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With the way, the economy was heading our church in cooperation with several other churches combined efforts to provide a safe place for orphans to live. It was to be set on a piece of land of a rich person, in one of the churches owned and was willing to donate; it used to be a country estate/farm turned into a hunting lodge. The youth groups from all the churches got together along with some of the adults to put together a place that was mostly self-sufficient. I was on the committee that did research to present to the elders on what we needed. we found lot’s of information on the internet, including some stories by fleataxi, TOM (tired old man), and Jerry D Young, along with many other useful things to know, we also were able to get a CD from Backwoods Home of all of their older issues including things like recipes and other things including solar power information. All the adults started looking into getting as much of these things as they could, at the beginning of the summer we got ready to go and get to work on the property. We all volunteered to do this instead of taking a vacation. We had country churches and rich city churches the city churches were more interested in purchasing things, the country churches donated the animals and plants and seeds to plant. My family and I came from a small town church that did a little of both, the youth pastors were going to stay with the kids, and other professionals like plumbers, electricians, construction, farmers, and vets would come as their schedules permitted. Quite a few of the orphans that would wind up living there also came to help. Sound like fun? Not. It was a lot of work, the old place was big enough but it sure was rundown and dirty, with bugs and the odd mouse or rat, I brought my cat Tiger, she was a great mouser. I sure was glad we were going to stay indoors, the only tent I had was an old German tent, with several moth holes Mom and Dad had patched. It was bought at a garage sale for 2 dollars and that included a sleeping bag and an old lantern, it all was cleaned up and made usable. Not by any stretch of the imagination considered pretty, the sleeping bag weighed a good deal with a plaid flannel liner. Mom relined it with a petty sheet, after a good wash, she also redid the outside with some nylon from an old poncho, along with doing new stuffing, it was now nice and puffy and light, the only thing left from the original is the zipper, Tiger had to travel in her pet carrier, another redone item. Mom and Dad came also, since Dad had lost his job and Mom was a stay at home Mom, they had the summer free and consented to chaperone, it all just worked out that way, we were being evicted and this seemed like a good opportunity. Dad had worked the last 10 years as the custodian at the school, before that he had been a repairperson, Jack of trades. He could do many things. It made him a good fit to teach many things we needed to learn, we would be moving to the orphanage at the end of the summer so all our things were packed and moved. They would be house parents and do the upkeep. Mom had always had a garden and canned what we did not eat fresh. I got along with the orphans better than the arrogant kids did from the city. They thought that since they had the newest and best things they were better than the rest of us.
We had been there working and cleaning about 6 weeks when the man who ran a orchard showed up, he went through the old orchard area, marked the dead trees to be removed. He would be bringing new trees out to replace them, we also climbed all the trees removing dead and diseased wood and cutting here and there to make the trees better and stronger. He also had us dig holes around the trees be filled with manure and fish guts, plus some seaweed stuff he brought. I was sure glad to be through with the stink even tiger avoided me. It is strange she does not like fish. We finished repairing the old barn. Everything was still in good shape since it was all made of stone with slate roofs. Thank goodness, there was no rot. Tiger was growing fat from the mice she was catching in the house, we needed a cat in the barn to kill those mice, When the livestock arrived so did a couple of barn cats. They would come up to you but would quickly run off not wanting you to get to familiar. Along with the cows, we now had some horses. Nothing fancy, also brought were wagons for the horses to pull. One of the farmers brought his tractor along with the stuff to get the fields back in shape. The older boys had been out cutting down all the trees trying to grow up in the field and had fixed all the fences. The goats had gone through and made good work of removing all the small brush. We did discover some berry vines and moved them to an area the goats could not get to just outside the fences. We also found the old wood stoves for the house, cleaned and reblacked them. An odd person from the city, came, cleaned, and repaired the chimneys. He removed the bird’s nest that he found. Then he repaired the screens at the top of the chimneys to keep them out in the future.
Mom had a garden going first thing, even though it was a little late to get it growing. All the old bedding and manure in the old barn plowed into it. We were starting to get the first of the things from the garden, some of the kids had not liked salads before now did since we had it so often and Mom had a killer dressing she made. Mom was thankful so many of the herbs were still growing in the old herb garden. She had taken some of the new manure and added it as a tea to the beds and the plants now looked happy. Our plumber from home had been here all this time and had been fixing all the piping in the house; the well had tested good having been new when the previous owner bought the place. He had also set up a solar heater for hot water, using the old dish from satellite receiver left out back. One of those huge ones now lined with reflectors to heat the water running through pipes attached where the heat focused.
I am a rainbow; well I do have many colors of paint on various pieces of apparel, and anatomy, luckily, I had a shower cap to keep it out of my hair. I learned that when I had helped paint with my mom and dad, just once was enough of having my hair grow out so I could cut off the paint I could not get out of it. Now we are building bunk beds, we have several rooms large enough for sharing and are taking old broken beds and using parts to make bunk beds with new wood to keep them strong and able to withstand the occasional jumping. We also built wooden lockers and chests for the rooms, the city churches are getting mattresses and linen. The women’s ministries in several churches are quilting up a storm. In my humble opinion, I think it will be warm and cozy to be here. Also coming is tons of clothes both used and new. We are getting more kids coming out, I overheard that parents could not take care of them when they lost their jobs and homes, so just dropped them off at churches or sent them on a church bus and left before they came home. Some literally just have the clothes on their backs.
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