Harvest comes

I am truly feeling this as a harvest season, but more in the metaphysical sense than the physical. Oh, yes, I did have quite a harvest of herbs from the planter-box "dooryard garden", the larger garden is giving forth lettuces and peas and sprouts of broccoli and a wonderful cauliflower is growing (only one from the 6-pack is producing at present...) . And I did spend a wonderful (though WET!) time picking high bush blueberries up in Amish country with a friend yesterday (blueberry buckle as desert yesterday, one quart laid out on the cookie sheet to freeze (they are surely ready this morning and need to be bagged so the next batch can be frozen.

But this season, as the year turns ever steadily toward autumn, and then winter... the quiet time... the inward time... is showing the fruits of our labors in other ways. Not of my patience, mind you... for I am no more patient in life and I am in the garden. (I'm the one you see out there every morning, peering at the freshly planted earth for signs of sprouts, and looking over the plants and vines for the first blossoms, checking out the enlarging fruits!) I have been ranting and raving (hopefully more in private than on these pages) over the slow pace at which our home search had been proceeding. It has been rather like waiting for that giant pumpkin vine to set the first fruit -- only to have it do so, and then rot on, or fall off the vine over and over again. You know winter is coming, you know that without the pumpkin you WILL get on just fine, but darn it, you WANT ONE!

Well that's the way our house hunting has gone. Never mind that we have been looking for that needle in the haystack -- "unreasonably" low price, a couple of acres minimum, within a good distance of the city for my work but not "in town" with all that entails (city water, sewer are not for us) but yet it has to have reliable high speed internet (again, for my work) and be able to be LIVED IN while we work on it... and oh, yeah, owner finance. LOL I am used to having folks turn me down flat and laugh at me when I am looking to buy real estate. Been there, done that before.. but in the end previously each time the needle HAS been found.

But I am impatient, like I said... and for a while it seemed there were not even any properties out there in our price range.. they all dried up... then they began dribbling back.. the "tear-er down" mascaraing as "fix-er up", the basements out of a Stephen King novel (he does live around here y'know!) and the realtors more than happy to send us long lists of properties, getting us all excited, BEFORE they check on the financing aspect and shoot us down again. GRRRR

But we persisted -- putting cards up in stores and gas stations, running ads (mostly on line, but sometimes in print, which costs) in Uncle Henry's and that, it appears, may be the source of the fruit that -- so far at least -- seems to be ripening.

Last month we got a call from the ad.

• Wanted : Home, land wanted. Fixer upper w/business class dsl or cable internet available. Must have well, septic, yr. round access and be within 1 hr of Bangor. Prefer more land, less house. Owner finance necessary, have down payment.

We had not specified a price -- K's suggestion -- and after getting all the rest of the details the price was quoted as nearly double what we had set as our top dollar. I brushed her off and figured that was the end of it.

It wasn't... a couple of weeks ago she called back, having (she said) lowered the price twice. Now she was talking "only" 20K over our top dollar and something prompted me to say I would go look. With the wierd lack of schedule on my new part time job (yeah, another thing that came to harvest from a seed sown in April!) by the time I was able to get home, pick up K, and get out to the place a week ago last Thursday, it was pitch dark. Well, at least we know there is not streetlight in the front yard (as in one of the recent rejects -- it was also way over priced!) or yard lights shining everywhere (yea, that was another one that got knocked out for other more serious reasons as well) and that the mobile home was not totally trashed inside. We made an appointment to see outside the following Saturday.

And we liked what we saw then as well... 4 open acres, the home sits pretty much in the middle... and talking $$ with her... well lets just say we were in the same ball park on terms. I told her it would depend on what the monthly numbers looked like and gave her an "application" of sorts... our rental history, some banking and employment info and references. I didn't get around to warning the references... looking back I think the surprise aspect of her call might have been a good thing... she could tell these were folks who knew us and it was totally unscripted. And she did call them all! And then talked to her lawyer who came up with an amortization schedule and the numbers look good. She said he said (yeah... LOL) that we could close in as little as 2 weeks.

So, I am now waiting to see the actual papers, to review them and if they look good, to schedule a closing. At this point I am still guardedly optomistic -- and prepared to walk away from the deal if I don't like what I see. Been there, done THAT too... in WA state 20 yrs ago... and I got my deal.

But we may, just may, be home for Equinox... which is, in truth, when this journey started one year ago.