We spent the morning on the land… I have to think of a better name for our new place… any suggestions? I was thinking about Dandelion Farm (since our address is Dandelion Drive) but that website is already taken 🙂

Anyway, we picked up more trash, built two raised beds for the strawberries, and took a great hike. I found some yarrow and mint (I think it is spearmint) where they might have been a garden before, along with some strawberries! Then, as we got into the woods, I started seeing some Blood Root… and then more Blood Root, and then I realized that I couldn’t step anywhere without having to dodge the Blood Root! There is so much of it it is insane! I think I may have also spotted some lady’s slipper starting to come up, some edible berries (raspberry maybe), possibly some Elder, Rue Anemone, and this little dainty plant that looked like a marijuana leaf… maybe a cutleaf toothwort?

We also met one of the neighbors who lives down the street. He came slowly walking up the hill to check us out. Odell is probably about 75, but who knows. He told us that he has had 6 bypass surgeries, so he may only be 50 and in bad shape. Seemed like a nice guy though. We talked for a while and he offered any help he could give. Then, as he turned to go, I noticed the Mother of Pearl six shooter sticking out of his pocket! I guess he takes it with him when he goes out for his walks!! Yikes.

A friend of ours clued us in to some free house stuff in a local warehouse. We just came back from there with our car loaded down with brand new tile and double paned windows (just the glass. We will still need to frame it, but still, it’s free!) There are ~50 more double paned glass panels left, we just didn’t have the room for them in the car. So, hopefully we can go back and get more!!

Oh, and this friend also has an almost new chicken coop to give us. It was at a house in the city limits and the neighbors complained about the chickens. So, now it’s ours. We just have to have a way to haul it to the land, and hope that JA’s (that stand for Jerk Asses! They are no longer Jerk Butts, I have upgraded them to official asses!) don’t destroy it. Maybe we will keep it off of the land until we get the steel gate up. I can’t wait to see them try to pull that thing down!

Thanks for all the well wishes! We now have a signed contract on the land!! The plan, once we close, is to get out there immediately and start building. Toby is going to go part time at work and we will build a 12 x 16 temporary structure to live in. It will have a loft and a big covered (possibly screened-in) porch for a kitchen and all in all be ~ 300 sq ft inside with ~190 feet outside. This will be practice for us since neither of us have much building experience at all. It will later be my herb shack/office. We have all that material from the house that Toby helped take down back in Sept. and we hope to use mostly local or recycled materials to build. At first, there will be no electricity, running water and just a bucket to poop in. But, I think it will be a lot of fun for all of us to experience that for a while. In the main house that we build, we hope to have water (from the welll, or catchment system maybe), solar electricity and a composting toilet.

One other possibility is that Toby’s mom really loves Deltec homes and we may help her build a little one of those on our land first, that will give us some building experience and a place to live while we build our main house.

The garden will probably wait until next year. It would just be too much to build a house and start a big garden all at the same time. I will probably throw out some field peas, oats and vetch just to cover the large muddy area, bring some nitrogen to the soil, and I love the taste of the pea shoots! And we will still probably do a few tomatoes and stuff, but noting like the big circle garden of last year, at least not yet!

Hey all! Sorry I’ve been so lax in posting and commenting. My head has been elsewhere lately. BUT it looks like we are going to be putting in an offer on some land!! Friends of ours turned us on to this 25 acres that isn’t on the market (yet). Friends of theirs own it and have been looking to sell. Anyway, it is ~15 minutes from down town, to the NW of Asheville, rolling woods. It looks like it hasn’t been logged in a long time. The trees are huge! There is a pond, a well, at least one spring (we think there may be more), a cleared area for gardening, some nice rock landscaping. And I’ve found pipsissewa, usnea, chickweed, rattlesnake plantain, the local version of reishi mushrooms, possibly some hawthorne trees… I can’t wait until the spring when I can really see what is out there. It also has some perfect spots for planting ginseng, goldenseal, and other more rare medicinal herbs. The only downside is the surrounding neighbors. They keep riding their 4-wheelers and baja’s up there and tearing up the land! They pay no head to the locked gates at the bottom of the land… just cut the chain! We hope that they will lay off once we are out there and that we don’t have to deal with trespassing issues. I have absolutely no problem with someone being on the land as long as they are respectful to the land and the other people there. The price of the land is insanely cheap compared to what other things are going for around here, but we are still going to have to subdivide and sell some off. Our hope is to buy all of it and get situated out there, then bring out friends who are interested in similar lifestyles (sustainable living, homesteading…) and start a community. It’s a lot to think about! OH, and I will probably be without a computer for a good while!

The other land, the acres in town that I mentioned a while ago, well the family that owns it is fantastic and has tried really hard to make it work so that we could buy from them, but their land is nothing like the 25 acres that we have decided to buy. So, we passed on the in town stuff.

Hey, also, I know my herb reviews have slowed down, but I am still hoping to do them and would love to hear about any herbs that would like discussed.

OK, we may have found some land! I am trying not to get my hopes up too much, but it is hard when the search has been so fruitless so far! Instead of trying to find land that is already up for sale, I went onto the city mapping system and just searched for property that looked like it might be a good place to live. Then I sent out ~16 letters to people asking if any of them would be interested in selling some land. I got one phone call with a “No”. So, I decided to call some people up and after a bunch of “no’s” got one guy who said “actually, we’ve been thinking about it. Why don’t you come out and take a walk around and we’ll talk” So, we went out to his property on Saturday to look. He owns 22 acres. Most of it is wooded. They have a small farm and house, which they will keep. The property has a beautiful stream, a mix of hardwoods and pine trees, it’s rolling land, and it backs up to a 180 acre wilderness/park owned by the city (which is bordered by the French Broad River!). And it is a 10 minute bike ride for Toby to get to work. It’s basically just outside of the downtown city! It would be absolutely perfect!! It’s an older couple and he wasn’t feeling well when we were there, so we told them to think about how much land they would want to part with and at what price and we will call them in the next few days. I really hope this works! I can already see where the chicken coop will go, how the picnic table will sit right by the stream, blah, blah, blah….. Oh, I need to stop day dreaming until I know this is for sure! Wish me luck!