May Worries

Renting is driving me mad. There, I said it. Initially, it seemed like a wonderful way to get to the area we wanted to live in, the house we rented seemed to be just what we were looking for in terms of expanding our farming base and had the possibility of long term renting with an option to buy. But sometimes you get into something, thinking you've done your due dilligence and it isn't at all what you thought. It happens. It's not irresponsibility, it's just the way things work out.

It's terribly frustrating and worrisome when it happens though. This week I planted the very last of the crops we'll grow here. We had initially thought we would stay here a few years as we worked toward our final goal but the landlords attitude towards keeping the house running, the exhoribtant cost of fuel for communting and the neighborhood restrictions have squashed that view. We're looking at October for moving. Right when the pumpkins should be hardening up, a month before the turkeys get butchered, the time when cover crops and garlic get planted.

I'm already looking ahead five months, trying to figure out when and where we'll move, how we'll get there and what we can do. Five months seems like forever. When you're considering leases, its just too far ahead to sign, but considering we're already five months into 2011 it's a drop in the bucket in terms of time lines.

Our initial dream of building our own home ourselves on our own land had withered and died as the new spring grass was rising from the once frozen ground. It just can't happen for us when we're going month to month in a "food or gas?" state of accounts. While I miss them, it was a silent blessing larger livestock didn't stay on board here this year.

Right now, we're downscaling. Five of the three month hens found a new home yesterday. We're looking to rehome four rabbits leaving just our two breeding stock. Half the turkeys will be gone by Thanksgiving, a few chickens this weekend will become groceries. We're still debating what to do and where to do it. Florida is a humid, hot task master making farming more a chore than a joy, the half a year heat is something I'm thinking paradise to escape. But these are vast, huge choices and with our past bad luck of moving to a place and then finding out it isn't condusive to our dreams, makes those choices even more foreboding. Makes it even more difficult to make a choice as my thoughts continuously run around all the ways I could (and probably will) screw it up.

The what-ifs of moving, chosing and planning are weighing heavy on my May mind.

Now I know why

there are so few small farms in Florida. The state makes it impossible for anyone of moderate income to build a house without first taking out a mortgage and leveraging your soul.

On the phone yesterday talking with a man that has a Ph.D. in architecture, I was informed that a 36' square, dirt floor barn for livestock would cost roughly eight grand for the plans. The ones we bought from Stable Wise are now useless because they have no Florida licenced stamp of approval. That no one that has a licence would risk authorizing use of these plans (which are CAD drawn and up to codes of just about every state) without completely redrawing them and assessing a hefty fee.

The past week, after getting our letter from the mortgage company, I've been optimistic that we have a place to go, that with a little work we'll be okay. We'd be on our land, how could things be bad then? We've been uplifted by the support of strangers. We started stingily doling out the little resources we've been blessed with by buying things to make the shabin habitible.

Before buying the land we did our due dilligence and found out what it would take to get a house built. The packet from the building department seemed pretty straight forward. The papers from the sale were cut and dry. The building department never hinted that anything they told us to do would be tens of thousands to accomplish just to get a hundred dollar permit. We didn't delve into the real meat of building a house. We never imagined that Florida's new laws would make building the small home and livestock barns utterly impossible.

So, where do we go now? What do we do? We're looking into mobile homes, looking at amassing a debt we didn't want. Then even contemplating leaving the state, selling the land and heading to areas where laws are less restrictive. We wanted security with buying land, a place to weather out the stormy economy, a place to leave our children when we die but lawmakers and beurocrats have decided that unless we have hundreds of thousands of dollars at our disposal, we're not entitled to have that security. The hurricanes a few years ago have left the state in ruin. No one wants to accept responsibility for buildings and those that will step up to the plate (mainly architects) are going to want a lot of money upfront for "putting their necks on the chopping block" when disaster strikes. The insurance companies want a scapegoat and have somehow goaded the lawmakers into making that happen.

According to the architect I spoke with, there are no "stock plans" to purchase, that each home needs to be evaluated, the soil tested for stability, wind loads calculated by the new standards. Even without a mortgage or insuring the house, or ever intending to sell it the state won't allow for anything to be built without these restrictions.

So, today I will research more, scour the Earth for a solution. A mobile home on the land might be a possibility, I have some calls out to different places to see what will be.

Electric and Plans

I think we've decided to go ahead and set up electric service on the land, connecting it to the Shabin. The idea of going completely off-grid is really ideal but we have babies to care for and can't rely on not having enough power to run tools and other vital building implements. We still have the generator which is a great thing to have. Chances are, when we go up on the 4th of July weekend, there won't be power. Besides, just because we're connected to the grid, doesn't mean we have to use it.

The electric co-op that services our area requires fees of almost $400 to set up the meter and run a line. If they have to set up poles I'm not sure if they charge for that or not. I don't think they will as the power line runs right on the road we're on. The set-up cost is definately something that we'll feel out of pocket.

There is also a note on the set-up worksheet that says they won't go out until we've applied with the Building and Zoning Department, though they didn't mention that when I spoke with them and told them we didn't have anything on the books yet and had no clear time-frame of having it set up in the main house.

If that is the case, there is another at least $420* due to submit our plans and that's after we've had it signed off on my electricians, plumbers and architects and those fees incurred with that. And actually finalized the floor plan we want to go with, of course.

So, progress has been made in the field of information but so far, that's all.

*$424 is the estimate submission fees for 1900 heated sq. ft with no porch, attached garage or other.

House Plans and Pottys

A few months ago we announced that we had purchased house plans. Well...true to just about everything we do, we think we changed our minds. A friend at church directed us to some easy to build homes utilizing a dry stack block method of building.

Since we're doing this on our own (no mortgage, no contractors, no laborers other than ourselves) it makes sense to do this efficiently both in cost and time. A dry stack house can be done by one person or two and you can leave off without worry about weather damage to what you have gotten built. Sounds good, now we just need a new houseplan!

The other order or business is doing our business. We've been planning on heading up to the shabin for a few weeks now but there is only one problem: How to potty? With five little ones (3.75 of which are potty trained) we need a way for them to go to the bathroom without having to trek across almost the entire property in the middle of the night to the privacy of the woods. I'm not really quite scrappy enough to chance the darkness and the animals for this kind of adventure. At least not yet. Also, we don't want to risk contaminating our land with human waste either by just randomly digging holes.

A composting toilet was our first thought but the only size we'd be able to use in the shabin won't be functional in our regular house. At a price tag over $1500, it's not an option to throw that money away on a short term potty solution. Though I do like the overall idea of a waterless composting toilet for the house's long term solution.

Last week, while I was perusing Hobby Farm Home magazine at Girl Scouts, I saw an ad for an incinerating toilet. Hmmm, could this work?

The price tag is about the same for the electric model as the seasonal use composting toilet and it would be able to be moved and used in the main house without any changes. The only issue we have is the safety factor during a burn cycle and the cost of the specialized liners it requires. Overall, this seems the best bet and we've been doing a lot of research into it. The price tag is steep for something that just is for one specific function but if we can't go up to stay to build, no building will get done.

Other than that, we're itching to go back up and start working on the shabin to make it livable for building. I long for that peaceful surrender that overtakes me when we visit our own little slice of Earth.

The Obsessions Spreading

I've been working on the floorplan for the new house...a lot. Alex -whose 7- has been asking me if he can play in Visio and make his own house plans. Since I can't fing the program and the only one is on my pc I've been putting the poor kid off. So he took matters into his own hands.

I think we've got something here. Though he does seem to have a few too many hallways. We'll have to teach him about small footprints and utilizing space next.

As soon as I have our plan cemented a little more I'll post screen shots of it. We're basically going with the plan for the 20x34' Universal as is with a few modifications, we're dropping the bathrooms down to 1 large one and creating a regular staircase to the attic which will help us utilize that space for either storage or later refinish for additional rooms when the kids become teens. A few other smaller modifications and that's the new house.

We have BARN plans!

At www.stablewise.com you can purchase a variety of barn plans for little money. You can also download them instantly for even less. (Photo above is from Stable Wise website).

This barn houses four 12x12' pens a tack area and wash area and stairs to a hay loft. It measures 36x36' square. The barn is supposed to be for horses but I think it's about perfect for our goats and milk cow. Between the stalls I'll build a U shaped channel on both sides of the wall where they're normally divided into 2 pens. Here I'll be able to slide in 1x8x12 boards to create a chest high wall that will be removable. This way I can let the goats all live together and sanction off a section as needed for kidding, illness or bucks. The tack and wash areas are also convertable to pens. Since I don't really need tack for them I might make the part with stairs to the hay loft both the tack and wash leaving the other 12x12 side available for more livestock. The beauty of the plan is it the modularity (that's a word, right?)

I've emailed a guy that has some 25 and 30 foot long telephone poles (this is a pole barn btw) for sale and he delivers. I'm waiting for a quote.

I want to submit these plans with the house so we can work on what we want as materials, time and money permit. Having the large barn available for building materials and shaded workspace might be a bonus to have in the sweltering Florida sun. Plumbing will come in the form of rain barrels which will also be used for watering the animals. Positioning them on the North facing wall will provide shelter from the sun, keeping them cool. This will also eliminate the need for plumbing permits, inspections and additional costs to build. I'm also thinking solar for the lighting as I'd only need it when I went in to see them.

This barn is where the pallets will come heavily into play. If we can figure out how to pull of the boards without cracking them (we've been having a problem with that) I'd like to use them for siding the barn. A coat of paint and no one would know the difference. Light colored or tin roofing will help deflect heat. We'll build the barn doors ourselves with scraps unless we can get a good deal on them or find them used. Up there is Ag country and a plethora more resources than we have in the city. At least I hope so.
Right now we're finalizing the house floor plan. I'll be making calls this week to find out about permit prices. We have a lead on a bus which might pan out to our benefit. Not exactly what we're looking for but in our price range. Stay tuned, much more to come!

A few things have happened

I posted more indepth on my sister blog http://www.solidityofrainbows.blogspot.com/ and I apologize for those following that I didn't do it here. I forget that some things are actually farm/homestead related more than my general BS I put on the other site. I'll try and sumarize best I can and add more than what I posted there.

We've been contemplating going off grid, if it's do-able and the benefits/cons on it all. I think I definately want some solar power, possibly convert some appliances to propane and definately have a wood burning source of heat. We're just not sure if that's all we'll have. Remember, we're in FL. It's hot, AC is a must.

I bought a Kill A Watt meter yesterday off Amazon so we can go around and figure out what is being a major energy drain both on and off. We can then decide about keeping the item, limiting the use or replacing with something more efficient. If we find things that have high drains during standby there's a nifty little thing called Bye Bye Standby which is a remote "switch" that you plug in and it'll turn off/on your stuff. Brilliant. And cheap.

In other news we bought our house plans! http://www.countryplans.com/ has very nice, practical, inexpensive plans that have actually been built by actual people. Not contractors or builders. On weekends. With no mortgage. Seeing the progress of the homes done sometimes by people that have no building skill at all is amazingly inspiring. We chose the 20x34 Universal and will lengthen it to 38' with a living attic. We're still working on the floor plans right now. I have a 3D home design software coming too so we can work out the interior layout more specifically.

We're also planning on the shipping container delivered and land to be cleared later this month. What's holding us back is figuring out how we're going to get up there to do this. It's a three hour drive one way. It will most likely be a 2 day project. Do we rent a hotel and then one of us just hang out with the kids there or do we possibly buy a used RV trailer and bring that up with us. Problem with the RV trailer is that anything large enough to sleep all of us is too large to be pulled by either of our vehicles. Going with a self propelled model gives us another motor to worry about. We were going to go with converting a used school bus but the cheap buses you could find years ago have apparently disappeared, finding anything in the 40' range below or around $2k is almost impossible. Then there's the work on converting it. Something that won't happen by the time we want to get the container delivered.

But we've come this far and something will fall into our laps that will be the perfect solution to what we need to get this done. If it takes a few extra weeks, that should be okay but we have materials that are sitting that we'd like to get moved over that way.

Cross your fingers for us and if anyone is in Florida and has a trailer, shipping container or school bus for sale send us a shout!