Living at the Homestead

We still owned our house in St. Louis, so we spent most weekends at the Homestead working and cleaning it up. In the early days we lived in our popup camper, first set up in the front yard, and later (as winter neared) inside the barn. We renovated the bathroom and kitchen sink in the old house enough to use them. It was still pretty gross, and the house became known as the "shower house," because that was about the only reason for us to use it.

Our original plan consisted of building a horse barn and converting half of it into an apartment that we could live in for a couple of years while we demolished the old house and built a new one in its place. In November, that plan was revised to consist of buying a used single wide trailer to live in until the new house was built.

We discovered that it was surprisingly difficult to find a single wide in decent condition at a reasonable price. We eventually located one in Springfield, IL. By the time we had worked out the finances and signed on the dotted line, it was March, and the last good freeze of winter had just ended. The ground was thawing out and everything was a muddy mess. Unfortunately for us, the trailer had to move about 400' across our front yard to reach it's resting place, and the more the temperature rose, the more difficult that became.

It took about a month for the weather to cooperate enough that we could finally move the trailer. Even so, it took over five hours to get it across the yard on planks, and several of the service trucks had to be pulled out of the mud.