:( November 29, 2012

1 day a week for 21 weeks straight I have dedicated my self to laboring to make this project happen ON THE WRONG PLOT OF LAND!!!  I can not even convey the stream of emotions I have gone through since I discovered the mistake.  It all started because I was attempting to get the project site on the map on thePOOSH.org and it was showing up in the “wrong place”….or I have been in the wrong place.  I am not arrogant enough to assume that I know more than google earth so I looked into things.  It took a few minutes to track the right page down and then I had to open internet exploder because I couldn’t look at the plot maps online using google…anyway when I looked at the deed and looked at the plot maps I could clearly see I was in fact in the wrong.  I wasn’t sure what to do so I gave Pug a call.  You all might remember him from the post Neighbors.  He’s the guy that offered to help with getting a driveway in.  He is also a builder and as soon as I told him I could tell it kind of blew his mind.  He got off the phone long enough to take a look at some plot maps himself and sure enough I am supposed to be directly across the street from Pug, not down the street.  Bottom line is the lady from the real estate office made a mistake when she showed me the plots and then again when she marked the plot for me.  You know this is one of the things I was worried about.  I still have the e-mail I sent her asking her to please meet me out there because I wanted to make sure I was certain which plot it was before closing.  We talked on the phone later and she told me she had marked it with pink tape for me and that I shouldn’t have a problem finding it.  You can see the bits of pink marking tape in some of the early blog pictures.

On the good side I have friends getting involved and we will be having a work party there this Sunday to try to get as much of my stuff as possible moved to the correct plot.  The real estate lady says she will “get it right” and I am trusting her that she will do so.  If you can lend a hand let me know.  The property is in Ravenel on Fox Dr and I should be there by 11am.  Many hands make light work!

Work party November 23, 2012

I will be out at my property this Sunday 11/25/12. I’m not sure exactly what I will be doing but a friend wanted to come over and hang out with me for the day so I thought why not make a party out of it. I have brush mounds that still need covered, wood that needs to be cut, split, and stacked to dry and an idea for a greenhouse from french doors and old windows that I have. I’m not sure exactly what time I will get out there but it will be before noon. If anyone wants to ride out with me let me know. I live in North Charleston and the property is in Ravenel on Fox Dr. It is easy to find and impossible to miss but let me know if you need directions.  You can leave a message here or message me on facebook http://www.facebook.com/revivalnatural

PermacultureGlobal.com November 21, 2012

Revival is now on permacultureglobal.com  Come check it out http://permacultureglobal.com/projects/1247-revival

Another view of the orchard garden November 11, 2012

The orchard garden

More logging

Logging

Another progress report August 21, 2012

TIMBER! (Well hopefully anyway.) August 10, 2012

I just got off the phone with a guy that has a small sawmill and would be interested in clearing out the huge pines on my property.  He will come take a look to make sure it is worth his time and then hopefully he will take down the big pines and remove them.  He doesn’t have a way to deal with the stumps but that is ok.  I will take them into account when placing buildings and overtime they will decompose.  I let him know that it was fine for him to leave the tops, crooked parts, branches etc.  Those will actually be perfect for what I need.  The huge logs would be way too much for me to handle and it would be such a shame for such lovely trees to be cut into cordwood instead of being used as poles or lumber.  He says he needs to build a barn and this will make it so he won’t have to cut so many trees on his own place.  If all goes as planned it should be of benefit to everyone involved.  I LOVE BARTERING!

My street front July 22, 2012

New clearing

More trash

Trash

Shoes

A whole garbage bag of them.  This was the weirdest thing I found today.  I knew there was some garbage in the ditch, but I had no idea it was this bad until I started clearing back the brush and ferns.

Swamp magnolia fallen blooms and leaves

New Friends from Craigslist July 21, 2012

Angel (my bad dog) and I have just returned from John’s Island where we went to the home of Mike(not in this picture), Liz (who wasn’t home at the time) and Edith (their bad dog, who for the record is not nearly as bad as my bad dog).  We met through my craigslist ad.

Mike showed me around his place and offered up a wealth of building materials, tools, and equipment.  Being able to borrow things like ladders will save me money, just as much as getting a free window will.  He said I can leave it all there until I am ready for it.  He even has a small number of cedar shakes that I think will be perfect for the gable peaks.  Mike also took me on a mini-tour of his neighbors nurseries and says he’ll fill my place up with as many plants as I want once it is ready for that. Thank you so much!

Sincerely,

Jennifer and Angel

Looking up July 14, 2012

I spent the night on my plot of land for the first time last night.  I stayed up until 2:30am slowly feeding a small fire limbs from the 3 trees I cut down on 7-4-12 .  When I woke up this morning and crawled out of my makeshift tarp shelter I looked up.  I actually have a small clearing now 🙂

Some tree IDs:

Lower middle- southern yellow pine.  I have many of these but plan to take most of them down because they seem to rot at the base and fall over.  The one you can see in the picture is actually quite a ways away but leans quite a bit.  It seems stable and that particular tree isn’t showing signs of rot yet, but another one out on the property is rotting at the base, and leaning.  I want all of these away from my future building site so  won’t have to go through the hassle of removing them while trying not to hit the house 10 years from now or have one fall on my home or outbuildings.

Just left of the pine, on the lower edge of the picture, is a swamp magnolia, also known by sweet bay, and many other common names.  This is not the same as the sweet bay leaves used in cooking.   The sweet bay used for cooking is Laurus noblis.  Magnolia virginiana is the tree I am talking about here and it does have some folk remedies associated with it but to my knowledge is not used for culinary purposes.   It produces a white flower, much like a magnolia tree and I guess they are cousins.  The swamp magnolia has a smaller flower and isn’t quite as messy as the southern magnolia tree common to my areas residential landscapes.  These can get bigger here than they do in other areas of the country but typically they only get 20 ft tall, which will make them easy enough to manage.  Their fruit/seed pod isn’t anything I have heard of people eating but they are a valuable food resource for birds, squirrels and other wild life.  http://www.bellarmine.edu/faculty/drobinson/SweetBayMagnolia.asp

Entire right side is a gumball tree.  Notice the lovely star shaped leaves.  Unfortunately they also produce “gumballs” which are a nasty thorny seed pod.  They will get stuck in your foot if you step on one barefoot.  Since I prefer to go barefoot 90+% of the time, the gumballs must all die MUAHAHAHAHA

I have not identified the other trees in this picture (or on the land in general) but these three types of trees seem to be dominant.  Right now I can’t even see the tops of some trees because it is so thick.  The variety of trees here is different from my home state of Michigan so it is a bit of a challenge sometimes.  I would not have been able to ID the swamp magnolia so easily, but the flowers are all on the ground and I noticed the leaves looked similar to the magnolia trees commonly used in landscapes here, but with silver on  the underside.

Flexibility July 11, 2012

I began my search for land looking for acreage with seller financing, and ended up with a plot of land that is only .3 of and acre paid for in cash.  Well a cashiers check anyway 🙂  The lesson, BE FLEXIBLE!  When I started google searching and checking my local CL for land I had a list of needs and wants for my land.  I never did put it into writing, but here is the gist of it.

My land needed to be within a reasonable driving distance of my jobs, but out in the country.  I wanted to have some privacy and be able to have a compost pile and keep a few chickens without it bothering the neighbors.  I found a bank owned plot in Ravenel, SC.  I will be about a 30 minute drive from work.  I wanted more land but the plot I ended up buying is surrounded by vacant plots so there is both privacy and the possibility to acquire surrounding plots in the future.  I hope to eventually work from home, both performing massages, and selling the produce from my gardens, but for now I had to be realistic about transportation costs.

It needed to be usable.  What I mean by that is it needed to be usable for the uses I have in mind.  To me, being high and dry enough to build on and not having any zoned use restrictions or protected areas is all I needed.  I am actually quite happy to have found such a wild plot of land.  It does mean more work but it will be a labor of love and I’m sure I will get plenty of building materials and mulch from the process of clearing the building site and garden areas.  How great is that!?!  The first steps of sustainability 🙂

It also needed to be affordable.  Be imaginative and flexible when figuring out how to afford a place of your own.  Last year I made about 15k but have managed to keep my living expenses very low and saved up about 1.5k.  I had thought that could be used as a down payment and I could get owner financing on the rest but when I found a plot that was bank owned with a price of only 2.5k I knew I had to figure out how to come up with the rest and buy it outright.  With the plot being bank owned and priced to sell I knew they wouldn’t put up with a bullshitter for long so we had to get everything in order quickly and make our move.  I put in an offer with no clue how we would come up with the rest of the money.  We skimped on everything we could for a few weeks so we could get together the rest of the money for closing but it seemed like an impossible task.  Luckily my husband is a full-time student right now and thanks to a student loan and a good couple of weeks at work we were able to come up with the money. I know we will have to pay back the student loan but it would have been nearly impossible for us to get the money quickly enough any other way.  Many people use these loans to pay for their living expenses while going to school, but this money was spent on making sure our living expenses are minimal for the rest of our lives.  This made it more than worth the small debt.    The bottom line is, yes we went into debt, but it seems like a sound investment to me and it was a small enough sum that we can reasonably pay it back in a short time without it putting much of a strain on us.

We all have different circumstances and restraints but to thrive you have to figure out how to work with, around, and sometimes in spite of those restraints.  Be flexible and learn to revise your plan if there is a difficulty.  Be willing to have-not so that later you may have all your heart desires and appreciate it all the more, knowing the sacrifices made in obtaining it.  If you cannot obtain whatever it is you desire, maybe you desire too much.  Take a look at yourself and your life and decide for yourself what you want.  From that point on you are responsible for every success and every learning experience (sounds so much nicer than “failure” doesn’t it?) in your life.