Well, I guess we neglected to tell everyone that we were taking a spring break trip to the farm. Sorry, won’t happen again. We did tell the Offenburgers and they immediately offered us a place to stay.

Tuesday March 13^th

We arrived in at the farm on Tuesday and unloaded a bunch of stuff into the machine shed. Mostly stuff that we had in our yard in Colorado. The weather was amazing with a high of 72 degrees! Luckily we had also loaded up a few plastic chairs and did a bit of sunbathing. We were also able to open up some of the ladder in the corn crib to get into the middle bin.

Mason and I thought it would be fun to take the GPS receiver and track the property line. We knew it would be muddy because of the recent blizzard and then warm weather. We got our mud boots on and prepared to set off. Everything was going fine until we got to the west side of the barn. We had made it fine through the plowed areas on the south side on the property. It was slow going to make sure we didn’t lose our shoes, but we made it. We had no idea just how muddy a thoroughly wet, plowed field in spring can be!

After we turned the southwest corner marker we started sinking quicker and deeper. Soon I realized that this was going to take a while. Then I realized, that we weren’t going to make it to the next marker on this particular course. I stashed my GPS receiver in my shirts. “We’ll finish this in the summer.” I told Mason and began looking for escape routes.

By this time Mason had lost a sock and a boot to the mud and his morale was quickly slipping. I finally decided to have him ditch all boots and socks and make a run for the side of the barn where there was a small strip of grass. It’s amazing how well you sink in boots! He walked right across and starting bawling that he didn’t want to leave his boots. Using a bit of brute strength and lots of wiggling, I freed the boots and tossed them to him. In order to get my boots and myself out I had to put my hands in the mud and pull at an angle. I finally made it over to the grass and we trekked back to the truck to attempt to clean up.

That evening we went over to the Offenburger’s for food, conversation, sleep and a well needed shower.

Wednesday March 14^th

Wonderful sleep and a lazy morning in the country. We got off to a relaxed start, but got ready for a busy day. Our first stop was the People’s Trust and Savings in Rippey. I finally got to meet Melissa Berry who was our angel at the bank. She was the one who made our land loan a go.

Next stop was lunch and errands in Jefferson. We had lunch at Breadeaux pizza on the town square. We really like the Uptown Cafe, but it can be a pretty smoky place. Cigarette smoke has some strange effects on Rich and sometimes he’ll brave for their awesome biscuits and gravy, but not today, he was coming down a with a cold.

We found that the courthouse in Jefferson is an amazingly beautiful, well preserved jewel. It was such a pleasure to see such a beautiful old building well kept and still used for its original purpose. We got our official Iowa license plates for the truck and stopped by the County Sanitarian’s office. We left a message about getting our well tested and also asked a few questions. We wanted to find out what kind of building permits we might need. The answer. . . none (except septic and well)! “In town you do, but not out in the country.” We were shocked to say the least. We didn’t realize that Jefferson itself wasn’t “out in the country.”

Still reeling from the shock of no building permits, we walked to the other side of the square to visit Judy Von Ahsen at Marso-Peckumn Real Estate. Judy was the real estate agent that helped make our dream a reality. We chatted for quite a while. Rich and Mason had met Judy once before the land was purchased, but I never had. Mason charmed her with his math skills and we discussed our plans for the corn crib.

After a short nap at the Super 8, we headed back over to the Offenburger’s for a last minute reception. Guess what? Folks in Iowa show up ON TIME!! People being late is one of my pet peeves. I think I may have found my mecca. Despite being a “7-ish come and go” affair, most everyone showed up at or near 7pm. Around 20 people in all joined at the Offenburger house to snack on “Cooper Crackers”, Angel Food Cake with Strawberries, and brownies (yum!) and meet us. We got to chat with quite a few of our neighbors.

We learned a ton about life in Iowa, life on a farm, and the history of our place from our new neighbors. I’ll detail all that in another blog entry (stay tuned. . .) and on the “about the farm” page soon. We had a fabulous time and had never met such a wonderfully, friendly group of people. I’m also not sure that I’ve ever received so many dinner invitations at once. Lol! I just hope I’m not too shy to call when we get back into town.

Thursday March 15^th

Our last day in Iowa for this trip. We met Carla Offenburger at the farm in the morning so she could take a few family pictures for their site. After Carla left, we spent the next couple of hours raking old hay out of the barn. We got about 2/3 of it cleared out. The floor was still good in most places. So far we have only found one rotten floor board. We’ll keep our fingers crossed for the rest of it. Now we’re off back to Omaha and then Colorado.

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