February 25, 2017 We have movement!!!!

Spending the months wondering if any of our plans will ever see the light of day. Everything is a baby step, even the bigger steps are mostly big baby steps. Today we took another, perhpas the first step of a confident walker.

The bank gave us the loan to move forward with our plans today.

Not enough to find ourselves at the finish, but enough to build the twin tiny homes and furnish them adequately, secure electricity, bring on the water, and put up our two gates with gravel driveway. There is just enough to pay off both of our cars there as well.

The reality of these things have not quite settled in yet.

February 14, 2017 My Old Boy Henri Hudson

Recently I began feeling that Henri Hudson, our twelve years old Basset Hound, hasn't been out of the house a great deal. His hips hurt,  and mine too, so he doesn't get out of the house as much as he probably should. This Winter I decided to take him with me on errands when I use my work truck.

Trips to the bank, to the hardware store, and then back home is all we do. He never gets out of the truck but he loves it all anyway. He can no longer make the jump to the seat, so I have to lift him, and he doesn't like it one bit when I do. Usually he forgives me and settles in for the ride.

Yesterday I had to run out the the Farm to retrieve my chainsaw. We have a huge Monkey Puzzle tree which didn't make it through the drought last year and so is now an enormous problem to solve with a chainsaw. Henri ran past me as I headed out the door and stood at the gate. He does this hopefully. Sometimes it works. This time it did.

We got to the Farm and he bolted past me as I slid out of the truck seat. I went back a retrieved the saw, he sauntered around for the five minutes this took.

As I returned to the truck Henri ask if he could look around outside of the fence and so I decided to take him onto the Banks-Vernonia Trail which runs along the front of the Farm, across the street. The picture above is how the thing looks. I wish he didn't moon the camera every time.

It was a sunny day, warm in the sun, nobody else out there. Nice.

But having to leave, I called Henri to the truck and told him to line up for a lifting.

AND HE BIT MY FINGER! Left a nice little bruise too.

That's gratitude for you.

February 12, 2017 All else is distraction

Impatience is why I am writing today because I really haven't much to say. We are moving forward at a snail's pace, things get in the way, resources are sapped for other more pressing needs. All of this simply seems a distraction from our goals. A million non-farm issues jump into the space we open up every time we accomplish another goal. Like the berries on the farm, they pop up anywhere the ground is not cleared or maintained. We need to get there at nearly any cost.

To move things along more quickly we went out to try and qualify for a smallish bank loan yesterday. Something that will send the project quickly forward if approved. Perhaps it would be for the best if they didn't give us the money. Time will tell. We are working and wishing. Saving where we can. Dreaming of the day we can finally make the move. If nothing big happens we are still looking at early Spring to make the move, even without bank money.

But today, in my opinion, it would suit me if things were moving faster.

Feb 7, 2017 Snow Day

Can't see anything I don't like

This is where we started.

February 2, 2017

Two more shelf units built and filled.

I keep building shelf units, filling boxes, and then filling the units up with stuff. We have a total of five 8x2 foot units now. Each has three shelves and is open at the bottom. The total square feet added by these shelves is 240 to a 360 square feet shipping container.

As I go through the long process of de-cluttering my house and shop it occurs to me that: if the unit were to go up in flames, I wouldn't miss nearly all of this stuff.

First thing I do is have a garage sale.