Eastern Red Bud

First, this is probably not the right way to treat an eastern redbud. At all.

The start of this poor trees journey was a few years ago at a blue big box store. It had not only the unfortunate luck to be the only redbud, but to be the tree that caught my attention. I was looking for the summer sun beaten discount plants. Mostly the cheapest ones that might survive.

This time there were some trees. They were even marked 50% off. I was very suspicious.

I was also paranoid. While I was reading the tag (I was calling my dad) another customer came up a seriously started eyeing the tree & was trying to move in on it. She didn't  let up even when I was holding onto the trees trunk.

My dad loves redbuds. He has always wanted one but never got one because they were too expensive. So when I found out that the mystery tree was a redbud and only $12? I started calling him and guarding the tree. I will also point out the he decided that $12 was too much. I bought it anyway.

The very nice sales person was kind enough to get my "only looking" idiot self a cart. She was very nice and... also eying up the tree. She was telling me about how all the fruit trees had been mostly purchased by employees the moment they went on sale. It sounded like she had gotten twelve trees or something like that. She said it was a beautiful tree and if I wasn't interested she would probably grab it.

Again my idea self got paranoid so I passed on the store holding it. My dad, with the car that actually had a trunk was not going to show because stubbornness runs in the family. (My mom already said not to buy anything so that was out) I now needed a way to fit it into my car.

At this point my car was a beetle. Not the classic but the 'new'. It was lazer blue. And while I have hauled 4 giant pumpkins in it it can barely hold one suitcase if the seats up.

The tree was at least seven feet tall with an additional two feet from the pot it came in. The branches were at minimum three feet diameter.

I vetoed having the pot in the trunk with the branches sticking out to be at the mercy of my driving. So that left fitting it in my car. Right.

I somehow managed to do just that.

I also managed to get it back out. All without damaging the tree or making a huge mess. I hit my head at least twice on the inside roof of the car, so still a win.

The best win was the fact that my dad loved it.

Unfortunately the place we planted it was... not the best. It was a perfect view but the soil turned out to be more clay then the tree roots could deal with. Plus the deer would chow down on it. He got to see a few blooms over the years but not many.

Then last winter almost killed it. We had to chop it down to a little stump. It had a leaf bud or two. It was sad.

We dug it up, discovered that the roots were still in the original rootball, put it in a garage bag and took it to my house. Were it spent all summer in the garbage bag next to my barn. It has four two foot long branches now. I still don't know where I am planting it. 

A First Time Home Owner Grant Update

What happens if you are doing the First Time Home Buyer program and your loan officer is refusing to work with you?

You find a new loan officer within the bank.

This is a terrifying thing. But if I can do it, so can you.

I have written and re-written this post many times. So here goes.

Once you find your agent, talk to them about what's going on. My agent was very, very helpful and understanding. She said for normal loans people switch loan officers and banks all the time. She had worked with someone at the bank I was using. My phone call that I made was a blathering mess.

My agent offered to call for me to explain and I found myself with a new loan officer.

(Other Things Happened. PSA talk to a real estate agent before working with a bank. Brokers are supposed to be better.)

She said that sometimes big banks won't talk to the agents, that it has to be just you. She also said that the little guys tend to let agents be your voice for checking on paper work.

We found that if all else fails, CC your lawyer onto the email. It's a jerk move but if you are getting a lot of run around it can make them take you seriously. Which sucks.

Would I ever seriously recommend someone to do this program?

I have to say yes because it was the only way I could get my house. Without it I would not have my house.

Mind, I will also be telling and warning people of Just What Happened. The drama of a personal re-telling is apparently hilarious. I also tell people to save as much as they possibly can because the more you have saved up the better the house you can get. It will also give you a better emergency cushion if the closing doesn't bleed you dry.

But... It's so evil. But good.  Proceed with caution.

Small solar project

I would love to figure out if & how to hook up one of the little solar lights to a computer fan.

Stay with me on this. I was looking at the solar dehydrators and several people spoke about adding little fans. Which I assume to be solar powered. There are a lot of places I could use the little fans to the air moving.

After a dehydrator, a greenhouse would need them.

Greenhouses need a lot of air circulation. With some strategically places little fans the humidity, heat and cold air could be kept even with out adding an extra cost.

Seeing as these days the little lights can be bought for about a buck each and I know far too many computer people who collect fans, it shouldn't be too expensive of an experiment.

I also plan to have my paths littered with the suckers, so I would be getting the lights no matter what.

Fencing Ideas

I am far, far too cheep to pay for fences around the land I plan to look for. There is the whole upkeep bit as well.

Plus I'm lazy.

I did see a post about an elven spite fence. Long story short, they planted a row of fruit trees and flowers to piss off a neighbor. Useful, pretty and awesome.

I am thinking of just planing a row of poplars and willow around my property. Both plants grow very fast in my area. Poplars seem to grow any place and willows are great for wet areas. I wouldn't even need to spend money to start them because I can gather poplar seedlings at home and get willow cuttings while fishing.

They would also be good crafting supplies for me. This could save me money in the long run.

The only draw back is I consider poplars weeds because of how fast they spread. Willows have a shallow root system and rot fast. I don't know if they make good mulch but I will probably find out.

For a mid-high plant/bush I'm not sure what I would do.

I am rally leaning to letting a climbing rose grow free around the trees. Maybe in the front area I will. Then I think for the back areas I'll try to get wild grape vines going.

I might even set up a few fake bee hives to keep people away... And maybe I'll get lucky and bees will move in also.  :3

House Hunt part 3

The house I want to put a bid on.

It is old.

It has character.

It has so many churches around it my mom and I started laughing our self's silly every time we saw another church. There were seven traditional styled churches at a glance and then we kept finding smaller subtle ones.

The house is even being sold by the church.

We think it's the former pastors house. It's an 1800's house but this one has a perfect foundation and beautifully large basement. There is an odd little part but I didn't explore it because spiders. (the farm one didn't have that many spiders now that I think about it.)

There are two kitchens.

The The one upstairs is apart of an apartment. They nailed a few doors shut and had renters upsatirs at some point. This kitchen is perfect for studio work where I need a sink or oven. Ther rooms are tiny but nice.

Down stairs is perfect and not updated at all. It looks like they had used it for a historical display of some sort. The wood floors are amazing. Super high ceilings throught the house. The kitchen down stairs is awkward but I love it.

The backyard and side yards are tiny and weird and there is a shared path to the church. There is a 'garage' that I call a barn. I can't put my car in it but it works for so many other things. There needs to be a property line check because everything is so close together.

The front bushes would be the first things to go.

There are so many original things and because it was owned by a church, it's been taken very good care of. The initial investment to build it must have been insane.

This... will hopefully be the house I will be writing about.

List o' tumblr people

Ok, so I said I would do my best to link quality stuff to you all. Finding other blogs is proving to be just a tad more painful then I thought. So I am adding other sources to this.

http://systlin.tumblr.com/

Awesome person. Knowledge of an infinite amount of things. One of my side tumblr's might as well be a fan page to her because she is the main source of posts shared on it.


https://thebibliosphere.tumblr.com/

BookMom. Again, an amazing woman that is full of so much knowledge. <3 <3 <3 Tons of stories, writing and an original viral post that keeps showing up on her dash.


http://markruffalo.tumblr.com/

Yes, the Mark Ruffalo. All around good guy that is actually good.


https://ursula-vernon.tumblr.com/
and
http://tkingfisher.tumblr.com/

I have been following Ursula Vernons art & stories for years. The top link is kid friendly. The other is her more natural personal-ish blog. She is also awesome.


And... That is all I have for this round.

Star Plate Barn

I have been reading some other blog posts on star plate barns and I think I will be putting a few up. Or rather, I will be buying a few of the plates to make some and see how many others I put up after I build the first barn.

This is purely an aesthetics thing.

Moving beyond that, they will have some good and practical uses also. Mainly storage. Moving twice across the country while growing up was a good learning experience that storage is always needed. After one move from a smaller to larger house we still couldn't figure out how we had stored so much stuff in the prior one.

I know I will need the outdoor storage. Garage space has always been prime in my family and if I have barns then I can have my car in the garage. Assuming I don't end up using the garage as a work studio so I can stay in pajamas longer.

I also would like to see about adding solar panels to them. But I am not sure how far from the main house they can be before it's not worth it.

Secondary to this is if i can use one as a sudo guest house, it might be worth it to have an off the grid setup for family when they stay. Solar for light would be great and I might be able to get away with a portable thing as it would be more like a low budget cabin. But the restroom would be a problem. Plumbing is too expensive and I don't want to deal with outhouses.

Storage and space seem to be my big needs right now. So I will get at least one built.

Packing for storage

I just a few weeks ago I got another storage unit. Perhaps I should say second storage unit. I know I would eventually need a second one. I was just hoping I could cram everything into one.

Yeah, that didn't happen.

I have at least three rooms worth of stuff that I need to fit into the units. Most of this stuff is siting around loosely stacked. Not in boxes.

The short of it is, I was going to sell things online. My mom encouraged that but didn't realize that the items would be in the house until they sold. I also got some of the to sell and to keep items mixed up. So now I have a bug mess on my hands and in the basement.

The long story is, when I got my first unit my mom wanted me to bring most of it upstairs to get ready for the next day. She wanted to do 'just one more' load of laundry. She also wanted me to leave everything as it was because she could just walk around it. While carrying that last load of laundry she tripped on the boxes and smashed her elbow.

Yeah. I have just enough angsity while getting the car pack these days that I kinda avoid taking stuff to the unit. My mom doesn't blame me but she doesn't like it. She also really doesn't like it when I tell her to GTFO while walking around my stuff.

Today I made sure she was in designated safe places only. She was very amused.

This is my meandering way of trying to explain to myself why it has taken almost three years for me to not even fill my first unit.

I have probably spent $1,000 on shelving. I know I am going to spend more. This will all be re-used in my house when I get it. But it is a lot if money. Most people don't realize that you can NOT stack boxes on top of each other forever. I stack heaviest on the bottom and if I have done my packing right with the lightest on top... I can stack four boxes high. Thats it.

Any higher and the bottom one will collapse and then the things inside will get crushed. If I was living in a more humid place I could only stack three high. when the bottom box gets wet it will collapse. With the storage shelves i don't have to worry about that.

Plastic tubs can collapse also but I find they are more expensive and not worth it.

A little secret is that I worked at a storage and moving company for about six years. There was one employee that always insisted to people that you could stack boxes up to the ten foot celing in the units. They would always be the people that would complain that their things broke. The guy never listened when told not to tell people they could do that. He would just say "well, I guess that they just didn't do it right." He was perfectly safe from getting in trouble because the owner could pay him nothing for all the other work that he did.

So! do not over stack boxes! And don't start a business and leave it hanging after buying tons of crap. I'm off to re-arrange my units. Later all.

Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service

So... Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service is a thing I have heard some good reviews of, but there were not that many to start. It seems like it has been around for a bit but it's not really 'out there'? I don't know.

The wiki page has a link to each states section/school.

For New York State it's Cornell. I love that they have a page just to direct you to all the NYS offices. It makes things much easier.

There is actually a location by my parents house. I think I will try out a class or two even though it's about 45-60 min away. Annnnd.... It also looks like the site has a few pages that there last updated in 2015. There are a few from this year, but... eh.

I'm not quite sure home much my 'local' place can do with events/classes. But I will definitely keep this in mind when I get a home in the middle of no-ware. XD

House Hunt part 2

Ok! So another house from my hunt had a drug bust going on across the street when we arrived.

I can't even begin to tell you how much my mom was NOT HAPPY about this. My agent and I were trying to covertly snoop from the attic window with little to no luck seeing anything relevant but we had fun speculating and it. I am betting it was a hydro pot farm in the basement.

But on to the house.

The house was only needing cosmetic things.

The floors were mostly stripped. Probably someone started sanding them and gave up. It would literally be a breeze to finish sanding them and then seal them. Super high ceilings. The basement was a little damp but good solid walls.

It had endless amounts of character. I loved it.

Just not were it was. If this house had been on the farm land? Pure perfection. But it wasn't.

The drug bust across the street kinda killed the neighborhood for me. It just had a lot of little things like the streets were very narrow and we think the house next door might have been abandoned. People were out and about but... It just didn't have that home feeling.

So we kept looking.

Window trimmings

I know my mom will hate this, but I plan to make my own window covers for the winter & summer months. I will try and make some nice functionally decorative ones also because extra warmth is always good.

It would be like this:
-summer thin veils to let in the breeze but to keep out the harshest sun. (separate bar)
-decorative shades to look night and add warmth as needed.(separate bar)
-winter covers made of heavy-er fabric. (to be hung on summer bar with hooks)

I know this works because I have had my bed under a window during some very cold winters.

My mom hated the loose fabric I would fold over it but she relented when I had her reach past it. So much so that she almost borrowed some fabric for some other rooms. Unfortunately the pre-existing fixtures in the other rooms didn't work for this method. Currently I close my sisters (she moved out) bedroom door to keep the cold just to that room.

I have a small addiction to remnant bins at fabric stores. I have a lot of fabric and a sewing machine that I have use a grand total of one time. I plan on changing the latter as soon as I can.

I also plan to have any and all skylights ripped out. I hate them. They do nothing by leak and let in the cold.

But back to the drawing board.

House Hunt part 1

Ok so.... I might have found a house.

One of the top houses on my list was the dream tiny farm property in a pretty quiet place. It needed two things done to it. the power cable to the house and... something else that wasn't too bad. But it's an 1800's house and it felt like it. There had been a lot of updates to it but none in atleast the last twenty years.

There is a room that I have dubbed the Red Room. It looks like it should be the wall paper in a bordello. I kid thee not.

There is a root cellar with labels going back at least as far as 1965. you have to duck down to walk around in it. there are parts of the root cellar that are made to be just the right storage humidity. There is a curing room for onions and garlic and squash. There is a second kitchen that is actually a prep room for canning with a second massive sink and an old stove to die for.

This is when my agent really understood just how much I had been researching about all of this. It wasn't shocking but I think it made my wild selections easier to understand.

This is not the house I am putting a bid on.

I love it but there are glaring problems that will take a lot of time to fix. The walls appear to be a booby-trap of layers on layers of paint and wallpaper. There is carpet in both bathrooms and in both kitchens.

The foundation is crumbling to a point that looked worry-some.

But the yard is to die for.

I am keeping it in mind. If it was $10k or $15k less then I would jump on it. So for now it's on my list but it's not the one at the top.

And this kills me. It has every thing that I would do to it but... for now it's just on my list.

House Hunting!!

I am trying to write a post that is not just the words 'house hunting' over and over.

I can't. XD

I get to start house hunting! my agent has a day all planed out!!! I am SO EXCITED!!!!

*Happy Squee!!!*

/r/Homesteading

New thing found! /r/Homesteading FAQ is on reddit.

It's not super, super mad crazy in-depth, but it has a lot of basic information. Most importantly it has links to information. The main page for all the posts is a bit... weird.

There are good and bad. IT's reddit so... yeah.

On land and when your plans change

My whole goal is to have a nice tiny farm.

Currently, I think my tiny firm is going to be much, much smaller then I was hoping.

This is not a buyers market and most of the places that would be all the land I could possibly want? Way too far for me to commute to my job. It's a new one and I really love it. So now I am rather happy I was already making a list of things I could live without.

In order to get a house I can afford I have to let go of a dream of lots of land.

It... sounds easier then it was. I have been coming to terms with this for the last six months. I just can not afford it. I also can not live with out high speed internet and guess what? Way out in gods country the is no internet at speeds that don't bring me back to dial-up. I grew up with dial-up. I will not be doing that again.

What does this do? A lot of surprising things.

The first is that I can probably have a two story house. This was on my sacrifice list, but now not only could I have it, but I might also be able to get what is for me a move in ready house. I will be ripping up carpets and such but I could live in it.

The only new thing on my must have list is a garage. This is for my parents boat for the winter.

The hardest thing I found is that I have no idea what kind of a commute I am willing to live with. I was originally thinking of at most two hours. But that would mean possibly getting home at 8pm or later on some nights. Losing four hours of each weekday might be more then I can handle. I am still thinking about it for now.

It might be worth it if I was actually two hours closer to my sister.

So yes, my big mandatory land is now down to on that I can still feel comfortable with. This will change with the houses that I eventually get to look at because each will be different. If this was all happening 5 years ago then I would not worry about how much land I was getting because I would be selling the house after a few years as an investment. Not a flip.

But I don't want to start over again in five years. I'll be 40 by then. Personally I would rather be eating the fruit off my own trees instead of house hunting. But after this, who knows? maybe there would be another move.

But right now I just need to get my first house.

An Update full of Spite and Rage

So I am full of spite and rage. Which I posted about of my tumblr here.

Yes I am going to do this.

No, do not try this at home.

I have many reasons why I am able to do this. They are the same reasons I can't yet post about. I could also get screwed by doing this.

What I can talk about is that I now have a dead line to move out. My parents have finally planning to put the house up for sale in a few months. Since I am very obviously not moving with them, I now have the start of a dead line.

But I will say here that no, calling your bank person at 6:30 am and 7:00 am is not the way to their heart. I am hoping it'll be the way to the answers that they refuse to tell me via e-mail. Because saying yes or no when asked if I can start looking at houses and get a real estate agent is such a touchy subject.

The also refuse to give an estimate on what the final closing costs and escrow might be, but I was kinda expecting that.

So... I might have a few (Ha!) more rants showing up. But better you all learn from my bad experiences and plan your own what-would-you-do's to have just in case.

The backup plan

So, I have been slowly working on a backup plan if I can't get a house. It makes me twitchy saying that, but it has to be done.

Best case scenario?

I have a large cushion of savings. This will allow me to re-enter the First Time Home Buyers Program and try again. Which would also allow for more time to save and no weddings or multiple unexpected trips to eat it all up. It could be a good thing.

Worst case scenario?

I have money saved but I have to move with my parents and stay with them for how ever long. That is to say I would be stuck with them and if they sell their house before I can re-attempt my own hunt/purchase then I am stuck going to what ever state they might move to. I might have to get an apartment and another storage unit which would eat into my savings. I am pretty sure that if I move out of New York State that I will no longer qualify for the First Time Home Buyers Program.

That last bit is the worst.

Right now I have a few small ideas to get a little extra cash flow. Mostly I am getting my art & jewelry stuff going. I have a little writing but it isn't anywhere close to publishable yet. My first things to sell will be up on my art blog and cross-posted to tumblr. They will be sold with paypal invoices mostly because Etsy is doing weird things.

So, who knows until I get to talk to the bank. Once that happens I will have a followup post to this.

The Hedge of Hedges

There is this thing, its called an osage orange. To me it looks nothing like an orange. I heard it was once a food source for some find of mega fauna (see: thing, thing and moose)

they are commonly used as hedges.

i plan to do the same. Mine will not be organic at all because i will be watering and feeding them what ever commercial fertilizer makes them grow the fastest. This will be based on if i can find it on sale, because fertilizer is cheaper then building fences.

I will also be utilizing the 'living hedge' method of building this living wall/fence. Not just because of the cost comparison, but because of asethics. I think it will look really neat in the fall and winter.

I am only a little worried about what will start living in it.

I will assume birds so i will also spread native flower seeds around the hedge. Which will also help the local native bees. A small win/win.

I know it will end up being something that i set up and forget about every few years, but in this instance that might be a good thing.  

The Hunt is Closer

And the great house hunt is here!

Or it should be here... This is a qued post because I know my bank and my stress levels. My little sister will be getting married (and I'm the maid who is horrified of honor) that involved several trips to the city. A wonderful stomach flu that has a slow recovery. And did I mention that I don't trust my bank?

Yes, I will follow up with what actually happens, with out all the internal screaming that I know will be happening.

What should be happening is that The Bank will contact me that it's time to take the class! One that is supposed to teach you how to budget a house or something like that. Kinda in the vein of how having automatic transfers to a special account is supposed to mimic mortgage payments.

I don't know how many times the class meets or anything else that would be useful.

I do know that I don't feel that I have enough money saved up for the closing costs. I have an 'destash sale' planned to try an get closer to that goal. Unfortunately the wedding ate a lot more into my budget then I expected.

Once that class (or series of classes) is done? then I have to start house hunting.

That means I actually have to re-evaluate my need list. I plan on making a few 'need' lists so I can have options. I realize how strange that sounds, its more of if I sacrifice this, then these other things have to be there.

For example:
I will go with a one story house if it means I get a crap ton of land and a fishing stream. If it has a gas connection? I might sign then and there.

This is a harder method and I will be flipping through notes all the time... But it will keep me on track. Unlike my bank.

I really don't want to deal with the bank. I just want this done and over so I can start gardening.

The art of second hand

Once upon a time I thougt about selling second hand finds online. It didn't work out so I made a lot of donations. I also ended up finding a lot of neat and useful to me stuff.

I have all the dishes I could possibly want and Could probably go a month with out having to reuse the same dish. Yes I am going to weed stuff out. I have a lot of china but I also have a lot of chipped and 'other' things.

Most of the plates and glasses I got for $0.10 each.

After all that I can't really get myself to spend money of new store bought stuff unless there is either a real need or it fills a set. That doesn't mean I don't by knickknacks, but my impulse is a little bit more controllable out-side of a garage sale.

I will point out that I have been collecting things from garage sales since I was little.

Most of my very early finds were glasses, the odd one that would catch my attention. Next was canld holders, the weirder the better. Over ten years ago I found two large glass bowls while garage sale-ing with my aunt. It took almost ten years to find two more in my home state. These are one of the best finds (and I might have a custody battle with my parents for them).

This isn't to say I am not missing things that I wouldn't mind having. I just happen to have the majority of the basics, plus a few (of a ton) of fun stuff.