Passive Solar Modern Prefab Home Celebrates A Birthday, Files A Well Permit, Is Off To Shooting Club.

At the off grid passive solar prefab home, the off grid well permit has been filed, the Amish air-compression pump is purchased. Now we wait to get on the well drilling company's schedule. The Department of Health came out, and placed the potential well location extremely advantageously for potential piping into our rainwater cistern, if we ever needed to- on the south side of the modern prefab, near the tire swing... quite close to the modern prefab house.

Yet...
How will the well company, with their *extremely* heavy machinery, reach the well location?
I eyed my new, hard-earned, baby grass growing delicately in clay soil... and the fruiting and flowering shrubs and trees I have invested in and been working at SO HARD to not to kill... AGAIN... My summer vegetable seedlings, just emerging...

*Sob*: I have a bad feeling about this... whichever way they approach the target...
(My poor grass...! Noooooooooooooooooo not again!!!! Please don't kill my grass!)

About here, where we're standing in this photo,
is where the well would go.
Hopefully, without the cicada in hand.

Prefabulous Finishing Of The Off Grid House? Not yet.

Unfinished prefab house.
Note exposed SIP on the ceiling, not yet hidden.

All the money we had earmarked for *finishing* the interior of our off grid prefab home this summer now is to be spent instead on equine infrastructure. 
Note that, but don't regret that.
So: Don't expect the "taaaaa-daaaaa finished beautiful interior photoshoot of the prefab house" until equine infrastructure is done. 

Speaking of the soon-to-be off grid well being dug to bring the horses over, when I went to the Amish distributor to pick up the pump I noticed all the cool, cool machinery he has:

The one on the left is for threshing.

"Is that a TRAIN?!?"
"Ah, no, it's not a train, it's a steam engine."
Oh. Ok, steam-engine-not-a-train... cool!

Not a train.

Love the John Deere, Amish-ized.

Groovy music lounge.

The week began with The Pipsqueaks discovering radio channels.  Maybe, with more music, they'll clean their rooms more energetically.
10 Year Old:

"I. *LOVE*. Music.
It makes me feel good all over. Like this song?" (Insert random pop ballad on the radio) "THIS SONG is breaking my heart. I have no idea what they're saying, but THIS SONG just, you know, it just breaks my heart."

I note their enthusiasm, and start to intensely research solar battery chargers. Pipsqueaks will need their own energy supply for stuff like that. #RefusesToLetPopDrainHerBatteryBank

We also had a BIRTHDAY PARTY at the off grid passive solar prefab!
Pipsqueak 2 is now nine!

It was raining. How does one have a birthday party in the rain in a small footprint home? Bring yer slickers and galoshes and a dry pair o' clothes to change into: Rain does not deter childrenz from playing outdoors for long, and, as always, be grateful you have a CONCRETE FLOOR vs. bamboo. Let the mud commence.

The birthday party raged on for over five hours. Even with rain.
We had a blast, and, my favorite part always: We enjoyed introducing wonderful people to wonderful people so they all could become fast friends.

Pin the tail on the chicken run.

Our guests even brought us gifts!
Delicious fresh lettuce and kale from one garden, a Kombucha tea scoby from another, AND *ground cherries* from yet another.
I am so excited!

Kombucha tea scoby

However, Pipsqueak 2 was NOT excited about having new children over to the prefab house. Oh, he was very excited about the new children and meeting new friends... Just not having them over... here.

WHY was he not excited?
"Momma. We *have* to get a toilet that *flushes.*"
Awwww.
It's hard being ten. With a composting toilet. And new guests.
Being a helicopter mom overly-sensitive to my poor sweet dears, I rushed to assure my angel:
"Oh well, too bad.  
Get over it. You have a composting toilet.
If they're your friends, they'll like YOU."

The New People arrived. Children introduced themselves; fast friends were made...
The first thing The New Children wanted to do?
They wanted to see that composting toilet their parents had told them about.
A birthday party full of children, all together, crowded into the bathroom, to inspect the toilet closely.

It was exciting. For about a second.
Then they wandered off, outdoors in the rain, to play and catch pneumonia.
And play they did. For hours.
One young child, after the day: "THIS WAS THE HIGHLIGHT OF MY LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!"
#It'sTheSimpleThings : )

"It's raining!
Let's play,
'Wrap Someone In The Hammock In The Rain!' "

Before our guests left, we had the *privilege* and *honor* to introduce some children to The First Horses They Ever Met And Petted.

R. kept gently nuzzling each one...
sensing they were new to equines...

I kept humongous J. busy while the little ones loved on R.

I hold that honor in my heart.

From a puppy to a, er, larger puppy
all within a year.
#TheVeryInterestingYear

With Pipsqueak 2's Birthday Party, I realized at the passive solar prefab, The Very Interesting Year has ended.  
Here is what we now know:

• Year 1 of living at the passive solar off grid prefab home rocked. We never looked back, and love every moment here.
• The DC Apartment was unsustainable. As weird as it sounds, turning DC rent into an RVA mortgage for Handsome Husband's work will make it *much* easier for us as a family to visit mid-week, to be closer when one of we parents need back up.
• Handsome Husband loves what he does. So we will now invest in a mortgage for him vs. pay lip service in rent during the work week, expecting to recover costs vs. throwing money away on rent when he retires, and sell The Workweek Abode.
• I'm looking forward to the rest of my life here at home at our off grid prefab house.

Y'all might recall Pipsqueak 1 unexpectedly won the shooting competition last week for his age group in front of the Grand Opening of Tractor Supply. Well, what else do you do but join the 4-H Shooting Club. Today, we had a blast shooting trap... Literally.

He enjoyed shadowing this young lady...
#GetUsedToItKid ; )

We arrived back home just in time to see cloud cover move across the valley, quickly towards us- I jumped back in the car to feed the horses *before* it arrived... but instead arrived just as the downpour began... At least the off grid modern prefab home's cistern is filling... Always an upside to dreary weather.

End notes:
Who can sew. I LOVE this. Modern, yet oh so chicken-y fabric, lol.
I need a cool modern sheath dress piped in gray made out of this:
"RT @designsponge: I neeed this chicken wire fabric. So adorable:
http://www.purlsoho.com/purl/products/item/8297-Moda-Chicken-Wire"

And in case you haven't heard: The 17 Year Cicadas have emerged.

The sound of cicadas reminds me of endless Indian dancers-
Beads flying, bare dusty feet pounding rhythm into earth.

If cicadas were a band, they'd be My Bloody Valentine, strumming hard.

And the Gi-Normous Fireflies are here!!!!
Appearing at night, I can't get them to show up on film. They're beautiful. They seem to be 4+ inches long. They glow red, green, blue... They dance along the ground, yet rise even higher than the tree tops...

It's magical, here.

Reading Club:

• LOVE this brand re-adjustment. Guy Gives Abercrombie & Fitch A Brand Readjustment By Giving Their Clothes To The Homeless
  
  Although I do have reservations putting a "despicable brand" on marginalized people, as well intentioned as it is, to helping homeless people... what do you think? Is clothing just clothing, in this? Also note that Abercrombie & Fitch would rather burn product than donating excess / damaged to the needy.
  
  Commenter touchmeinthemorning1:
  "he's not belittling homeless or poor people at ALL. he is a) giving homeless people clothing which is never, ever a bad thing and b) making people think twice about buying clothing from a man who is so obsessed with image that he only has tiny sizes and attractive people wear it. take it as you will but he is doing a world of good with this"
• China is running out of water - eight of its 28 provinces are as parched as countries in the Middle East
• Jamestown: With Rising Seas, America's Birthplace Could Disappear tinyurl.com/ag9bf2w #Jamestown #VA
• Solar Mamas And Their Wild Idea: "They can’t read or write but a couple of brave Bedouin women from Jordan travelled far and wide to help their villages become solar powered. The biggest struggle yet may be with their husbands: We’ve covered this hopeful story of Solar Mamas, Bedouin women from Jordan who went to Barefoot College to learn how to solar power their villages. We’ve interviewed the women from solar mamas, and have reviewed the film Solar Mamas, a documentary movie about their journey. "
• World War II Week:
  I have been reading, completely randomly yet of course tying in together into a theme, some interesting World War II articles, and one book: 
  • Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure
    WHAT a tale. WHAT a book. If only all history books were written so.
  • That time the Paris Mosque helped Jews escape the Nazis by giving them Muslim IDs
    I love Messy Nessy Chic. I love that Messy Nessy Chic blogs about architecture and culture and history... And here is a story I had never heard...
    
    "A recent French film, Free Men, brought to light the remarkable true history of how Muslims gave sanctuary to French Jews in Nazi-occupied Paris during Second World War. An untold “Oscar Schindler” story, the film is inspired by actual events and in this case, our ‘Schindler’ is Si Kaddour Benghabrit, the rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris until 1954."
    
  • And why I don't crave Chanel: Coco Chanel Was Definitely A Nazi
  • And then, randomly today, Pipsqueak 1 found this on YouTube: Hitler: The Rise Of Evil

Homeschool:

• My kids LOVE Crash Course Chemistry and History. This episode ties in the table of elements, the Hindenburg, making fire with cotton, Hitler. Like I said, it has been very randomly World War II History Week, not intended, but cool-ly tied into everything: