Dreams of Sludge? (8/17/2007)

I've come to the conclusion that following personal dreams is hard work. While I recommend it for everyone, be warned that it's a tough road.

And why not?

Anything worth having is going to be tough to get or else (1) you'd have it already and/or (2) so would everyone else. Dreams are special and therefore not easily obtained.

How does this apply to the move from the city to farm? Well, we're still in the city and not on the farm. The one farm we thought would be wonderful to own has turned out to be something of a potential money pit.

We made our offer and we waited (the topic of my last blog entry) and waited. Finally, it was accepted and we were thrilled to move onto the NEXT step in the process - the inspection. We were so excited just to be on the farm again, Joe and I couldn't sleep the night before the inspection. We were up early and out of the house surprisingly fast. We even arrived on time! When Inspector Josh showed up we were ready.

I had a nifty book to organize all the measurements of each and every room in both of the houses for use in future decorating plans (you would have been so proud of me, Suzy!). My favorite automatic pencil was loaded and primed for work. I strapped on my 30 foot measuring tape and grabbed my spiffy digital camera and was ready to collect detailed information. Joe was going to follow Inspector Josh around and report important facts to me from time to time.

Even though the initial inspection reports filtering in weren't positive (of course, he wasn't going to hunt me down just to tell me everything was great), they weren't unbearably bad. The main house was a mish-mash of small, but doable repairs. Many we had already guessed at.

The guest house, which we thought was the best house during our second visit, proved to be a series of horrific bad reports. Even while I worked to get its room measurements and snap pictures of it, something told me these efforts may prove worthless (and I grieved for my new organizing book because I had used some ink in it).


And, as if that weren't enough we visited two barns, the main barn and a smaller, but important barn and, despite their stupendous appearance, which didn't seem all that inconsistent with other barns we'd seen, they were leaning. Badly. To the degree that Inspector Josh suggested that only a structural engineer would be able to determine how safe they really were, how they could be repaired (if at all) and how much that might cost.

Ugh!

No, let me be completely honest - super Ugh!!!

These difficulties only got worse when we discovered (either by purposeful device of a disgruntled tenant still on the farm or by devine intervention - we haven't decided which) that the guest house was literally swimming in the waste of an overflowing septic system.

Oh man, super yucky Ugh!!

Joe and I were two very heavy hearted potential farmers driving home that afternoon. Our dream of a 40 acre farm in the middle of a huge, lovely farming valley was quickly turning into a mountain of barely useable buildings that would lay waste to our money, energy and dreams.

We had never completely given up looking at other farms in the MLS listings online (was that unfaithful?) and we knew for a fact that there were very slim pickings in available farms. Many of the initial farms we'd looked at had been sold. Others were just too high priced (I found that every farm over a million would have suited me to a T - now if that isn't just my luck).

After over a month of daily effort we are still at square one. Unless we can convince the woman who owns the farm we just inspected to put some money out and fix it up to a habitable state, we aren't getting a farm any time soon.

So, there go my dreams of pygora goats in spring (yes, I said goats - I know I wasn't going to even consider goats after the MA Goat Film debacle, but putting that aside, they are so cute, especially pygoras). To speak nothing of Joe's desire for a field of hereford mama cows and calves (I mean, the farm is his dream after all).

If something truly wonderful in farmdom doesn't show up soon we will be obliged to continue our quest by tromping a muddy trail through possible farms during the winter. This thought inspires an "Ugh" that even I cannot adequately express.

But as we know, following personal dreams is hard work. If Joe wants to tromp a muddy path through the countryside this winter, well then, so will I.

And next time I will save my organizational decorating book until after Inspector Josh is done and wear my knee high sludge boots with heavy socks.

Moo-ving and Redefining Moments (8/7/2007)

Important definitions for this blog entry:

Waiting – long lengths of time consumed in agonizing uncertainty about vitally important life issues.

Sweating bullets – the product of waiting; esp. when sane action is prohibited for insane reasons.

First we made an offer on a farm and then we . . . . waited.

Then we discussed various counter offers and . . . waited.

We sweated bullets, made a second offer and quickly proceeded to . . . wait.

We engaged the services of an attorney in an effort bring order to the issues (now that is an oxymoron) and we are still . . . . waiting and sweating bullets.

To-date we have been waiting for acceptance of our offer on the farm of our choice for the last three weeks. Naively I assumed when I retired from work that life would become stress-free.

How wrong.

Waiting, as defined by this blog and recent events in my life, embraces stress with an enthusiasm that is frightening. And, when the waiting is finally over, I’m highly suspicious that a repair-desperate 40-acre farm will be all ours. A property that can single-handedly overcome any threat of peaceful moments with an abundance of stressful problems (welcome to farming).

On top of all this, I have been punctuating my quiet time with educational reading. My nights have been filled with books about the many and varied aspects of farming: like chickens and eggs. I could tell you some interesting stuff about that pair and let’s not get started on roosters, no sir bob.

And there’s organic and heirloom vegetables which are right up there with gardening techniques. I now know the secrets of organic gardening, much of which centers around seeking out and removing nasty pests with heavily gloved fingers to drown them in a jar of kerosene. Apparently, bugs are not covered by the laws of humane treatment for living creatures. No PETA advocate is going to throw himself in front of me to save a plump grub that is threatening my tomatoes. My guess is vegetarians don’t defend critters that threaten the food they want to eat.

My education didn’t stopped there, however, I watched a film that should have been rated MA for Mature Audiences about goats (of all things) and I know more now about hay, soil, and tractors than I ever dreamed I would. . . yep, I’m very certain of that, I NEVER dreamed I would.

Let’s not forget to mention too, that I’ve even been to a livestock auction. No, we didn’t buy anything. This was an educational field trip. My first face-to-face meeting with the type of critters that will someday surround the house I will call home. This was a dairy and feeder cattle auction (feeder cattle refers to meat cattle – where steaks come from. Since the only ‘feeder’ critter I’d ever encountered before this were “feeder fish” I was concerned and confused by the term “feeder cattle” . . . at first).

In an effort to learn all I could, I watched the ranchers who were buying. These knowledgeable farmers would eye their prospective purchases carefully and then casually reach down to check out a cow’s udders or grab a bull’s . . . well, privates. I was secretly glad that the cattle portion of our farm was not going to be my responsibility. They were selling goats, too, but after watching the MA goat film I wasn’t overly anxious to see them.

Needless to say, life has changed for me. My mind has turned from spreadsheets, financial statements, invoicing and agreements to how to choose the right hens for laying eggs or to eat. How to construct just the right coop, prepare just the right free-range, caged environment for happy hens and how to swap unfertilized eggs from beneath a brooding hen for a batch of purchased and overnight shipped fertilized eggs. And to think I once thought magicians with their fake and swap tricks were good – now I know where they learned their stuff.

I’d like to think that all of this is broadening my mind, deepening my appreciation for life, and opening new venues of interesting metaphor for my soon to be penned novels. But I haven’t thought of writing in weeks, hence, the long length of time since my last blog.



Really, I think the writing cessation is due to two things: the overall farm purchase issues (the waiting and sweating bullets moments) and my frantic need to learn everything I can about farming so I won’t feel desperately out of place after the move from the city to the farm.

The first cow we saw at the livestock auction was agonizingly made to stand in the small sunken corral for about twenty minutes before the auction started. She looked around frantically scoping out the sounds, the smells and the audience. Not recognizing anything she knew, she began to moo. . . loudly, looking for her herd. In the distance, there were responsive moo’s that sounded just as desperate and lost as hers.

I don’t want to be that way. I don’t want to get out on the farm look to my left, look to my right and see no comforting neighbors. I don’t want to find that my cell phone doesn’t have a signal, the stores are appalling far away (and none of them sell Writer’s Digest) and that my questions about where the nearest Starbuck’s is invoke blank stares from fellow farmers.

I don’t want to start longing and moaning about my missing herd. Especially not if the night is as dark and quiet as I’m afraid it will be. Most of all I don’t want to disappoint my dear husband whose dream I’m trying to support.

This last week we visited a John Deere store and he climbed onto a spiffy new tractor (just to try it out). He had that look again. The one that told me he was where he belonged. Later we bought the all important royal trappings: a cowboy hat and farm boots. I know that if I am agonizing over the farm buying issues, he’s doing so ten times more. After all this is his dream. It reaches down into the parts of him that mean the most.

Let’s hope that God, who created chickens and overnight shipped fertilized eggs, can pull off a good fake and swap trick with me between the city and the farm. With luck, no one will ever catch on that I’m out of my element.