I suppose it's time I start actually contributing something here! I'm pretty excited about getting the plans. It's reassuring to see so many people on the Country Plans forums doing exactly what we are planning to do. I've done some FREE AutoCAD training (thanks to www.mycadsite.com), and I have the basics down. I'm not sure how much value this will have at this point though.

I've made somewhat of an art of finding the best prices on Cheap Chinese Tools at Harbor Freight. You need to know what to buy, and what to avoid. I've gotten some great deals and acquired an arsenal of tools that will be essential for home building. I've bookmarked several threads on such sites as Garage Journal and HF Reviews. We will definitely need a table saw, a framing nailer (luckily I have a gas powered air compressor already), another circular saw, etc.

We got some cheap pallets to play with. The idea is that we get some for free, plane them (need that planer!), and use them for flooring. With a router table, I can probably even make them tongue-and-groove. Sounds crazy? People do it! More to follow...

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!

Duncan. Our one and only Livestock

We got a French/English Angora mixed rabbit a few weeks ago. He's our first venture into livestock for the farm. He'll provide us with wool a few times a year that we'll sell on Etsy and possibly locally for a nice bit I hope. It all depends on the market.

Here he is. Duncan McCloud.

Awww, so fluffy and cute! It's hard to tell how big he actually is so here's a photo that shows him compared to a 32oz water bottle.

Yeah, he's huge. But most of it's 3-4" strands of the softest, fluffiest cloudy material I've ever felt. It's going to be funny seeing him shaved come spring. We're looking for a mate for him and will be building him a larger hutch more off the ground this weekend.

And just because he's so cute...

We might have more livestock news coming soon. Cross your fingers!

Actual progress...I hope

Next month we'll actually get some progress done on our five acres. Income Tax time has come and while most get a little nauesous over it, we get a little giddy. One of the perks for having 5 kids is a nice sized credit, add to that Rob's untaxable income from being in Iraq and we've got a nice little nest egg for the land.

We'll be setting up a hotel room for late February. The first day we'll meet with someone to clear the land with a tractor and bush hog. The next we'll have an eight by twenty shipping container delivered. We already have a few things to put in it for later. We've decided to go with a wood frame house, using recycled materials throughout, and using the shipping container for one side of a pole barn.

It's not a lot of progress but it's something! Stay tuned for more information on the land clearing and shipping container delivery.

Garden Redux

We're winterizing the garden now. Our first year's attempt has, with few exceptions, crashed and burned. If anything, it's made me more determined and maybe a little smarter.

Our goal on our five acres is to have a large, self sustaining garden. The tiny self-watering boxes we have now are a drop in the bucket compared with what we'll have to have in order to eliminate produce purchasing. But it being my first year seriously growing anything, starting small was a necessity.

I'll freely admit that this summer growing season was horrible. My small victories when my motley crew of plants started producing quickly turned into side-show horrors. I never knew bugs proliferated so quickly. Thick, wriggling layers of bugs coated the supple vines and sucked the baby fruits into wrinkled lumps.

FYI assassin beetles fly. When the more than inch long bug, with long spidery legs and a formidable needle nose flew at me after I determinedly sprayed it with orange oil, I swear I could hear him laugh. I have no shame in telling you I gave a most girly shriek and ran for cover, those bastards are scary. And did I mention they fly?? I have a thing about freaky airborne bugs, especially freaky airborne bugs that bite.

The stink bugs and shield beetles were no better but at least they're smaller. Aphids were a nuisance we had as well. Then the eight days of rains drown out over half the plant varieties leaving only a couple of stubborn greenies behind.

Butternut Squash before the invasion.

But that's all past now. I'm hoping to have learned my lessons with the bugs and rains and next summers garden will be heartier, healthier and much much more productive. It really can't get much less productive. I'm picking up some special cloth to cover the beds to organically deter the pests and spending the winter building the frames for said covers. My goal is to do this free or cheap and I'll update on that when I get it worked out.

I ordered music garlic, yellow and bunching onions and a potato mix to winterize the beds. Plus, a bit of sugar snap peas to grow indoors. I'm hoping the fact the produce will be under the ground or in the house will help with pests. I'm still nursing a single very late blooming pepper to harvest I still have high hopes at least those jerks of the bug world didn't fly away with those.

About a dog named Sammy.

Thanks Wikipedia for the photo

 

I found out last week by the city code enforcement that there are no chickens allowed. I had been hoping to get a foot forward towards our land, which is a few hundred miles away, by building a chicken coop and getting a couple chicks. In short clipped words my hopes were dashed.Oh, I'll still get my chickens, just not until we move.

This got me thinking about what animals I could get which I found I'm limited to the standard dog or cat. We have two cats already. A silly boy named Hiro and a fat bitchy girl, Molly. They're a few years old and occasionally bring me kitty sacrifices like gorgeous butterflies and the occasional squirrel. Yuck. At least they raise my hopes for being good barn cats. Somehow though, I think the butterflies are from Hiro,they just seem more his style and I don't think Molly would lower herself to such simplicity. Give her one of those pain in the ass squirrels that taunt the cats by running up a telephone pole and chittering squirrel obscenities a safe distance out of reach and you've given her a fair conquest. Be damned butterflies, squirrels just have more oomph.

So while I'm perfectly pleased with my pansy Hiro and crabby Molly (who I think would be great at kitty roller derby) I'm pretty settled with the cats we have. That just leaves a dog.

Rob and I aren't what you'd call "dog people". We like dogs. We grew up with dogs but many of the dog obsessing attributes just aren't there. So why do we want one? Well, it's easy. Dogs are cool. You will not ever find us with a dog in a stroller, those are for babies. Human ones. You won't find us dressing up a dog either. It's just not right (even if we had made one of our cats a faux lion mane hat one year for Halloween, that's different because cats hate that and it's funny). I can probably promise I will never have a bumper sticker saying "I love my dog" or "dog taxi". Not going to happen.

I personally can't stand tiny dogs either. Anything under, say, thirty pounds and it's more like a yippy toy to me. I want a dog that makes people reel when I walk down the street. A dog that doesn't take a "poo" but requires some heavy duty shit shoveling. One that needs a tranq gun instead of baby Benedryl. In essence, I want a small bear or pony that gets it's DNA in the canine family.

Tiny dogs are great but I treat them like single people with kids. Play with them a little and give them back. I know. I have single friends with small dogs. I play with their dogs, they play with my kids then take our property back at the end each having had our fill of the other. We get along great.

So, here comes Sammy. I fell absolutely head over heels in love with the first Newfoundland puppy I met. I haven't been the same since. I know that if the totally wonderful family hadn't been there scooping him up we would have. He was solid black and named Sammie and that just felt right to call this big bear of a dog. Even at six months the Sammie we met was well into the 50+lb range. Mmmm.

I wish Rob could have been there to see that lovely dog being tackled by toddlers and never even making a yip. Shaking off the kids and padding on huge paws a few feet away when he had too much. He was truly the gentle giant the breed is described as.

Now my heart is opened up a space for a 150lb black dog. I imagine Sammie romping with his two little boys that adopted him and picture our own Newfie, Sammy girl, romping some day with my bairn. We'd excavate the pond on our land so she can be true to her water loving nature and throw her mannequins to rescue.

Our land has grown...upward.

Since our visit out last February it seems the weeds, wildflowers and brush have run rampant! Some are taller than me and as far as I can tell, there isn't a bare patch to be found without at least calf high grass. Lots of wonderful things happen when things are left to nature; there were some beautiful plants, a plethora of butterflies, grasshoppers and crickets, the sound of lively birds chirping. Also, many not as great things, like the six foot bushes, especially when hoping to build.

So, now the next on our to-do list has become cleaning off the land. As picturesque as it is now, there's just no way to build without some extensive cleaning up. I've posted on craigslist to find someone that can do it but I think we might be waiting till we can rent an RV and meet whomever up there. It was just too hard this last time keeping the kids in the car buckled in their seats.

We drove around a bit up into Lake Butler. There wasn't much out there though. Perhaps if we go up in an RV we can take a more extensive drive. The GPS defiantly helped us not to get lost! We couldn't find the land on the GPS since we don't have an address yet and Rob couldn't get the file with the lat. and long. to open before we left, but after we got there we pin pointed ourselves.

Not much accomplished but the photo above just strengthened out desire to get out there as soon as we can!