The cliche says that the only thing constant is change.  That is so true when you are building a homestead, especially if you are working to make money to fund the build.  We can become so attached to and idea and a dream that when challenges come we lack the flexibility to respond and adapt.  The question for us is, do we want the dream badly enough to fight through the challenges?  The answer, after a lot of soul searching and discussion is a resounding yes.  So, we decided to change the plan.

Plan A

Plan A was to continue to live in our rental house and work on our homestead house on weekends, holidays, and vacations days.  Once we had a livable house, we would move in and finish out the house.  As weather permitted, we would continue developing the homestead.

• Garden
• Fruit Trees
• Chicken coop
• Pathways through the woods
• BBQ pavilion
• Garage/workshop
• Pond

Why a Plan B?

My employer decided to save money by cutting payroll.  That resulted in nobody to relieve me for my 3 days off every weekend.  At one point I worked 10 days, then had 4 days off.  That changed to working 11 days with 3 days off.  After the cuts I am now working 6 days with Sundays off.  While it is great to have every Sunday off (so far), not having the 3-4 day weekend every other week leaves me with almost no time to work on our home.

I won’t try to tell you that I accepted it gracefully when I found out I was going to work for my third straight weekend.  I won’t tell you that I was pleasant when I realized I would most likely work several more 6 day weeks.  Like several months more, except when the stretch of 7 day work weeks starts up.  My response was neither graceful or pleasant, and I’m not proud of that.  In fact, I was pretty upset for a couple days and had to engage in some serious prayer time to get my head right.

When I finished with my anger and disappointment, Deb and I sat down and did some serious thinking and discussing.  We decided that this is something we want, and it is something we are willing to fight for.  I heard a song with a line that really hit me – “safe is another word for regret”.  We have enough regrets in life.  Time to step out of safe.

Plan B

We have actually tossed this one around but were hesitant to go with it because it isn’t safe and familiar.  It will be challenging.  At times it will be frustrating and uncomfortable.  Since my work schedule is likely not going to change, we must make a change.  Time for Plan B.

As quickly as possible I’ll have the electric co-op come out and tell me where I need to clear a path for them to run power to my foundation.  Then I’ll schedule getting power in.  That will be nice because then I can use an electric cement mixer instead of having to finish out the build mixing concrete and mortar by hand.  After that, I’ll get the water put in.  I’ll do it that way because the electric co-op contractors have a history of cutting through water lines and leaving a mess behind them.  After the water will come the septic system.

Once we have utilities in place our plan is to purchase a shipping container and a used travel trailer.  I’d rather purchase a shipping container that we will use for years than to spend money keeping stuff in a storage unit (or units) until we can move it into the house.  I figure that I can cut a panel in the side of the container to bring in power, water, and a drain line so we can put the chest freezer, refrigerator, and washer and dryer in it.  It might be a pain to carry laundry from the trailer to the shipping container, but not as much of a pain as carrying it to a laundromat.  That hits time and the pocketbook.

Of course, I’ll have to expand the fence that we put in earlier so the dogs have space to exercise.  They are going to need it after being in a travel trailer for several hours.  Considering that I put up our existing 50 x 50 fenced in area in about 4 hours, that won’t be so bad.

Having a shipping container onsite will also allow me to have a safe place to keep my tools and equipment locked up while we are off at work.  And I can keep things organized.  Ask Deb sometime how much I enjoy looking for things.  And how lousy I am at finding things.  Since it is something we will continue to use for years to come, we aren’t throwing money away on storage.

We have talked about moving into a travel trailer before, but didn’t pursue it.  We have a lab, a lab mix, and 2 cats that will go with us.  The thought of cramming us and them into a travel trailer is concerning.  It won’t be as comfy or convenient as living in our rental house.  That goes back to sticking to what is safe and familiar.  But then, the whole concept of clearing land and building a debt free home isn’t safe, so why cling to the safety of the rental house?

Pros and Cons

Pros

• We can work each day rather than just every other weekend
• When I do get days off, there won’t be 3 hours of travel involved
• Secure storage for tools and materials, no more toting them back and forth
• We can enjoy our woods every day instead of every other weekend
• There will be time to begin developing a garden area
• We won’t be paying out rent
• We’ve got a LOT of stuff to sort through and decide what to keep

Cons

• Living in a travel trailer with 2 dogs and 2 cats!
• Small spaces will require changing how we cook meals
• No more walk in closets for a while
• Did I mention it will be cramped?
• Travel trailers aren’t really meant for daily living, lots of upkeep
• Driving an hour to work instead of 20 minutes
• Dealing with the black water system in a trailer
• We’ve got a LOT of stuff to sort through and decide what to keep (its on both lists because we both see that as a pro.  We have stuff still in boxes from our 2007 move.)

All in all, the pros outweigh the cons.  We will have to figure out how to work around each of the cons and how to maximize the pros.

Accepting the challenge

All the prep and planning required to make this move out to the property is daunting.  As I find out when we can schedule the utilities installations I’ll have a better idea on when we can move.  Perhaps the best thing about reaching this conclusion is that rather than waiting and hoping, we are taking action and making it happen.  A lot of people will think we have lost our minds.  They may not be too far from the truth!

There will be challenges and struggles.  We have come through many in our lives.  But at least we will be moving forward, and we can continue to find ways to deal with the challenges ahead.

Remember, Safe is another word for Regret.

 

 

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Disclosure: I sometimes earn money or products from any of the companies mentioned on this site Learn More

And So it Began

Our search for land of our own began 7 years ago when we were living in Texas.  With the exception of a 4 year stint at Fort Campbell where we bought a home, we have spent our entire married lives living in either military housing or rented homes.  Deb has wanted a place of our own for years.  I was always hesitant to put down roots in a place that I didn’t really like that much where I was working a job that I didn’t really care for.  Finally back in 2011 we started looking at homes, land, and discussing what type of place we wanted.

One of the decisions we arrived at is that we didn’t want to live in a subdivision and we wanted no part of a HOA.  Through a friend at work, I learned of a place that owner financed land with a small down payment.  He also told me of a place that did owner financing, moving, and setup of repo manufactured homes.  That would be a start, and it would get us out of our rental house in town.  We looked at some land and it was mostly in the Trinity River bottoms.  Neither of us were keen on buying land in a flood plain and we ended up continuing to look elsewhere.

Making a Move

In 2014 I had an opportunity for a job that would finally put us in the area we really wanted to retire.  It would put us close to my Dad and Stepmom in their latter years, but the downside is that our kids and most of our grandkids would be down in Texas.  After a lot of thought and discussion, we decided to make the leap.

Shortly after moving we began looking at property and discussing what we wanted in a home or land.  One of my favorite places growing up was a beautiful lake near our hometown.  We spent a lot of Saturday and Sunday afternoons swimming at the lake or just driving around the countryside.  Naturally, that is the first place we began looking for property.  Unfortunately, reality sometimes departs from childhood dreams.  There was plenty of land available near the lake, the problem is that much of it was really rugged and challenging to build on.  Many of the lots had run down homes or trailers built right next to the road and the property was pretty trashed out.  A search on the web revealed a disturbing number of registered sex offenders and verified meth houses.  Time to rethink!

The Decision Checklist

1. Did we want to buy a cheap home or build our own?
2. Type of area/activities we want to be near?
3. Plans for the land?
4. What kind of land did we want to buy?
5. How remote and isolated did we want to be?
6. What kind of lifestyle do we want?

Did We Want to Buy a Cheap Home or Build Our Own?

Searches on Zillow, Realtor.com, Mossy Oak, and local realtor sites revealed no shortage of cheap homes.  Unfortunately, there is a reason they were cheap and the price would only be a starting point.  Issues with eaves, roofing, flooring, and utilities end up requiring a lot of work and a sizable cash outlay.  Fixing up a place that needed work would cost more than if we built from scratch!  Another issue is floor plan.  Nothing we saw matched what we had decided was important in a floor plan.  Since this home will be our retirement home, we decided to build our own.

Done deal, we would buy a piece of land and build our own home.  What type of home is a story for another day.

Type of area/activities we want to be near? 

After years of living in military housing and subdivisions, we knew that we wanted a place with elbow room.  My wife grew up in town and always felt that was where she would want to live.  People change over time, and she finally decided that she also wanted a place with some elbow room, space, trees, and privacy.

We both love being in the outdoors and enjoy camping and hiking.  Her family vacations as a child revolved around loading up the pop-up camper and going camping somewhere for a week.  My family spent a lot of time driving through the Ozarks and visiting places in the Mark Twain National Forest.  We both wanted to be near areas where we could get out and enjoy nature.  Go for a swim, go on a float trip, go on a hike, just spend some time in a beautiful place without having to drive for hours.

Plans for the land?

Initially we thought of a property with enough space to grow a small garden and perhaps have a few chickens and rabbits.  Our priorities changed as we discussed our retirement years and the type of life that really meant the most to us.  Living more in tune with nature, less consumerism, sustainable living, responsible stewardship became more important.  We decided that we wanted to buy a place that would have enough room for livestock if we felt so inclined.  Bottom line, we didn’t want to get the bare minimum space and not have room to expand if we wanted.

As a result, we decided that something in the 3-5 acre range would be best.  It would allow us to have a garden, and have a chicken coop and/or rabbit hutch that wouldn’t be right next to the house.  We could start with a small garden and have the flexibility to expand.  Funny thing is, we bought 5.3 acres and Deb wondered what we were going to do with all that land.  As we worked on clearing trees and developing the house site, she began to wish we had MORE space.  When the 5.9 acres on our north border became available, we decided to buy that too and ended up, so far, with 11.2 acres.  Now, if only the 6.3 acres on our east border doesn’t sell before we get in the position to buy it too….

What kind of land did we want to buy?

Deb and I both love the rugged hills and beautiful vistas.  Nothing like a piece of land with a view and a pond or stream.  Deb’s left hip had been bothering her for a couple years, and it became necessary for her to have a hip replacement.  In the next 3-5 years she will probably end up having her other hip replaced.  Build a home and garden on rugged acreage is definitely feasible.  Getting around it with a bionic hip isn’t so easy.  Neither of us could imagine trying it with two bionic hips!  They take care of the pain and restore lost mobility, but they just aren’t made for land best suited to billy goats.

We looked at some cleared land, but really wanted wooded acreage.  We didn’t want rugged hills, but we didn’t want flat land.  And we definitely didn’t want to be in a flood plain.  The narrowed our focus to wooded acreage with a gentle slope that would be easy for us to navigate as we age.

How remote and isolated did we want to be?

In the early stages of our discussions, we thought about buying remote land far away from the rest of the world.  Sounds romantic, and for some people it is the best place in the world.  We considered things like the fact that we will be working for the next 6-7 years, getting to church, spending time with family, access to medical care.  Remote wasn’t practical for us.  We began searching within 20 miles of the town we wanted to be near that would meet the other criteria that were important to us.

With retirement approaching, we didn’t want to be so remote that we didn’t have fairly easy access to stores and medical facilities.  We don’t need to be near a big city, but would like access to the basics without having to make a day trip.

What kind of lifestyle did we want?

Determining how we wanted to live had a huge impact on the type of land that would be suitable.  We wanted land with enough space to have room between us and neighbors.  We wanted enough space to have a sustainable permaculture garden.  Space for a chicken coop if we decided to go that way was important.  Since we really enjoy relaxing in our above ground pool, there has to be room for that!  I love smoking meat and want a detached BBQ pavilion.  No more having the smoker right next to the back door and bringing smoke into the house.

We wanted to have enough room to make a few trails to stroll through our woods.  Building a fire pit retreat found its way to our wish list.  We wanted a lot wide enough to build in a location where the house wouldn’t be easily seen from the road.  Private, but not isolated.  And we didn’t want to be in an area with junked up places all around us.  Determining what kind of lifestyle is important is vital in picking out the right kind of land.

We’ve got LAND!

In the end, I stumbled across an add on Craigslist for  owner financed wooded acreage.  A local developer had bought a few hundred acres and opened it up.  He ran county water lines, and had the plat accepted by the electric utility and the county.  In the next year the county will be taking over road maintenance.  He gave directions to get to the property, gave some details, and invited us to go check it out.  There was no high pressure sales pitch.  Just told us to go look at it and if we saw something we like, come to his office and we will talk.  I like that approach because I detest a high pressure sales pitch and will walk away in a heartbeat.

We walked several properties and decided on the one we wanted.  The properties have some deed restrictions that actually make them more appealing to us because they will (hopefully) prevent the kind of things that made other areas unappealing.  Deed Restrictions is an ugly phrase to most people setting out to homestead because they want to do whatever they want on their land.  Problem is, the people around you can do the same, and that could get unpleasant.  We made sure that the restrictions didn’t keep us from doing any of the things we were wanting to do on the land and signed the dotted line.

Making it work

My job doesn’t leave me much free time because I work 10 days and get 4 days off.  This gives us every other weekend to get out there and work.  It is challenging, and at times frustrating because things take time.  Of course, it also gives us time to refine our plans and hopefully waste less time.

Rather than have a dozer come in and knock everything down, we cut trees ourselves.  I’ve left the bigger oaks in logs 9-14 feet long to use as posts in our cordwood home.  I’ll mill hickory logs to use in making cabinets and furniture.  The rest of the oak and hickory we have been cutting up to dry for firewood.  Other brush was burned.  Whatever doesn’t make timbers for the frame or firewood will be laid out to make hugulkulture beds in the garden.  Our initial site for a drive and house changed slightly in the fall and winter when could see the land better.  It really is best if you can see the land, sun, and weather in several seasons before you put down something permanent.

People who have been out to our place love it.  We love to spend time there, even if most of that time we are working our tails off.  Some people get it, some people think we are crazy, and that’s okay.  This is our dream, our adventure to do our way.  Mistakes will be made, amazing things will be learned, and great people will be met as we go along.  At the end of the day, we will have built our dream our way, and it doesn’t get much better than that.  Hope you get to make your dream happen too!

 

 

Disclosure: I sometimes earn money or products from any of the companies mentioned on this site Learn More

Serenity Hill Homestead

Welcome to Serenity Hill Homestead, our little piece of paradise!  We are Bob and Deb, a couple who has been married for over 39 years and counting.  For most of those years we either lived in Military housing or rented a house, sometimes good, sometimes not so good.  One of our desires has always been to find a place where we want to settle and develop the place of our dreams going into our retirement years.  For us, it isn’t just about a house to live in, but a place where we live in harmony with the land and enjoy what it can provide for us.

After many years of fruitless searching, I finally found a job near the area we wanted always wanted to live – the Ozarks in Southeast Missouri.  We began our search for a homestead site near a lake that has been a favorite place since childhood.  Unfortunately like so many things that we think are great as children the reality doesn’t match up later in life.  The land for sale in the area was pretty rugged and would have been costly to build on.  The very rocky soil is a challenge for gardening.  There are no codes, so a lot of really trashy places have popped up, and when I did a search for known meth labs, many popped up in the area.  To top it all off, Deb had a hip replacement a couple years ago and just isn’t up to rugged terrain anymore.  We both had to realize that it wasn’t going to be the best place for us.

Making a List and Checking It Twice

After regrouping, we sat down and did a checklist of what we wanted in a property.  We also discussed finances and made a checklist and plan for paying off debt and boosting our savings.  Then we began searching for a place that met our needs.  We found a newly opened area with nice dead end gravel roads and county water already in place.  The area has gentle hills and is very heavily wooded.  It is 10 miles from Current River, a part of the Ozark National Scenic Riverways,  and near several Conservation areas.  After roaming around several of the lots, we found one that met our criteria and we decided to make the leap.

Our initial purchase was 5.3 acres and Deb wondered what in the world we were going to do with all that land.  As the other lots began selling and we spent more time on the property we began discussing purchasing the 5.9 acres on our north border.  A couple months ago we signed the paperwork and expanded Serenity Hill Homestead to 11.2 acres.

Slow But Steady

To date we have cleared a curved driveway, area for garage, house, and septic system.  We used to have to park our car on the grass at the bottom of the hill and tote everything up to where we were clearing because the red clay soil up close to the driveway location was too soft after a rain.  When we finally got the drive and house areas clear to the point we called in an excavating contract it was celebration time.  Getting that culvert and drive in was a big milestone for us.  The topsoil is soft and ruts easily, so I had him put a layer of clay and gravel on the drive.  It has hardened to the point that even after torrential rain we can drive on it with no problem, and when dry a dozer doesn’t leave tracks on it.

In August we had trenches dug for our foundation footings.  Another exciting day!  Now comes gravel, rebar, and concrete.  Once we have the footings in place the electric utility will run power to it so we won’t have to purchase a generator to run power tools.  More money available for building supplies.

As soon as we get a livable house we will be moving to the property.  Once we get there, we can begin developing the rest of Serenity Hill Homestead.  In the meantime, we are getting rid of a lot of “stuff” we have accumulated in boxes in the basement.  No need to move things we haven’t used in years and boxes that have remained unopened through 3 moves!  Mind boggling when I think about it.

The Homestead

What are we building at Serenity Hill Homestead?

• 32 x 40 Cordwood home with shed roof, full length porch, and lots of windows
• 25 x 30 Cordwood garage/workshop
• Forest garden utilizing hugulkultur beds
• Chicken coop and possibly rabbit hutches
• Fire pit and picnic area in a small clearing about 150 feet from the house
• Pond, approximately 1 acre
• Walking paths with seating to just enjoy the woods

We are doing most of the work ourselves and hiring out work that requires equipment or expertise that we don’t have.  Our goal is to have a mortgage free home since retirement is just a few years away.  Some people think we are crazy, some people are excited for us, and some people don’t know quite what to think.  Everyone, it seems, has ideas about what a home is or what it takes to build a home.  When you do something outside that box they don’t know quite what to think.

But then, that is us in a nutshell.  We have always done things a little differently than everyone else.  We value different things than most of our friends and family.  Life is too short to spending it trying to impress other people, best to spend time doing things that make you happy, enrich the lives of those you hold dear, and create wonderful memories.

More to come.  We hope you enjoy following our journey.

 

 

Disclosure: I sometimes earn money or products from any of the companies mentioned on this site Learn More

Carving a homestead out of 11 acres of heavily wooded land and building a cordwood home with our own hands.  Our goal is to be mortgage free, hassle free, and live in harmony with the land and what it provides us.  Serenity Hill is a name that more or less found us, because that is what owning our own piece of land after almost 40 years of renting houses has brought us.  It is lots of hard work, sweat, and sore bodies, but it brings us peace and contentment.

We hope you join us as we build our home, gardens, pond, and decide what food critters we are going to raise.  We look forward to sharing our dream.