It's Christmas, and Still No Deck

We spent the better part of the Christmas weekend (while the kids were with their other parents) working on the deck and garage.

Alan's carpentry skills are paying off.  Poor man is trying to finish this massive project mostly on his own.  I have my hands full with the domestic tasks out here.  I wouldn't trade the experience for anything, though.

Even though it was warm, I was very, very glad for my new Carhartt socks .  They are comfortable and warm.  I love these things!





At the end of the day, we cooked crab and lobster on the Camp Chef out front and toasted each other with a glass of champagne.  Merry Christmas!

The Bunkhouse/Den/Garage/Mancave

I'm not sure what we're going to call it yet, but the garage that we originally bought to store the tractor is going to become a workout facility and guest room.  It's already my laundry room, but I've been waiting for Alan to finish a more permanent hook up.  

Permanent means a drain that stays in place so I don't have to use the swimming pool hose out the door.  I'm still using garden hose hookup to the outside of the building.  I'm sure we will do something more permanent in the long run, but in the meantime, this works great!

Even in December, clothes dry quickly in the Oklahoma wind.

I love hanging my laundry outside.  I can do 3 extra large loads in half a day here, but it takes me a full day at the condo because of the drying time.

Alan has insulated about half of the building and hung bead board.  I am going to try to finish varnishing it by January 1st so that we can use the building before Mae has to go back to Charleston.

We hope to get an exercise bike from Alan's mom and dad for Christmas.  We just don't think Alan should go running here.  He'd have to run with the gun!

Some folks were pretty skeptical when I said I saw mountain lion tracks down by our creek last year, but they believe me now after the multiple sightings in Oklahoma. Here's a story about a mountain lion found on the highway near Minco.

Honey, We're Going to Need a Barn

We're using the garage for laundry and wood working.  Now with the UTV (which can't be stored in the girls' room) we are out of space.

As I have said before, if we come up with an idea, it's only moments until we are acting on it. The minute after Alan said maybe we should get a barn, I'm on Ernest's website looking at the horse barn he sells.

A couple of weeks later, we had complete the purchase and were waiting for a call from Eagle Carports.

Again, Kenny Sexton came to our rescue.  He graded a flat location for the barn behind the power pole.

This image is distorted for some reason.  The door in the center is 10'.

I'm going to give Eagle Carports a mixed review.  Granted, we changed our minds and wanted to add another roll-up door, but that was 10 days before the construction was scheduled to begin AND they agreed to do it.

But when the contractors, who drove up from Texas, arrived, they didn't have the door and didn't know anything about it.  When they called the company, they were told to reschedule and had to drive home at their own expense.  It didn't seem right to me.

Finally, they returned and started work the week before Christmas.  Alan hadn't noticed that Kenny had moved the markers, so when the men started building, they were building the barn at an angle to where we located it.  Although they weren't happy about being told to pull up the materials they had installed, they did start over in the right location.

He gave the workers a small gratuity for making the modification which was a smart thing to do.  The last thing you want to have is a bunch of disgruntled workers who have already been penalized by the company.

In the end, I am happy with the barn and irritated with the process and communication.

Rethinking the Garage Door

The look on Stephanie's face told us to rethink the way we were building out the cabin.  The loft idea wasn't going to work.  So instead, we had Joe finish the small garage room with bead board.  It is now the girls' bedroom.  The only trouble is that we can no longer imagine pulling the UTV in over the fuzzy purple rug Stephanie uses at night when she likes to lie down with her book in front of the heater.

Steph likes to drive it, but she doesn't want it in her room.

Even worse than the lack of practicality, heavy rains from the south leak in and run across the floor if we aren't prepared with towels ahead of time.

Joe Terpstra said he could install French Doors back there, but it was going to be several weeks until he could get to it.  I'm crossing my fingers for good January weather when he shows up to do the project.

In the meantime, Joe said to hang plastic sheeting from the door to prevent water from coming in.  While this has been more effective, it still hasn't prevented all of the leaking.

Thanksgiving at The Ranch with The Big Green Egg

The back deck is not finished, and the wind is strong from the south.  We've decided to set up our Thanksgiving dinner on the front porch to get us out of the wind.  Maechelle won't be joining us this year, but Christy and Dilish along with Amanda and Clark will join Alan, Jack, Stephanie, Marissa, and me for dinner around 1:00.

The Big Green Egg is an important part of our dinner plan.  Even though I'm cooking a meal for this many people without a traditional stove, I think my plan will work.

The Big Green Egg will cook the turkey, baked potatoes (while the turkey is cooking) and two pies.  I'll cook the pies ahead.

The Camp Chef will cook the green bean casserole in the dutch oven.

The Microwave will cook the pumpkin cake and the stuffing.

The multicooker will cook the gravy.

The Turkey:
We cooked the turkey like you cook "beer chicken."  We bought a 24 oz can of beer.  Alan had to work to get it into the holder, but he did.   Working together, we coated the outside of the turkey with beer can chicken seasonings (you can buy this pre-mixed or make your own).

We put a lot of charcoal with soaked apple smoking chips in the BGE and preheated it to 375.  I wanted to cook the turkey low and slow.  Once the charcoal was started and the fire was going,  we set the plate setter in the egg with the legs up, and set the grill rack on top.  When the BGE was at 375, we set the turkey on the rack.  I planned to cook the 14lb bird for 3 1/2 to 4 hours.  After two hours, I put the baked potatoes on in a circle around the turkey.  The turkey was done at 3 1/2 hours.   I checked by piercing the thigh the way the chef on the BGE DVD demonstrates.

The Apple Pie:
We actually baked the pie on the BGE the night before Thanksgiving.  I used an oil pastry the way I would do it if I was baking in a regular oven.  Steph and Marissa helped.  I use Granny Smith apples in my pies and add Turbinado sugar (about 1/8 to 1/4 c), a little flour (2 T), and a little cinnamon to the sliced apples.

This is not a "true" lattice because we use oil pastry.  We just  placed stripes of dough on each other without weaving.

I set the plate setter with legs down and put the pizza stone on top.  I also used a baking rack to prevent the pan from touching the hot stone.  I cooked the pie at 400 as suggested on the livefire blog.  Just as the blog suggests, I watched the pie and at about 45 mins it looked done (bubbling center, brown crust).

Broccoli salad and jellied cranberries (I cooked ahead on the Camp Chef)

 This was a wonderful tasting pumpkin cake I cooked in the Microwave.  With whipped cream on top it looks better.

Here's the link to the pumpkin cake recipe.

You Had Me at Cornbread

Last night was tough with wind gusting from the south at 35+ mph, rattling the garage door in the cabin room that is now the girl's bedroom.
When we ordered the 14x 32 building we thought we could build loft sleeping space for the girls.  The 10x14 apace that is now their bedroom was intended to house the UTV.  Once we saw the building (and our 16 year old's reaction to climbing into the loft) the plans began to change.
Now we wish the French doors that we are planning to replace the overhead door with were here already.  The noise of the rattling kept us up all night.
So I was cooking breakfast little later this morning than I had planned.
We had a busy day of deck building planned so I wanted breakfast to be quick.  I am very happy with my new camp chef stove and the griddle plate I bought to go with it.  So eggs and Bacon this morning were a snap.
Now I don't eat carbs, but I always serve them to my family.  Yesterday I made cornbread for breakfast and saves the leftover for today. 
Marissa appeared an the front porch while I was frying Bacon and inquired about the menu.  I mentioned that I had saved yesterday's leftover cornbread and how it could be warmed...
"You had me at cornbread" she interrupted.  I laughed then wondered if she had even seen Jerry McGuire.
It was a good day, but that moment with her clever comment on the front porch may have been the highlight.
Or perhaps it was driving the UTV with loads of dirt to repair the road to the dam with Steph at the wheel.
Or maybe it is sitting inside right now with all of us devouring the ribs that Alan cooked on the big green egg while waiting for the football game to start.  What a good and simple life.

We bought the Camp Chef to complete our outdoor kitchen

The Floating Deck and Sidewalk

A tiny house with a large covered front porch and an even larger back deck.  The back deck will have an outdoor kitchen since the kitchenette in the cabin doesn't have a stove.

We hope to celebrate Thanksgiving out here with the family, which means we need to start on the deck immediately.

The ground is rock solid from the drought this summer.  Digging is nearly impossible, but the floating deck system we saw at Lowes looks like it will work.

Here's a link to the website where you can get plans and calculate the supplies you need.  We ordered composite from Perkins Building Supply to match the composite that Joe Terpstra used on the front porch.

Stephanie using the front loader to bring composite over during the sidewalk construction

Alan constructing the sidewalk

The front porch that Joe built.

We believe the "weekend project" touted by the website to be somewhat misleading, though.  IF you build a small deck, and IF you have 2 men with some basic carpentry skills it might be a weekend project.  We bit off a much larger project since we wanted to get up out of the mud.

It's amazing.  No rain all summer, then right when we move in, we're walking in mud.  The sidewalk which is now finished is wonderful.  It connects the two buildings.  I often go out in my slippers since it stays nice and clean.

The Big Green Egg for Our Outdoor Kitchen

I emailed Joe Rider at Stone Age for a recommendation about our outdoor kitchen.  I love his products and needed the name of an installer/mason out in our area.  He gave me a recommendation, but after talking with the installer, I was not confident that we could meet our timeline or our budget.

Alan mentioned that he wanted to take a look at a Big Green Egg especially since our friend Matt Marcacci at The Hill told Alan how much he loved his egg.

We discovered that not only was the egg a smoker (which is all we had intended), it was basically a wood fire oven and more.

This thing makes the best wood fire pizza you have ever tasted!

We bought our egg at Everything Barbecue in Oklahoma City.  The salesmen were very helpful and we ended up buying the Extra Large egg with the cart.  We also bought the baking stone and the rack extender so that I can bake two pies at once.

The salesman didn't realize he talked us out of buying the Weber grill station that Alan was in love with.  We realized we didn't need it.  The egg would do almost everything we needed except boil water or provide a gas grill option.

If you plan to drive off with your egg the way we did, be sure to have PLENTY of strong backs around.  It is very heavy.  Also, be careful about storing your baking stone.  Ours was left tilting against something and ended up falling over and breaking.

The Big Green Egg uses hardwood charcoal and special lighter fluid or an electric starter.  You don't want to use Kingsford or lighter fluid in it since that will taint your food.

They sell a starter at the egg store, but we bought an inexpensive one from Walmart that works just fine.

With the egg as our wood fire oven, our plans for the outdoor kitchen have changed.  We have decided to wait until we build a bigger home to do the stone work which keeps the budget more appropriate for the cabin.

We've decided to cover the corner of the deck for the kitchen which is slowed the construction while we look for plans.

The Sold Sign Out Front

We did it.  We sold our house.  A lovely family with 6 children fell in love with our home.

We are so very relieved!  Living (or not living) in a 4000 sq ft house part time while trying to sell it was a chore.    Keeping it ready for showings caused us to develop a daily ritual.  In fact, we have pretty much stopped cooking at the house altogether.  I have been buying a lot of prepared foods and paper plates. Of course we are eating out more, too.  Yuck.  But now it's over.

On the day of the showing to this family, I had re-affirmed my commitment to selling this house.  We staged the house as if we knew the people already.  There were fresh baked chocolate chip cookies, a favorite game staged in the game room.  A Disney movie played in the background.  There were so many things I did that I don't want to post them here, but if you contact me I'll send you a list.


Our realtor, Alexis, is sending me a picture of our closing to upload.  I hope to have it soon.

The Cabin is Delivered

Our home sale is about to close, but we will not be homeless.  Our cabin was delivered on a hot August day with record breaking temperatures.

The dirt pile Joe created when he built the stemwall for the house.

We're not sure about drinking the well water because we haven't had it tested yet, so I drove into Carney to pick up bottled water for everyone.  Jeremy had his sons out helping but no one had packed water.  The temperature was 103 F and the work of setting the cabin on the stemwall required patience.

After an hour, I realized the water bottles were sitting in the sun, so I moved them to the shade of the building.  I didn't realize that Alan had been moving gravel into the area with the tractor.  Within 2 minutes of setting the water in the shade, Alan drove over them.  I heard an explosion of plastic and turned around to see him sheepishly say, "I thought it was trash."

I hate to doubt my husband, but a part of me believes the 10 year old boy inside wanted to see what happened when you drive over water bottles with a tractor.

Regardless, it was my fault for setting them there.  Back to Carney for a case of water.

By 6:30, the building was secure.  Jeremy and Joe (our carpenter) headed home.  We headed back to Tulsa to pack.

A Tiny House?

I've spent some time looking at sites like Mother Earth news for cabin and "do it yourself plans."  We are still plagued by our work schedule.  For the same reason we couldn't remodel the house by ourselves, we won't be able to build a small cabin ourselves.

I really like the Tiny House Blog.  It inspired me to think even smaller than the Field's cabin.  I went back to the Better Built website and started looking through the standard buildings they had.

We stopped by Better Built to talk to them again about just buying a standard building and having someone else do the finishing work.  I had a sketch of a floorplan for the 14x32 (the largest standard building they build).  I knew from my blog research that we needed to think through concepts like window and door locations as well as wiring.

This picture shows the "main" area of the building.  There is a dividing wall between the main area and the garage.  By increasing the pitch of the roof to the max they would allow, we hope to create a small loft for the girls sleeping area above the kitchen and bath.

The garage area is 10 x 14 and will house the UTV (which we PLAN to purchase, but haven't).  They are including a 6x8 door in the garage.  We'll also frame in a small space in the garage for the water heater.

We hope to have this in place by the time school starts.  We still aren't sure about whether the girls will attend a private school in Edmond or Perkins-Tryon.

A Log Cabin, or a Better Built Barn?

Our house is for sale and it's time to talk about building a new house out at "the ranch."  We've decided to quit calling it "the property."  I believe in speaking positively to achieve your goals.  Calling it "the property" means that is all it will ever be.

For two years we've been labeling wine as "ALDEN Ranch."  (I had hoped it would influence our ultimate achievement when we settled on the name back in 2009.)  Here we are, at ALDEN Ranch, without livestock and without a house.

We've toyed with building a log home and have had stacks of Log Home Living magazines lying around the house for years.

I've contacted a few companies featured in the magazine including Satterwhite which is very eco-friendly because they use dead standing timber.  I really like their concept, and some of their homes are beautiful.  I also looked at Coventry and a couple of others featured in the magazine.

I'm nervous about the decision. I'm not sure we can afford to do this right now.  With our home sale pending and an uncertain economy, I hate to commit and create more debt.  Quite frankly, the whole reason we are moving is to change our lives.  I know that we will work hard at the ranch, and I'm not afraid of hard work, but there is something so appealing about owning our land AND home.

I called Ernest at Better Built to see if they have done any custom construction and they have indeed.  The Fields family (of 10) have moved out of their Sapulpa home into a custom cabin  that isn't more than 800 square feet.

Jeremy arranged a visit and we stopped by.  What an amazing family.  They have 2 lofts (where the children sleep), a small kitchen, a bath for the kids, and a master bedroom with bath for Mom and Dad.  This looked like a perfect arrangement.

Unfortunately, the cabin has to be built on site because it is too tall to be transported on the trailer like the garage was.  They told us that they just couldn't build on site for us, and that they didn't have the staff to do the custom work.

We are disheartened and disappointed.

Our House Goes on the Market

We're done.  Our lives have been disrupted and the only activities allowed outside of work are cleaning, boxing, painting.  Living in a home being remodeled is a chore.

I hear that living in a home you are selling is worse.

Tyler Owsley did a fantastic job.  Here's the testimonial I sent him and few pictures of the house.

"Tyler, We are so pleased with our home improvement project.  You are a man of your word.  The project stayed within our budget and the outcome was terrific.  Thank you for the great work that you and your crew did for us.  We will definitely consider working with you in the future." I can tell that Alexis isn't sure about our asking price, but I know the value of the home to a family like ours.  The people that buy our house will be exactly like us, because you wouldn't buy this house if you didn't have a big family.   The yard is beautiful, but I'm feeling a little sad about selling.  Looking at the firepit and hot tub, I wonder how long until we have something like this again.

Water, Shelter, Electricity

The garage is turning out to be a huge blessing.  We wonder what we did before we had it.  Now we are able to get out of the cold wind to work on a few projects, but it's hard to accomplish much here with the cold wind.

The recent bitter cold has shattered the pipes in the pump house so we've got the pump shut off for now.  We're going to have to get someone here to help us.  The wiring in the pump house is shoddy and with all of the trash left in there (old heaters, empty clorox bottles, misc trash) I'm not comfortable with Alan crawling around.

The guy from CREC hooking up the electric was funny, though.  He looked in there and said, "ah it's just 220".  But he also agreed that the wiring needed to be redone.   He thought Alan could do it.

Up at the other pole, which is closer to the new garage, I wanted an outlet so we could start to use other equipment.  It's kind of hard to work on any improvements (or even just camp for the weekend) without a place to plug in.

I called Bob Foster at Foster Electric, Heat, and Air in Chandler, OK.  What a great guy.  He came out and hooked up exactly what we needed and let us do most of the transaction through email.

Bob had some advice about our construction plans when I mentioned building a walk out basement.  He said he's seen too many leaky basements in Lincoln County because of the red clay.   I am a little disappointed to hear that since I'm set on having a walk out basement.

We're Selling the Tulsa House

We need to be here all of the time to make any progress.  That's what Alan thinks, and I agree.  Camping is ok, but we barely have time to do anything else but set up and tear down camp.

Can we sell our Tulsa home and start building out here?

Consistent with our decision making, a thought about selling our 4,000 sq. ft. Tulsa house quickly turned into actually selling our Tulsa house.  I've emailed our realtor, Alexis with Coldwell Banker.  Connie, our realtor friend in Oklahoma City said houses were selling but not houses in the middle.  We needed to either deeply discount our house, or fix it up.

We decided to fix the house up.  Walking through the house itemizing projects created an intimidating list.  The house needed to be painted, inside and out.  The bathrooms needed an update, the flooring needed to be replaced in some areas.

Even though we are quite handy, we realized we couldn't do it all ourselves.  Especially since our company was launching a new product which requires a lot of our weekend time.

I bought some great faucets on faucetsdirect.com.  Alan is going to do that work himself.  I've already re-painted the kitchen cabinets and replaced the hardware with brushed nickel pulls.

I claimed ownership of my house on Zillow and began searching for "comps."  Our house is on a 1/2 acre lot with 40+ trees and backing up to a green built.  I needed to know how much it was worth to establish my budget for the improvement.

I searched the BBB for a contractor who had a website.  I hope that having a website means I can contact him via email.  I just don't have the time for telephone calls and doing some business transactions through email is more efficient.

I found Tyler Owsley with Sound Construction, L.L.C.

The Tractor Needs a Home

With the Kubota delivery scheduled, we've turned our attention to a garage to store it in.

We saw several buildings and a sign for "Better Built Barns."  I visited their website and discovered they were in Perkins (only 12 miles away).  We dropped in to look at the models.

We bought the 14x28 with a modification to include a mobile home door with a window to allow light in the building.  Ernest Strubhar is the owner (hope I spelled it correctly) and we worked with Jeremy.  They are wonderful people.  Jeremy is very meticulous and helped us with a lot of decisions including where to purchase gravel for a pad under the building.

We called Kenny Sexton, who lives over in Coyle, OK.  Kenny is also a wonderful person.  He's very helpful and not only took care of our gravel needs, he did some grading down by the pond so we could get across the bridge without charging us.

We're Going to Need a Tractor

Even in winter, standing there, looking at the pasture I had already begun to realize what ALDEN Ranch would look like without cows grazing.

I said "Honey, if you want to keep camping out here, we're going to need a tractor for mowing."  Well, it was either that or hiring someone.  And if you think for a second Alan was going to miss an opportunity to operate a big machine, then you don't know him at all.

After talking to a few of our experienced friends, we settled on the Kubota tractor.  We were told it was a "working man's tractor."

We bought the tractor from the nice people at Payne County Implement Company on Perkins Road near Stillwater.  They were easy to deal with and also very helpful.  They pointed out that if we planned to work the ranch as an agricultural business that we needed to get our tax exempt number before purchasing the tractor.

Steph is a natural farm hand.  I love watching her drive the tractor.  She can use the front loader better than most!

Roughing It

We were so excited about our new land that we couldn't wait to stay here.  We decided to camp out for awhile since we had no real plans of building a house here.

The only buildings on the property at this time are a concrete block pump house in serious need of repair and an old shed that was missing a door.  Both are painted barn red.

Obviously there are no facilities, and the closest town is 8 miles away.  After quite a bit of research, I figured out how to make a camping toilet.

We put the camping toilet in the old shed, installed a makeshift door with an old shower curtain, and set a lantern inside. (I really like my Coleman LED because it is bright and battery operated.)

 Since it was winter, I wasn't too worried about snakes or what could be hiding under the broken floor of the shed.

The kids were a little nervous about the whole arrangement, but they were very inexperienced with camping. I wish it wasn't true, I wish I had taken them before now, but I'm resolved to make up for lost time.

The camping toilet relies on composting concepts. I purchased biodegradable bags, a bucket, and a snap on seat. I filled up dried leaves and grass in another bucket at first. After alot more research, I'm thinking about switching to coconut fiber which is found in Kitty's Crumble Cat Litter.  It seems to be better for composting and for odor.

These are the other pieces I used for the camping toilet:

1. A 5 gallon bucket I bought from Lowes.
2. Bucket Toilet Seat Accessory
3. Biodegradable 33 Gallon Black Trash Bags
4. Biodegradable Toilet Paper
5. Hand sanitizer and paper towels (there is also wash water at the hose)

You'll want to double line the bucket and tie the bags loosely in a side knot (like cleaning staff do with waste basket liners) to keep the bag out of the way. Be sure to leave enough slack at the top so that you can easily pull the bag out and tie it off without a lot of mess.

It took the teenagers a little while to get comfortable with the concept, but when you have to go...

We figured the investment in a truck tent would allow Alan and me to camp on our own in the future. We bought a Sportz Truck Tent III for Compact Short Bed Trucks (for Toyota Hilux and Tacoma Models) for our Tacoma.  If you do this, you'll want to get the bed from them with cutouts for the wheel wells.  It is very comfortable.