.

There was NO MORE BULL, but within 24 hours, we went from crying sad tears to crying happy tears.

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Tag: mountains

Nothing is impossible…

No More Bull