We have had a really rough few months. We had hoped to be caught up by now but it appears we are just getting farther behind. By now we had hoped we would have some kind of walls up in the apartment and a door installed to replace the door that was damaged in last winters storm.

Well...That didn't happen. We just couldn't swing paying the bills and getting building supplies too. We pulled out our old kerosene heaters when it got cold in here. Cleaned them up and went to our local store for kerosene.

We found out our local gas stations are no longer carrying kerosene. We have to travel to another town to get it. Ok. So we got some, fired up the heater only to find it will not heat this space without the winterizing that needed to be done. On these warmer heating nights we were still cold. There is no way this is going to handle honestly cold days/nights.



Amy made another curtain to go over the one we already have in the door space.

First Curtain



Second Curtain over the top of the first one



We hoped the double thick curtain would help some, but that really isn't going to do the trick. We can't afford to get building supplies and we know the kerosene heater isn't going to keep us warm and even if it would, we can't afford the gas and risk to out dying car to go out of town to get kerosene every few nights. It would be ok if we could get it on our regular grocery nights, but the store that has kerosene is in a different town than where the strip of grocery stores is. We needed another plan.

We had attended a Legislative Event with Dixie Thunder and there I let some of my buddies know I was looking for a cheap wood stove to put in our apartment. We can get wood from the wood area behind our home, and we can always pick up road side branches and limbs for free.

Legislative Event Group Photo



Well word got around that I needed the wood stove and PR and Faye came up to talk to me. Seems they have an old wood stove sitting in a barn that they could sell to me. A friendly arrangement was made and we would be getting a wood stove soon. Just need to get chimney supplies now.

Faye and PR at the Legislative Event



Just yesterday PR dropped off the wood stove. Had no clue he had till I checked my voice mail. We found out by surprise that one of my dogs who is mentally challenged (she is a newer dog to our pack) Does not alert the other dogs, or bark at strangers. Good thing she failed in her guard dog duties while someone was brining something TO our house and not taking something OUT of our house!

Anyhow...My son brought the stove inside and when Amy got home from work she decided the stove could use a good cleanup since it had been sitting in a barn and showed obvious signs of weather exposure. Please excuse the wheelchair in the photo of Amy. We don't have any furniture so the old wheelchairs now serve as household furniture.

Amy Scrubbing the stove



Today we have a nice wood stove waiting for us to buy some chimney piping, and brick for underneath and behind it.







Even if we don't have the walls done, or have a door installed soon, we will be able to get plenty of free wood behind our house to keep the stove hot and by eliminating the cost of heating fuel, we just might make it through till we can get some walls up and get a door hung.

Now to come up with some funds for chimney pipe! The stove came with enough pipe to pipe from stove to wall. We now need to get a T pipe, a chimney cap, and enough straight pipe to pipe from ground to about 2 feet above the roof pitch. That is looking like 12-13 feet of straight pipe. We haven't had a chance to go pricing chimney pipe so we are not quite sure what we are facing in cost, but we are pretty sure it's going to be less costly to pipe the stove, than to keep wasting gas and kerosene on a heating system that is worthless with no walls or door.

Finally, Dixie Thunder will be hosting the second annual Crippled Critter Benefit which they do for my animal sanctuary. I am a small private sanctuary for non-medical special needs domestics. The motorcycle group helps me raise funds for kennel supplies. This year they are targeting enough funds to get supplies to build a wheelchair/scooter ramp from my kennel to the double wide home and a proper door exiting the kennel so I can bypass all stairs between the main house, kennel and my apartment. It took a while to make sure the ramp would be considered a worthy "Crippled Critter" expense, but the team decided that since I need safe access to and from the kennel to handle the animals without risk of falling and since the ramp will indeed be going in the kennel it would qualify as a kennel expense.

Once the funds are raised there is a group of people from the organization who will get what supplies are needed and will build the ramp.

Here is the flier that is now being circulated for the event.

This week is the one year anniversary of my fall that aggravated prior existing conditions that eventually resulted in the end of my walking days. Looking back though I don't have much to complain about. I have a scooter now and that makes going to many places that had been unavailable to me for a long time a reality now. I have a new wheelchair that can fit in the back seat of my car and I can move it with ease. I can lift this chair with my bad hand...no problem and I am able to roll on for hours with no shoulder pain. The risk of dislocation or tendon injury is very slim now.

I have a cooler to keep my food fresh, maybe next year we will get another fridge. My land payments are caught up so there is no threat of my land mortgage being turned over to the lawyer who attaches tons of extra fees.

I am now able to use the building in my back yard as my living room/kitchen area which gives me 12x24 feet of wheelchair accessible space and easy access to the kennel. The building needs some work before winter but right now it's home and it's nice to be able to answer my own door because I can get to it and I'm not falling down stairs several times a day because this building only has one small step that I have to manage and that will be fixed once we find a piece of plywood.

I didn't come through all of this alone. My family, my local friends, and many online friends helped me through this past year. I'm not used to asking for or accepting help, but I'm glad that I did reach out. I found some wonderful people who made this past year MUCH easier and though some found me to be overly needy....something that bit deeply into my heart. Most understood that this past year has been a major turning point in my life and I needed a bit of help to manage such a huge change. Many who have come to know me know what local folks now now. I won't rev up my scooter and leave people in the dust. Those who know me know my belief, when you are helped in life, paying it forward is not just a nice thing to do...it's a spiritual debt to be paid on earth before you die. Since we never know when we will die, it's a good idea to never take more than you believe you can pay forward in full.

We have chosen to stay where we live now permanently and will put in the house repairs on our own. We had planned to buy our own land, but so many changes happened in this past year that our dream had to change to meet reality. The reality is, and I have faced it. I will not be walking again. My mom and sister know this and waited till I came to terms with it emotionally before suggesting that Amy and I finish paying off the house/land and just stay here. The house can be given over to us when it's paid off. The land is not the deep rural land we wanted...but it's a practical piece of ground that can be ours and with that, we will never be homeless.

We will find a way to open up our entire land lot and utilize the whole plot to build our raised gardens. That will require a new kennel system so again that will take some time. We can still grow some livestock for animal food but will probably depend more on area hunters to keep them in a better diet. Our family is moving to a vegetarian diet to come off our dependence on grocery store meats and will eventually grow our vegetables and herbs taking us off the dependence on commercially farmed produce too.

Hopefully in the coming months we will begin to renovate the mobile home and make it handicap accessible, but for now I do have a 12x24 foot building that I can get around safely in. We will try to buy a van with income tax money which will reduce much of the financial strain we have been enduring the past few months. The actual repairs to the house are not serious. The repairs we will be able to tackle with some help of my local buddies. The renovations to make the house wheelchair accessible will be much more costly so it's going to take some time, but then again building a self sustaining farm with eco-buildings was going to take time too.

THANK YOU to my family, local friends and online friends! Honestly....I could not have come this far without your help on the various levels. I choose to celebrate my one year anniversary on a positive note. If not for you, I would still be stuck in a 12x12 room unable to leave and would have been suffering rather than learning how to live this new life that I'm living now. So much still needs to be done for me to adapt to this new life....but already SO MUCH has changed to make my life much better.

These are some of the things made possible by your help.

Visiting A Friend



Visiting My Sister



Visiting my whole family



Attending a Charity Event for Abused and Neglected children in a shelter



Saving the lives of my animals..LOL...even if it ended in a flat tire, the animals were saved. see the dog in the window?



Helping me to attend fund raising events



Allowing me to visit my beloved botanical gardens