We're fixin to buy a farm.

"I just walked up and knocked on their door," Brett told our closing attorney when answering the question of how we discovered the property was for sale. In this tech age of Zillow and Facebook ads he surprisingly replied, "That still works?"

 
After moving back to my hometown of Twin City, Ga from Johns Creek, a suburb of Atlanta, Ga, we had searched for almost a year for the right piece of property for our family of five. We moved into my Grandma Jane's adorable 1950's home which was about 1300 square feet (a big shift from the 2600 + basement/garage house we moved from) on two acres just inside the city limits. We really loved it and considered buying her house after making it home for almost a year, but we both had the itch to look for some property in the country.

After our twins tried to come early (a whole other blog post) I was on bedrest for 15 weeks and during this time we spent time reflecting on what things were the most important in life and for us it boiled down to spending time with each other, our kids and family. We wanted to slow down, simplify and focus on what was most important. I'm a list maker and jotted down lots of thoughts, one list of which included a few things we really wanted in a property. We prayed over these things many times and just asked that God open and shut the doors so that we will know His will for our family.

Meet the Boatrights - Mrs. Libby and Mr. Al. They live full time in Florida but travel to their farmhouse in Twin City a few times a year. The house was inherited from her parents and was the house she grew up in along with three brothers and one sister. The house has been in their family for over 70 years.

They invited Brett in that day he knocked on their door and heard our story of looking for a property and falling in love with theirs. We love to watch the sunset and we would ride down the road that this house was on to watch beautiful sunsets capturing a rolling pasture, cows, fences, ponds and pine trees. We learned that the property was just the right size for us at just under 25 acres with a pond and a small farm house built in 1893 (best our records can tell). 

They responded to Brett when he asked if they were interested, "Who told you?!" They explained that they actually were looking to offload the property since they only visited a few times a year. But that they would have to circulate the property through their family to see if anyone would be interested first. We just had to wait patiently and prayerfully. About two months after the initial meeting, we got the call from Mrs. Libby that none of the family was interested at this time and we were the first ones in line. We came to look at the inside, walk the property and over blueberry muffins, coffee, busy toddlers and a hug and handshake, we made a deal! 

I encourage you to write down your prayers because this has been an awesome testimony for us to share of how God delivers. I know He may not always answer in the way we think He should, but we are so thankful he had this place lined up for our family. Check out how He marked everything off the list for us!

• Room for garden and maybe animals = 24 acres with cows already on property! and plenty of room for our chicken coop
• Porches = front and back porches equipped with swings and rockers
• Pond = 6 acre pond loaded with huge bass (may be a fish tale, but we shall see)
• Room for trees = we love older established trees - the property has several old pecan trees and cypress and oak trees down by the pond
• Simple home that meets our needs = folks who lived in 1890s definitely lived simply! Not that we're going to build an outhouse or anything, but we're looking forward to embracing simple living!
• Space for kids to be kids = with a bathroom with a door to the porch, I'm pretty sure that qualifies as kid friendly
• No clutter/excess = not much room for excess with 1270 square feet! Thankfully we've had practice at Grandma's. 

So here we are, fixin to buy a farm!

Back Porch

View of pasture and pond from porch

View of front of the house

Brett, Audrey (3.5 yrs) and me - first selfie at the new house!

Foyer view coming in front door - lots of shiplap! Planning on taking up carpet and restoring original heart pine hardwoods.

Our current home - Grandma Jane's house