Foundations Part 2

The slab is poured.

View of the future driveway/parking and of the NW corner part of the house.  The dark line in the slab just to the left of the tree is where the front porch will be.

View of the W side of home, the master suite location, left corner is shower, area to the left of white pipe in foreground is bath, right corner section is bedroom.  Left side of slab is front of home, facing N.

Profile view of back porch, the sunken area of slab.  We etched our initials, names, year, last name, rank and serial numbers in the foreground corner of the back porch.

Jess trying to imagine her future sanctuary.

Slab forms come down and slab is considered done!

Foundations Part 1

Truckloads of sand dumped in for the foundation.

Drain lines getting installed.

Drain lines done.

Black plastic laid down and slab channels created.

Excited about the progress and for what's to come!

Here we go!

So things are really happening out at the ol' place.

Finalized the closing of the construction last Wednesday and we are off and running!  The day before closing, the land was cleared for the home site, and the day after closing we now have a port-o-potty and the slab forms are up!

I guess it's been awhile since any regular posting here, but things have been rather hectic and finding the time to post has proven difficult.  Okay, it's probably just laziness, but procrastination has always been my strong suit. 

We found a designer/builder whom has been a tremendous help getting us to this point by either being patient, reassuring, or understanding.  We finally nailed down a floor plan that seems to work for us and after what seemed like forever, he's in the process of making it happen.

A follow up to our wildlife valuation, Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept (TPWD) had completed their evaluation and sent it to us the first of January.  I setup a time to meet with the county appraiser back in February so I could turn in the paperwork and hopefully get the property under wildlife valuation.  He said that he had hundreds to go through and that he was the only one processing them so the response may be as late as April.  Still waiting.

Garden Time!

Here are a few pictures of our garden!  My mother and I have been planting and Brett has been tilling the garden and put the fence up around it! 

This Is For The Birds!

Before we bought our property I was reading some homesteading articles online, mostly about raising animals, living on/off the grid, and sustainability, however one particular article caught my attention.  Sheri Dixon's two-part article on Earth Stewardship (101 and 102) explains how she and her family moved out to the country and decided to keep a certain section of her property as natural as possible.  She contacted the Texas Parks and Wildlife (TPWD) to schedule a visit from her local biologist to come out and help evaluate the property.  The visit was a free service offered by TPWD.  I remember thinking how neat that would be to have a wildlife habitat on our own property.

After finally buying our property, her article came to mind again and decided I wanted to delve further into this.  I thought I had bookmarked the article for future reference, I was sure of it.  Dang it! I hate it when I'm trying to find something and suddenly it's nowhere to be found, my bookmarks, my keys, my kids...  Anyway, I started combing through various homesteading sites for articles and Googling various key words, just hoping to run across that article once again.

I started researching information on TPWD's website for such information and actually found it.  The information, not Sheri's article.  Stay with me.  Turns out that TPWD offer the service of helping you turn your Ag valuation from livestock to wildlife (see links below).  I've learned that Ag valuation is the term most commonly, and mistakenly, known as "Ag exempt".  It's not an exemption, it's still being taxed but just at a different rate.  We were lucky, the property we purchased already has an Ag valuation for cattle, but since the property was sold (to us) we would have to then re-apply in order to keep the Ag valuation.  The problem there is that though we want some animals, we are not prepared to maintain the county's required number of heads of cattle, or goats, or whatever.

Enter the Wildlife Management option.  I won't go into the history or details on this, there's plenty of information on that here:

Agricultural Tax Appraisal Based on Wildlife Management

So, about a month ago I was messing with my email and lo-and-behold...I stumbled onto the article again.  After re-reading it, I called and contacted our local TPWD biologist to schedule a visit from him.   A couple of weeks ago, I met Derrick out at the property to get an idea of what all it would take.  I was sure we could meet the required 3 out of 7 management practices, perhaps most all of them as well.  After a few hours of discussion, we formulated a plan, he was going to put some information together for me and help with the proposal to pass on to our county appraiser.

There are other programs that offer financial assistance as well as information to aid in land stewardship and wildlife habitat from state (TPWD) and federal level (USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Services).  You just have to look for 'em...

Texas Parks and Wildlife

• Private Lands and Habitat Program.
• Land Incentive Programs
• Locate a biologist
• Farm Bill Programs
• Wildlife Management on Private Lands

USDA, NRCS

•  Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program (WHIP)

Hopefully we'll find out more information within the next few weeks and will report back.

Wondering and Pondering

During my commute to work this morning, the fog and traffic were both heavy.  The fog always seems so mysterious to me, probably from watching all those old movies.  Thanks Dad! ;-)  Since we've been staying at the apartment and not the property, all this fog made me wonder just what it might look like out at the property.  I was thiiis close to turning around and making the trek out there, just to find out.  This photo is from an early morning last week coming down the 130 toll road, I had that same feeling then as I did this morning.

Coming home from work today, the traffic was again heavy and gave me a chance to look around and think.  My commute generally consists of an hour long slow drive where I almost always have a chance to look around and think, or become frustrated with the person creeping in the fast lane who insists on texting while driving, all while leaving a gap of multitude car-lengths between them and the person in front of them - but I digress.

This afternoon was nice, the sky was a nice deep shade of blue with a few light wisps of clean white clouds strewn across the sky, and the sun was low in the West giving everything a slight orange-ish glow.  Despite the fact that I was surrounded by cars, highway, and businesses, the median between the two sides of the highway had yet to be mowed and the grass/weeds were tall enough to peer over the concrete wall on the inside lane. But it was the glowing of their tops in the evening sun that really caught my attention, reminding me of picturesque wheat fields, rolling hay fields, and country farm roads. 

Maybe it was the mesmerizing glow, or the cool evening Fall breeze blowing through the windows, or the Dixie Chicks singing "Wide Open Spaces" on the radio, but I soooo wanted to be turning onto the drive to the property at that moment.  Heading up the little windy dirt road to the gate to see the evening sun lighting up the property and seeing the number on the gate as if to say, "Ah, you're home!"

But then suddenly the traffic opened up and I was able to take my exit to head to my current abode, the apartment. 

It's these things that keep me excited about moving to the country.

Sleep Is So Overrated

Last Saturday evening, we FINALLY made it out to the property.  Granted the sun had already set and it was getting dark, fast, we were out there and that's all that mattered.  We had been looking forward to some quiet time and a chance to do something, anything, out there that felt productive.  The plan was to all sit around the RV that evening, watching a family movie and winding down from the hectic week, then get up in the morning after a nice quiet evening, have coffee outside and start in on a couple of projects.

Funny how life has a way of throwing it's own monkey wrench into things, almost as if God were saying, "Yeah, I don't think so."

Back up a little here. We moved into an apartment in the meantime while we found the place we'd plan to live.  Given that it's practically raw land and there's no practical living quarters out there, we've had to extend our temporary stay at the apartment slightly longer than we wanted.  We also happen to get the one apartment below a heavy footed woman who sleeps in the daytime and is up all night.  She doesn't work and rarely leaves her apartment, so we have the joy of knowing right where she is  E V E R Y night.  Before we sold our house to move into the apartment, our neighbor behind us had a dog that would randomly cry several times in the middle of the night.  It was awful.  Needless to say, it's been a long while since I've had a good nights sleep.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we had finished our movie and were settling down to go to sleep.  It was only seconds before we heard faint sounds of Mexican music off in the distance from our closest neighbor.  Right then, Jenn and I both just started laughing.  Really?!?!?  Is this a sign?  Are we destined to never have a peaceful evening, anywhere?

Well, the next best thing was to just turn on the AC fan to create some white noise.  That worked, whew!  Now, back to bed.  Two-thirty in the morning I woke to the rumbling of thunder off in the distance.  We knew there was a chance for rain, what we didn't know was how loud it would be and how long it would last.  I'm really not sure how much sleep I actually got that night, but it was less than the night before so by Sunday morning, I was sleeeeeepy.

The sun came out about 9, we rolled out of bed and Jenn started the coffee while I set up some things outside to get ready for breakfast.  Jenn had been wanting to have bacon and eggs for breakfast out there, so she did the honors.

After breakfast Jenn marked off the area for where she wanted her garden. Looks to be rather large, if you ask me, but no one did. Hm, time to borrow the tiller!  Afterwards, we decided to clear out some under-brush around a tree where Jessica has decided she wants her treehouse.  She's about to turn 15 so if this keeps her occupied over driving or boys, then say no more and hand me some tools!

Sadly, we knew our time out there that day would be cut short in order to help Jenn's mom pack up some things, she's getting ready to sell her house, too.  With all the recent rains in the last few weeks, the grass was starting to get a little tall around the RV, barn, and along the road coming up to and inside the property.  So I left the girls to finish clearing while I ran..er, pushed the mower around to a few spots then up and down the middle of the road.  Yeah, I know it's not meant for out there, but the ol' trusty Husky push mower came through.

Despite the sleepless nights, knowing that we've spent some time out there and feel that we've accomplished SOMETHING, makes it all feel worth it.