Yeah, pretty much....

Relocalizing my life

Maybe it's my mood, but all kinds of red flags are giving me this sense that the giant rotary fecal disbursement mechanism is nearly operational.

Slowly, very slowly, I'm making progress on things that are important to me. It's probably not really that slow, but it seems like it.

One thing that's really important to me is supporting local businesses and products. Making my community stronger and more resilient... more self-reliant. More "crisis proof" - especially when it comes to food and farms.

Thankfully, this is a region where it's much easier to do these kinds of things than where we were before. We're working on fruits and veggies and eggs on our own property, but you can get those locally in most places. But check out what else we're working on:

7 miles north - Milk & butter (& ice cream!) from a solar powered dairy farm
13 miles north - Beef, pork, lamb, & chicken from a diversified farm running a "meat CSA"
11 miles west - Locally grown and milled organic chicken feed
17 miles south - Biodiesel made from locally sourced waste oil

So not only can we be locavores, so can our chickens. And so can my car.

But I don't have to drive to all those places. I can get most of those things in town, within just a few miles. The dairy products actually cost less than the organic from the store. The chicken feed is a bit more expensive, but still pretty reasonable. The meat is not cheap, but I'm okay with that. And at $3.75 a gallon, the biodiesel is actually cheaper than either diesel or gasoline at this point.

There are days when I think the relocation is going to blow up in my face - especially with the job not always living up to its billing, and the Ohio house still sitting up there empty. But we're getting some showings again, and, well, I'm still employed.

But when I look around at what this area has, and what our old place didn't, I don't feel any hint of regret.

--

Stress

Is there such a thing as "reverse white coat syndrome"? You know, where your blood pressure goes down rather than up when somebody in a lab coat takes your blood pressure. My blood pressure is always lower at the doctor's office than it is at home or at one of those automatic blood pressure machines. Maybe it's just the fact that not having any kids around and not being at work makes it one of the more relaxing places I find myself.

This blog used to be about doing stuff. But I haven't had much to say about doing stuff lately, because I haven't gotten much stuff done. With essentially a less-than-zero budget for projects, and a lack of motivation due to stress, it's been hard to muster up much enthusiasm for telling stories here.

Stress. That's the buzzword for me right now. The house in Ohio is still sitting there, empty, as the value falls faster than our payments pay down the debt. My new, "secure" Federal employer is going through some massive cuts right now, and if there are cuts to be made in my group, I have to imagine myself as being "on the bubble."

I'm thankful that I've got a good command of the nuances of words. I never send a single email at work without carefully considering the implications. I spent five minutes today crafting an email that basically said, "I've got this one." I haven't been there long enough to make much of an impression, so I feel like every syllable counts. I'm glad I'm not the guy who threatened to quit the week before the big "reduction in force" announcement.

Of course, I don't want to change jobs. But the thought crossed my mind to try to start looking. Then I realized they just paid for my move. If I quit, I have to pay that money back. In fact, it looks like if they lay me off, I still have to pay that money back. Two houses, no job, and a moving bill - now that would be an interesting pickle.

But what woke me up this morning was perhaps an even more sobering thought. My dad recently found out he's got some none-too-trivial heart problems. He actually had a heart attack when I was in college, but has been doing well ever since. He lives a pretty healthy life by most standards - I think he probably eats better than many and gets a decent amount of exercise. He no longer smokes, he doesn't drink much. And still, one of his main arteries is blocked. It's a case where there's not much to be done for it. He's already on the right medications, and surgery is not an option. So basically, no more snow shoveling, no more rearranging furniture, no more of any number of gardening activities. He just can't do those things any more.

And what popped into my head at around 6:15 today was a simple calculation. I worked out that my dad was 44 years old when he had that heart attack. I'm 40 now. And I probably live a less healthy lifestyle than he has. Especially when I'm stressed.

Tomorrow, we're getting a pair of babysitters and going out on the town with some friends - dinner and the local comedy club. A suitable de-stressifying activity I hope. But I also need to figure out among all these factors what's in my control and what I can do about it.

We all face mortality in different ways and at different times. But when you're the parent a special needs kid, it feels like there's a whole other aspect to it. And I plan on using that as a primary motivator to get my butt in gear.

--

Wow, has it really been that long?

Once again I am a slacker.

Then again, I've worked three weekends out of the last four (and I only got the one off because I was having surgery...) and a number of evenings - and this from a job where the major selling point was no nights and weekends because we have off shift staff.

Since my last post, the cherry trees have bloomed, as have the daffodils, the forsythia, the vincas, some ornamental pears and crabapples... next up should be magnolias, more apples, redbuds, dogwoods, tulips... Next thing I know there will be leaves on all the trees.

There's something about the beginning of spring that I just love. Those cherry trees are so boring and unremarkable fifty weeks of the year, but oh man those two weeks when the cherry blossoms are out make up for all the rest.

I haven't gotten much done lately - between work and my lame foot, I haven't been much use to man or beast. But I have had a little time to do some reading, some learning, even some YouTube surfing for new gardening experiments to try.

I'm not at all confident that the soil here is going to burst forth with vegetable glory. Some areas are reddish-orange clay, other areas are sandy and gravelly. There's a good bit of organic matter in places, but there's also tons of shade and roots to compete with. It's not that I don't think there's anything to work with, I just have to learn what this ground is capable of. At some point we have plans to clear some trees - but not too much. But then you throw in deer, possums, birds, squirrels, and who knows what else (mosquitoes, chiggers, ticks), and it's not the blank garden slate I had in Ohio. Plus, it's much drier here and the summers are longer.

In short, I have a lot to learn.

So my plan for this year are not overly ambitious. Let's just put this dirt through some paces and see what works and what doesn't. Since we have a lot of rotting wood laying around the property, I want to try a hugelkultur experiment. I also want to try growing some crops in self-watering containers. In fact, the only things I'm definitely going to grow in the ground are potatoes, corn, squashes, and melons. Well, and let's be honest - I will end up sticking tomato plants in every leftover space.

Unfortunately, though I'm eager to get started, I haven't had the time or mobility to actually do much yet. And the one flat of seeds I did try to start was dumped by Amelia within a half hour of finishing. I was too disheartened to replant them. I will probably do that tomorrow. And since I'm already behind when it comes to seedlings indoor, I may end up buying some in the end...

Despite all that, the trees are popping and it's only the beginning of March. I'm ready to get some dirt under my fingernails one way or another...

--

The delights of metal roofing

I wish you could hear the sounds we heard the other day.

We had an ice storm the other day - which seems to be a bigger winter problem than snow around these parts. Anyway, so yesterday morning, our world was encased in ice - thin enough that it breaks when you walk on it, but thick enough that it's really loud when it does break.

Daytime highs have not been very high, but the sun was out. On our new metal roof, the ice melts first on the raised ridges (see picture in previous post), leaving wide sheets of ice in the low spots in between. As the sun shines down, these huge sheets of ice start to slide down. Sometimes it slowly slides down and curves to hang straight down, making it look like there are icy blinds hung off the front of our porch:

Other times it slides off en masse, in great avalanches that sound like thunder that send the poor dog running for cover.

But the weirdest sound is when one long sheet comes loose all at once. I'm not sure if I can describe it exactly. The long rectangle of ice slides down whole (making quite a rumble), until the weight of the free hanging end snaps off, and a slab the size of an oversized bed pillow falls to the deck and crashes into a thousand pieces. Meanwhile, the sheet is still sliding down fairly quickly, causing another slab to break off and shatter... followed by another slab, and another, in rapid succession.

You'd swear there was a locomotive coming through the back yard.

Here's what the aftermath looks like:

--

Time off at last, and putting it to some good use

During the first half of this year, I didn't take many vacation days. Scattered days off here and there, but not much. Then I got a new job. The unused vacation turned into money, which was much needed. But with the new job I lost the ability to take time off for the first three months. That was tough, especially while trying to relocate, unpack, settle in, learn our way around, and generally adjust to a whole new life.

But now, at long last, I have some actual leisure time. These short days are a bit demotivating, but I still feel like I'm finally getting a chance to whittle away at various things. And with a milder climate, I'm appreciating the ability to make sporadic progress outside.

Because deer are so abundant on our property, I'm trying a different garden strategy. I don't have any pictures yet, but I'll try to get some at some point.

We put in a five-foot chain link fence in our back yard. That wouldn't stop a hungry deer by any means, but it's something. So, I dragged a cattle panel (yes I have an unnatural love for cattle panels) to one corner of the chain link fence. Using the fence as a brace, I bent the 16-foot panel so that it formed an arch about 6 feet tall, and 8 feet wide. Then I pinned the side away from the fence it into the ground. I arched another panel next to the first one. Then another, and another, essentially creating a welded steel tunnel. It's now about 36 feet long if I counted correctly.

I then went back with some fencing wire and tied the arches to each other, since many of the panels had their own ideas about what constitutes an arch. Tying them together made the tunnel somewhat uniform.

On top of the abundant unraked leaves, I'm putting a layer of packing paper from our moving boxes. Then the boxes themselves get deconstructed to make up the next layer. On top of that will go another layer of leaves. (I'm still in the stage where I see the leaves as a huge blessing, after spending years with barely any leaves.)

Anyway, leaving a narrow path down the center of the tunnel, that should give me at least a couple hundred deer-free square feet to work with.

Plus, I can cover it with plastic for an instant greenhouse, or cover it with shade cloth at the height of summer, or grow vining crops up it, like a trellis. Hmm, I could grow vining crops in the sections where I want summer shade and skip the shade cloth. And if I want to get a little creative, I can probably turn it into a winter chicken run to get some free weeding, tilling, and fertilizing.

Sometimes I think planning and plotting and scheming is half the fun of gardening...

--

Bleh

I need to cut down on my internet usage. I'm finding it has totally killed my attention span. I went from reading books to reading blogs to skimming blogs to skimming headlines.

It's not all the internet's fault. I know my life is full of distractions. With three kids, including one toddler, one high maintenance kid, and one non-verbal autistic kid with sleep issues, it's pretty rare for me to have five minutes in a row to concentrate on something, much less an hour or two. If all the kids are asleep before 9:30, it's a small miracle. And since I have to get up at 5:30am, that doesn't leave much "quiet time".

I miss being able to get really engrossed in a book. I miss movies too.

I know those days will come again, more or less. It's hard to "know" anything about the future with kids, especially special needs kids. But in any case, right now, I could really go for my own personal snow day.

No snow here, though it's been unseasonably cold. Nothing we can't handle for sure, but we're looking at sub-zero wind chills overnight.

I haven't seen much of the chickens. I get home in time to shut them up for the night and bring in their water to thaw it out. I'd like to make them a bigger pen if we happen to get a break in the weather.

I have a work of fiction in my head that I may try to get down on (metaphorical) paper. Getting published as a fiction writer seems unlikely, but sometimes I just like to write. It's another thing I find it hard to do with all the distractions about.

As long as I'm on the negative rant, there's something that fascinates me about this recession/depression thing we've got going on. First, every industry is affected. There are few safe havens outside of the boardrooms of financial institutions or the halls of Congress. Second, nobody is buying the "green shoots" talk. I don't mean nobody in the know. NOBODY. I've run into very few people who don't believe the books are cooked, the numbers are BS and the recovery is underway.

But third, people are almost rooting for it to get worse. It's like people sense that this thing is just broken. The system has been warped beyond repair, and they want to see it crumble. They crave the chance to live through something truly historic. I fear they are right about the first part, but that the second part will be much, much less fun than it sounds.

Anyway, let me turn the page on the negative and get to some positive. I've got some much needed time off over the next couple of weeks. With the job change and the move and everything else, there's been very little time to get some stuff done, blow some stuff off, sit around doing nothing, stay up late and sleep in, and wear slippers all day long.

I'm excited that we're getting a wood stove put in soon. It's a Lopi Republic 1750. We've got a surplus of wood around this place, and heating with electricity is just Not Good.

We're also putting a steel roof on the house, leaving no penny unturned. Hopefully the wood stove and the roof will last for many decades. And if these guys get their butts moving, we'll sneak in under the wire for tax rebates on both.

We've been doing some fun financial gymnastics lately involving my retirement funds among other things, and I'm dying to see how our income taxes turn out. We may be beyond the reach of Turbo Tax this year. I hope my amateur accounting guesswork isn't horribly wrong.

Can you tell it's wintertime by the tone of this post?

Well tonight I'm the last man standing. We're all sick. Everyone else has wisely gone to bed. I am foolishly staying up too late. But in the words of Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette: "You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiam."

--

Our back yard, showing off a bit

Down in the lower right you can see the 5-foot fence and the extension ladder for scale. Click for the bigger version if you've got the bandwidth and the screen size.

One of my favorite things about moving here has been the fall. It starts a little later than I'm used to. It's quite a bit warmer than I expected. (I haven't really been wearing a jacket regularly - we're still breaking 70 during the day.)

It also lasts A LOT longer. In Ohio, it seemed that the trees would change color one day and then be bare the next. Here, it seems like the trees change one by one, with each type getting the spotlight for days at a time. Maybe it was just that there are a lot more trees here than there were back in Pickaway County. I don't know. But whatever it is, I like it.

And the best part? No long, grueling winter at the end of it. A couple months of chill, an occasional dusting of snow to make it pretty, a few ice storms, and we're done. At least that's what I'm told.

In other news, we may have chickens by the weekend after Thanksgiving. More to come on that one...

Why I'm loving my new home

Where we used to live, I always felt like I was a bit of an extremist. I didn't talk to people about what I really thought or knew or wanted. I came here for that to some extent. I was one rant shy of the loony bin.

Here, I feel like an extreme moderate. I feel like just another person trying to figure out the best ways to live on less - less energy, less money, less stuff... less everything.

Let me give you an example: A few weeks ago, not long after I bought Otto the Wonder Car, I started looking into local biodiesel options. While I don't think biodiesel will ever solve our energy problems, I do like the idea of using waste materials to power my car. I looked into making it once upon a time, but it seemed like more than I could take on in my spare time.

Anyway, this area seemed like the kind of place where I might find some people who were homebrewing the stuff, and thought maybe some of the might sell their surplus. Instead, what I found was Piedmont Biofuels - probably one of the best run alternate fuel operations anywhere. And fueling stations within five miles of both my home and my work. For a 10% surcharge, they'd deliver it to my house if I asked. If that weren't enough, I could pay for my fuel with well-established local currency.

Let me give you another example: Last weekend e5 and I spent an afternoon hanging out with a crew of what I can only describe as neo-hippies. They didn't live in a commune, they lived in a housing co-op: Two long one-story apartment building with a fenced community garden in between them. Rain barrels at every door. Salvaged materials put to good use in all kinds of ways. But no tie-dies or patchouli, or weirdness. Just regular people taking a different path - and one that happens to be of great interest to me.

The reason for our visit was to watch (and help) with building an earth oven (a.k.a. a cobb oven). I always thought it would be a cool project to build one of these, but after reading up on it, I got the impression that you could only get so far on your own. Many of the descriptions of the process rely on tactile references that just can't be adequately spelled out in print. And that was definitely the case.

I asked a million questions of the two experts on hand, and watched with interest as the oven came together. Once I realized the process was going to be fairly slow, I started to worry that e5 was going to get bored. But he found a college-aged friend who helped him sculpt a frog in the sand pile - a "fire-bellied sand frog" of course - and then she went back to her place to retrieve her ferrets. What more could a seven-year-old ask for?

One more example of why this place is a good fit for my worldview: Today I was able to buy a really nice rain barrel - used, so it wasn't putting more plastic into the world - and I purchased it from a Habitat for Humanity ReStore, thereby supporting an organization I've always admired.

Now if you throw in a beautiful lake down the road where you can rent a canoe for five bucks, a local Public Works that offers all the free compost you can haul, a very active Cub Scout troop that doesn't go too overboard on the God and Country stuff, and the fact that it's the first of November and the trees are still gorgeous and I haven't really used my jacket yet.... well... can I just say that I love this place?

--

Slacker

I am not doing very well with this blogging thing lately. Work has been busy as the learning curve is a little steep. I can't just "do" any more. I have to follow processes and procedures. Only I don't know them yet.

The long commute has cut into my free time too. That situation will improve in February, but I'm not there yet.

Throw in a fun birthday weekend (the Big Four-Oh - yikes) and an unavoidable trip back to Ohio, and I've lost a lot of "getting stuff done" hours. Boxes, boxes everywhere. Well, they're slowly concentrating in the garage and the basement. But I suspect them of reproducing down there too.

But all in all, this has been a very good move for us. Maybe at some point I'll find the time to tell more stories about it. But the short version right now is that I'm geeking out on all the sustainability stuff going on around here. And still trying to decide where the garden and the chickens will go.

Tonight, I am exhausted.

But tomorrow I don't have to work. Still have to get up before 6am. But I'll take it.

--

No phone, no TV, no internet, not a single luxury...

unless you count well water, or electricity. (Okay I'd count those. But still...)

You never realize just how dependent you are on something until you don't have it. We are currently without phone service (land line or mobile), internet, or television. We are virtually cut off from all forms of communication with the outside world, short of the mailbox at the end of the driveway. We have been for almost a week.

We can't quickly look up where the nearest hardware store is. I can't return emails for my freelance work. We can't call our real estate agent in Ohio. We can't get in touch with friends or family.

Even when I'm at work, with a vast telecommunications network at my fingertips, I still can't call my wife and ask her if she can pick up that check, or find out what essential items I might need to grab on the way home.

The biggest near miss to a problem came on Friday, when I got a call from the school that Amelia had a fever. In order to go pick her up and take her home, I'd essentially have had to miss half a day of work at a time when I have no paid time off to use. And I had no easy way to call Lori and let her know.

Luckily, Lori and I had already arranged to meet for lunch, so I could let her know to go get Amelia.

It seems like there are a dozen times a day when I think, "Oh I should call our friends and see if they're home" or "I'll just look that up online," or all the other little mundane things that I can usually do without a second thought. Right now, it's about 4:30 in the morning. I was so exhausted last night, I fell asleep putting Amelia to bed. So I woke up extra early this morning. I can't do much unpacking or rearranging without waking up the rest of the house. I can't flip on the TV or surf the web either. And our books aren't even unpacked. No books, forsooth!

Thankfully, we should have this mostly resolved by Monday night, when our bundled services finally get installed. And at some point after that, I'll post this.

Meanwhile, I think it's time for a snack. I burned a lot of calories yesterday...

--

Follow-up: I think I missed the phone more than I thought I would, and the TV less. And internet, don't ever leave me....

--

Instant Homestead Sale!

Dory: He says, "It's time to let go!". Everything's going to be all right.

Marlin: How do you know? How do you know something bad isn't gonna happen?!

Dory: I don't!

- Finding Nemo

As many of you guessed from my last post, we've more or less made up our minds. Oh in theory there could still be some dramatic last minute change of heart (or circumstance), but mostly we're just waiting for the Gears of Bureaucracy to turn. We're pretty close to the point of no return on this decision though.

But as a result of these impending events, our Instant Homestead has been significantly discounted from our original price. We're down about $20,000 from our starting point.

We did have four showings last week, including three in two days. That's more showings than we had from November through June. So we feel a bit better. We may end up dropping our price some more though if something doesn't happen soon.

Unfortunately, we'll most likely take a loss on this place. We put our money into things that just don't add to resale value - like really good fences.

But what can you do? We could stay put, and have my job disappear in six months. Or stay put and have my job move to Texas, which is almost as bad. (No offense to my Texas friends.) In my line of work, there are only so many employers to choose from in any given metro area, and none of the ones around here are hiring.

There is no obvious best choice here, and either direction could turn out to be a bad move. So you go with what feels right. A friend of mine advised that in situations like these, you should make up your mind decisively, and then do a Happy Dance. If it doesn't feel right, switch your decision and try again.

So here we go. We've come up with Plans A through at least G or H by now. We've got contingencies upon contingencies. We'll navigate it as best we can.

And as soon as everything is official I'll have some stories to tell. This blog will pick up again, perhaps somewhat sporadically at first as we do all the million things we need to do. But I can feel the writing piling up inside. It's just not quite time yet...

--

Standing on the precipice

We are about to be faced with a very interesting (and risky) choice - in fact, it's probably the biggest decision our family has ever made.

Option 1 is the Status Quo. Keep our current job and our current house. We really do love our home - nine acres, fenced pastures, pole barn, pond, and all the things we've put into it. But between a pay cut, rising health care costs, the addition of a new family member, and other expenses, our budget has become uncomfortably snug. The job that I've been with for almost a decade now requires me to work more hours than ever before, among other problems. My job security feels like it's eroded significantly in the last couple years. There are no real opportunities for career growth or change there. I currently work from home 4 days a week, but every Thursday I have a 100 mile commute - each way. Starting next year, I'd have five full weeks of vacation time.

Option 2 is The Leap. I'm about to be offered a new job, in the area we fell in love with while visiting some friends last summer: A beautiful, rolling countryside that is a mix of woods and small farms. Local food at every turn - heck, even the corner gas stations sell local veggies and raw milk. (The annual sustainable farm tours in this area include no less than 40 participating farms.) World-class autism programs. A great job market for my line of work. Lower cost of living. Good friends in the immediate area, and family in the region.

The new job would involve a pay raise, Federal benefits, four more paid holidays, 13 vacation days right off the bat and a bump to four weeks after three years. Working from home three days a week after six months of employment. Job stability. Regular training, and many more potential career opportunities. And good team chemistry.

We found an awesome house in the area, sitting on 3.5 acres, and we've actually got a contingent contract on it. It's significantly cheaper than our current home.

The problem, of course, is that we can't get our house to sell. It's been on the market since November, with very few showings. We've dropped our price several times, and changed real estate agents. Still nothing yet.

We can come up with all kinds of short-term plans and schemes that would allow me to take the new job. It would also give us access to some retirement money that could be used to drop our house price further, as well as putting a significant down payment on the next house.

But the short-term solutions involve things like splitting our family across 400 miles, or cramming 4 adults and 5 kids into a 1500-square-foot house with a slightly unreliable well. We could manage, but for how long?

If the house still won't sell... well.... we haven't come up with a viable long-term solution for that.

We've got an eight hour drive tomorrow to think about all this. But we've been thinking about this hypothetical scenario for months now, and haven't yet derived the answer. The only difference is that it's no longer hypothetical.

John Burroughs is credited with saying "Leap, and the net will appear." We might be about to test that sentiment in a very big way.

--

Two tidbits from Dirt: The Movie

First, a quote:

"Over many years, the dirt has taught me a lot. God did not give us this amazing dirt to mistreat it. I have a relationship with this living organism. At times I am dirt's father because I take care of it. At times dirt is my mother because she feeds me. And at times dirt is my lover because we share a loving relationship. I take care of it and the dirt takes care of me. I feel the life within it." - Pierre Rabhi (as translated from French)

Second, a story:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkOIqhtxTeg

One small step...

[Right: Amelia, wearing all of her favorite clothes at once, at her request. Some of the bottom layers can't even be seen. She wanted more, but we had to stop - partly because we couldn't stop giggling long enough to keep going. ]

One of the things we asked Amelia's school to work on with her was food. She has sensory issues that go well beyond "picky eater" - her diet was limited to foods of certain textures, and to a lesser extent, colors. We tried a wide range of approaches to expand her horizons, with only the tiniest glimmers of success. She was firmly stuck in a small sliver of the food spectrum: pretzels, cookies, chips, crackers, popcorn, Cheerios, and chicken nuggets. If it didn't look or feel right, she wouldn't even touch it, much less eat it.

We practically force fed her yogurt and/or applesauce every day, just because we were desperate to get a tiny bit of real food into her. We spiked it with NanoVM, a vitamin powder designed for kids like her, that doesn't give any off flavor or texture to the food.

But it was hardly a solution we were comfortable with. We tried serving her the same dinner everyone else was having. We tried taking her to a feeding clinic. We tried something they call food chaining - basically finding foods that were very similar to those she liked. We really weren't able to make much progress with that approach. We cringed at the thought of how slow the pace was for accepting new foods, and how little progress we were making toward the kinds of foods we actually wanted her to eat. What we had was a recipe for an overweight, diabetic, malnourished mess.

Notice the clever use of the past tense in this post so far. That's because a little over a week ago, we started getting notes home from the school: "Amelia ate some pizza today." Then, "Amelia ate her whole lunch, including a cheeseburger." Then, "We couldn't feed Amelia her ravioli fast enough today."

Wait... Did they say ravioli? As in, wet, slimy, not at all crunchy, ravioli?? Granted, school lunches are hardly a great diet, but compared to where she was before, it was huge.

The next day, I gave her a spiral noodle from some pasta salad that Lori had made. She touched it, then put it down. She picked it up. She carried it around for about five minutes. She touched it to her chin. Then to the tip of her nose. Then... she ate it. I went into the kitchen and picked out some more noodles. Her hesitation was gone. She ate them all and requested more.

At that point, I thought, what the hell - I gave her the pasta salad as is, complete with olives, broccoli, salami, the whole bit. Again she brought me an empty bowl. She ate everything? This was big. This was Revolutionary.

As it turned out, she didn't eat everything. On the floor under her chair, I found a small pile of olives and salami. But you know what? I don't really like olives all that much either. The key for me was that the little reject pile contained absolutely no broccoli.

Vegetables. She ate vegetables. And asked for more! My world was turned upside down. Lori was literally getting teary-eyed. I started making phone calls, screaming "Amelia ate broccoli!" to unsuspecting (and slightly bewildered) friends and relatives.

Since then, Amelia's tried all sorts of new things. As many as six or eight new things in a day. Not all make the cut, but I'd say we've had a (stunning) 75% success rate with new food acceptance.

Lori wrote a note to the school, thanking them for working their magic. We didn't know what they were doing, but whatever it was, it was working. Funny thing though - I ran into her teachers a couple days later when I was dropping off her glasses. They told me they hadn't really done anything. It just happened. All at once, Amelia started eating. It was all her own doing.

And beyond the obvious, it gives us hope that progress doesn't always have to be painstakingly slow - hope that every now and then, Amelia can make a great leap forward. It gives us hope for potty training. Or even... what if... what if one day she can learn to talk?

Of course, she may not pull this kind of trick again. And that's ok. We know the odds. But for this one we are thankful... happy... stunned... relieved.

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A funny dream

I had a dream last night that scientists came up with a way to solve our energy, food, and population problems. They found a way to shrink people down to the height of a beer bottle. Tiny people ate less food, required less energy, and less space. So they started shrinking us. It was working great right up until all the house cats figured out we made good prey.

I feel like if our house ever sells, I'll have a flood of posts for this place. In the meantime, all I've got is this silliness.

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Sooooo.....

Interesting things are afoot here at the Soggy Bottom Ranch. Well, there's at least the potential of interesting things afoot. We went on a scouting expedition this past weekend, to see what kind of houses might be in our target price range.

Most were... meh. But one wasn't. One caught our attention. It had 3.6 acres, mostly wooded. The house is quirky for sure. It was an older ranch that's been expanded, which always seems to lead to weird floor plans. But it's divided up into the right kinds of spaces for us. Including a basement and an attached garage, neither of which is common for what we're looking at.

It's not a nicer house than the one we live in, but it could turn out to be a better house. Especially at 60% of the cost of our current one.

So we're thinking of making a conditional offer on it. Basically a contract that says if we can sell our current house in 3 months (or 4 or 6 or whatever the offer specifies), we will buy your house. Given how long he's been on the market, we figure it's worth a shot. And we feel good about our chances here all things considered.

And of course I'm already in full game plan mode. Wood stove here, potting area and crude outdoor kitchen there, future solar panel siting, gardens, edible landscaping, who goes in which room, etc., etc. And in the unfinished areas, there's room for anything we'd ever need to do or store, plus room for a friend to set up a little studio, her husband to work on his motorcycle, and in emergency circumstances, for us to take in extra people.

It's got a big laundry room-slash-pantry area. It's got skylights for natural light in the kitchen. It's got a natural spring on the property. It's got enough deadfall to make a few years' worth of firewood. It's got an area that's practically a root cellar without lifting a finger. I could go on...

Now all we have to do is just SELL THIS HOUSE!

Patience is a virtue. Right?

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The brain is a funny thing

I had a dream last night that I was sitting on a roller coaster, all buckled in and locked down. But there was some kind of problem, so the ride couldn't start. We just had to sit there and wait.

And that was the whole dream. Lots of waiting.

It seemed like we were sitting there for hours. We were unable to really move around much or get comfortable, but we still weren't going anywhere. So we just sat there, wishing we could get on with the good parts, or if that wasn't going to happen, at least get off the ride and get back to other things.

Yeah, sounds about right.

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They're taunting me

The cruelest one arrived in the mail today: The Raintree Nursery catalog. The seed catalogs aren't so bad for me right now. I have so many seeds that I'm not even on the lookout for anything new in the garden. I've got more than I can handle already, and quite a few I haven't even tried yet.

But Raintree, ohhh.... Fruits, nuts, berries, and their woody, perennial brethren are like kryptonite to me. I would give up the veggie garden entirely if I could have all the trees, shrubs, vines, and brambles my heart desires. Apples, peaches, cherries, plums, pears, grapes, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, elderberries, serviceberries, paw paws, quinces, persimmons, kiwifruit, gooseberries, currants, lingonberries, sea buckthorn, aronia, goumi... ahhh... and then there's hazelnuts, chestnuts, butternuts, pecans, almonds, walnuts, and beechnuts. Throw in some clumping bamboo, and I'm done for.

The problem of course, is the thought of leaving them behind. I'm already trying to figure out what I might be able to cart out of here to some temporary home before a seller comes along.

I haven't decided if I'll order anything or not. Probably not. But it's going to be hard... harder than I realized...

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Limbo

If we ever move to a new place, remind me to tell you a funny story. Well, it's a stressful story right now, but it will be funny by the time I can tell it. I don't really know who might read this, and well, for now it'll just have to wait.

In the meantime, nothing much is happening on the home selling front. It's not a great time to be selling a house around here. But we knew that. We only need one buyer, and we feel like our place has a lot to offer. Time will tell.

In the meantime, I'm having to temporarily live vicariously through other people's blogs. Our chickens our sold. Our cow is for sale. The garden is put to bed. All the future plans and dreams for this place are packed away. This was our dream house, planned from the ground up by us, so it's bittersweet to be trying to let it go.

Mini-Farm Version 2 is still just an abstract thought. Every time I look at a potential new home, I immediately takes note of which way is south and where the trees are. My brain starts marking out garden beds and fences. A small greenhouse appears, then some solar panels, a wood stove, fruit trees, hazelnut hedges, a chicken coop, and all the other things that fit into the vision. My mind starts budgeting and prioritizing based on the home price, and all the various scenarios that might come up.

And then that house goes off the market.

It's still a fun exercise, but I'm longing to get a move on. I want to sit down with a note pad and aerial photos and a web browser at my fingertips, looking things up and filling in the minutiae, and then doing it. Or doing whichever parts of it time and money will allow. I want to take what I've learned here and improve on it. I want to take the ideas of others and try them out.

Winter is just about here, and that's the time when I normally sit down with all the garden books and seed catalogs and graph paper and figuring it all out. I'll probably still do that, but it's hard knowing that it could all go out the window at any time. In my mind, gardening is not so much an annual activity as an ongoing, long-term process that amounts to more than just this growing season.

In short, it looks like it's going to be a bit of a frustrating winter for me.

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