Pics finally!

Here are the pics I promised. I've got new ones that I haven't downloaded yet, but I will soon.
Hopefully this will give some flesh to what we're doing, it's always hard to describe these things accurately. Pictures really are worth at least 1000 words. Well, maybe 860 words, after taxes.

Firewood anyone?

Well, it's been two weeks since my last update, I better keep up, since things are happening at a fantastic rate!
I've made about 5 visits to the land since my last update, maybe even 6. Each time I fill in a little piece of the puzzle, and do a little bit of work.
We bought two large water cisterns, and dropped them onto a spot behind the shed. They hold 1250gal each, and I also bought a pressure tank to go with it, so we'll have running water! I just need to figure out how to get the water from the cistern tanks to the pressure tank, without having the pressure tank outside where it can freeze in the winter. Freeze protection is a concern for everything we do here. I've thought long and hard about it, and I think I have some solutions, but I'm also searching for others who have had the same problem and solved it. No reason to reinvent the wheel if there's a better solution!

We finally got possession of the mobile! The lawyer stuff and all the nonsense with the seller was sorted out, and we got possession yesterday! I need to make a trip out there to start pulling the skirting off, securing the cupboards, and making her ready for the 120km trip. The moving company should be able to get the move done around the 8th, or shortly after. Then I have to get the stairs and the shed there somehow, and we're in business!

We bought the woodstove (on sale too, sweetness!), and got it off the truck with some insane effort. I can't believe how freakin' heavy that thing is!! It's at least 400lbs, and cannot be lifted by the combined effort of me and my wife. I'm going to need four huge goons to get the sucker into the mobile when it comes time! Either that, or a hoist on my truck or something. Getting it off the truck was tricky. We ended up letting it fall a short distance to the thankfully soft ground, where it rolled onto it's top. I had already taken out everything I could grab, like the firebricks, the ashpan, and I pulled the door off too. It still nearly sunk into the ground when we were moving it just a few feet! Holy smoke. For $944, it seems like a pretty solid unit to me! It even has a blower motor on the back to distribute heat.

That brings me to the most recent activity - firewood collection. I cannot believe how expensive firewood is! For a cord of hardwood, the lowest price I saw was $490/cord!!!! Crummy softwood was minimum $220, and that's me picking up unseasoned, unsplit wood and doing most of the work myself. However, leave it to a cheapskate to find a solution...
I put an ad in a free online service saying I was looking for scrap wood, like dimensional lumber and such. I got two hits right away, a couple folks were giving away scraps of wood. I picked up a lot of wood the one day, although much of it has screws and nails in it, it's not a big deal, they'll just end up in the ash, and eventually rust in the compost!
Just as I was driving back today, after dropping it all off, I got a call from "Bob". His company has probably 4-6 cords worth of packing crates behind their loading dock, and he wants me to take everything I can get! I got there, and he wasn't kidding, it's a crapload of wood!!!!
I filled my truck and trailer with everything I could get, mostly the stuff that was broken up already. There are many full crates, but I don't have a crowbar, so pulling them apart would have been next to impossible. There is enough wood behind this loading dock for 2 winters, easily. I think we'll be ok for firewood!

On another note, we discovered just how big the land really is...it's massive! I have some pictures of crazy things I found on our property, which I'm going to post right away. It's almost like an ancient junkyard, with farm equipment from the 20's at least, and an old shed that's almost falling over.

Beware the Bobcat!

So, anyone ever use a Bobcat? Not me, not till today anyway!
I rented one to scrape the ground down where the mobile is going to be. I showed up on the land at 0900 today, and there it was, as promised!
I got in, and started checking it out. There was a set of keys hanging from the roof, so I pulled them down. Only one problem...no place to put the keys! I must have looked for 20 minutes, until I got tired of being stupid and called the owner. Turns out there's a code you punch in to start it...so what's with the keys?
It didn't take me long to scrape down the soil, and it was kind of fun too! I like heavy machines. The Cat is an easy machine to use, but it's not heavy enough to move a lot of dirt. It's better for smaller jobs. I'm going back tommorow to try and start digging a pond, but I don't think I'll get too much done on that. It just doesn't have the capacity to do what I need!
We're 5 days away from possession on the mobile, and everything is moving pretty smoothly, except for the mortgage.
The mortgage company is giving me the runaround about a certain aspect of the title. They insist that there's no problem, but I found out that to do it their way would cost an extra $400-500 and accomplish nothing! I tried to call the specialist, but she never returned my call. Again. I also have to find some time in my schedule to sign the documents, which might be difficult since tommorow we hit the streets for the first time! We graduated on Friday.

Lots of work still to be done. I need cement, gravel, a driveway, and a winch for my truck. I'm going to be burning a lot of gas in the next month!

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1.02.21

1.02.05

Regulatory Nightmares!!!!

Ok, I'm irritated with socialism! I just went down to the permit department the other day to pull some of the permits for the mobile. You'd probably think "Hey, what could possibly be so difficult about putting a mobile on your property?" Oh boy, let me tell you!
Woodstove - You can't just put a woodstove in your mobile. It needs a permit. Yay.
Solar panels - You need a permit to collect electricity. Whoopee.
Gas - Propane needs a permit. This might be a good idea, since it can explode.
Private sewer system - This not only needs a permit, it has to be built by a certified contractor! We're not even dumping real sewage, just the shower and sink water! And it costs $10,000!!! Minimum!!!!! Holy Flying Monkey Crap!!!!!!
Then, you need a plumbing permit to (gasp) hook up the septic to the mobile! Just to hook it up!
Ok, enough rage, sorry.
Obviously this project is going to soar over budget by a bunch. We need more money, but we can't qualify for a line of credit, because of the two loans we have already. What I'm trying to do is to increase one of the loans just a bit in order to cover these ridiculous expenses that I can't get around, of which the biggest is the stupid septic system. The loan we're getting only covers the mobile, the cost of moving it, and electricity. We still need another 20k for other stuff, minimum.
I just want to get this over with. I'll feel better once I've secured more financing, and I can start doing stuff.
I will be going to Vulcan to pull more permits on Friday, and maybe I can talk about some alternatives to septic tanks. The system I have in mind would cost a fraction of a septic, but it would have to be approved. Imagine that, getting approved to do something on my own land.

Here's the real kicker...
I was thinking of doing some chickens for cash, just on the side. Haha, no dice dummy, you have to have a LICENSE to produce chicken OR EGGS! WTF???????? Why would I need a license for that? When I read that little gem, I wanted to stab someone in gov't with an ice pick.
You also need a license to produce honey, and there's a yearly inspection involved. Honey is a little bit more complex, because there are some diseases floating about that you can spread to others if you aren't careful.

I think I'll stick with beef. Beef is good. Mmmmm, beef.

I'm hungry.

More progress...

Another trip to Vulcan today, and a little more progress. I built a canvas garage, which turned out perfectly! It's huge inside, I could park my truck in there if I was so inclined!
When we got out there, I found our little shed was blown over, and all our stuff was strewn here and there. I wasn't surprised, since it wasn't staked down. I was glad to see that it wasn't destroyed, however! It took about 20 minutes to fit it back together and put it back in place. Then we took some monster stakes and pounded them into the hard ground. After we attached the poles, we sunk the stakes right into the ground an inch or two. Let's see the wind get those out! Wait, no maybe I don't want to see that.
My good buddy Terry was out there to help me, and the work went fast, and I really enjoyed it! It's a nice drive, and we were chatting all the way about stuff. He and his family are going to move out there with us by next year, hopefully. The whole family is very excited to leave the city, as is ours.

I now have a cruiser motorcycle, which I bought yesterday. My other bike just wouldn't start, no matter what I did! Maybe with some more work I can get it going, but it's just not an appropriate bike for highway commuting. Too light, too tall. My new bike is a 94 Kawasaki Vulcan 750, sits nice and low, and has cruising pegs and can reach highway speed fast. I just need to transfer the registration over, and we'll be all good! I plan on fixing the old bike somehow, and selling it off. It was a nice bike, just not reliable enough for commuting.

I need to go now, and prepare some documents for the permit application, which I need to send TOMMOROW! I've waited too long already.

A new shed!

I'm exhausted, I just got back from the land.

4 hours. That's how long it took to set up a canvas shed on our land today. It should have been half that, but there was complications with the stakes that came with the shed, in that they SUCK!
I'm going to have to get some metal stakes and use those instead, I can't get these into the ground, it's just too HARD! Never trust things you buy at Canadian Tire.

We have our first building! It's a storage shed, metal frame with a canvas roof and walls, but it's something to keep the rain off our junk, which used to be in a storage room. Instead of paying 60 bucks a month, why not use our land for something until we're able to move out there? I plan on emptying our garage as much as possible in the upcoming weeks.

Farm credit canada came back with the financing, and they're gonna give us $86,000, which will have to cover the mobile home and services. That still leaves us about $12,000 short for what we NEED to do, and I'd love to have another 10k for some "nice to have" stuff. I hate borrowing money, but there isn't any other option right now. We're gonna be real tight for cash until November, when our lease is up in the city, but I took one of my cars to the auction, and hopefully I'll get a bit of cash out of that. I've also got a big paycheck coming from my old job, all my vacation and banked overtime. I was hoping to get my pension contributions back too, I don't care about a pension, I want my money NOW! Pensions will be worthless when the stock market collapses, so any money I can rescue would be excellent.

I've been trying to raise a little cash off the land by cutting hay, but it looks like the grass isn't really worth anyones time to come out. It's very weedy, and there are tons of thistles. I did have an offer to graze it, and I would like to take advantage of it, hopefully I can make a few thousand bucks. I just need access to some water!

Now, I'm hunting for a rototiller, and I'm going to start tilling some of the weeds and such that are plaguing the area. There's an inspection on the mobile on monday, and I still have to pay the guy for it.

Here's what I still have to do before moving in:
1. Build a road. Unfortunately, all of the stakes I pounded in the other weekend all fell over, and I can only find a few!
2. Level ground for the mobile, gravel and such.
3. Get a permit! I should have put this as #1, since it is very important and could take some time.
4. Build a cistern, about 7-10,000 gallons capacity. Should take about 6-8 days of work and cost around $4,000.
5. Wind genny and solar panels + batteries. Cost=$12,000
6. Greywater system. We're hoping to get approval for a branched drain system that empties into a mulch basin. It's cheap, effective, and, did I mention cheap? Also easy. It involves branching the mobile's sewer pipe into several areas, which will be planted with trees in November. Trees use greywater, grow and make fruit! Fruit = good.
7. Purchase appliances. Everything from fridge to stove, composting toilets, propane dryer, and washer. Everything must be the highest energy efficiency possible. Costs around $5,000. We will eventually transfer all of these appliances to our house when we build it.
8. Prepare mobile for moving. There's a small shed that I'd like to move as well, if it's not too costly. It comes with the mobile, and I'd hate to leave it behind! I'm trying to arrange a truck big enough to hold it.

Lots of work to do, plus I'm starting a new job. I'm in training right now, just finished my first week. It's easy training though, just kind of a refresher for me!

The Homestead begins

Let me introduce myself. My name is Adam ******** (Sorry, secret information) and we live in Alberta. We're a young family, and we've got one child, a girl. This blog is all about our quest to leave the inner city and live as farmers on the land. I have no interest in growing thousands of pounds of some product and selling it for 24 cents a pound. We intend to eat this food ourselves, and maybe sell whatever surplus there happens to be.
Yesterday, we took possession of 156.8 acres of pastureland approx 1 hr from our hometown of Calgary. The dream is coming true!
I walked through some of it yesterday, setting up stakes with orange ribbons to mark where the road will be, and where the mobile is going.

The dream started in 2005, just after we bought our townhouse. With only a 10 x 20 foot backyard with a miniature garden, going outside was pointless. The neighborhood wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. Unfortunately, it was all we could afford, so we resigned ourselves to inner city life.
We paid a great price for our townhouse, and ended up selling for a profit, not as much as I could have had a year earlier, but that's another story. We made about 50k, enough for another down payment. I could have had 100k cash in 2006, and rented it back from the buyer!

I realized that if something happened, such as, oh, the economy plane getting a hit from a flying elephant, that we would be stuck in the city with no food, no heat and no electricity. Not good. Really not good. Our neighbors would become our enemies, which they almost did anyway, and I'm sure they would shoot me in a heartbeat for the contents of my freezer if they had to!

I struggled for a long time with the details and timing. I put off selling the house, thinking that we had more time before the market tanked. Even as the American housing market blew up into a million tiny shards, I kept saying "Oh, we're good, we've got some time, maybe not very much, but we're ok." Yeah, dummy, lots of time to watch your money sail out the window.

You know what pilots say? There's two things you'll never get back. Runway behind you and altitude above you. They should add "last years home equity" to the list of things that are gone forever.

So, after a painful sale earlier in 2008, we started looking for land to move onto. I put out a couple of ads in newspapers, and got a bunch of responses that went like this
"Hi, I've got a few acres for sale about 40 minutes outside the city."
"Oh, how much?"
"Well, we're asking $375,000 for the 11 acres"
"Oh...thanks anyway"

I was perusing the MLS (Multiple Listing Service), and I stumbled across a listing for 156.8 acres, for 135,000. I thought "maybe he forgot a zero somewhere". I was sure that the gentleman had suffered massive brain damage, or maybe the land was a nuclear test site, or maybe they had filmed a movie with Pauley Shore. Nope, he just wanted to get rid of it. He had parceled out his house and a few buildings, and the rest was up for grabs.

Well, you can bet that we were out there that afternoon! We looked at it, and I said to myself "We better buy this before the seller comes to his senses and wants to sell for what its really worth!" So we did. For those who are not familiar, land around Calgary is between $5000 - 50,000 per acre up to about 40 minutes away. We're an hour away, and we're paying about $850 an acre. You do the math. We got a deal.

We got a loan without too much trouble. We should be able to pay the land loan with what money we make from selling hay or cattle. Needless to say, I've got big plans! A U-pick berry farm, melons, raspberry's, saskatoons, blueberries, trees, seeds, the sky's the limit!

Today, we made an offer on a mobile home. Rather than build a home right away, which we wanted, it's cheaper and easier to put a mobile in. We just need a woodstove, and some new appliances, a wind genny and some solar panels, and we're totally set! It should cost about 90k total for everything the house needs.

I never mentioned, but we have a family that is super good friends with us. They have 6 kids. Yikes. Anyway, this family is absolutely set on joining us on the land (we invited them), so eventually, they're going to co-own the parcel, which will reduce our loan burden, and allow us to more effectively farm the land. It's going to be great having them out there, I can hardly wait!

We have a lot of work to do. We're going to build a cement cistern for water storage, and a large shed for our accumulated possessions, also known as "junk". I'm going to rip out the toilets, and replace them with composting ones. Then we're going to put all of our greywater out into drainage basins, eliminating the need for a septic system. It's almost all planned out, but we just need to convince inspectors, planners and other officials that this is a good idea!

Eventually, we plan to have a strawbale home with a masonry heater, in a Victorian style, but first things first. Let's get out of the inner city, where sirens, gunshots and prostitutes rule the streets, and let's get out where we belong!