very exciting

i am really excited about this: finally, last tuesday, we signed the contract on the property we've been trying to buy for the past 3 years. so now it's ours!
i still can't believe it, it's been such a journey, so many ups and downs, that at some point a couple of years ago, i decided not to get my hopes high anymore.
but now it's done, and we got a beautiful piece of land, with 5 acres and a house. it is right next door to where we are living now, so we won't be moving very far at all. we will be staying where we are until december, so that ed can get our new house in shape. the house is from the 1800's, so it needs some work, but structurally it's in good shape, and i love it, i think it has a lot of character. ed's planning to "gut" it, which means that he'll be taking down most of the interior walls, and redoing them with better materials and insulation. he's also going to take apart the second floor, which we don't need for living space, and transform it into a loft.
he already started working on it this week, and he'll be focusing on it until december, so i'll be taking more responsibility on the farming side. we already plowed and planted one of our new fields - we have potatoes, beets, beans, kale and cabbages. there's no fence yet, so hopefully the deer and groundhog won't do too much damage...

3 years ago, after aiyana was born, it really hit me how beautiful the land we were living on was; we talked to the owner, our landlady, mentioning our interest in buying it. she wanted 800K, which was way out of range for us. she had a developer offer her that much some time earlier, but then he pulled out, and their deal fell through. she was stuck on the price though; we got together with some of our friends, and together made an offer to her, which was about three quarters of what she wanted. she said no. last december, ed and i made an offer to her brother, who owns the neighboring piece of land, the 5 acres we just bought, and he also said no. at that point, i told myself that i'd just have to give up on this land. we kept looking for other pieces, but my heart was never into anything else. finally, we found a piece in windham, and were about to buy it (i was so-so on it), when our landlady showed up and said that her brother wants to talk to us. i half blew it off, knowing how unreliable they had been in the past, but the brother showed up at our house the next day and made us a rock bottom offer to sell us his piece, much lower than our wildest hopes. we accepted on the spot, and felt ecstatic, if a bit unbelieving. that was 3 months ago. since then, it's been up and down. at some point, about a month ago, after ed had quit his job, banking on getting the 5 acres and having enough money to pay for it, the brother called us and said that he actually wanted more money since everyone is telling him that he should ask for more. ed and i talked about it, and called him back, calmly explaining why we cannot offer him anymore. unbelievably, he just said ok, and since then things have been straight forward, although very slow. we felt anxious about getting it and finally signing the papers, and it happened last tuesday. i almost cried when the old man hugged me and told me to take good care of it. this land has been in their family since the 1800's, and now he's letting it go. i told him that we'll definitely care for it and respect it, since we already feel so attached to it, and love it so much.

i really feel that things are coming together for us now. we got this beautiful farm land - it's well located and has great soil. it's got cleared fields and woods; it has a house we can live in, and a few barns. and, to top it off, we got it without incurring any debt, which feels amazing. we still have some savings left, so now we can just focus on farming without worrying about the money too much, at least this year. my dream, at this point, is that in a couple of years, we will be able to have enough income from farming to sustain our lifestyle, and not have to draw on our savings. i really think that this is feasible, based on the response we've had so far from our farmer's markets.

as far as response, this one woman came to me yesterday at the westerly market, and said "thank you for growing this beautiful food". it was a simple statement, but i was very moved by it. i felt that she really understood how much we're putting into our work and it was one of the nicest things anyone has said to me.

peace