Ranch Update!

Hello Hello to all you fine folks! Ok so, I had every intention in making a daily entry to take you along with us on our journey from city life to country living, but that didn’t happen, my apologies! What happened was, we no longer have easy access to the internet and our wi-fi in our city house was shut off a week early. Then of course there was the, what seemed to be, endless moving which of course took up every last spare second I had! So I am going to do my best to take you on that journey in 1 entry! So, go grab a beverage of choice, sit back and entry the ride!

January 7, 2014 we took possession of our new home. The temperature that day was a high of -4F degrees! Our 400 foot driveway was completely impassable with about 3 feet of snow. We had to wait in the road in our van for the plow guy to plow us out. Then when he was just about finished, the propane guy had to drop our new propane tank and get the heat turned on. We celebrated by going out to lunch while the house warmed above freezing! 2200 square feet on a basement is a lot of house to warm up when the outside temp is THAT cold! It didn’t take hours, it took days! The basement serves as a refrigerator under the house, it’s crazy!

Now that it is ours, we have ALOT of work to do before we can move in officially in 2 weeks! Can we do it? NOOOOOO but…….

On January 26th we said our final good-byes to our city home at 10 pm that night we handed the keys over to the new owners. For the almost 2 full weeks leading up to this day, we rented, count them, about (6)16 foot moving trucks !! On top of I don’t even know how many loads in our van! Yes, we have a lot of stuff! Almost every trip from the old house to the new, which is a 45 minute drive in good conditions, was in snow and ice covered roads at a slow speed which doubled the drive time! It was absolutely INSANE! Those are stories we will be telling for years to come! One of the best (in my opinion) is how we managed to move all 38 chickens and their coops and runs! The chickens have 2 huge coops that weigh around 400-500 pounds each! They were not only buried in about 16 inches of snow but in ice as well! We had to hook up the hose to the laundry tub and turn on the hot water to actually thaw and pry them out! Each coop took about an hour and a half, but this was the easy part! Their runs were another story, or I should say the big run was a story in itself. We use a large chain link dog kennel as a chicken run. This is something that took me a weekend to assemble to begin with. Here’s the deal, the chickens needed to be out of their temporary cages and back into their coops and run by the end of the day! So, that meant that somehow we had to move the run in one piece! Down the highway, in the snow, in an hour long trip! I started thawing it and prying it out of the snow and ice, little by little at 8:30 in the morning! At 3:00 in the afternoon, it was free! It took 4 people to pry it out and lift it up and carry it to the truck. Only 2 BIG problems! #1. it wouldn’t fit thru the gate between the deck and the garage, so 4 of us had to lift it up 8 feet into the air, up and over the deck to the driveway. Chain link fencing weighs a ton! Problem #2 we had an 8 foot wide truck which we thought would be enough for the run that is 7 feet wide, but oh no! So, thankfully my Dad had a trailer we could borrow, one that just barely was big enough to handle it! That was luck my friends. It took a lot for the guys to get it tied down enough to make the long trip. It was 11pm before the chickens were back in their coops and run again at the new house! Telling you about it is one thing, actually seeing this mayhem in progress was a whole other story! Believe it or not the snow and ice, as much of a problem it was, actually worked in our favor once everything was thawed out of it. It made moving everything which was extremely heavy, easier because all we had to do was put a couple 2x4s under it and “ski” it along.

Ok so now, we’re all moved in YAY! The house is anything but move in ready so we are “camping” for now. Every room is under renovations and every floor is being replaced and every wall painted. This is chaotic and stressful but fun nonetheless. It is so beautiful here! Once we get the inside more photogenic, I will post pictures for ya’ll to see. Until then, we remain “under construction.”

The Dogs: they are adjusting to having a temporary much smaller yard to play in but are happy, so they’re good. In the Spring when the ground thaws we will put in a permanent yard for them much bigger then they’ve ever had! We have bred our black girl “Storm” and hope to learn soon that we are expecting another litter of sweet Buhund puppies! So if you’re interested in reserving one, email us at [email protected] if puppies are in the near future, they will be born in early April and ready to come home with you in June.

Stay tuned for more Ranch updates and a closer, more personal look of Rose Shadow Ranch’s new home in Holly Michigan!