First, a quick follow-up on the floor project. After all the planing, sanding, sweeping, vacuuming, and washing… I finally applied the flooring finish. I must say, it came out splendidly! Here’s a view into the doorway, while the finish was still curing (hence the slight blotchiness).
When the finish is done doing what it’s doing (a few more days), I’ll take another, longer shot so you can get a full sense of the wonderment. It looks and feels wonderful, though. I am very pleased.
You may recall that a few weeks ago I was talking about some rural land a friend of mine owns who offered to let us homestead there, out in the middle of… somewhere. We went back recently to think about the site a bit harder and to explore somewhat more deeply what it would be like to actually live there, such as finding essential stores and services, understanding expectations with respect to our gracious host, that kind of thing.
It is of course a lot more rural than I’ve ever lived, but the things we’d need certainly do appear to be within a reasonable range — farther than they are in our current residence, but of course you can’t be way out in the middle of somewhere and close to everything. It doesn’t work that way.
Our discussions with the land owner were fruitful and it looks like at least at this point, there’s nothing stopping this from actually happening! I can work remotely, so my employment situation will actually remain largely unchanged. M has satisfied herself that there are things in the area she’ll be able to do, as well. So we’re covered on the essentials, it seems.
The area features this 60 acre lake, which is 100% inside his property… and which we are welcome to use at our pleasure.
There was once an old scout camp in this section of woods, as well, so there are some ruins as well as some things which are of present utility, like a freshwater well and an old building pad that’s nice and big, 32×40 ft, perfect for a garage/workshop/office, close to the house site.
It’s a bit intimidating contemplating actually living in the forest, in contrast to simply visiting it in areas frequented by other humans (e.g., camping where others have also camped), but I’ll get over that. And there are definitely bears who live in the area. We’ll be sure to give them plenty of room, should they come visiting.
We were greeted on our most recent visit by dragonflies, hummingbirds, monarch butterflies, and a raven (unseen, but definitely heard) — some of our favorite creatures making us feel welcome.
So when does this all happen? Well, I’ve gotta finish building the house, of course. I figure I’ve got another year on that, so that’s the goal: end of summer 2021 for move-in. There are site improvements to be made (clearing the old access path and putting down crushed stone, for example, and revitalizing the well) and other logistics and machinations to get ready which have to happen first, so it being a year out isn’t “too long” nor is getting started preparing the site now “too soon”.
The bonus for doing this on my friend’s private land, of course, is that we don’t have to buy the land and thus if this experiment fails, undoing it is considerably easier than it might have been otherwise.
Otherwise, I’m taking a little time off from building. I’ll be back at it in a week or so, and some time after that will be more updates here.