Final Move

I'm moving next week, about 2 miles down the road, still in Michigan. I think I'm gonna love it - its a old farmhouse (a Sears house which brings up all kinds of research for me to follow up on) on a 100 acre operational Fruit & Horse farm. I've been packing for awhile and I'll get the keys a week from Wednesday with the furniture being moved on Saturday, the 18th. 

Turns out Sears sold about 70 thousand of the 'kits' from 1908 to 1940 and this one looks to be one of the 350 designs, a Sheridan, and was built in the late 1920's. The house was sold in 1951 (the year I was born) to a family that owned it up until recently. The Missus died in 1998 at the age of 88 and her husband in 2003 at the age of 96 - he'd already planted his spring garden that year. Their son  lives about 1/4 mile down the road and he was in his late teens when his parents bought the house. He and his wife walk everyday and are very helpful in the history they remember. 

It's a huge house - 3 bedrooms and bath up and 1 bedroom, bath, dining room, kitchen and living room downstairs plus a basement. One of the out buildings can be used for my soap-making since it has a sink, bathroom and heater. It's amazing. 

The current owners live about 1/2 mile away in his historic family home but the land was sold and the owner is a big business guy accumulating land in the area. This is why the current owners farm the land but live elsewhere so its a great opportunity for me. There are 100 acres with apple, sweet cherry and peach orchards. About 5 horses and he'd like to do more horse rescue - I've already got a good relationship with one of the horses. You can see pics if you scroll down. 

There are fine with me adding goats and chickens and I'm seriously considering bee-keeping. The owner has already tilled up a 20x20 patch for my garden this year and I can start planting right away. The garden is where the family had an organic composted garden for many years so the soil should be excellent. Corn & Tomatoes are on their way.

You gotta know when to hold em, and when to fold em

Bow to the Inevitable, Accept the things you cannot change, change the things you can and ask God for the Wisdom to know the difference. God doesn’t delay long when he’s letting me have the Gift of Discernment.

An offer from a pharmaceutical in Chicago and a global online bookseller both came in on my birthday, yesterday. The willingness to go to work for the enemy doesn’t appeal to me and I wonder if I have the physical stamina for the physical work required from the online giant. But I hear the call …

Dancing Rabbit and Sandhill farm are both Intentional Communities I’ve visited in the area and might visit again, if I find Amazon’s not right for me. I’d like to swing down and visit my daughter in Texas. I’ll probably go by and visit my old friend in Kansas City too. Then I’d be getting near Arizona and New Mexico where I see a lot of communities that might suit me for awhile.

And when to walk away…

Second Life

I’m going to have to abandon this blog for a few days, now that I’ve spent way too many hours on it, yesterday and the day before. I’ve got some big assignments due that must be completed, well, and in a timely manner. I hesitate to admit it publically, but I’ve been in work avoidant mode as I’ve spent way too many hours researching videos and coding for this site.

How can I say its work avoidant, and not just taking some time off for R & R? Because last night I was up until almost 4am, working on Julianne Mexicola, my alter ego in Second Life. In other words, these last few days, I’m still sitting in front of the computer, still typing, still gazing into the screen, but I’m not moving forward on my projects, I’m Playing!

If you aren’t up to speed on Second Life, take a few minutes to view the videos at the bottom of this page, below all my blogging. The video selections, which aren’t individually picked by me, just the topics, are gifts from YouTube. The heading is Second Life and they tell who, what, where, and all that stuff about this do-it-ourselves, virtual world being created.

Before I go off on another tangent, and make it an SL kind of a day, I’m going to leave it to you, my reader, to do that yourself and hope you enjoy visiting the 3D world. If not, please, please, get into the discussion on community gardens or urban farming or something. Feel free; in fact I encourage you, to comment on my posts.

Or follow me, something only the crazed attempt to do in the real world.

Sustainability

So what is Urban Farming? In Detroit, seriously? Yes, it’s happening. The alternative to leaving the trashed vacant lots empty and useless as teams of Detroit residents are getting together with help from organizations like Earthworks Garden/Capuchin Soup Kitchen, The Greening of Detroit and MSU to work together creating community gardens.

Community gardens provide food security, healthy choices at that, especially for low income persons. They usually are created in an open space and provide areas of fellowship. They help form strong bonds between neighbors, working together to provide food, while enjoying nature and healthy exercise. Most importantly they provide sustainability.

Community businesses can do that too. Do we need a large corporation to come and build a factory so that we can spend eight hours or more a day inside making widgets to sell to people who don’t need more stuff? Can we create a business where we work together, sharing the load, each person doing work they enjoy and do well, contributing to the whole, creating a useful product that we can sell at a reasonable price and still make a profit? Can we become sustainable in our own backyard?

Something to think about.