Home At Last

Well, some of us.  In a flurry of superhuman attempts to beat the daylight all weekend, I did manage to get the boys onto that patch of grass, a match I have been pursuing since last May.  Can I really have done it?

They managed two steps before they dropped their heads in excitement over a long-lost green friend.  Definitely the most peaceful move-in I have ever experienced.

Approximately four seconds in

 When I can't ride anymore, I shall keep horses as long as I can hobble along with a bucket and wheelbarrow. When I can't hobble, I shall roll my wheelchair out by the fence of the field where my horses graze, and watch them.        ~Monica Dickens
 

Is this really for me??

And it was good.

  

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Long May You Run

My 30th, Solo's 13th in 2009

I couldn't imagine a more fitting phrase for the birthday of my center of orbit, my sun, my Solaris.  Thanks, Neil Young (it was even inspired by his horse). 

I didn't know Solo's exact birthday when I brought him home.  From his Coggins, it appeared to be sometime in early spring, so I simply assigned him one that would be easy to remember:  mine.

While I often forget what day it is & rarely do much about my own aging, I always remember & celebrate not just Solo's day, but every day since he came into my life & irrevocably changed so many parts of it and me.

So here's to you, my very best friend, partner, & piece of my heart.  Even thinking about the insane adventures, ups & downs, glorious triumphs and the darkest of heartbreaks brings tears of both sorrow & gratitude of unimaginable depth.   

Seeing your head shoot up at the sound of my voice is still the best part of any day & even through my current exhaustion, the thought of seeing you at home is what keeps me going.  I cannot wait to present you with the farm that I built for us. 

Memorial Day 2006:  I brought him home

Our partnership would not exist but for the team of wonderful people that surrounds us &, most of all, the two who made it all possible along the way.   

Thank you, from both of us, although those words fail to encompass the emotion, to mum & Jim, the founding members of Team Flying Solo, for the gift of this extraordinary relationship that was & still is more powerful, more miraculous, and more intimate than I ever dreamed.

I revive, then, my inner 12-year-old girl and the Ridiculously Cheesy Solo Montage from a 2010 nighttime fit of boredom.  I love you, buddy.  Please resist your genetic drive to be a walking suicide machine for a while yet, ok?

The song is by Templeton Thompson, a very talented and very kind singer/songwriter and horsewoman 

I had the pleasure of meeting about five years ago at an Equine Affaire in Raleigh.

2011 Area II Indian Smurf Award:  For courage in the face of adversity

I hope we have many stories left to tell.  I WILL get you back in shape this year, I know you are bored and I am so sorry -- I know how much you have left to give, although you owe me nothing!

We have a fresh start with your younger chew toy brother, who entertains us both, & Awesome Crew B, who always lends a hand & a shoulder.

And we have you, my wonderful readers and friends.  You are part of our team too, & sharing our journey has enriched it even more.  It's hard to believe that there are over 200 of you on our feed now; I thank all of you for letting me share my shiny, stubborn, loyal, kind, & altogether remarkable flying Solo with you.      

As Neil Young so fittingly wrote:

We've been through some things together, 

with trunks of memories still to come.
We found things to do in stormy weather,
Long may you run.

Although these changes have come, 

With your chrome heart shining in the sun, 

long may you run. 

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I'm A Real Boy, Er, Farmmmm!

But first, don't forget to vote for us and my completely ridiculous face in the Carolina International contest we are losing, LOL!  The prize is a coveted horse trial entry that I long to be able to do.  Thank you for all who have given their support, y'all rock!!

Now, to the topic at hand:

It is, ladies and gentlemen, real indeed.  I give thee...

Flying Solo Farm at dusk

Where I do not live.  Nor do my horses.  But hey, it's a process!  We started from here: 

Almost exactly the same vantage point last August

Things that do live there:

A feed shed!

A wonderful fellow Adult Rider has a farm nearby and the shed had been laying disassembled in her pasture, so she generously offered it to me and even brought her husband over to help put it back together!  Three cheers for no feed tubs in the laundry room!!

Finished fencelines

East side of main pasture opposite house

I have a couple gates to build, a battery for my fence charger to buy, and a few more buckets of dirt to move.  Oh yeah, and maybe put some gravel down in front of the house.  The grader still has some work to do and the factory still has to send a few parts and repairs for the house, but it's passed final inspection. 

If the atmosphere will just cooperate, in about two weeks, my boys will be able to watch this:

Sunset from the run-in site.

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The Auger Returns: A One-Act Play

Setting:  A mild day in a North Carolina field.  Two people are going about the business of setting a 6 x 6 and a 4 x 4 post as anchors for Flying Solo Farm's shed dividers.  However, the tractor currently has the frame drag attached, so it must be traded out for the auger, which sits in the lovely, but unnecessary hole it made in November.

ACB:  He even matches the tractor!

Eventer79:  Hey, honey, I'm just going to go dump the drag and fetch the auger, I'll be back in a little bit, ok?

Awesome Crew B (hereafter ACB):  Ummmm, ok.....

Eventer79 exits stage left.  Eventer79 re-enters stage left 45 seconds later.

Eventer79:  Yeah, that is a really stupid idea.  This is going to take two people, will you come with me? [note that the auger had been placed in a temporary storage location on a slope and is heavy as shit]

ACB:  Sure, I wondered how you were going to pull that off.

Eventer79 and ACB exit stage left with tractor and unhook drag before proceeding down the hill.  Enter auger stage right.

Eventer79:  Lalalala, I'll just back up to it and we'll hook it right up, because we left it set up that way last time!

Auger:  heh heh heh heh.....

ACB:  Ummmm, hey, the top bar is blocked by the PTO housing?

Just keep backing, just keep backing...

Eventer79:  Oh yeah, duh.  I already forgot that you have to take off the top arm of the 3-point hitch first and that bar goes there.

ACB:  Ah, that's right, ok, we're good now, just roll back a little.  [connects uphill 3-pt arm]

Auger:  Now watch this...

ACB:  W.T.F. [despite much struggling, kicking, and pondering, we cannot get the downhill arm to line up with the pin]

Enter Amazing Neighbour stage right.  Proceed with hammering and head-scratching.  Eventer79 is glad that she did not attempt this alone or else she might have needed a sleeping bag.

Auger:  You shall never defeat me...

All Characters:  WHY ISN'T THIS WORKING?  WHY DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO BE STUPID, AUGER?  WE HAVE OVER 80 YEARS OF COLLECTIVE TRACTOR EXPERTISE HERE, WHAT IS YOUR FREAKING PROBLEM?

Auger:  ROFLMAO

Neighbour:  Let's just disconnect the uphill one and then do the downhill one first.  Then the uphill one will be easy.

Eventer79:  Oh.  Well.  Yes, this is why I like having you around, you always have better ideas!

Auger:  Dammit...

Seat with a view.  Well, pre-shed.

Cheers erupt, the throttle is increased and the triumphant team of Eventer79 and ACB roll up the hill with waves of thanks to Amazing Neighbour.

Auger:  Oh, you think you're great now, huh?

Eventer79:  Something feels funny.  Like something is catching.

Auger:  BWAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!

ACB:  What the..the PTO came off.  But it was on there really well!  Sigh.  We'll just hold it till we get to the shed.

The returning party arrives at the shed and with the application of much grease, proceeds to firmly reattach PTO and double check that everything is secure.  Hole locations are flagged, measurements re-measured, and it's go-time.

Eventer79:  You better drill a bloody hole this time, you recalcitrant beast, after all that!!

Auger:  Grumble...

The hitch is lowered, PTO engaged, clutch lifted, and...

VICTORY!

Auger:  Fine.  Whatevs.  I know where you live...

After much leaping and dancing for joy, the second hole is drilled, posts set and leveled, concrete poured, and holes tamped down.  Hope remains, then, for holes where you actually want them!  Lesson:  do not store your implements on a slope if you want to hook them up by yourself.  Noted.

We have very serious groundhogs in NC.

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So, There's Water Polo, How About Water Eventing?

I should probably just keep a snorkel in my truck at this point.  Even the reservoirs can't hold any more and soil that "never gets muddy" is oh so muddy.  My neighbour tells me he has never seen it this saturated, so at least now I know what to plan for.  He may be regretting selling me his high spots now...

A few of you have noticed, but out of random curiosity, I have placed a poll for you in the sidebar directly above the social media buttons.  Tell me how you get your "fresh reading material" updates and how you follow along with your favourite bloggers!

Since no story ever gets to just wrap up smoothly, despite the fact that they've started power line work and I should have electricity in two weeks (yay!), complications abound.  An insulation subcontractor who for some bizarre reason uses a single-axle dump truck (suspected to be made of lead) with a tarp over it instead of a box truck, wandered up my (completely soaked) farm driveway with half the truck off the edge, resulting a lovely mud slop.  Duly added to list for builder of "things contractors messed up" -- it is a short list, and I think an unavoidable one, but no less annoying for all of that.

The lump mid-cannon on the outside front

With perfectly synchronized timing as my financial assets hit rock bottom until my old house sells (soooo....close....), my truck decides that it might like a couple of new injectors or a driver module.  While it occasionally misfires on a couple of cylinders, I hope against hope it's a $10 wiring harness instead (yeah right), but as long as it is sporadic, after consultation with diesel mechanic, it's fine to keep driving.  It still runs so I waved goodbye and pleaded with My Precious to just be patient, as mom doesn't have $900 to feed you right now.

Feeling left out of the fun, Encore popped a lateral splint, which I discovered on Sunday.  Probably being silly in the pasture.  On the plus side, it's cold, hard, not painful and he shows no lameness while walking and uh, leaping on a packed dirt road.  I consult with Dr. Bob and monitor closely, pleading some more that it's just one of those cosmetic ones.  Just don't start limping!  At least we won't be doing much in the next couple weeks (of mud).

The reason all this is so well-timed is that the state gives this lovely little holiday gift to its employees.  We normally are paid on the last working day of the month.  However, in December, the paycheck comes in two weeks early, before the Xmas holidays.  Which means you get six whole weeks to freak out relax and practice your planning skills until January's check appears.  Two more weeks, two more weeks...

H2Y8SAV65C2V

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Farm + Paint = Estate!

L. Williams (so you know who to blame) requested some more samples of my exquisite Paint artistry (I can't really blame them, I mean, you saw it...), so in an attempt to distract myself from having a panic attack about falling trees during a current fast-moving stormfront, I have focused all my creative energies to create for you these masterpieces.   The shoddy Photoshop work is just a bonus.

You're welcome.  As always, you may click to embiggen.

Here you can see a nice little redbud tree on the west side of the house & carefully planned native plant-scaping.  They did finish the stucco on the foundation finally, although I'm still waiting for my dang shutters so I just drew some in, hee.  No large trees allowed near the house since the truck-crusher of Summer 2013 (thankfully not personal truck, omg)!

The boys are unseasonably shiny this year, aren't they?  And Solo is so majykal that green grass grows wherever he steps.  Naturally.  The "Carolina horse shelter" (the horses live in a carport already, it's very common here; this baby is engineered and certfied for 130 mph winds) is completed as of yesterday!

Now all I need are two 10' gates.  And a 6 x 6.  And four 4 x 4's.  And a water trough.  And eyebolts for cross-ties.  And time to backfill & finish the fence.  But hey, I'm watching the ditches for loot!

The Master Plan.  Call it a 5-year plan.  Or maybe a 20-year plan.  But it is my vision for the future!  Of course I colour-coded it!

As of now, the house, shed, & hay shelter are essentially done (ok, so I need electricity.  And shutters.  And an inspection.  Details.) & the north & south sides of the main pasture (the top one is only for riding until I can find some free t-posts to finish the back fenceline) have their strip of tape up.  The lower pasture is also ready to use, although only when I am living there, as I can't afford to put a strip of tape in front of that wire yet; Solo & wire have a bad history.

Taaaape.  Loving the Horseguard, although I have not fully tensioned it yet.

Yes, my fence will be bipolar -- eesh, not my favourite product name, but it's still great stuff!  That way, I do not have to ground my charger unless I want to activate the wire.  You try driving a 10-foot rod in the Carolina piedmont.  Not till the neighbour's hydraulic post driver comes home!  My dressage arena is all ready:  all six little white plastic cones just need to move to their spots in the grass.

What do you mean I have to go to work?  I have plenty of work right here!

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Creeping Solo Farm Might Be More Accurate, But There Is Progress...

As any of you out there who have built a farm know, it is so much more than just building.  Even when you have the land, you've barely begun.  At the beginning of this project, I knew that, but at the same time, I didn't KNOW.  No matter how good your builder or contractor is, no matter how long you spent getting zoning permits, building permits, septic permits, well permits, no matter how many maps and diagrams and spreadsheets you put together, you still have to BE THERE.  This tends to clash with my boss' idea that I should be THERE.

Seriously, they were going to throw all this away!!! o.o

It would be wonderful to have a handy extra free person to handle things while I am catching up on work (mail order bride?) but even then, it takes my eyes to identify spots in need of repair (construction is messy!) or an incorrect installation or get the massive amount of very valuable lumber out the dumpster (hey, I paid for it, I'll dive for it!).  It takes me to personally stake out and line level exactly where I want the run-in to be and to catch any attempts to put things where they are NOT supposed to be.

All of this is enough to exhaust anyone, but add on top selling my current home, trying to occasionally make sure my horses are still alive, arguing with my stupid health insurance company (don't even ask), and oh yeah, my truck did a weird thing the other day, misfiring on a couple cylinders.  Perfect timing.  Although it's behaving for now and better continue to do so.

In short, a person had better be ready to pour their heart, soul, stubbornness, and hope in on top of every other resource you have.  I committed to building the farm after a massive personal loss, which stole a future in a way I didn't even know was possible.  So as crazy and risky and stressful and difficult as it is, this farm is my leap of faith in an attempt to build a new future.  All of the greatest things and experiences in my life that I treasure most have come with great risk and many moments of doubt.  But I don't regret a single one.

I may land in a worn out heap on the other side of the abyss, but here I am mid-jump anyway, with blind trust that there IS an other side. 

You can click pics to embiggen.

Front porch in progress:  Step 1

Front porch:  Step 2, although there's a bit of a safety issue.

Front porch:  Accomplished!!!  Now bring the rest of my shutters!

It's all ready for power...

And dinner parties...

And beer on the porch!

You can just see the next-door trainer's barns, looking over my riding field.

Hey, it is awesome.  And it gets installed Friday.  Don't envy my grafix skillz.

And the best part...ONE of the views out of the master bedroom.

I can't believe I almost forgot this last picture...thanks to an awesome Xmas gift, the welcome mat is ready to welcome.

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How To Dig A Hole

You have a tractor and a big auger that has been dying to eat some dirt, so no problem, right?  Perfect timing, because you have a mailbox to install!

But it looked really cool!!

(1) 811, call before you dig!!  No one wants to be that person dodging the neighbours' bullets because you severed their phone lines.

(2) Carefully select perfect spot for mailbox placement next to driveway and flag your point.

(3) Place tractor so your auger point is over your point.  Lower until the tip touches the ground (PTO off!), then maneuver/tug/finangle until it is reasonably straight.

(4)  Drill!!  Drill more!!  Yeah... drill...um...

(5) Realize that all you have done, despite shoveling out a pilot hole, is made a very shiny, very shallow divot.  The ground is too hard and your auger is going nowhere.

(6) Pout in disappointment and dejected gloom that your auger so cruelly failed you.

(7) Dig hole with pointy metal stick (which was surprisingly effective, worlds better than cursed posthole diggers!) and shovel.  At least it only had to be 18".

(8) You still have to put auger away.  Knowledgeable-type people have recommended drilling a hole before you disconnect it from the 3-point hitch so it can stand on its own and you can hitch by yourself next time.  Skepticism abounds.

(9)  Return to attachment storage pen and back tractor into place.  Turn on PTO and begin drilling with substantially lowered expectations.

(10)  Use your quick reflexes to hit the clutch and stop the auger before it pulls the tractor into the new well it has just dug, sinking at least 3 feet in about 15 seconds like a mole on Ecstasy.

(11) Try not to let the whole street hear your cursing.

Moral of this important lesson:  when you want to auger a hole with cool equipment, make sure it is somewhere where you don't really need a hole.  If you require a useful hole to actually place mailboxes, fenceposts, and other such useful items, abandon hope, all ye who attempt.

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I Hate Darkness

What my horses are doing right now.  Why the mud pillow?

The time change:  it's what every working horseperson dreads.  You come home from work, it's dark already and feels like the day is already gone and it takes all your willpower to layer up, saddle up, and mount up.

And I'm wishing that was the only thing I had to worry about!

I apologize for being an absentee blogger so much this fall.  It feels like someone flipped a switch in my life:  I was hanging out all summer, my horse was lame so I didn't have much to do outside of work and I had all this free time.

Now I would give my arms for a little boredom -- is there a happy medium??  It will take me considerably longer to put together the horse trial story, so will some photos of an awesome OTTB trying his heart out do?

Let's see, what else have I got:

This happened:

Yes, that is a Shed-In-A-Box full of my boys' winter supply of hay.  I ran about in a panic once we finally had time to assemble the shed on the farm (it is just a simple ShelterLogic thingy from HomeDepot, since I am poor and in a hurry) because I wanted to buy decent hay before the price rocketed to winter levels.  So if their shelter ever arrives, the boys will have a selection of either a slightly sun-faded but still quite good orchard/rye mix or a leafy green timothy/orchard mix.

We crammed my horse trailer and another small truck with as much hay as they would hold (which turns out to be 75 bales) and sprinted back to finish the shed and fill it before that evening's forecasted rain.  I already had my moisture barrier and pallets from my house construction site, so after we got the shed walls on, we started stacking.

Watching skeptics swore I would never fit it all in, but I had done very careful math (even geometry, for cod's sake) with volumes of hay bales and sheds so I held the faith.  DANGIT, IT FIT!!  Vindication feels good.  Although now I am annoyed that I forgot to turn the bottom bales on their sides, but I'm not taking it all out to fix them.  So far it's nice and cozy and dry and I'll add a few pieces later to critter proof it.

OH!  And this happened:

I am fostering BFF's tractor because she is awesome and we had a chat (she previously owned a farm, but the tractor has been mostly sitting in the woods since they sold the farm).  It took me approximately...42 seconds to become obsessed with it.

It's had a lot of time off, but still runs beautifully and it brought its good friends, Bush-hog, Harrow, Augur, and best of all, Bitey Bucket (yeah, yeah, 4-in-1, but that sounds boring).  So I am hoping I will able to beautify it again over time and will certainly be able to keep it from being bored.  I completely confess to squealing with glee when I picked up an 8' telephone pole with said bitey bucket and moved to a different location.  Bonus:  bucket can also open up and be used a box blade or light-duty dozer or backgrader.  Theoretically.  I need to practice more before I am any good at that!

What can I grab next?

Because of work and house and farm duties, I haven't been able to see the horses much, aside from quick visits.  I purposefully did not touch Encore for a week after his horse trial; he had gotten a bit work sour and cranky and was looking a tad ulcer-y.  He's getting a few weeks of ranitidine (already gets U-Guard and alfalfa pellets), but when I visited yesterday, he was already looking happier!

So the young'un gets some time off for now, then he will spend the winter getting strong on the trails and fine-tuning some skills.  He showed me he had the scope and was ready to attack Training Level, so a-schooling we shall go!

Next week, I hope to hop on Solo and play around.  He needs something to do too this winter, so once I get tractor and fence put together, hopefully I will have earned some more weekend time to myself!

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It's A Gusher!

So this happened on Tuesday:

No, not that kind of well!!!

Yes, Flying Solo Farm has a well!


And not just a well, a 30 GALLON PER MINUTE (gpm) well!  For the uninitiated, on average, 5-10 gpm is doable to decent, up to 20 gpm is really good, over 20 gpm is spectacular.  Since this baby can tehcnically fill a 100-gallon trough in just over 3 minutes, yeah, I'm excited.  And it is only 175 ft deep (pretty shallow for this area), which means if the pump goes out (it happens), I have a relatively small amount of pipe to pull out of the ground to fix it!

Josh and his crew from Triad Drillers were fantastic to work with and yeah, I have mega truck envy.  On the front bumper were mounted about 25 different bits, each the diameter of my fist with nickle-sized carbide beads (power tool geek-out).  They also had a huge bladed one to drill through rock (which they hit 50 feet down, I was surprised they got that far rock-free in this county!). 

A Flying Solo Drilling Rig...literally!

Josh and co. clearing the way for the drill.

For those of you scratching your heads, wells are the most common source of drinking water in this part of the country if you live outside of city limits and the reach of municipal water infrastructure.  I grew up with a cistern and septic tank, so it has driven me NUTS paying a bunch of money for city water (complete with chlorine, ever looked into the long-term effects of that nasty stuff--here is an article I wrote for my older blog about why you should!) and sewer.  We always caught our water from the roof (although could buy trucked in water during droughts) and let the septic tank do its thing.  It only costs you a miniscule amount of power to run the pumps on each.

It was huge!  And those round rust-colour things on top of the front bumper are the bits.

There can be downsides.  Too many people tapped into one underground vein can use the water faster than it can refill, which means you run out temporarily and you have to wait for the well to "refill" via subsurface flow.  If you are in an area where the groundwater is contaminated by bacteria, industrial waste (this is the biggest threat from fracking for natural gas), you will have to add some sort of filter or treatment to your well (my boss, for example, has a UV system on his, read the above linked article on chlorine about that).  But most wells in the close vicinity of the farm have good, sweet-tasting water and a plentiful supply of it.

Dowsing rods

We also did a fun experiment; my new neighbour was taught dowsing by his grandmother.  So before the drillers got there (I figured they would have some fancy technological thingy), we went up there with his two coat hanger rods and he found two or three spots where they indicated water.  The driller showed up and...got out of his truck with two coat hanger rods and ended up drilling in one of the same spots!!

There is much skepticism and debate about whether it is valid or not and little to no science to back it up.  But I've watched it multiple times and even tried it and even me, Queen of the Skeptics, can't write it off as bunk.  Hey, it found my water which my farm will be dependent on and the amazing flow rate raises the value of the land considerably.  Good enough for me!

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Buy It! Sell It! Ride It! Show It! Oh Yeah...SHOW UP AT WORK!

That's the TL;DR version of my life right now!

I want to tell our FenRidge T/N (Training dressage and stadium/Novice XC) horse trial story, but have not yet had time to type it out.  There are a few sneak preview videos on our Facebook and YouTube pages but it was a crazy day so I have more fun pictures and stories.  Hey, maybe I will post them sometime...

The farmhouse is...almost a house!

Well, almost....

It still needs the front porch.  And the rest of the shutters.  And the foundation finish (will match roof).  And gutters.  But you know, it has a roof and you can walk inside!  And I have to say, I am REALLY impressed by the quality of foundation and structural work (hey, I'm a science geek and an engineer's kid, I notice).  One of, if not the, top priorities of this whole building is for it to be structurally sound and stay there a long time without me having to do anything or think about it.  So thank you so far, Carolina Custom Homes (especially for the hurricane straps!) for going the extra mile on the things that matter (I don't give a crap what colour the ceiling is), with an extra shout-out to Susan for being the most awesome, patient, kind rep of all time.

Ummm, yes, porch definitely needed!  I am 5'9" (and as you can see, always the fashionista, don't be jelly) and standing on my tippy-toes in that picture.  Access denied...

But it's coming together.  I ordered a run-in shed (ok, fine, it's a carport, but that's what the horses live in now, I think it's a Carolina thing) once I found a company who met my high bar -- it had to be engineer-certified with 12-gauge heavy duty galvanized steel and wind-rated over 100 mph.  Hey, I am serious about things staying put and only buying them once!  The super-helpful folks at HorseGuard are sending me some bipolar fencing tape to line the previously-existing wire.

Oh, did I mention that I will never be able to compete or travel or eat ever again?

Working on selling my current house in town, but we have had showings in the first week, so please send us good karma (I scrubbed the baseboard behind the toilet, dammit, people, what more do you want?).

And to top it all off, because I was bored, you know, and had soooo much free time, Encore and I will be competing at the Carolina Horse Park's schooling trials.  I had already paid for the entry so we have to go now!  Our dressage time is at 9:30 am on Sunday, so I am very glad we are able to go down Saturday afternoon and stay with an awesome friend.  We should be done jumping both in the ring and XC by 10:45 (choked laughter of time panic), so at least we can come home and pass out?

Ride times here.  A big thanks to organizer and SJ course designer Marc Donovan, XC course designer Andrea St. Hilaire-Glenn, and secretary Suda McNeill for the hard work putting it all together.

Look, you can even stalk us real-time! Live scoring to make sure your friends (and me) stay in proper vertical order!  Thanks, EventEntries!

Oh and by the way, we are entered at Training Level...

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A Flying Farmhouse!

They were ready to "go" on October 22nd!

I do have horse trial stories, pictures and videos to share with you, but being 10 people at once is HARD and exhausting!  So instead I am going to give you the picture and video dump from today when...they put the Flying Solo FarmHouse on its foundation!

I decided to go with a simple modular house for several reasons.  (1) Duh, it's cheaper than any quality site-builders (note use of the word quality, I was also very careful researching modular builders and focused on structural integrity and energy efficiency).  My house will be EnergyStar certified, have a sealed, insulated crawl space, and an extra layer of heat blocker under the roof.  (2) Since they have to travel over the road, they are actually built using more lumber than a site-built house and in storms such as hurricanes, such as Sandy, who ran up to the NE last year, are proving to be the ones that survive (hey, I'd rather not get blown away).  (3)  Since they are mostly assembled in the factory on a line, not only are corners actually square, but none of the materials of the framing, subfloors, walls, or roofing are ever exposed to any elements (the house is shipped wrapped up in plastic.  I don't know about you but I always cringe when I drive by a half built house and see all that plywood and lumber soaking wet.  (4) They happen FAST, once the final spec sheets are signed.  I believe I signed my papers maybe 3-4 weeks ago.  Footers were poured last week, foundation was ready on Monday, house was set today!

It's nothing fancy (add-ons like decks and fancy roofs are expensive!!!!).  I'm all about practical and I will be outside with the horses anyway.  But I hope it will at least stay put, keep me warm and dry with the kitties, and generally, I don't want to have to think about it.  

Now....who wants to buy an AWESOME house in Creedmoor?  Like, tomorrow?

Remember that portapotty?  It didn't move.  I drove up to this!

Foundation (not sealed or coated yet) and hi there, front door!

Who needs an extension ladder?  You can see my lovely dining room atrium door -- but don't use it because you will fall out until I can afford to build a deck...in like ten years.  This is the back of the house.  Always wanted a yellow house with a red roof...

Then it was time to actually move the thing.  The roof  was still lying flat (I hung around for about an hour to meet onsite boss) but will be stood up once it is all set on the foundation.  The front porch and back steps (the county inspector said stacks of cinder blocks don't count, sigh) will be built on site.  Then they drill the well, dig the septic, hook up the power...

Yeah, pretty much, when I see someone these days, I just say, "Who should I make the check out too?  And hey, don't cash that for a week."

This operator must have nerves of steel...

Then they settled it in straight and I had to run to do 10 other things, boo..

It will be worth it in the long run, but there are not enough hours in the day to do it all right now! Where's the cash fairy when you need her???? But one day, hopefully soon...

My horses can graze in the 3-acre creek pasture if they want,

SuperNeighbour bushhogged it for me last week!  That's right, my awesome photoshop merge skillz, ha!

And this will be the view from the front porch:

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