Are We There Yet?? (10/20/2007)

"Not quite" would be the answer to that question. But we are getting closer.

I know... I've said that a couple of times. And a couple of times it seemed true. What makes "now" different is that not only are we narrowing in on our choices, our choices are narrowing in on us.

Not only is real estate selling slower - such as our house - it is not going up for sale as fast either. Sellers are just not listing homes - or farms for that matter - the way they were earlier in the year. Some of this is just the time of year. Who wants to chance having to move during the holidays? Still, I think the current market has lowered prices to the point that people are rethinking whether selling is a good idea at all.

I can't blame them. We've lowered the price on our house by over $20,000 and, as we were when we listed, we are the lowest priced house in our neighborhood, which happens to be a very desireable neighborhood. We didn't even question the need to re-up when our current listing ran out. If we find a farm we want, we want our house on the market. If other people are opting out, good, less competition.

So as I said, we have narrowed our choices down to one farm at this time. What is more the price is good, the area is acceptable, it has everything we need, and buying it will leave us with plenty of money to do all the other things we want to do to get our farm up and running. It sounds like a win-win situation . . . and yet, we are stalled.

It is taking some time to get our minds wrapped around a few of the house's limitations, such as one bathroom instead of two. Such as smaller bedrooms. Maybe even such as the fact that it is in Oregon and not Washington as we orginally wanted. But Oregon farms are really good farms. And I like the feel of this farm despite the size of the house. And there's nothing else out there in either Washington or Oregon and hasn't been for some time.

Yes, there may be more choices in spring. . . or next week. . . or tomorrow, but we've been thinking that for weeks - no months. And whenever we find something we really like it is over-priced, or the seller wants to keep farming it even though we own it, or the seller doesn't want to fix things discovered by the inspection . . . or ... or ... or. What all the or's amount to is a closed door to a purchase.

Now I think we are actually facing an easily opened door. Not the elusive, let's-shoot-for-the-moon-and-see-if-we-can-get-it-farm. In some ways I wonder if that kind of farm represents a subtle form of sabotage we've been unconsciously activating to keep from buying a farm at all. In most cases we've known our offer would not be accepted or that the farm had incredible challenges in condition that would be difficult to overcome.

Now we are faced with a farm that has none of these issues. In fact, everything is so near right with this farm - at least more right than any of the others - that it's scary. The only way we will lose this farm is if someone else buys it first. And that's making us think. Somewhere questions are broiling around inside keeping us from purchasing.

Is that good? Is that bad? What does it say about us? What does it say about the farm? How much are these questions related to the fact that we are standing - finally - on the edge and it's time to jump off into something from which we might not recover? At least not without a monetary loss.

Did you know that when a cow is chewing it's cud - during one of the several times it does - it is said to be ruminating. That's what this post is all about. I'm ruminating. Emotionally laying down in some green pasture, chewing on these farm questions, trying to make it all palatable enough to finally swallow for good. How many times I may need to do this, or we may need to do this, before we decide that a farm is ready to nourish us, I'm not sure. In the meantime, we are getting very hungry.

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.