December 31, 2016

Trying to find a trailer we could live in while building has proven to be difficult. We have looked around, postulated the possibilities, found that we are either not going to like what we get, get something on payments we do not want, or have little use for what we have after we are done with it.

So last Monday we drove to Creswell to look at a few options then come back the slow way through Junction City (home of a lot of RV lots). We found a nice fifth wheel that would certainly do the job (on payments) in Creswell, from a nice woman too. But the idea of payments, and the long ride home gave us time to look deeply into what we were doing. Eventually we got through re-examining everything and, long story short, the option of finding a derelict trailer, stripping it down to the frame, and building what we want, seemed a possibility worth exploring. When we got back home I immediately found a thirty four foot trailer that would do the thing, and it was already stripped down to the frame! We decided to buy it the next day.

I woke up at 2 A.M. with worries. I knew I could definitely build the thing, had the money to buy everything, and nothing stood between us and the tiny house plan. But having a thirty four foot trailer at the end only had one use: as a house for our son to live in. There really wasn't anything else we could do with it, and re-selling a home built trailer was going to be a problem. We could maybe rent it out, but that is not the business we wanted to be in. And above all else, the width would only be nine feet, when a bed is seven feet, so tightness would be a concern.

Laying there in the wee hours I went through the building plan possibilities for the frame I found. Moving things around in my head I found fitting enough into the trailer to live wouldn't be much of a problem, but the idea still nagged at me. It occurred to me that the square footage alone was not enough to make us comfortable. Eventually I threw the idea out and, with a blank slate, started over (at about four in the morning). This is the decision I made.

Buy two derelict trailers, neither more that twenty feet, and build a double wide tiny home of sixteen by twenty feet. The square footage would be larger, the trailers easier to find and cheaper to buy, and the entire project easier to tow around. I did some looking around and found out that this will be the first ever double wide tiny home. So I messed around with some designs on my CAD program and eventually got the thing done on paper. So we went out looking at trailers. We made a deal on the first trailer we found and made an appointment to see the next candidate, and bought a nice gyro at the Mad Greek Deli.

The next morning I went out and bought the second one, a twenty four footer (bigger than the plan called for). And better still the guy we bought it from wanted to do the demolition for us, leaving a blank frame! But the second trailer (from the day before) fell through.

I changed the design to accommodate the extra four feet and this is the floor plan as of today . . .

The topmost part is the living section, the bottom the bedroom.
The washer and dryer are in the bedroom, but there is a walk in closet too.
And the pass through allows the dining area and sleeping area can blend a little.
One the left, behind the house, is the daytime dog run where the hounds will stay.

Click for larger image

Each side has it's own shed styled roof, the living room side is ten feet at the peak, the bedroom side has an eight foot peak, they meet in the middle and will add interest to the finished product. After we use this house for building, the two haves will be re-purposed.

• The large half will become Jack's apartment home, or the first tiny home rental, and for one person this is sufficient once the couch is traded out for a hide-a-bed (maybe a Murphy bed). 
• The bedroom half will become the boarding and breeding kennel. 

So this should be cute enough and comfortable enough, for long enough. But not so much so that we will want to linger in living there.

We still need a second trailer to do the second half (the lower half on this picture), but since there is no plumbing in the bedroom section, things are easier to build and not nearly so much time and effort. We are beginning to buy parts, and have already begun building shelving into the shipping container so that we can move our stuff out of our home so that we can remodel it before selling. But money has been spent, and we are on the way.

We didn't make the New Years Resolution goal of moving onto the property in 2016, but things look better for 2017. They deliver the first frame on Tuesday. We move in March.

November 25, 2016

Progress has been slow when it came to saving enough money to continue with our project. These past months have been the doldrums,no wind to propel us forward. The election took its toll, the phone wasn't ringing. But our Christmas lighting business has never failed us, and did not fail this time, so things are looking good all of the sudden.

We now have the money for our temporary trailer home, but the time to buy is not yet come. Now we have to find the right  trailer. Something that will double as a home while we build and then become something else. As we were waiting, we were looking. The amount we have budgeted should do the job well, but Craig's List is a hit and miss thing with plenty of people having time to post suspicious and false advertising. We will kiss frogs until we find our prince. . .

Having achieved this big goal, we have identified the next steps.

1. Build shelving into the shipping container so that we can begin moving the thousands of things out of our house. We will do this immediately because we have been collecting and packing boxes for months with no place for them to be while we pack more.
2. Build the fence at the front gate. This is a 75 x 50 foot enclosure where we will put the trailer and park the cars. It will have gates on all four sides and be leveled off using gravel. we can do this once we have saved the money.
3. Get the electricity permitted and installed. Then we will have water too. This is another money saving goal.
4. Buy the trailer and begin moving our family to the farm. We have the money for this today.

All of this should be done by mid-March, we hope to move in early-April with the dogs. Surprisingly, the money to do the renovation is already available, but with four dogs in the house it is silly to buy carpet and paint walls. With the half-million things in the house, everything is difficult.

Once moved we can renovate our house properly, sell it, and begin the building phase of our project in earnest. There is much to do and we are about one-third of the way there.

The goals have moved, but they are being achieved, one at a time.

October 14, 2016

We were able to get out an burn a big pile last Saturday, felling one medium sized fir and burning the branches. Last night we went out to look things over and the burn pile was really quite small.

The storms coming in this weekend will keep us in town, safe and dry.

We are shopping for a park model trailer to renovate and live in while we build the farm house. But things are looking up a little bit.

Oct 6, 2016 Back to work

They have lifted the burn ban. So we are finally going to get back to work clearing the land.

This weekend we will burn what we have and try to drop a tree, maybe two.

Looking forward to making some progress, even a little will be a big deal.\

It has been a long time coming.

Sept. 15, 2016

Another big baby step. We have re-roofed our house and painted one bathroom.

I know it doesn't sound like much when stated simply in one short sentence, but the simple words don't begin to tell the story of the projects. A roof is a big thing for people who don't do roof. Jack and I spent four days nailing down new tiles, Ann spent four days picking up the trash as it hit the ground. Ultimately we go the job done. So now we are one big baby step away from being able to sell the house and move to the farm.

The bathroom isn't so much, just finding the time. Seven more rooms to go.

August 29, 2016 Necessary Update

It seems to me that nothing is happening around the Farm this past few months. We are waiting on money to continue the project and our other business is slow for the time being. But we have been doing some planning as we wait, trying to fill in the details of the very broad stroke plan I put here in the Spring. I won't bore you with the details since, like most of my careful plans, not many of them come to fruition just as I wrote them. It is better that we all wait and see what happens.

The only part of the plan we have going today is the new roof on our home, getting the house ready to sell so that we have the money to build the next. I have been slowly painting the interior of our home and doing little fixes as well. The place ought to be ready to sell in the Spring, but are we ready to move to the next phase in April so that we can be built in June or July?

We have  decided to buy a derelict park model trailer as a project and to put it in our driveway to work on during the coming winter so that we have a place to move in March. We have to move prior to selling so that we have the dogs out of our home and carpets can be replaced. The money for the roof is there, the trailer will come sometime in October. The rest of it is as it comes.

On the Farm we have a burn ban, so we have things to burn which will sit in a pile for a while longer. This ban includes chainsaw stuff so we're not cutting down trees until the fall. To tell the truth, there is a lot more to do than there is money, time, and energy, to get done. Much of this must wait until we are on the property.

We have spent a few Sundays driving around to look at other guest farm and nursery operations. Each has its own merits, most are either too narrowly focused, but occasionally we find someone doing much of what we plan to do. Anyway, we are having fun looking around and getting a feel for the sorts of plants and services we wish to build into the Farm.

To fill time I have been working on two of my books. Both are old ideas for which I got new ideas recently.  There are at least fourteen books in process today sitting on my hard drive. One is a stage play which is to be written from a short story I began in 2008 and which I felt completely unworthy to write until just last week. "Muddy Waters Turned to Wine" is a story of a flooding event in the South. I had always had the story, but couldn't find any means of doing the monologue near the end. Dialogue is tough because you have to see things through the voices of characters. Monologue is tougher because they can get very boring, very quickly. Think of Hamlet and you'll get the idea. Now try to think of another dramatic monologue. You probably can't do it. Today I have the thing pretty well fleshed out and it has a completed outline and about 9000 words written, including four songs for the stage version. Who knows? I might finish it this week and become a famous play write who has all of the money to build his farm. But my process (not really the right word) is to write until I run out of words, then wait until I have more. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the curtain to go up.

On that note: I came to the realization that I am a dramatist a few weeks ago while painting a bathroom. For a guy who has always written long fiction (30 years now), this was a startling thing to discover about myself. I had never really put anything of a definition on what I was doing. Now I am a dramatist. So this has changed how I approach writing in general and so now I am making good progress and the work seems to have much more power. My philosophy degree has added a great deal to my work, most of it very bad. But the education has also added an ability to see the deeper meanings too. And all of those writing classes have been a big help. Worth the time and money? You betcha.

Truth is that I would rather be building on the Farm.

Carmen and Cinnamon have made complete recoveries following this year's litters. The dogs are very happy. Henri Hudson is feeling his age, as am I, and needs medicated dog treats we make for him, as does Ann for me. Both of us feel much better eating cookies instead of taking pills for our arthritis.
Clark Bar Griswald is a bouncy young boy who keeps his bitches in line. All is well in the dog world.

July 28, 2016 Update

It's been a quiet month for our Creekside Farm Project. A million things to do, no money to do any of them. . .  Same old story. Anyway, the project is still moving forward and we will eventually win the day. Here is what we are working toward:

1. We are in the permit process. What we think is the best way forward is to get our property removed from the 100 years flood plain. 
1. Step one: Get an elevation certificate from a surveyor. 
2. File with FEMA and get a LOMA.
3. File the LOMA with the County and get off the flood map
4. Everything is simple after that.
2.  Alternatively:
1. Stay in the flood plain.
2. Suffer the County's desire to keep everything small and unobtrusive.
3. Pay the extra fees and variance costs.

 We are also working through the trash removal process, this is a big thing and so has taken a bunch of time and money. There is still the problem of thirty yards of trash and a bunch of trees to remove, and also the raking of the property to remove the last bits from the dirt. These few remaining things represent a bunch of cash we would rather spend on the permit process, but one without the other isn't going to work. My thinking is that the trash will probably get done before the flood plain thing, but that the flood plain thing must be done first. But both must be done before building. This sounds absurd, but getting the elevation certificate comes first, then the trash, then the permits. Still, this is all expensive and must happen as the money shows up. We are hoping to get the trash up before October rains, but building won't happen before Christmas this year as I had hoped. Perhaps June of next year.

We are still getting ideas, and many people are helping by supplying us with places to go and people to talk to. This weekend we will go out to Joy Creek Nursery in Scappose. I hear they have a place much the same as the one we are planning. It'll be a good diversion.

Other than these few things, we are on hold for cash. If you find yourself having thirty thousand extra dollars laying around in a drawer and not being used . . .

June 28, 2016 Salmonberry Trail

I went to a public meeting in Timber last night. The idea they were discussing was a bike (horse, pedestrian) path which would eventually run from Bank (maybe) to Tillamook. The meeting opened my eyes to a few things which are interesting to me. Mostly because this trail brings with it a dichotomy it will create.

For me, the interesting parts of this are the new opportunities for commerce, the new opportunities for public recreation, and the high probability that these trails will forever change the adjoining property into a park, rather than a railroad. This last bit is maybe the most important point.

I have been thinking about how places grow and change for a very long time. The entire reason why the Creekside Farm seems a great location for what we plan is that there is a park-like trail running right in front of it and across the street.  There is a highway leading directly to high paying jobs which is fairly empty when compared to the highways in the city. So the natural hydraulic pressures of transportation will cause people to populate the more open areas. The fact that the land across the street will never become something other than a park is attractive because my view will not change much even as the highway widens to four lanes and sub-divisions become a thing in Manning. The growth of the Metro area into Manning and Buxton is inevitable.

When we came to Portland, twenty-five years ago, the edge of the populated areas stood firmly at the 185th highway exit, now the growth within the little farming communities of north-western Washington County are ten miles past that. The east side of Portland is filled up and the over-flow is coming west. At Cornelius Pass Road the are widening the street to six and a half lanes, four and a half for Heltitia, all to support new industries near Hillsboro. The fact of the matter is that, in a few years, mini-mansions will become the new normal areas like Manning and Buxton because they are a straight drive into town. Just as the growth became the normal around 185th.

The people are coming, the question for planners is: where to allow them to land. But these new people are an inconvenience to those who are already there. Some don't see this change as inevitable and hope to stand in the way of the rising tide. For them these changes bring uncertainty and noise where none had existed.

Most of the people who read this will not be native Oregonians because natives are few. So few will understand the native Oregonian mind-set. This is the same sort of people who once put signs up at the borders of the State which simply said "come, spend, leave" (but not in so few of words.) They like it here, the way it is, and fiercely protect their property rights without thinking about the rights of the property owner next door, especially if that person moved their from somewhere else. These people expect first come, first serve, despite the lack of support for their assertion of privilege. These people abhor progress which changes the character, or threatens to change the character, of the places they love, as such, and wish to pass on to their descendants the same place, the same conditions, the same everything. It is the burgeoning immigrant population which changes things.

The immigrants (like me in the mid-70s), come here and looked at the place with the same love that the Native population had but also brought the wish to change things for what they see as better. These immigrants see the forest as something they would like to see more of, because they are not filled with a lifetime of seeing the forest, and would like a convenient way to see the forest. These new people see the railroad as relic of the bad old days, full of poisonous creosote and railroad noise, so they would rather the forest were made better by removing the train stuff. These new people are not invested in keeping things as they are, and always were, because they themselves have changed what they themselves were. Change for the new people is a part of their lives.

This Timber people, at the meeting last night, was a crowd which had somehow become hostile to the idea of people trapesing through their community. But these people, no matter how appearing, are not stupid, not backwards thinking, and definitely not fooled by the process.

The idea of thousands of individuals riding their bikes over a path which had once carried a logging train brought them all sorts of anxiety. Some of the local people were openly hostile, a few were seething with anger. In the crowd of maybe fifty there were only a few who would embrace the idea of inviting people into their communities. The first was a fellow who owned land which the rail-bed runs through, he was at the end of a major tunnel. The two others were the owners of Jim Dandy Farm and myself, since it may be possible that the trail-head for Salmonberry might be located in Manning. I believe that the two of us see this as an opportunity to find new customers from a class of people who probably will appreciate what we are trying to sell. But for the most part, the patrons of this meeting would rather that the railroad owners disbanded the line and gifted the adjoining owners with a return of the land.

As I said above: I am an immigrant to Oregon. I grew up in a place where they developed nearly everything. Covered over the good with concrete and sprawled their progress as far as the eye and the land could support.  I came to Oregon in my early teens, but never came to be a Native Oregonian.

So I have bought a place which I wish to change into a commercial opportunity to build a life in a beautiful place. The people of Timber can use what I build, but probably won't. So too the people of Manning and Buxton might not come to me to buy the produce of my little farm or enjoy the scenery. And the other fellow at the meeting who already has a place which does much the same as my proposition may not appreciate that I wish to have something akin to the thing he already has, and for that I am confused and sorry.

But I understand the hostility even as I undertake to change the place these people appreciate. Were I in the same position as they I might take another side than the one I take today. My farm will provide goods for the people, clean up a blight on the land, and probably be less successful than I envision. But my farm will also bring people where there were none, traffic where there is little, and the possibility that some locals will feel pressured to clean up their front yards. And they might not like to be made to feel that way. The value I add to their property values cannot truly compensate them for the inconvenience.  I just want to have for my children and grand children the same thing that the natives have had all along.

I apologize, in advance, for my changing their way of life. But the change seems inevitable, the outsiders are coming, I am simply the vanguard, and I hope the change I bring will be better for the changed community than another sub-division.

June 11, 2016 Building Permits and Flood Plains

I spent the week studying up on building permit applications. There is a ton of material to read, separating the wheat from the chaff. Applying for the permit itself isn't much of a problem but the fact that we are in the 100 years flood plain. This may add an extraordinary amount of complication to the project.

• The good news: Once we get the  flood plain thing figured we'll get the permit easily.
• The bad news: The flood plain application is complicated, requires a great deal of information, and the County doesn't show their work.

The first thing I need to find is a Base Flood Elevation (BFE). This will tell me how high up off the ground that my floor must be built. I had an engineering study done early on, there is a BFE of 225 feet on it, but this may not be the officially recognized number. Judging from the GPS data on-line the farm is a fairly consistent 228 feet, so I may not actually be in the flood plain after all. None of the maps show the magic number, so I need to figure it out.

FEMA has re-drawn the flood plain map and the changes will take place in July, but they still don't tell you what the number is or how they figured the BFE. I messed around with overlaying maps on top of each other and came up with my own map:

You would be surprised how difficult it was to make this picture.
The numbers are the elevations at each point.

The elevation of almost all of the Farm is 228 feet. The above image shows that creek drops from 217 feet to 215 feet in about a mile as it runs behind the Farm. The Highway has been re-drawn out of the flood plain for the most part, the red used to cover 240 feet. This would mean that, in a one hundred year flood, Manning would be twelve feet under. This cannot be correct, since Manning has never flooded to this extent. FEMA seems to be a bit too cautious in the case of this map.

While I can't find the number, the map gives me enough clues to make a guess and another clue from another source gives me an idea of how they figure where to put the line:
Near as I can tell, the red line runs out at 238 feet. Since the Creek is at 218 feet, and the Tualitin River's peak flood of 1996 (a one hundred year event) was about 19 feet above normal. Since they would have added a foot for safety, and they didn't do any measurements when they drew the map, I figure they just put twenty feet on top of every number on a topographical map.

This is an abstracted flood level to be sure. But the County is going to try and protect the flood plain from development by adding restrictions and conditions of approval. So I may need to have a hydrologist do some calculations, and then apply for a flood plain change before I make my application.

The creek side of the Farm is 229 to 230 feet, roughly thirteen feet or so above the creek. When the flood happened in 1996 the people who once lived here say the creek came up to 227 feet, so it does flood there. But the magic number is what I am after. How high do I have to build the first floor?

Ideally they will let me build at or below 232 feet, but I am guess they will want something like 237 feet, which is nine feet above the dirt. I hope not, it will look worse and I hate stairs. But what I want is an approval and I will pay nearly any cost. If my front porch is nine feet up, the view will be awesome.

As I said above. if I get the flood plain figured, the rest will figure itself. But the idea of jumping this hurdle makes me nervous.

I did look at other things. My plan is still fairly much the same as when I posted in a few days ago.

Rocketdog Bassets moved to it's own place.

I moved Ann and Rocketdog off of the main blog as we begin serious building prep.

Catch up with them HERE.

May 29, 2016 Puppy Update

The puppies seem to have doubled in size. But not weight. We took pictures but the changes are not sufficient to warrant putting them up this time. Just the same for behavior. They are ALL squirmy, the are ALL grumpy, they are ALL hungry ALL of the time. There is a lot more puppies this time and they are eating in shifts. Their weights at week one are pretty good. none of them have gained a lot of weight.

• Count Chocula has achieved 15.3 ounces, up from 12.1
• Sugar Pop had reached 15 ounces, up from 11.8
• Cocoa Pebbles 15.5 ounces up from 12.4
• Lucky Charms 15.3 ounces, up from 12.7 
• Toast Crunch is only 14 ounces, but looks much bigger and has gained. Up from 11.9
• Cocoa Crispies is a mere 13.8 ounces, tiny and only up from 13
• Alphabits is really little at 12.8 ounces, I don't know where she started.
• BooBerry 13.8 ounces and is making prgress from the original 9 ounces
• Honey Comb 13.1 ounces, up from 10.8

All are healthy and Ann did the de-dew-clawing a few days back. Not a trace of it remains today.

We should start seeing eyes pretty soon.

May 29, 2016 The Plan Defined

When we began this project, on our twentieth anniversary trip to get an Elvis re-nup, the thought was that we had to find a suitable property with a house and add businesses to it in a manner where if we failed, we landed on safe ground. The only intolerable failure would be to lose our home.

The current farm plan

Our plan was to use a philosophy which involved very little bank financing, except that required to purchase the land. In this we failed somewhat because the land we bought came by way of a private party contracted sale.  Finding the Farm, and making the purchase without much cash, put that part of the five years plan ahead of schedule about a year. At the point of my writing this, there is no bank involvement and we intend to keep it that way. But there is no house present on the property as yet. So Step Two, build a house, then add businesses to the property, is where we are in the today. But the plan is multifaceted and always was.

At the onset of the Plan, we knew that we had no money to do this big thing. We only have the money which we might earn along the way. Step One was always to re-enter the dog business first because the it was something we can do from our present home which offers fairly large chunks of cash with which we can go forward. Though progressing slowly at first. Buying our dogs was right on schedule and we have had two litters of puppies so far. But that part of the plan is exhausted until we have a house built. Like every other plan, the dog business plan is much more extensive than simply having some puppies every once in a while. So I hope to explain here how we intend to get to the ultimate goal, a wedding venue with a farming theme.

These are the steps we have mapped out so far. Each might make it, all will likely change as we approach them, none will likely survive intact. But failure is a part of the Plan and none of what we intend to do must succeed in a big way. We need only succeed a little at a time.

The central idea in Phase One is that we must first replace the income that I earn working outside in the real world, so that I can stay home and build the new businesses.

Step one – The Dog Business – Status: We are already in business.

Buy two females and one male and begin making puppies – Done.

Build a kennel facility on the Farm and get USDA licensing - Pending a house.
The Kennel facility, the thing which gets us our USDA license, involves building a kennel which has the following sub-plan: 

1. A purpose built trailer with three rooms
   1. An open kennel where our dogs live.
   2. A central covered potty area where they can do their business when the weather outside is bad.
   3. A veterinary area with grooming and whelp capacities.
2. Buy four more females after obtaining the USDA license. This should provide about three litters a year and replace about half of my income.
3. Open the remaining kennel capacity (fourteen dogs) up for boarding. This should replace another half of my income.
4. Find a real doggy person who does grooming and obedience training, then give the business over to them as a share crop. This frees up my hands to build the next phase.

The Kennel replaces all of my current income with new income obtained entirely from the Farm, but does not take up all of my time and energy. After the Dog business is well established it can be given away to a share cropper. And while we build all of this there are many other things are happening.

Step Two – Build the House – Status: To be completed in the first year.

Find ten acres with a house – We failed to find this.

Find some acres – Done, but it has no house so we need a plan. Even having found the property and getting a good deal, bank financing to building the house is currently impossible, so we have to pay cash. This involves a sort of shell game approach because we have good equity in both our current home as well as the Farm property. 

1. Build a new home without bank financing. 
   1. Find twelve thousand dollars cash - Half way there.
   2. Renovate our current home, roof, flooring, paint, landscape. - $8000
   3. Buy a “park model” travel trailer to live in after we sell our current home and build the new home - $4000
   4. Sell our current home to realize the equity in cash - $80,000
   5. Build the new house quickly - $30,000
   6. Furnish it - $15,000
2. Build the Kennel in Step One using the park model trailer - $2000
3. Build the Pie Shop caravan and one guest house caravan - $20,000

The house, even before building the Kennel business, also replaces much my income entirely because the current house payment is no longer being made to the bank. At the point where we move I have replaced my income twice over and since we'll have a well, a septic system, and solar power, we no longer have utility bills to speak of. All of which adds to our good fortune.

At this point, once we have the house and are living on the Farm, we must lose any idea that we have the next steps well thought out. Much can change between the second and third steps which we do not know about. But if we fail at the onset of step three we still have a home and a business which provides sufficient income to live comfortably. But the plan is MUCH bigger. . .

Step Three – Build the Farm – to be completed within four years.

The Farm is intended to be extraordinarily intensive agriculture involving peach and pear orchards, chickens and chicken products, strawberries, and row crops, all sold through a Fruit Stand / Pie Shop located in the parking area.

Initially the Fruit Stand will likely be a tent of some sort, but it might be possible to build the Pie Shop caravan early on if the stars align properly. We hope to remodel another trailer to create a fully enclosed pie shop / kitchen / retail space. The remodeled trailers are one way of avoiding the permit process, while maintaining the ability to roll assets out of the way of any flooding if it comes. The Fruit Stand gives us a place to sell our farm produce, but there are many others, such as: consumer supported agriculture (CSA) programs and farmer's markets. If money is not the issue, we would rather sell directly to the public from our property. Once the Pie Shop is built and the level of business is large enough to support life, I will try to find a baker to set up in business as a share cropper. This would likely mean better food to sell while freeing my hands up once more.

During step three I will also endeavor to find a farmer to come into the business to handle day-to-day farming operations for a share of the proceeds. I am hoping for a nice Mexican couple with the sort of know-how Americans once had during my grandmother's lifetime. The Farmer will help build and operate the farm plan during Phase One. I am also hoping to find a nursery willing to partner with the Farm to sell non-food live plants.

The Planting Plan is quite large for the space we have, but currently available sustainable farming practices should allow us to layer crops onto the land without depleting the soils and without buying soil amendments. Our soils are very good, very deep, properly moist, and should talk organic amendments very well. The map show much of the following, but there are a few things not shown above:

1. The front fence is lined with columnar apple trees to provide fruit to the fruit stand, cider, and products to sell the fruit stand / pie shop. There should be three types of apples available for three months each year.
2. Rows of orchard (peaches and pears for a uPick operation) allow for chicken tractors full of meat chickens to roll between the rows.
3. Those spaces between trees where the tractors don't roll allow for three foot width beds where we can plant crops in small bunches. These beds would include cut flowers, bulbs, salad crops, and herbs.
4. Our strawberry operation will be vertically built and under full cover to allow for a uPick, as well as provide crops for preserves and products in the Fruit Stand / Pie Shop.
5. Other crops are in open field rows to provide root vegetables, melons, gourds, and corn for the Fruit Stand.
6. There is a separated Chicken run for egg and chick production which I hope one day to support a cooperative meat bird facility, but that will provide meat for our home and product for the Fruit Stand.
7. And there will be an area near the house dominated by full sized fruit trees like cherries, plums, apricots, nectarines, and citrus. These would be used to make products or sold as fruit in the Fruit Stand.

The Farm at this point should be three thriving businesses, all operated by people invested in their own success in a cooperative economic system. They will pay a portion to the house and use the house's products, philosophy, and planning. The Farm should provide food and animals to the world through direct sales, internet business, and consumer support agricultural subscriptions. We should have preserved foods as well as fresh produce and on-site edibles available to the public nearly the whole year around.

But as we go forward the Pie Shop / Fruit Stand will certainly be out-grown, while customers will be finding us in ever increasing numbers. We will need to add more customer spaces and reduce the amount of farming being done on site. Our next step will be a very big one.

Step Four – The Barn Store – to be completed within five years.

The Barn Store will contain a cafe, antiques, curiosities, consigned goods, and other consumer products and programs. The Barn Store is an entirely retail operation and part of a much larger retail strategy. During Phase one we will be building botanical gardens all along the back and east fence line. The idea is to add a reason for people to come to the Farm, and give them reason to stay for a long while. We will be installing wide walking paths, sufficient for people to stroll about, which run between seating areas where people can come and enjoy the day. We will openly invite people to come in and sit down. Read a book, disconnect, reflect, and rest. All the while making our products available to them.

At this point I will likely begin looking for help managing the general operation while I concentrate on the next phase of the build out. I am hoping to find a couple of college grads who wish to build something beautiful and then take over day to day operations as we partially retire from farming to begin building the next phase of the project. Our hope is to give these people a ten years contract after which they retain a continual share in the proceeds from the Farm, and after which they retire to do as they please. After ten years the couple can find another couple to take over in their place. And so on  . . . We hope to give away the entire business to our share partners and employees before we are through, but will retain a share of the proceeds for ourselves as well as the land on which all of this is built.

The coming of the Barn Store is the end of Phase One, and also the beginning of the hospitality phase of the project. This will include a bed and breakfast, and the wedding venue we were building when all of this started. There will be more partners, more employees, and more opportunity to fail or succeed.  But I will leave all of this for a future posting.

May 28, 2016 The Dream Refined 4

Having been able to walk around the property unobstructed and to be able to see things in relationship to other things, we are able to begin thinking about how things fit together a bit better.

The original plan was predicated on the place being fairly small, so the strawberries took up a bunch of space, while chickens and dogs took up much less.There were only four orchards, but much of the original layout has persisted even if the scale has changed over time.

This was the first plan.
The "Stepping Stone Farm".

The first thing we noticed is that the plan we had was for a much smaller place. So we added some things to the second plan. The problem we were solving was the excess of land that probably couldn't be farmed. We decided to do gardens early on, but they were left out of the first plan because the place appeared too small.

This was the second plan.
It appeared we might even make a buck on it if we were lucky.

Once we had cleared some of the brush we thought this plan deserved a great deal more stuff.

So I designed something a bit more elaborate . . . We added a gypsy caravan bed and breakfast, a large chicken operation, and many more botanical gardens along with a man made stream.

This is the third plan.
Everything was larger, and there were a great many more businesses.

  In the third plan the scale was resolved (each yellow line is ten feet from the next) and we could see that the place was pretty large. Large enough to support a pure farming business model. So we were no longer looking at merely building a farm to carry the wedding venue, we were going to have a bunch of planting to do. After clearing the land this is what we think the basic farm should look like:

This is the current plan, phase one.
Included are the businesses which are farming related.
The parts which we will put in during phase two are much more about hospitality.

As we clear and clean more, we assume that the plan will change. But each change, each Tractor Day, each baby step, leads into the next. 

May 26, 2016 We're Getting Electricity!

Ann signed us up for the gold plan with PGE. They hook us us and give us some outlets to work with while we build. But overall it has been a very good day for the Farm Project. We sold all of the puppies to a chunk of cash and decided on a funding plan which should get us into our new house before the new year. A few big thing fell into place today. Progress is being made.

May 24, 2016 Puppy update

The puppies are three days old today. Cinnamon is cleaned up and things are settling into something of a routine.  Not too much to report. Toast Crunch escaped the whelping box on day two, forcing us to buy a wading pool. This worked out well because Cinnamon is larger than Carmen and also had many more puppies. Here are today's pictures:

Count Chocula

Sugar Pops

Cocoa Pebbles

Lucky Charms

Toast Crunch

Cocoa Crispies

Alphabets

BooBerry

Honey Comb

May 21, 2016 The Cinnamom Bear's First Litter

Aside from the last week, the Cinnamon Bear has had a pretty easy pregnancy. Last Friday through Sunday she had a false labor and we lost a lot of sleep, but overall she was fairly easy to get along with and very cuddly. Last night we went to bed very early, expecting a long night at some point in the weekend. We didn't have to wait long.

I was asleep when Ann heard Cinnamon panting heavily at about eight-thirty and got up to check. She let me sleep another two hours before deciding to wake me. At eleven my eyes finally came open. At twelve we decided to let Ann sleep for a while. At two in the morning things finally got interesting.

Count Chocula arrived at 2:05 AM

The delivery seemed painless and quick.
We named #1 Count Chocula.
A tri colored male weighing 12.1 ounces. 

They came pretty fast for a while after Count Chocula made the scene.

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#2 is named Sugar Pops

Sugar Pops came along at 2:16, so I figured wee'd be all done in a hour or so.

She is what we call a "Lemon" Basset because of her lightly colored coat. The coloring might change quite a lot in the next few days, she might become a tan and white, or she might stay a Lemon (we hope).

She came in weighing 11.8 ounces. She also came in hungry and active. She found her first meal about a minute after birth.

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#3 is named Cocoa Pebbles

Cocoa Pebbles arrived at 2:40, so things were slowing down a bit.

Cocoa Pebbles

She came in yelling and didn't wish to be handled much. She was a healthy 12.4 ounces and hungry. We thought she'd be a black and white, but the little bits of tan over her eyes make her a tri-color even if everything stays exactly the same.

Cinnamon was a good mother right from the start. She wanted to take care of them all, and we let her as much as we could. Cinnamon Bear is a natural child, doing things naturally has always been her thing.

She'll make a fine Mother Bear.

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#4 is named Lucky Charms

Lucky Charms came in about the same as the rest had so far. 12.7 ounces of tri-colored female. She came to us at 2:56 AM

Cinnamon was tiring out a little and started doing less as the night progressed. She would push only as long as she had to so that Ann could assist her in pulling them all into the world.
She also began eating the placenta at this point.

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#5 is named Toast Crunch

Cinnamon's Toast Crunch is a wonderfully active male who arrived at 3:21 weighing 11.9 ounces. He had a big voice and likes to use it. He is also likely to develop into a true Lemon.

Cinnamon was very active cleaning up the puppies and trying to keep them warm. Each came out, got dried off, and then moved right into breakfast.

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Since the timing between the deliveries made it look like the night would go on for a while I began making breakfast.

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#6 is named Cocoa Crispies

Cocoa Crispies was born at 3:58, just as I settled down for a fifteen minute nap. She was the largest of the lot at 13 ounces and was also mostly black with some tan on the face. She has the solid character of her mother, along with the longish back legs of her father. She will be a beauty.

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#7 is named Alphabetty

Alphabetty came along at 4:26 AM. She was really striking right out of the chute because she was striped like a bee. She didn't seem all that interested in going anywhere or doing anything in particular. So she just sort of laid around no doing much, and this worried us a bit.

Ann grabbed a towel and managed to make Alphabetty mad enough to start complaining.

By this time Cinnamon was getting to tired to push, but somehow we still got them out as they popped up. Ann was the primary delivery person this time. Lucky for me since the last time there was only six.

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#8 is named Boo Berry

I had fallen asleep and failed to see Boo Berry pop her little head out.

She was little, 9.2 ounces, but made up for it with an appetite. She came out suckling on Ann's glove and once she got near her mother she went straight in, pushing her siblings to the side.

Her tri-colored coat makes her look a little like a panda bear.

I have a thing for smaller Basset Hounds. I hope she stays small.

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Honey Comb, despite being a non-sugared cereal, is maybe my favorite tri-colored female.

She came to us weighing a scant 10.8 ounces, but had her father's head shape and layed back disposition.

By now Cinnamon was worn out. She slept most of the way through the delivery.

#9 is named Honey Comb

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May 19, 2016 Looking back and moving forward

We are getting dangerously close to having much of the Farm cleared out. So I figured I would show the progress using some of the pictures we have taken in the past year.

This is how we found it.

It's hard to tell the story of clearing the farm using pictures. But the above picture is about what we saw on the first day. It was winter, so the foliage was down a bit. The below picture is the Spring version prior to clearing.

We thought the place was pretty bad when we found it.

We never imagined the extra badness that came with the sun. We didn't know it then, but there was nothing of any value at all in the six foot pile of trash in the Container.Once you got through the hole in the gate there was a goat path to the back. I bought a machete and started chopping. It was a hopeful thing but turned out to be completely useless.

After Tractor Day #3 we finally got all of the trash pushed out of the Container.
Another five or so yards of stuff to get rid of.

I haven't got a picture of the container yet, but the ground is clear, the Container holds the beginnings of our Farm project's furnishings, and all of the way around it only little stuff remains.

This was the backside of the Mobile Home that had burned, and the Motor Home that was parked out back.

And behind the Motor Home there was a Camper.

There were piles of trash everywhere you went. The fence had been cut. We mended the fence on our first day after we got the lease from Collette Kramer. We laughed at the stupidity of the project, but always could see the land underneath all of the rubbish.

After Tractor Day #3 we had much of the trash pushed into piles.

The picture above this one is the same area today.

Today, other than the dirt being trashy, you can see all of the way to the front fence.

If you look at the trees in this picture, you wouldn't believe that it could be the same place.

The motor home sat behind the mobile home, the camper behind the motor home, near the shipping container. All packed tightly with trash, surrounded by trash.

These are the same trees today.

But there is still so much to do.

Hidden around the edges there were piles of trash as well.

And then there was the Blue Tarp of Mystery.

The Blue Tarp of Mystery was in the middle of the property, but couldn't be seen from anywhere. We only found it through exploration, and after some blood was spilled. About ten yards of burnt ash and debris that someone had scraped together. There is still a bit to take off the Farm.

Eventually we got the Blue Tarp of Mystery uncovered and it became the Blue Tarp of Doom.

This above is where the Blue Tarp once lived.

There was a shed. The whole thing teetering on collapse.
Look at the trees on the right.

Jack knocked the Shed down on Tractor Day #2 once we cleared the area enough to get to it.
The trees are the same, the point of view changed.

The trees are the only thing remaining.

This area was actually the front yard of the mobile home.
In the distance is the roof of the shed.

Now their front yard is the only place where a pile of trash remains.
The trees on the right are the same as the ones in the shed pictures.

 The place always had a certain charm that we could see through the berries and trash piles.

From the road you could see why I stopped in the first place.

Standing where this picture was taken took some effort. 

In early Spring the trees and berries flowered you could walk around smiling. Mostly because the trash was covered up under green stuff. But you couldn't see it much of the place.

There was a huge Black Walnut tree near where we found the well on Tractor Day #1.

The Walnut tree tells the story of Creekside Farm so far.

It was one of the first areas we cleared out.