Thanksgiving the Rock Farm way

Sometimes it's hard to see progress. Particularly if you're living through a process. We don't see the rate at which our children grow until someone shrieks "look how tall he is now" across a room. Growing out a hairstyle or growing a baby takes 400 times longer when you live it because you don't see the daily, incremental nudges that stack up to make a whole lot of change or an entire human in miniature form.

This is how it is with the Farm. For a year now we have been digging, shaping, rebuilding and tidying but sometimes it doesn't feel like we've actually achieved all that much. All that changed for me this week when, after being totally inspired by what the clever folk at Castle Farm Cafe have done with a big metal barn, we hosted a Thanksgiving meal for 17 friends in the former milking parlour.

Since we moved here nearly one year ago, there are only really two things that I have missed: a bath (oh to wallow daily in hot water with wine and magazines!) and a space to entertain in! In our old house our 8 seater table would often stretch to 12 or 14 with kids perched on stools at the corners of the table and an assortment of untidy chairs formerly banished to the garage, hosed down and scrambled in last minute to seat extra guests.

A group of friends old and new came to celebrate a great year with us in a building that was, when we moved here, full of milking equipment and rusting metal. Looking at the picture of how it was then and what we scrabbled together last weekend I have truly realised how much we have achieved. It is now nearly a year since we moved here and there are no end of corners that have been tidied and made good...more on that in December. With an oven that came out of my brother in laws kitchen, a Fire hood from my mother in laws new house, some German beer festival tables and a rope light or two we transformed the metal milking parlour from this:

Before

to this:

On the strength of this meal we have been granted permission to host Christmas in The Milking Parlour so watch this space for mark two complete with Christmas tree and decorations galore as well as Barefoot in the Milking Parlour supper clubs in the Spring!

We've got the power!

As I write this I am sitting in the caravan with the television on at a normal volume, not overly loud to be audible over the hum of the generator. Tomorrow morning I will be able to walk from my bed into my bathroom and have a hot shower, with the light on,          without first having to put my wellies on and go outside to turn the generator on. Be gone days of not being able to buy a whole week's worth of fresh produce for fear that  unrefrigerated, the food will go off before it can be eaten. Adios taking our washing to the grannies on rotation. Hello batch cooking and a freezer full of meals prepped on motivated days ready for the unmotivated ones. Welcome to the ability to use the washing machine and the tumble dryer AT THE SAME TIME. Bonjour being able to hoover and dry my hair at the same time. Ok that last one's a little unlikely but it is possible because, yes, that's right; after owning our dream for 419 days, living here for 332 days and a mere 44 days after the power pole actually went up, we finally have POWER! Real mains electricity is now coursing through the wires from here: 

         

to here:

Old pic but you get the gist!

It wasn't all plain sailing avid readers and casual observers of this madness we call Dream Farm! No. There was our lovely contact at Western Power Distribution who insisted on turning up to every site visit in his brogues and seemed to take every Friday as holiday as well as finishing work just after lunch on most days. There were the guys who turned the pole installation into a whole days worth of 'work' like this:

Vaping the day away

(They also took my help yourself to a biscuit very literally and ate a whole packet of digestives!).

Then there was Scottish Power who we contacted to try and get a meter. They took vagueness and the customer service for which the Big Six energy companies are famed to a dizzying new high with the explanation that "someone will probably be in touch with you to arrange a date in about two weeks". That was 44 days ago. We are still waiting for them to get back in touch with us. 

And lets not forget the meter installation that was delayed by 10 days because the man was neither trained nor insured to go higher than four rungs on his ladder and this was, and I quote, "a five or six rung job". Or the second man they sent out whose ladder was not long enough to reach the meter. 

But frankly I don't care about any of that any more. It's been well and truly chalked up to experience and will no doubt become exaggerated as we tell and retell the story of how we built our dream home, drunkenly regaling anyone who will listen with the ups and downs and the "darling do you remember when those idiots turned up and couldn't even climb up a ladder!!"'s, because, in the words of 1990's number 1 chart topping pop mega stars Snap, I'VE GOT THE POWER.