The first days here have been dedicated to figuring out day to day survival. We've done so much research in recent months so we knew basically how we were going to do everything, but it had to be tailored to the land. The biggest thing has been having the creek running through the property. We've been able to use that water for dishes, laundry, and showers.
I wanted to make sure we didn't become dirty. We want to be off grid, not primitive. My dad was our saving grace in this regard. He's a Burning Man veteran, and general MacGuyver. He's known for fixing things in simple, genius ways. So in his Burning Man adventures, he'd rigged up a shower that uses a pull chain to turn on and off. He also recently moved to Japan to start his own adventure, and donated his shower and generator to us (thanks dad! Seriously, it's been a lifesaver). So after cooking dinner over the campfire, we put a huge pot of water on it to heat for showers. Everyone gets bathed nightly.
Laundry gets done with a bucket and a plunger, and hung up on a line to dry.
We've been cooking over a campfire, which isn't bad at all. Lots of chili and cornbread, quesadillas, and oatmeal.
Bedtime is sundown, and sometimes Shane and I will get up and chat in the dark. I'm convinced that our youngest is secretly a rooster because he's consistently awake 45 minutes before sunrise.

I found a job cooking at a bar in town, and although I have no experience, it turns out that all my canning/fermenting/cooking experience has made me perfect for it. I'm good at doing a ton of stuff at once, so getting orders out fast is fairly easy. The hours aren't bad either, for our family. I usually don't start work until after 3 so I get to spend the day with the kids and only miss a few hours before bedtime. It's nice because having me at work and daddy home is a total life change (just like everything else). We're all adjusting pretty well I think.

We recently met our neighbor. He came over to make sure we're not transients, and warn us that if he sees our dog on his property, he'll return her to us in a bag. He also argued with Shane about the property boundaries. Clearly we're off to a good start with him. He came back the next day, apparently to discuss the property lines some more. Turns out they actually agree on where the line is, what they disagreed on was how big a foot is. Bill (neighbor) said the boundary marker was 30-40ft past the creek, while Shane insisted it was more like 200ft. We went to double check, and the post Bill put in to mark it is about 200ft past the creek. We're very confused by this, but at least we don't have to have someone come out to survey. He's been very abrasive, and since he's very vocal about being a "Jesus man", I suggested we hold large satanist rituals on the property boundary but Shane doesn't seem overly enthusiastic.

We've been battling ticks and spiders like crazy, so we bought a dozen chickens, and they're already getting fat and happy. Unfortunately we lost one to the nighttime cuddle pile 😢. The kids predictably adore them.
We've planted our garden, and after a few days of crazy heavy rain, things are sprouting up like crazy. We planted everything: corn, beans (for drying, and snap), beets, potatoes, garlic, tomatoes, strawberries, etc. We also started asparagus and rhubarb, both of which can't be harvested the first year.

We found an awesome park in our town, and the kids ran all over, trying to decide what to do first. We've also been to the library for story time. We want to get a library card, but are still waiting on mail so we can prove our address.
I feel like everyone is adjusting well to our new life. The kids love having the freedom to roam, and are constantly wet from the creek. Now we're just waiting for our house to sell so we can get started building.

Daddies are forever a good examply

Building a chicken coop

Laundry

Special tea party lunch

So many fun things to see

Let me just tell you about the past few days...

We spent a few days with family in the Austin area. My cousin and I got to attend a huge party an advertising firm was throwing for SouthxSouthwest, which was awesome. It wasn't totally my scene, but live music and free beer is always good, and it was such a cool thing to say we did. Plus the outfits that hipster Austin turned up in, made for so many jokes.

After leaving Austin, we headed for Oklahoma. As we were driving through Dallas, the bumpy Dallas freeways bounced our trailer off the hitch, and it exited the freeway without us! It was terrifying watching it careen down the road towards cars and not being able to stop it. Almost everything we own was in that trailer. We immediately stopped, and I hopped two guardrails to chase it down while my husband and kids got off the freeway. The trailer hadn't even stopped moving before I was out, it literally went at least a quarter mile. It hit one of the guardrails which didn't slow it down, but instead straightened it out so it could keep going, dodging at least 10 cars before hitting a curb and finally stopping. It tore two levelling feet off, has a crack in the side, and is a little worse for wear (huge pain to hook up since the hitch drug on the ground), but we were thanking our lucky stars that we were able to hook it back up and continue on our way with no major damage to us or anyone else. We were pretty much manic with relief by the end.

We bought our property sight unseen. Before we left Arizona, my husband had built a car topper for the car, enabling the dog to ride in the back more comfortably. Those are both important things to know for this next story.

We knew there was two roads that would get us there, one of which was a 4x4 road. We decided to try that one first since it was a lot shorter. When we got there, we left the trailer at the bottom to check it out. It was bad. We knew there was no way we were getting the trailer up it, so we figured we'd drive up, unload the truck, then drive the trailer to the longer road on the other side of the mountain. That's when the roof rack broke off (luckily missing the dog entirely). Everything was still in a nice little tarp wrapped package. We loaded it into the truck, and put the dog and two cats in the cab. Lucky me, I got to ride wedged between the two carseats with a cat carrier in my lap. Everyone had stuff piled on them. Husband proceeds to back the truck down the mountainous cliff of a 4x4 road. Goes to rehitch the trailer, spends 45 minutes wrestling it between the bent hitch, truck bed being down, and awkward angle due to trees. We drive to the other road on the other side of the mountain. Drive a few miles up dirt road to our turn, drive down the turn to a gate, open it and continue. This road is not much better, but instead of having to rock crawl up a cliff, it's just tough and muddy. Then we came to a fork in the road. Remember the fork in the road in Beauty and the Beast where she takes the dark, spooky "shortcut"? It was like that, except one was nice and smooth, and the other was rocks. After consulting google maps, husband decides that the rocky one is the right way. After 100ft I was begging him to turn around, it's too rough. That's when he went into a manic rage at not being able to get to our property after a long drive, loudly proclaims "I'm going!", and kamikazes ahead. Kids and I are freaking out, he regains his head, and stops. We back out and turn around to find somewhere else to set up for the night.

We stopped at Clayton Lake State Park, and it was lovely. You can camp right on the lake, and we paid $20/night for a site with hookups. Bonus, our first night we were the only ones there. We stayed two nights.

The next day, we got up and went to find somewhere with cell service to call the company we bought the property from. They told us that the only road up is the 4x4 road, and the other road is on someone else's property (our bad!). Luckily, we were able to switch our property to a different for sale property for a "small" "legal fee" (it was neither). We spent the rest of the day looking at properties.

The first place we looked at, we immediately loved. The road was an easy drive, there was trees, a creek, and large areas of field instead of the thick trees the original property had. Then we realized we were (again) on someone else's property and a road down from the actual property we were there to see. Again, our bad. There's no addresses or even street names out here, so we're doing our best using Google maps. After this we started using GPS coordinates. We drove over a bit to the correct property and boy was it a let down after the great piece of land that other person owns. It was covered in waist high brush and some sort of thorn bush that grabbed at you like crazy. We bushwhacked around it with the kids for a bit so we could decide. It had potential but I was so concerned about the amount of work it was going to take to even start gardening.

The other property we went to see is what we decided on. It has a creek running through it, some trees, and a huge open area of grass. It is much better suited to our needs.

We're headed there now, and are really looking forward to finally getting to relax a bit, and actually unpack. We've been doing the bare minimum while we stayed in the trailer, so we've been climbing over stuff all over, it's been a bummer. I can start cooking now. We've been doing our best to eat healthfully at gas stations and fast food places but I've been feeling gross from all the junk food.

Hopefully we're at the end of our adventures and at the start of a new and better life.

Planting a clover lawn. We bought this seed for our Arizona yard, but it wasn't worth the work. The kids and I scattered it everywhere here. 

Our "we did it" picture. Our house isn't built, but we successfully got him out of a series of crappy jobs, and us all out of a miserable life. 

Checking out the property

Do my boots match my leggings? 😂

The "other guy's" property came with a horse skeletons. The kids were into it

Checking out our land options

Roof rack casualty

This is where we were when the trailer exited the freeway without us

It's been a whirlwind since the last post.
The person who was interested in buying our house was based out of Florida, and apparently was unaware of how far outside the city we were (c'mon, can't you work google maps? Ugh!) So he decided not to buy the house. In the meantime, notice had been given at work, and Shane didn't want to extend it so we decided to continue on the same timeline.
We continued to work on getting rid of stuff and packing. After a while, I started to lose steam. We didn't have an official leave date, and it felt like our plans were crumbling. At the urging of my cousin/friend, we picked a date, and put all our belief into making it happen. And we did. After a week of painting our house inside and out, and packing, we left the day before our planned departure date. We spent a couple days with my in laws, then headed out, loaded down with all our stuff.
We drove 9ish hours to Las Cruces, NM and spent the night at a "scenic overlook". It went well considering it was dark when we got there, and semi's drove in and out all night. The kids did great in the car overall.
The next morning we drove 14 hours to the Austin, Tx area to stay with my cousin and her family. We've been here a couple days, and are leaving tomorrow for the homestead.
It's very exciting, and we have a lot of stuff to get going once we get there!