The first day of the rest of my life

Office window, morning view...

Good friends. BEYOND good friends, help you move – bring their dad along and HE helps you move... even when everyone is so past tired and weak they can't see straight.... even when they are actually hurt – injured – and stay until the job is done. We have BEYOND good friends.

And while the job is not quite done (remember, guys, Uhaul trucks of a size are actually smaller than Penske trucks of the same size and that you cannot fit all your worldly goods into one if you have acquired more since the Penske move.

We did get all the impossibly heavy stuff, all the furniture but the washer and dryer, moved. There are still boxes of stuff – food – stuff to have the filth and cathair washed out – remaining at the trailer park, but we do not have to be out until the end of the month. Current plans are for a couple of runs today, and for K to do one after checking in with the truck rental place and for me to come hone that way and do one after work on Monday. That should pretty much complete the move, except for the stacked washer and dryer, which we will not have a place for until after we remove a built-in here at the Hill.
But I have Thursday and this week Friday off as well... Friday is the day of the big Folklife festival in Bangor, which I understand takes over the waterfront area (where the guide office is) and we will not be able to GET to work. Goodie for me in this case.

I am hoping to finally connect with an old friend here, who is a folkie, at the festival one of the three days. But more importantly, we will be working around home, making it ours, making it “right”.

The previious owner ran short of time on her move-out and left lots of stuff... games and toys, just plain junk, décor items that do not fit our lives... and if we can get this out by the garage by Wed there will be a final trash pickup, I am told. Otherwise it is off to the dump which will require stickers and logfistics, which will happen in time.

But I am home. Slept – when we finally got to that stage, after returning the truck, stopping by the trailer park to check on critters, and meeting our Beyond Friends at their place to take them out for pizza – like the proverbial log. And now I am sitting here in my new office, typing on the laptop and looking out to the East watching the sun rise and the neighbor horses browsing in the field.

K very efficiently got the electronics all packed from the trailer park, not thinking that we DO have Internet there for much of the week and that I could use that for my Words posting and blogging...so I will be having to make a trip to Bangor to the library today that was not on the schedule. But we need more kitty litter too... so that is not such a big deal.

Cats are currently at home in what will be my craft room, as we have yet to figure how to exclude them from the common area other than to confine them to master bath and bed.

The day awaits... I am not yet as stiff as I expected to be at this point... and so it is off to bath and breakfast buffet at the local restaurant and on to more moving, just as soon as I have emptied the truck of my plants and garden stuff.

HOME

We're finally ready to step forward, with the full moon tomorrow, as stewards and guardians of a piece of Earth, upon which we can put down roots. It may be, in some folks eyes "just" a single-wide and a gravel drive... but it sits on the top of a hillock overlooking 4 acres that just call for me to plant them and tend them.

Tomorrow we move, with the help of friends and a rented truck. I am not yet fully packed, boxes are in short supply and I am sure tomorrow will be total chaos. But within the week we will no longer be connected to the "most ghetto trailer park" that served as a refuge these past few months.

I have lots to say and not time to write it at present, but I am thankful for the support and good wishes and workings of a large circle of friends and the Powers That Be that helped bring this about.

We will be mostly out of internet connection for a week or so. See you from Hearthfire Hill.

Moving forward

Well, it looks like it will actually happen.... this week... tomorrow... this weekend...

The lawyer finally got the papers together and while there are some surprises (which is why I wanted the papers to review in advance of closing) I do not think any will be deal-killers. We may have to re-write parts, at the worst. Today we will be heading off again to town hall, and maybe the county as well, addressing these issues.

It is a matter of there being covenants on the property and how they are worded. Nothing crazy, no HOA (that WOULD be a deal killer) but enough about that.

The terms are great, 20 yrs at an appropriate (not ripoff) interest... which makes the monthly payments less than here.

I am confident enough that this will indeed move forward -- at this point -- that I have arranged moving crew for Saturday and, if necessary, Sunday as well.

One of the things on the list today is to touch base with a relatively nearby Uhaul outlet, to see about last-minute rental of a small truck, should the weather prove inhospitable to the transport of upholstered furniture and mattresses in an open truck or trailer.

Time Warner has been notified, though with their typical schedule here in Maine, we will not get installation until Thurs afternoon of next week, which will put me into the realm of doing my daily Words of Wisdom updates by laptop either from the trailer park in Milo (when we come back to clean) or by catching WiFi from the library in Bangor on the way to work. Shades of a year ago, late September.

What a long, strange 11 months it has been... and how wonderfully the Gods have worked it all out in ways I could not have foreseen when I stood on the bridge overlooking the Kenduskeag creek last September, "on my way out of town" and threw my "wish" written on a piece of birch bark into the moving current.

• K getting his disability and being able to join me
• my getting laid off when my part-time job folded with the owners' retirement
• finding -- and then walking away from -- an old home on 2 acres (which is still for sale, by the way, here in Milo) the day we got the truck to start loading to move
• finding "temporary" housing that we expected to inhabit for a month or two
• finding many wonderful, affordable properties that did not have well, septic, power or connectivity
• finding that we could not get a mortgage until next year
• finding that most "owner finance" was of raw land, under ripoff terms even here in Maine.
• getting "oh, so close" to several pieces of property... and having to walk away because it did not have even the possibility of high speed Internet
• getting "oh, so close" to another place and finding out that the investor/owner was asking way more than it was worth
• having folks respond to our ad in Uncle Henry's with property that did not meet the stated criteria (too far away from Bangor, house on small town lot, no Internet) or that were WAY over our (unstated) budget
• getting hired on part time in July with an outfit where I interviewed in April, who became my first Maine web client (and best salesman to boot)
• and finally having one of those callers call back inquiring what our budget was, as she had lowered her (highly optimistic) price into the realm of possible..

What a long, strange trip it's been.

Holding Pattern continues

Here we go on another week of hoping that things will begin to move forward. Both the homeowner and I are getting impatient with her lawyer...she is going to nag him again today and hopefully we will be able to close soon.

Meanwhile, back in the life-that-happens-while-you-wait, the last hex to be painted in this space has been top coated, boxed and will hopefully go out from the PO today. Seen above, it is the first Inspiration / Spiritual Rain sign that I have done for exterior display -- a 2' circle painted in house paint. I have found that the aluminum containers for tea light candles make an excellent size and place to mix custom colors of this paint. I have enough when I do that to do the requisite two coats of the color and don't waste much. No, you do not have to save them for me, I generate plenty, believe me!

Next job is to put up a "on vacation" sign in the online store front. I think I will re-open it on Equinox... that should give me enough time to get set up and the new place and do some site updates as well.

The next few weeks are going to be totally stressful at work; one of the guides is on the "sick-lame-lazy list" and that leaves us scrambling to find qualified personnel for the scheduled trips at season's peak. That is not the only logistical issue... but and I am sure there will be more crop up over the next few weeks. Getting extra time off for this move is NOT in the picture. But I will survive.

I have been dreaming a bit here online -- searching out sources for bulbs and other things that I want to plant that should go in the ground in the fall. A friend who works in landscaping has offered to break ground for me this fall and I intend to take him up on it. I do not want to wait until next fall to start the asparagus bed, nor to put in the first bittersweet, daffodils, tulips, crocus...

Holding Pattern

We (the owner of the home we are hoping to buy) and I are still in a holding pattern, waiting for the darn lawyer to work through his pile, I guess, and prepare paperwork. I DO need to see it -- and have the option to have it reviewed by another attorney -- before we hit closing but at this point I am thinking of suggesting that the owner push him for a closing date... and pray that we get the papers earlier than close of business the previous day (which was usually the case with the closing I was privy to in NC).

But other things, that I am not at liberty to discuss, have happened that give me the good news that this is supposed to happen and I am to move forward.

I have begun dreaming over online plant catalogues, looking at stuff that wants fall planting. It hit me on the way to work the other day that I had said I wanted to grow bittersweet -- and it looks like that wants a fall planting here -- so as soon as I know when we will move I will put in an order for that... my plan is to "naturalize" it along a simple rail fence of some sort, across the front of the property... possibly with grapes on some of the fence as well. It takes several years for it to become established enough to bear the characteristic fruit so I want to get it going quickly.

Also I was drooling over asparagus roots -- green and purple. Likely I will start with 25 of each and see what happens. So they will need a bed.

I have sent off for soil test materials from the Extension service3 (they can come to the PO box) as that will need to be the first thing done, asap.

And, as I am about done with the final hex to be painted here, I am starting to pack up the Craft room -- leaving out only the essential stuff for my daily and weekly spiritual work, the mending projects I hope to complete shortly and what is necessary to complete and ship this hex sign.

We had a brief bit of sunshine today (What WAS that bright light in the sky??) and I managed to get the rugs washed and dried but the rest of the laundry wasn't dry before the sprinkles started and is finishing in the dryer. I hate doing that, don't like the feel of dryer clothes, the use of the electric and I am worrying over one of my lightweight cotton sweaters that had never been dryered (turned out ok, it is a poor boy knit and stretched back out). The only good thing about it is that the dryer is wonderful for removing cat hair... but, it seems, only when things are actually dried with HEAT. Dryer sheet makes it more effective (though being it was my clothes, not bed covers, I refrained) but fluff setting, I might as well not bother.

Tonight's supper will be some fried (not breaded) haddock, cole slaw and boiled, fried potatoes. Local cabbage, local taters, fish came from SAMS so who knows.

Flannel and Oatmeal mornings

If I had to characterize Maine in one thought, it would be with flannel and oatmeal mornings. And maybe the woods through the fog, taking out the dog and walking through grass wet with dew.

I am told this is not a "typical" summer (but then when, these days at least, is weather ever "typical"?) and farmers are worrying about harvests as a result of the earlier dry spell and now the protracted overcast, rainy and cooler weather. It is showing me that -- once we have "home" secured, a greenhouse of some sort will be essential for the next season. But it also feels wonderful to my soul. I have spent too long in the southlands, shrinking from the sun and heat for months upon months on end.

One of my friends commented that this is September weather, and it does remind me of last fall when I was here camping. I started each day in a jacket or some sort of long sleeves and ended it the same way... layering so I could shed to a t-shirt during mid-day and only once being glad -- as the temp hit a NC norm -- that I had packed one sleeveless top.

Today and tomorrow the high will not get out of the 60s, the weather guessers say. If my boss were in today I would for sure have to wear long sleeves as the man loves cool weather even more than I do. He is on river today and tomorrow but I will likely wear one of the new long sleeve tops I got at a yard sale today anyway. My tomatoes have yet to give me a ripe one, so I am seeing that this garden thing, here in Maine, will be different that anywhere else I have lived... But I will continue to research short season varieties, build a greenhouse and learn to love row covers as much as I love foggy, flannel and oatmeal mornings.

Especially when they come with blueberries that I picked by my own hand.

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.