A house is not a home... an update

There was an old house in the farm that was in a state of deterioration because it has fallen into disuse. That was the subject of an older entry I called "A house is not a home."

To make a bad situation worse, the wicked October storm blew away the roof of this unused house. And so it looks like it is just waiting for the final blow, for the walls to crumble down into a heap of rubble.

The state of the badly damaged house after the passing of a strong storm...

But as part of the farm's rise from a hard fall, along with the other damaged structures, this old house was also refurbished. A new roof and door frames were installed, the surrounding areas were cleared and spruced up, and a cable fence was erected around it. It looks like someone is going to call this a home after all...

...and its spiffier look after some repairs.

Because our flock of sheep were left homeless when their shabby house was demolished by the storm, they have been left to weather the on and off downpour in the open field. Since the evenings have been cold and wet for the past couple of months they needed a warm and dry place to stay in after sundown. A vacant house and some homeless sheep, just the perfect fit.

The sheep leaving their new house in the morning to forage on the fresh grass outdoors.

One particular blogger friend (hello Andrea...) commented on my "Home-made" post that the house for our goats are way better than some of the houses of the rural folks and more so than the slum dwellers in the urban areas. I wonder what she'll say when she reads this post :-)

Even the veterinarian who regularly visits the farm to check on the health of the animals was surprised when she saw the new residents of this old and once empty house.

postscript:
In the rural areas, a typical house is either made of wood, bamboo or hollow (or cinder) blocks. Most hollow/cinder block houses have unplastered walls due to financial constraints.

Home-made

"A good home must be made, not bought."
Joyce Maynard, "Domestic Affairs"

When Mom and Dad were on a quest to find mates for the Boer doe and the Anglo-Nubian buck, they had the opportunity to go to commercial goat farms and observe the way things are done there. What caught Dad's eyes were the pens housing the goats, how squeaky clean and organized, made of top of the line construction materials. How Dad wished we could have the same set-up in our farm.

A commercial farm's goat house.

Ours is not a commercial animal farm (well, at least not yet) and technically it's just categorized as a "backyard farm". Without access to a solid financing, we must make do with what we have and put to good use whatever available resources we can get hold of.

The structure that houses our goats. Most of the time they're outside grazing.

When the time has come to move the goats out of their current grazing ground to make way for the plants that need to go there, Dad had to build a new house, a better home for the goats. Since the area where they can move about has been drastically reduced in size, the goats' house must be cozy and roomy enough that they won't feel the need to roam out far. Their food must now be brought to them instead of them looking for it.

The new house for our goats, constructed of materials already in the farm.

Taking into consideration what he saw from the commercial farms he had visited, Dad and his crew built our goats' house out of locally available materials. It may be a cheap housing unit, mostly made of wood and bamboo, but when it comes to comfort and function, our goats' new home is certainly at par, if not better than those found in commercial farms.

Inside the goat house.

My impression of the house Dad build for our goats is that it's cute, cozy and warm, unlike the sterile and cold vibe I got when I saw a picture of a commercial farm's housing units.

A house is not a home

"...a house is not a home when there's no one there to hold you tight
and no one there you can kiss goodnight..."
("A House Is Not a Home" by Dionne Warwick)

In my "Signed, sealed and delivered" entry, there is an image of some piles of sand with a decrepit house directly behind it.

You may be wondering whether that is our house. The answer is yes and no.

Several years back, the parcel of lot where this house sits belongs to a good neighbor and that was their house. Before they moved away, they sold the entire property to us. That's how this house became ours. But we already have a house somewhere within the farm, a humble house that is being lived at and lovingly taken cared of. Since there was no need to maintain two houses, this house got neglected and left in its current sorry state.


An unoccupied house behind mounds of sand.

I once visited it and curiously wandered inside. Though functional, it was modest and unfinished. The wooden beams and bricks were left exposed. And so were the corrugated galvanized iron roofing. There was no ceiling. I wondered how hot it would have been inside in the middle of summer. There was no wood nor tiled floors, only dry, hard and caked soil. In the provinces, this is a typical house for a typical farmer. But for a lowly soul, surrounded by his loving and caring family, this is home. It might as well be his castle.

I'm still thinking of how we could use this relic, a memento of its previous owner. Perhaps we could repair and resurrect it as a guesthouse. A future office maybe? Somehow a viable idea eludes me. So for now, it's just as it is, an empty shell, waiting to crumble as time passes by and nature takes its course.