Our house sold!

Finally we have a sale! We close out this chapter of our lives on May 7th. My DH and I decided to move into an apartment so we have plenty of time to find and start building on our property. This is so exciting. We are researching builders right now, getting some mixed reviews on a few; fortunately we have 6 months to find one which will allow us 6 months to build a home. I may have to rename my blog to How to Build a Farm after that.

Our apartment will be cramped for us, a good 300 sq ft smaller (missing a bedroom and a bath from our house). Most of our stuff will remain in storage so building a house will be a priority. One big plus is that our apartment is very close to our property so we will be able to garden and make daily trips out there as the season calls for it.

We spoke to Hallmark builders, they want us to begin building in August... seems too soon for us really since we took on a burden of debt to sell our house and we'd like to pay that down first.

Well more to come as the events unfold...

Its March! ramblings from me

Oh my its March....that means garden season is nearly here. I have some head starts on broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage all ready to go for spring planting. I'm direct sowing this year carrots-rainbow, nantes, tendersweet, peas- misty and maestro english and snow peas, variety lettuces, spinach....just to name a few.

I seriously have cabin fever. I'm trying to arrange a walking group and the idea thats floating in my head would be a walking group that visits various historic areas and walking trails on a regular basis. Sounds good to me anyhow, social interaction plus the added benefit of some great scenery.

My son is going to be 10 months on the 5th and I'm still in awe of how fast a year is approaching. This time last year I was on bedrest, bored out of my mind going in for weekly ultrasounds and checks. Amazing what a difference a year makes.

Food Inc.

I've been on a documentary kick since we enrolled in Netflix. I finally watched Food Inc. and it was really moving. I nearly cried listening to the seed cleaning guy have to turn in his customers and friends while on trial with Monsanto (GRRRRR! I have NO love for that company). So many disturbing things about that video and a few things that some people would find disturbing that I didn't. (I also watched King Corn so if I confuse the 2 sorry )
The corn subsidy, the folks who complained about the price of medicine but bought crappy food, the GM foods, the prevalence of E coli in beef and elsewhere all bothered me. Oh and the ammonia laced beef additive---ewwww! I'm so glad I don't eat beef!

6 more weeks of winter

I have my seeds, mulch and starting medium and I've been busy potting up seeds for the spring. So far I have 8 cold set tomatoes, 8 plum dandy tom, 8 variety slicers (rutgers, marmande, cavern, etc) and 8 cherry tom (golden current, swt. baby girl, reisentraube, etc), 6 red skinned potato (out of my pantry..lol), 8 dusky aubergine, 8 variety aubergine, 8 hot peppers and 8 bell peppers. tonight I think I may start my cabbage, cauliflower, broccolis and whatever other ones I need to start early like amaranth (don't have many seeds). I lost my packet of amish paste tom seeds so I'll look for some at a nearby store.

This is looking like the start of a busy season.

The Business of Being Born

So I decided to watch this documentary Ricki Lake put out called The Business of Being Born; I think I may have even seen it at least in part before. Also right now in Indymoms there are some discussion threads about home births and their values, risks etc and the posters like to refer to this movie as pro-home birth. Anyhow mostly this movie is pro but at the end the filmmaker who was pregnant during filming and planning a home birth ended up having a c-section at a local hospital and delivered a teeny tiny growth restricted baby...something that probably would have been caught had she been monitored by an OB rather than a midwife and had she had a homebirth as she had planned she probably would have lost her baby. seems like they defeated their intent.

Planning for critters

I'm thinking positive today. I believe that sometime this year we will sell our house OR we will obtain the house at the front of our property...either way its a good thing. So for critters out there here are the zone rules we must follow:
concept of Farm Animal Unit has been created to balance the impact of large and small animals.
FA-01: This Farm Animal Standards section applies to the following districts:
AP AG CR R1 R2 GC HC LI GI
A. Exemptions: All lots shall be permitted up to and including 0.4 animal units for the purpose of
facilitating participation in 4-H and other educational opportunities. All lots which include 0.4 or
fewer animal units shall be exempt from the setback requirements of this section.
B. Farm Animal Defined: Nothing in this section shall be interpreted as regulating the keeping of
household pets. For the purpose of this section, farm animals shall be defined as those which are
raised and maintained for, or in support of, the production of food or other products.
C. Lot Size: The minimum lot size on which farm animals are permitted shall be 4 acres.
D. Animal Units Permitted: There shall be 2 animal units permitted per acre as determined based
on the following table. The Planning Director shall have the discretion to determine the minimum
acreage for any farm animals not listed.
Animal Type Units:
Large Animals (horses, cattle, buffalo, camels,
donkeys) 1.5
Medium Animals (llamas, emu, ostrich, alpacas,
sheep, goats) 1
Small Animals (pigs, turkeys, geese) 0.5
Very Small Animals (chickens, rabbits, ducks) 0.1

so any 2 goats or sheep per acre, any 4 pigs, turkey or geese per and any 20 chickens, rabbits or ducks. I think my ideal situation would be a 3-4 diary goats (staggered lactations - kids for meat or sale), a sow (to breed yearly-piglets for meat or sale), 8 layers, 20 fryers, 10 turkeys and rabbits ...this would give us meat, dairy and egg self-sufficiency. we have just enough room :D

that and a 1 acre garden(eventually) and our orchard (planted just needs to mature), leave an acre for the house and yard...should be fantastic! Boy, I hope this is our year.

New Year, New Goals

I'm not even going to try to call this a resolution. Its more like goals or ideas.

1. I going to continue my deconstructive phase; that is taking convenience items and breaking them back down into their simpler origins.
2. I would like to lose some weight. I figure I'm about 70lbs beyond where I should be...if I could lose half of that I would be a lot healthier.
3. I would love to find myself pregnant again sometime in the late part of 2010. I know that could be contradictory to my 2nd goal but a girl can dream (and if I lost the weight it would make my pregnancy easier on my back)
4. Plant a productive garden and actually use the produce that comes out of it.
5. Stick to our budget and begin to save money toward an emergency fund.
6. Learn to thrift shop- might need some help with that one from a few friends...I'm no good at shopping at Goodwill.
7 Actively search for an independent work from home business. Might be selling produce or sewing or jewelry but I really think this is something I should be aiming for.