It has been six months since we retired and moved to Idaho, and what a busy six months it has been!  I think we’ve accomplished a lot both inside and out.

Inside

• Unpacked (mostly)
• Removed tons of nasty carpet and wood flooring
• Laid over 2,000 sq ft of new flooring
• Installed new kitchen appliances
• Replaced toilets
• Painted about 70% of the walls, 16 of 27 doors, and 14 of 21 windows
• Replaced numerous outlets and switches
• Removed and replaced baseboards (in progress)

Living room before

Living room after (still needs to be painted)

Master bedroom before

Master bedroom after

Sewing room before

Sewing room after

Outside

• Revitalized the old garden
• Fenced and cultivated a new garden
• Returned the old tractor to a working state
• Felled numerous trees and trimmed others
• Supplied power to the workshop
• Built a chicken tractor and a chickshaw
• Raised and processed 50+ meat chickens
• Raised 9 laying hens and 2 roosters (we’re getting 8 eggs/day now)
• Raised 2 pigs
• Harvested cherries, plums, apples, cherry tomatoes, Armenian cucumbers, beets, carrots, onions, wheat
• Canned cherries, plums, peaches, beans, chicken
• Dehydrated cherries, plums, tomatoes, apples

Old garden before

Old garden after

New fenced garden

Meat chickens (Frankenchicks) before

Meat chickens after

Pigs in June

Pigs in September

Fresh eggs are a daily occurrence

Two of the many trees Shawn has dropped

Kootenai Electric installing the new transformer

Trenches and wire for power to the workshop

Our new lifestyle, location, and DIY projects also required the acquisition of a few new tools:

• Snow shovel
• Farm boots
• Numerous pairs of work gloves
• Loader, boom, chain harrow, and disk for tractor
• Chainsaw
• Chipper/shredder
• Cultivator
• T-post driver and puller
• Oscillating multi-tool
• Floor scraper (ultimate tool for removing staples in carpet pad)
• Generator
• Paint sprayer
• Pressure canner
• Dehydrator
• Cherry pitter
• Paper log maker
• “No Hunting” signs

Posting our No Hunting signs along the edge of the property

The last six months have flown by, and we’re starting to get into a groove.  If the weather is good, we will work on an outside project.  Not so good, then we’ll do an inside project.  We’ve also taken the time to explore our new surroundings with a few hikes and camping trips.  We’ve taken up flyfishing (that’s a whole new list of equipment for another post), and visited many of our local breweries, restaurants and farmers’ markets.  Life is good.