Homestead Update

I’ve had good intentions on blogging more but I seem to get discouraged easily. I’ve started more unfinished blogs in the past year than I have my previous 9 years of blogging. I admit, part of it is FB makes me blog lazy.

Many supporters and non supporters alike have suggested that we should go offline. But that will not change the behavior of those who are a threat to my family. I want to separate those people from simple naysayers. Those who are just critical of us, whether it be some or all aspects of our life, are harmless people voicing an opinion. My concerns are the few who have made our family a target. And nothing we do will deter them. We just do all we can to keep our family safe, and we will continue to document. But going offline will not appease them. Nor am I wanting to appease them.

The past 22 months have changed us in good and bad ways. I’m the first to recognize I gave become far more cynical. What little faith I had in justice and in our constitution has been crushed. In addition my faith in God has also diminished. But we are also stronger. As a couple and as a family and as individuals. Maybe we’ve always had the strength but didn’t recognize it. Some days I feel I can’t do this anymore, it’s all overwhelming. I just feel it never ends. When it looks to be closing, we get another hit. It gets discouraging. But we are so filled with blessings. I’m trying to focus on the good in this.

When we bought this property we knew it was a lot of work. We knew it would take time and money to get it where we wanted it. When the children were taken we literally lost all desire to be here. We looked at other properties in the area but didn’t make any decisions without the children. After the children came home we still kept looking but didn’t decide on a place.

In spring of 2016 we planned and planted and began to settle back in. But the harassment escalated and we didn’t feel like we belonged and we certainly didn’t feel safe. We decided to move out of the area, across the state lines. We found a place perfect for us. It was such a peaceful spot. The trees were just beautiful. It was the same commute distance to the salon. It was double the land and double the payment. We discussed it as a family and as a couple and decided to wait till spring, giving us more time to save up, to make sure we were settled for winter and to be sure we could manage the increased expenses.

Around Christmas time the attacks on our family, both at home and at my salon escalated to the point we needed to move and we wanted to move quickly. We had most of the money to move to the land we found , but we were looking for options to make the move sooner or find a temporary or alternative location. It never happened. Last month we finally had all the funds to move to the land we wanted. We got everything situated for the move, negotiated a deal, and we were finally scheduled to sign the contract.

Then we got a call the next day. We hit a roadblock. The higher ups in the lending company, the company we have been doing business with for the past 3+ years, had made a decision. Even tho we are in good standing with them, they stated that due to the harassment against us they had decided not to sell to us in another location. They stated that they knew those that have targeted us will follow us where ever we go and they didn’t want to drag it into another community. While I was deeply hurt by this, my children were deeply hurt by this, I understand. I don’t want to deal with these people any more than they do. And while I do have some satisfaction in that we finally have evidence and provable damages for our defamation case that is currently being worked on, it’s still emotionally hard to reconcile.

We took a step back, took a few days and then sat down weighed the pros and cons and decided what to do next. We could stay in limbo another 6-12 months and save more to go with another lender or we could continue building the homestead here. We have decided to stay, put the money we had budgeted on a larger land payment back into the homestead. We are finishing out a few larger projects, including a bigger cabin and in August we will begin using those funds to pay the land off early. That’s the plan.

We chose this other property not just to get out of Breckinridge Co, Ky, but it was more suited for our needs, larger land with room to expand. We could start building without having to excavate dump sites. So the decision was hard in more than one way. Staying also has its benefits. Good or bad the community knows us. And eventually they will run out of reasons to take us to court (insert eye roll). We have buried several family pets here and leaving that was hard on a few of us. The other property didn’t have a pond, and building one is tricky. And we are settled here, despite the trials we do have a lot of local support. I think the more time we have to heal the better it will get. While we still fear a few unhinged loons turn vigilantes, we have been able to secure our safety a bit more.

Outside of this, we still have a few other issues, the IPO cases, Joes harassment case and our Family Court Case are all still open. But I do feel better about those at this time. I’ve been wanting to write a few more blogs on our other blog but its emotionally draining to do so. And I don’t feel it’s good for me at this time. I do have a few guest posts I’m trying to compile but reading them are just as hard. As much as I want our story told, I’m not always ok with having to relive some of it.

The best news is that our family is doing well despite all of this. My children are still a little on edge when we have court, and the move being cancelled was discouraging and the older ones are becoming increasingly frustrated with those who are continuing to not only target my husband and I, but have expanded their vileness to direct attacks on the teenagers. The business is growing strong and the older children are enjoying working and have made some great investments. Quinten is stepping up his wood working business and will be marketing it soon. Abigail spends most of her money on books, art supplies her horse and now her puppy. She has no interest in selling her art at this time. Issac is investing in tools to begin working with Quinten. He’s also looking to learn to design video game apps.

The FB page is huge and we are appreciative of all the support we get there. But I will be actively posting more of our detailed posts on the blog and less on FB, although we will still post things like our Instagram photos there.

If you are wanting to continue to follow our journey, make sure you subscribe to the blog via email so you get posts as they are posted. I won’t be sharing much on the FB after a while.

Sunday I will post the rabbit processing including how we did with our rabbits feet. We are working on seedlings this week and getting the greenhouse going and a baby chick house so I will update on those projects as well.