Smoke, Fire and Sod-Busting

What a busy weekend!  On Saturday, along with the clean-up both inside and outside and the "farm work" we've been doing, Neta's cousin, Dawn, came by to pick up an old sewing machine from the farm house.  Then Neta's uncle, Donald, stopped by in the afternoon and we gave him a tour of our progress so far.  I also did some more bush-hogging between the planted pines.  Neta's dad, Terrell, has been busy clearing bushes and small trees from around the little pond.

We've been waiting for a reasonably calm day, wind-wise, to burn all of the overgrowth around the little pond and on the hill in the middle of the pond.  Sunday turned out to be the day.  I called Terrell and told him I was coming over, then applied online for my burn permit.  With the permit number in hand I headed to the farm.

Terrell and I started off trying to burn off the cut grass that had accumulated in the front field, but it was still a bit too damp at 10am, so off we went to the edge of the pond.  Those weeds and grass started burning pretty well, albeit nice and slow, so as not to be a danger to surrounding areas.

Burning off the dry weeds around the small pond.

Perfectly contained

Terrell followed the burn around the edge, while I followed it onto the land in the middle of the pond.  It's a horseshoe-shaped pond, with this little hill/peninsula that the pond bends around.  There were still some swampy areas at the bottom of the hill and a lot of blackberry brambles and green undergrowth, so not all of it burned.

The fire slowly burned around the base of the hill and up to and over the hill where the tall pine is in the center.

Sometimes the fire moved into an area of dry weeds and took off causing me to quickly rake up a fire break, but most times it just slowly burned along in the low, dry grass.  At one point I looked out into the field and saw it was finally burning.  I thought Terrell had gone back to it, but after checking with him he said he hadn't.  The sun had dried out the grass enough it had finally caught.  We'd surrounded it with wide areas that we'd mowed down to the dirt and it burned low and slow enough not to spread.

Beats hand-cutting

It took us about 2 hours to get the hill and surrounding area burned, though it didn't all burn.  Some areas were still too wet or the vegetation was still too green.  At one point, a formation of Marine V-22 Ospreys flew overhead.

Our farm is neither the Halls of Montezuma nor the Shores of Tripoli.

Neta and Robert showed up in the afternoon.  They burned up a pile of brush and other junk that has been accumulating on the farm for some time, while Terrell burned off the dry grass in the rest of the field.

The results of our "scorched earth policy".

While the rest of the fields burned, I got started on plowing the part of the field that we'd burned earlier in the day.  I promised Neta a garden this summer and I intended to make good on that promise.  We'd marked off an area of the field next to the small barn for our upcoming vegetable garden.

There is an old plow and disc on the farm that I figured would work.  The disc could use some repair work, but it'll suffice.  The plow is a single blade that will cut down to 15 inches deep.  It's also great for making trenches if necessary.  I'd never plowed (or used a disc) before, but I have watched some YouTube videos on how to plow a field.  Yes, there are instructional videos for that!  I hooked up the plow and it was time to make my first pass.

It's just dropping the plow at the point you want to start and going forward.

My first pass.

I wasn't drinking.  I was compensating for the curvature of the earth!

"Terrell and I confer over whether a straight furrow is really all that necessary."

Here is how the field looked after plowing.

Step 1 complete.  Step 2 about to proceed.

From another angle.  The last row (on right) is straight.  Not bad for a rookie.

I can honestly say that plowing wasn't as easy as the video made it out to be.  Who knew?  Actually it wasn't too bad.  But I can use some practice.

Aside from the curved first row, each subsequent row requires that you drive with the right tire of the tractor in the furrow you've just created, if you have your plow set exactly right (I didn't).  Keeping it on line was hard.  Some furrows were too skinny in places, too wide in others and some were just right.  When I was finished, it wasn't exactly smooth.  It looked like a scale model of the Rockies.   However, the disc will take care of all of that...right?

Not so fast...

This is a flattering angle, trust me.

There are some high spots and low spots, but overall I'm pretty pleased.

All in all it turned reasonably well.  It still needs some additional disc work, but it's only the end of February.  We're not ready to plant yet.  We're just happy to have this dirt worked up.  It's been years since anything grew in these fields, but as you can see, it's nice dark dirt and we can almost hear it begging to grow something.  We'll keep discing it for a while to keep the weeds and grass from growing until we're ready to plant.

Now then...who's ready for some ripe and juicy tomatoes?

My Kingdom for a Plat

When we last left off, the tractor had broken down and we were waiting for the paperwork to do its slow grind through the banking system, held up by the fact that we needed an updated plat since the most recent one was dated from 1920.  We'll get back to the tractor later, but first we'll talk about getting a new plat.

We called a surveyor.  We didn't know any but our builder did, and coincidentally his last name was Marsh (Don) too.  No relation.  I explained our situation and he was able to meet me just a few days later and got started right away.  He told me it would take a few days to complete.  True to his word, he completed it.  I think the sunny 70 degree days that we've had for the last 5 days helped tremendously.

From one parcel to three

The survey shows the total area at 49.75 acres which is larger than the 48.37 acres that we originally thought.  Does the increase entitle us into a loftier status such as "Land Barons" or "Lord and Lady" like on Downton Abbey?  It probably only means higher taxes.

The only possible issue is the current (main) house sits too close to the road (the county road runs through the middle of the property).  Of course when the house was built there was no county road (and no building regulations, either).  When I went to register the new plat, the Zoning Administrator told me that he'll come out and have a look with me next week to help figure things out, knowing that we want to tear down and rebuild on the same spot as the current house.  Hopefully we can be grandfathered in.

I dropped off a copy of the plat at the bank.  They told me it will take about a week to get everything appraised and then another week to get the closing paperwork together so we can start building. We're keeping out fingers crossed.

As for the tractor...  I fixed it...  Myself.  Turns out after explaining the problem to the guy at the tractor shop, he told me what to do to fix it and it only cost me $4 in parts.  WOO HOO!!!  I was up and running on Presidents' Day and also got in several hours of mowing this past weekend.  Sorry I don't have any pictures, but I promise some in the next entry.  I managed to get all of the rest of the open spaces on the farm mowed and am now working on mowing between the trees of the planted pines.  The place looks much larger now that you can see across the fields.

On the other (rental) home front, it's fertilizer spreading time.  Though I don't understand why they picked a day when the wind was blowing directly from the pile of chicken manure to our house.  It was not a pleasant day to be outside...or in our front yard as you'll see from these pictures.

There are chunks flying halfway into our front yard as I took this picture.

He's spreading the love!

Luckily the winds shifted today and it's blowing about 25mph in the other direction.  For that we are thankful.

Until next time...

We're Farmers!

A while back I mentioned that I was having a tractor repaired so I could use it to get some work done around the farm.  The weeds have been growing in the fields and the last time they were cut was fall of 2014.  They obviously need some attention.  On top of that, we want to start a garden this spring/summer and now would be a great time to plow up part of one of the fields, get the grass and weeds breaking down in the soil so it will be ready to plant by April.

Two weeks ago I got the tractor back from the repair shop. To refresh your memory, this is what the tractor looked like before he worked on it and fixed it up.

Just needs a little TLC

This is what it looks after its tune-up and tractor store makeover.

What a difference a new seat and new grill make.  There's more changes under the hood.

I couldn't wait to jump on it and get started...uh...farming.  Just one more thing.  I needed a quick Tractor 101 course in how this thing operates and how to hook up implements.  Turns out it wasn't all that hard.  There are gears, a high and low transmission range, a lever to raise and lower the implements, another lever to engage them and a throttle.  If you can drive a stick shift, you can pretty much drive a tractor.

Hooking up the implements, in this case the bush hog, takes a little finesse.  It's not that hard, but it does require backing up to the implement and getting it aligned reasonably close to attach it to the 3 point hitch and the driveshaft. You can't just pick up a 500lb (or more) bush hog and move where you want it.

The bush hog, like the tractor, has been on the farm for quite a while itself.  It's been sitting out in the field, completely overgrown with blackberry brambles for several years.  Neta's dad pulled it out of the field with his pickup, gave it a little WD40 in spots and greased the fittings.  It was good as new, though it looks aren't glamorous.

It's not pretty, but it gets the job done.

Once all of that was set up, it was time to mow the fields.  I spent a few minutes just riding around to get a feel for the tractor itself, a test drive in a sense.  After that it was time to get out into the fields and mow.  I spent about an hour mowing.  I spent the rest of the evening smiling.  I had a tractor!  I couldn't want for the upcoming weekend so I could clear the rest of the weeds and tall grass from around the farm.  Unfortunately Mother Nature had other plans.  It rained a couple of days that week, but I did some mowing on Friday evening in the few dry spots I could find.  That Saturday it rained again and washed out my weekend of tractor bonding.

This past weekend (Valentine's Day weekend.  How appropriate!) it was dry.  We'd had dry, breezy weather all week and the ground had dried out enough.  It was time to finish the fields.

Sizing up it's prey...tall weeds and grass.

I spent a glorious morning cutting the big field (above to the right) and the areas around the large barn (above to the left).  I broke for lunch and was ready to tackle the rest of the farm when I noticed fuel dripping out from around the top of the fuel tank.

Part of the repairs involved a new fuel line and other work.  Robert and I looked things over, not that we're tractor mechanics or anything, but there appeared to be a line that returns fuel to the fuel tank near the cap. It was leaking where it attaches to the tank.  It wasn't leaking initially, and it didn't look cracked or old, so I can see how they probably didn't consider replacing it.  So...back to the shop for hopefully not long.

That one thingy attaches to that other thingy.

I spent the rest of the day working with Neta's dad trimming trees along the edge of the field.  But don't despair.  It'll be up and running again soon.  In the meantime, just think about this last picture and the amount of joy I am getting by owning a tractor.

WOO HOO!!!!

Historical (sorta) Documents

We're finding out that building your own house (or two) isn't as easy and doesn't progress as quickly as we'd hoped.  Surprise!  We've made some progress, but the process is bringing up many things we didn't anticipate.

Our builder, Tracy Marsh, has been great to work with.  We sat down with him on Sunday and finalized the floor plan for our house.  When I say "finalized", understand that nothing is ever final until the last nail is hammered, the last wall is painted, the last piece of flooring is laid, the last touch-ups are done and we get that "Certificate of Occupancy".  Everything is still on the table and subject to change, but for now this is what we're moving forward with (with a few minor changes - HA! - that aren't shown).

Downstairs

Upstairs

The Cabin floor plan

With finalized plans and a budget for both houses we were ready to talk to the bank.  Tracy recommended a bank with a good reputation for construction loans and also splitting the two houses into separate applications.  This should help move the Cabin along faster as it's just a renovation. Neta and I got our paperwork in order and submitted both applications.  The only item we had left on our list  was a plat of the property.

When we purchased the property our lawyer did a search to make sure there were no outstanding issues on the property, which can easily happen to records and such that date back to the 1800's.  Everything came back clean.  She also provided us a plat of the property which was the last one on record...from 1920, which was merely a correction to a plat from the 1890's...when the farm was 103 acres and I-16 hadn't come through and cut the property in half.  Suffice to say, it's a little outdated.

Interesting?  Yes!  Helpful for our loan documents?  Not so much.

Though the bank was impressed with our organized document packages we need to get the land re-surveyed.  In talking to a surveyor he mentioned parceling the land, which the bank also recommended.  We were skeptical at first, but found out that if we were to ever sell (not gonna happen) or default (better not happen), the house needs to be "comparable" to others houses for a realtor or bank to place a value on it.  With the exception of old houses (like our current one), few houses down here are on 48 acres or more of land.  Also, if we were to default, the bank can't come and take the whole farm, only the house and the few acres that it is parceled on.  It sort of protects both parties.  It's still one piece of property when the tax bill shows up.

Complicating all of this, or so we thought, was the fact that we'd received a "Conservation Use Exemption" on the property, which means, since we have timber that we can sell, we get taxed at a lower rate.  Now that we were breaking the property into parcels we were nervous that it would be breaking the covenant.  The Tax Assessor office allayed our fears.  Even though the house will be on its own parcel, it will be our primary residence and therefore part of the exemption.  The only part that will be removed from the exemption will be the parcel for the Cabin.  Whew!  Crisis Averted!

For now we're in a holding pattern until the property is surveyed.  Aside from the lack of speed of the process, we haven't run into any huge issues or deal-breakers.  Fingers crossed.

I hope to have a blog entry about the tractor coming up soon.  It's in draft form, but I'm waiting to get some good pictures.  No one likes a story if there aren't some interesting pictures to go with it, right?

Until next time...