The Berryville Hillbillies Most of the month of March was spent moving furniture and cleaning out "stuff" at the old homestead in preparation for moving to the farm. Since the farm is only 20 minutes from the other house, it's easier to just pack up the truck and move small portions at a time. This way, our muscles are able to "recover" between trips back and forth. Here, we're packing the truck to take to the farm.

Tight Fit The farm house is almost 1000 square feet smaller (with much less storage space) than the "other house", so we'll be having a large yard sale in the near future. Also, the design of the rooms from more than 100 years ago, doesn't  make decorating E-Z. For example, most rooms have two to four doors centered on the walls with the same number of windows on adjacent walls, also centered. Great for cross ventilation, but bad for Feng Shui. Individual room dimensions are also smaller, so the furniture is very hard to place. Here, the roll top desk barely fits beside the fireplace in the office.

Farewell to Tiling Finally, the master bathroom's shower is complete. Mary finished the tiling in the beginning of the month and I installed the fixtures soon afterward. But the glass doors are still awaiting installation, the lights highlighting the stone, and the original stone of the back wall must be glazed. "It's always something and if it wasn't this, it would just be something else!" (This is our mantra.)

Deja Vu Again Didn't we just finish fencing 10 acres for the horses? Yes, but now it's time to install fencing for the hounds. We mapped off about .7 of an acre for the dogs in the back of the house so they can protect the house and gardens from marauding deer and other wild creatures.

Dog's Eye View Here's a view of the back of the house where the dog fencing ends. I just thought I'd include this picture since it's rare to see the back of the house with the wash house and the smoke house.

Master Bedroom Assembly The master bedroom was quite a challenge, from all viewpoints. The only place the bed would fit was in front of the fireplace. The furniture is solid cherry (heavy) and all the pieces are large. Moving it out of the other house required lifting everything over our heads to clear the upstairs banister. We had the same problem at the farm and had to lift everything over the stairway banister to get it in the bedroom. Mary and I are doing all the moving. We decided that the furniture will stay in the house forever more because we're not moving it ever again. It took 11 hours to move the master bedroom furniture alone.

Cats On March 21st, Sunday, a mother cat and five newborn kittens showed up in the barn. She was in a feeder bin in one of the horse stalls. We never saw the cat before. The kittens were about 3 to 4 days old. Mary and I made quick friends with the mother the next day and brought her, with her kittens, into the exercise room of the house. One of the kittens died in the barn, so we now have a cat (Sophie) and her four kittens up for adoption. Sophie already has an appointment to be spayed at the end of May. So far, the orange kitten has a home waiting in mid-May.