Moving West: Week 1

Here we go, the real adventure begins, our little family of four on its own on this mountain that we do not know yet!  Week 1 of Moving West:

We had two days of nice temps where we went a picked out our Christmas Tree, and began more work on the house.

DSC07231

The kids had a blast “picking out” their first live Christmas tree.  Nora got the final say and this was it!

DSC07243 DSC07240

Then it hit. The Cold Snap – Yes, two days after we moved in the cold snap made its way here!  10 days of below 0 temps, thank goodness there is not much for wind up here.  So here we are 2 days into this new life, its snowing like crazy, this storm dropped over 2.5 foot of snow (and its snowed at least 4-6 inches a week since, good thing the temps have been back to normal so there is some melt each week), negative temperatures, and here we are, snowed in without a chance to get set up.

DSC07284

No woodstove to heat this older home, the furnace hasn’t kicked off for 3 days and the temps are ranging from 56-65 degrees (yes that is inside).  Not bad if it was just The Rancher and myself, but two little kids, not cool!  No cooking stove (you read that right) so not even able to use that for heat, I became an expert crockpot and electric skillet wife, as well as dressing in layers and electric heaters (look out electric bill this month!).  As soon as we could get out (4 days after the storm started), we headed to Sheridan, WY for supplies.

Priority #1: Gear to hook up the woodstove.  Priority #2: Gear for the cook stove.  Priority #3: What would seem like an overload of groceries (but turns out you can freeze a ton of stuff, like milk and cheese and they are just as good as if fresh!).

So onto the funny part of this adventure (oh yes, this whole thing is now funny, that week…not so much).  We get home to set up the woodstove.  The Rancher and I have no experience with this so here we go, youtube videos, they explain everything right?!  I keep track of the kiddos and William begins working on getting the chimney pipe, everything works, it fits, and we should have fire!  So we get one started, its going!  YES!  And then…it only took a minute, and the fire is out and the house is filling with smoke!  We can only get one window open in the house (the rest are froze shut and we don’t want to break them!) so the front door and side window are open, the one fan we have is rolling and we are trying to clear out the house.  William begins to search for the issue.  Turns out, there were shirts shoved up the top of the chimney pipe to stop the outside air from getting into the house while there was no woodstove hooked up.  Now to take apart the pipe we just put together, and start again!  YES!

IMG_20131205_184600   DSC07406

Love the smell of a wood stove, it truly makes a house cozy!  However, I love the way Coal burns ALL NIGHT.  Its so nice that our stove can burn both!

We are now officially Mountain People!

DSC07563 DSC07567

Give me some feedback on your fix it yourself fun!  I know there must be other people with good stories!

 

Moving West: The Big Push!

This day/week was crazy.  The final steps to moving an entire ranch (plus all the kids stuff!) nearly 400 miles away from home.  My parents were working and waiting anxiously for a new grandbaby (My sister, Krystle was expecting) to be born (due in just a few days), so they were unable to help.  The Rancher’s parents were vacationing in San Francisco, Marie (Rancher’s sister) and her family just had a brand new baby, Wow!  The rest of the family was unavailable with work and busy lives too.   Could we have picked a busier week to try and move west!?

So here we go, packing the last of our belongings like Crazy!  Marie is a saint and watched my two little ones along with her own 4 kids.  Thanks Natalie, Allison, and Rance (the oldest kids – as the saying goes – the big ones will watch the little ones right?) for helping out too!   I got a call at about 1 pm on our last day in Timber Lake, SD.  Nora has a fever, won’t eat, and is miserable.  Now, a little back story, Cody was diagnosed with Strep and a double ear infection less than 4 days ago.  So, after several calls to the local doctors we couldn’t get an appointment anywhere.  Off to the Eagle Butte Hospital ER.  They did a great job getting us into and out of the ER (took longer to drive the 80 mile roundtrip than the appointment).  Strep throat run to ER because can’t get to clinic.  Nora and I got back to Timber Lake about 30 minutes before our going away party at Sparky’s in Isabel.  Meaning – after an early morning of packing and deep cleaning, a run to the ER and back I had no time to shower or get ready for our party.  Well A swap of clothes, a little mascara and some hairspray and we were off to our supper!

Cake

The Awesome Cake that was created by Robbi Miller from Isabel, SD – check it out, it looks like Mountains!  

Going Away Party 1

Some of my best friends we will be leaving behind.  Notice how sick Nora is, poor thing, we didn’t stay at our own going away party long. 

Going Away party

The Biegler Families- minus a few.  Sure are going to miss you guys!  Good thing you all love to ski and travel 😀  and that we will be back in Timber Lake periodically!

Two hours later we began moving West for MT!  Oh Yes, crazy we are, but the kids slept that first leg of the trip and made our lives a little easier.  Poor sick kiddos during a huge change in their lives.  We stayed the night at a friend’s house halfway through the trip and got up the next morning to get to our new Home!

DSC07225

I’m not sure who is more thrilled here:  Nora, Holly (the dog) or Cody?  What a trip of a lifetime!

Stay Tuned for the fun experiences of our first week in MT!