Exciting, devastating & scary times

Now from the title you may be thinking I’m getting ready to write about today’s society but nope, I’m talking about the way things look around the farm and our next project.

A while back I had mentioned in a Facebook post that while we were finishing up the upstairs bathroom we had already started wrapping our heads around another project which is quite typical ’round here. (Our style of working on things is bit by bit as we have the funds, ideas, materials, etc. so projects tend to overlap one another.)

This took place earlier in the week…

We literally hired someone to come in and destroy a piece of our beautiful property. It was devastating to see it being torn up by a bulldozer. Thankfully I was at work while the devastation was taking place but poor CountryBoy had to keep busy by mowing the yard and paddock, splitting wood and whatever he could find in order to keep him from running out there and hollerin’ STOP!

This…

became this in a matter of half a day…

ouch. gasp. sigh. What have we done?!

There is a reason behind it though. We have been in Kentucky over four years now. When we moved here I felt a stirring in my soul that I needed to find my ‘niche’. I wanted to create. I wanted to be an asset to the community. I wanted to do something I truly enjoyed. Something that would help us be more self-sufficient and also provide income. The desire has been so strong that I have flip-flopped from one thing to another forcing myself to find something, but never finding anything that truly quenched that stirring.

Since life goes on with or without a niche, I picked up a part-time job at a local B&B six miles down the road. I love it there and I love what the owner created in a little known holler and the people that visit love it there as well. But that income wasn’t enough to pay for all the taxes, insurances and propane for the winter so I picked up a second part-time job at the local newspaper office. Now, that job COULD be a great job as I enjoy most of my duties and my co-workers are fantastic but… we are so extremely short-staffed that we are all pulling triple and sometimes quadruple duties every week to get two papers out and keep the business going. We are quickly becoming frazzled and worn-out and what’s even worse I don’t think there will be any relief any time in the near future. What can I do but make the best of it.

We have had lots of family and friends come to visit since moving here and all of them have remarked at how beautiful our surroundings were. Even locals that stop by comment on how nice the farm is looking and that the area is so pretty. Those positive comments got us to thinking’… why not share this beauty with others! But how and in what way?

Our wonderful little town has some exciting things taking place and/or in the works such as recently being certified as a Trail Town. There’s also all the happenings with the Kentucky Steam Heritage Corporation and their restoration of a steam engine. They also have a huge vision and events planned for their grounds which will bring lots of people to our town.

So, with all that being said, it brings me back ’round to my niche… We have decided to put a tiny cabin on the top of our hill in the backyard and list it with Airbnb. YIKES! That’s the exciting and scary part all at the same time as we’ve never done anything like this before. But, if we don’t give it a try then we’ll never know.

So what has taken place so far? As you’ve already seen, we’ve been through the devastating time. It certainly was NOT and STILL is not easy to see our property in such disarray but it will get better when the grass grows back and all the dirt disappears. (We bought some grass seed to help it along – now if we could just get some much needed rain. Florida, send some rain our way please!)

The devastation was necessary as this will be the access road to the cabin. Guests will hang a left at the barn and continue up the hillside…

and head on into the woods…

until they emerge at the top of the hill where they will find their destination.

We have ordered a tiny DIY cabin kit that will arrive in 3-4 weeks. It’s a beautiful little cabin with lots of windows that will be off-grid with a few modern luxuries. We are gearing the cabin to a select type of guest – adventure-seekers, artists, writers, or anyone that wants to ‘get-away-from-it-all’ for a few days to relax, regroup and/or unwind from every day stresses.

While we wait for the arrival of the cabin prep work continues. CountryBoy and I took some cement blocks that we had around the farm to the cabin site and we worked our way back down the existing access road trimming limbs and cutting down saplings that hung in the way.

This part of the road was already cleared when we moved in and over the years CountryBoy has kept it cleared enough for tractor access which made this task fairly easy.

Between the two of us we made quick work of it and before we knew it we were down to the new devastated part of the road.

We’ve spent the last four years reclaiming the grounds and working on the farmhouse and we have made great progress. Four years ago our town was just plodding along. Four years ago was not the right time for me to find my niche. We both feel that now is the right time to take this huge step. Timing is everything!

I will still need to continue working both jobs for a long while as we get this new venture up and running but that’s OK. We feel we are headed in the right direction in sharing the beauty of our land with others who will love it as we do and will benefit from its beauty and serenity.

We are both very excited about our new ‘venture’ as we really enjoy making our guests feel welcome and comfortable and we are excited to be able to do this on a larger and different scale. My niche will actually be OUR niche which makes it even BETTER!

Oh, do y’all want to see the view that the cabin guests will have?

I think our guests will be able to unwind with a view like that, don’t you think?!