Yay! we are moving forward!!!

Ok we are onboard for building this fall.  Sounds like after talking to the finance guy that we should be approved (not worried) and able to get started.  Trying to wrap my head around it.  Its this plan
The Raleigh

A

Moving forward?

Moving forward is more of an inquiry than a statement today.  Tomorrow we speak with a builder about beginning a build.  Its very exciting but I have some concerns related to financing that hopefully won't amount to anything. 

The hay has been rained on now many times and I'm sure is only good for cows.  We've had a couple of people call on it but they never seem to follow through with the call back and pick up.  Not exactly sure what's going on there.

The garden is fading fast with the exception of a few plants; okra, popcorn, cowpeas, pintos, chard and kohlrabi.  I'm actually a bit eager for the end of this years garden.  

Ruined Hay

So this morning we had planned to wake early and deal with the hay only to have it rain before we leave the apartment.  Ugh.  I think someone/thing is trying to let us know that this hay was not meant to be.  So now we need to try to unload it or find a creative use for it.  I thought about donating it, freecycling it, making a shed of it (like a strawbale but hay instead), using it as tree mulch.  Its hard to say what is the best thing to do with it now that its pretty much worthless.

On the positive, we are going to visit TK homes today about an email offer that is pretty awesome and might allow us to build soon.....REALLY soon!  More to come on that, I'm trying not to get too excited about it.

Wet Hay

Wet hay is a very bad thing.  Its our second cutting of hay and we had it done in square bales this time and it was all going pretty well until it rained this morning--and looks like its going to rain off and on all night.  For us it means making tepees out of hay bales so they air out and dry again or suffer the consequence of ruined hay.  Like 100 + bales of ruined hay.  At $3.00 a bale that's money lost.  Not to mention, what do you do with that many bales of bad hay?  I guess it could be mulch for our orchard but we still have about 10 round bales left from the first cut that are needing to be used up or sold.  Did I mention that we suck at selling hay?  I'm thinking of asking my DH to let me handle the business of hay since I'm more available than he is in the hopes that we can do a better job of selling it off when the time comes. 

What! Its August???

Time flies, does it?  My last entry was in May so that's 2 months of busy work to keep me from updating my blog (I swear busy non-stop...haha!)  Ok, so I may be exaggerating a bit.  We did find a couple of builders that we like but the cost of building with a custom builder seems too high for today's housing market- we have some big concerns that the bank won't finance a custom home because it won't appraise high enough.  I think we will probably end up with the likes of Hallmark or TK homes.  There is also another option we are considering in that we are going to look at existing homes with acreage.  This could be a really good thing since we would have more total acres and we might end up paying less overall.  Anyhow, nothing at this point is set in stone.  We are going to start looking at existing properties and in the spring when we have our down payment together we will build if we don't find the perfect existing home. 
I have a couple of new ideas for a home based business.  One is home orchard management- taking care of existing apple trees in people's yards for the payment of 1/2 the produce.  It doesn't make money but it would give me valuable practice and of course lots of apples and hopefully other fruits.   I'm not ready to share my other idea, I still have much research to do.
The garden has been crazy.  We went on vacation in June and low and behold the skies opened up and rained for an entire week!  My garden looked pretty good before we left but when we got back the weeds had shot up a foot and the bugs had gone wild.  My tomatoes took it the hardest.  It looked (and still looks) like they were hit with blight, hornworms, blossom end rot...the works.  For about 2 weeks I was throwing away tomatoes for rot.  They are recovering and I'm getting some decent 'maters but I'm not sure I'll have enough to do much with them.  The corn also suffered; was stunted and lot of tassels but no ears.  Some patches are doing better than others so we might have some late corn but overall pretty disappointing.  My squash/cukes/melons were getting taken on by squash bugs.  I was tearing off leaves to remove the eggs and eventually I dusted them to kill them off.  I can however seem to grow beans pretty well :)
My son is growing fast, he's 15 months and walks well so when we go to the garden he usually ends up heading for the tomatoes.  Boy that kid can make short work of a 'mater.  He will pick it right off the vine and just begin chowing down.  That's my boy!! Glad I grow organic!