Yes, I know, no posts for over a month. But I have a good excuse. We found our homestead property!
In the year or so since we've been actively searching we must have viewed dozens of prospects. We looked at land without a well, land with a well, manufactured homes, trailers, old houses, new houses, cargo containers and sheds. But much like meeting your future spouse, none of them were "the one." They either lacked something non-negotiable like acreage or included a feature we simply couldn't live with, like high-voltage power lines.
Until this property. From the moment we pulled in the long driveway it felt like...well, home. It had everything we were looking for and then some. I could see my furniture in the house, our animals in the pastures. This was it! The only drawback that gave us pause was its location, set back off a minor highway. But since the area itself is remote, sparsely populated and not a destination we decided it was not a significant issue.
What else? Nearly five acres, a combination of grass pasture and a strip of pinon pine forest that borders Forest Service land at the back. Our well is excellent; when it was drilled, water was encountered at 10 feet. (In Arizona, this is exceedingly rare.) There is a creek across the highway, dotted with springs that flow year round. The soil is rich. There are outbuildings: a greenhouse, a chicken coop, a workshop and a barn. It has fencing, and the remains of an apple orchard. Since the power goes out occasionally, the house is hardwired to a propane generator.
It's a gem of a property. And the reason it was still available in a market where the triple-digit desert dwellers of Phoenix (nearly four hours away) snap up such pretty ranchettes in the pines is because it needs work.
Lots of work. New fences. Paint - gallons and gallons of paint. New wiring, new carpets, new countertops, and a complete bathroom remodel. New screens. (Paint - did I mention paint? And fence - acres of fence.) There are mice in the house and rats in the barn. The reason the orchard has disappeared is due to marauding elk. Horses boarded over the summer have torn up the pasture.
But....it has a cold room, a room built of huge timber rounds and concrete, shelved with thick slabs of rock-hard Douglas fir from the original homestead that held the canned bounty from the garden and the orchard, sacks of potatoes and onions. It has a long front porch that spans the house, and a back porch too. There's a huge fireplace lined with native stone. The place is as hushed and quiet as a cathedral.
We absolutely and completely love it.
When we were expecting our first child we were wildly thrilled...and then equally terrified. What were doing? How could we manage this huge responsibility? But perhaps most importantly, how could we afford this? So it went with this property purchase. After all, we already own a home. What were we thinking?
We're past that now - scaring ourselves with the import of this huge decision. We're on a strict budget to enable us to pay two mortgages: no more eating out, going to movies or anything, really, at all now - it all goes to the farm. And somehow, I'll find a new teaching job; there are schools within driving distance. Gary will transfer. We'll make it work.
The birth of our daughter, and later, our son were the greatest blessings God ever saw fit to give us. So too is the serendipitous acquisition of this property, which will help see us through the hard times that lie ahead.
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