Well, I know this post was supposed to be about sheep. And in some ways, I am sure it will be since everything eventually relates back to sheep.
Where do I begin? So much has been happening.
My son did finally get to sign a plea agreement this week. He will still have to go to court on Dec. 1st for sentencing. He will have to serve 12 to 30 months of jail time in addition to any fines, fees, and probation conditions that the court orders for him. Did Ben go to jail in April or May? I cannot remember. Probably in May. He will get credit for time served. Will he get two days credit for each day served without discipline issues? I don't know. Will the judge suspend some of his jail time and let him out on Dec. 1st? I don't know. Will I go to court to be there with him on Dec. 1st? Yes.
The sun rushes toward the horizon when I come home from work. There is so little time to get anything done before darkness arrives. "How did I get though this last year?" I ask myself. And the answer is that I did nothing more than work and feed the animals this time last year.
This week, the rain which came so frequently in October has stopped. I am taking down my shade tarps for the winter so that they will not become weighted down with snow and ice. And for the first time in the 4 years since I began using the shade tarps, I am pulling up the T-posts which supported the PVC pipe frame from which the tarps were hung.
The post pulling is part of my preparation for selling this property. And the frugal farmer in me is wondering if I should keep these T-posts in storage for "someday." How much construction material should I hang on to, how much should I burn or sell for scrap? I look around and consider these questions because I have a plan and a secret dream.
My plan, as I have mentioned, is to sell my house and move into town where I would live cheaply and find a way to change career paths with truck driving being the option which most consistently appeals to me. My secret dream is to save enough cash to purchase 2 or 3 acres of land without a mortgage, and to plant an orchard on that land. Ten trees a year planted for ten or twenty years until the land is covered with fruit trees and bushes. And in my retirement, I would run a little U-pick with apples, pears, peaches, sweet cherries, and blueberries. I would need to learn to keep bees, fend off deer, prune trees, repel insect pests without killing my bees, etc.
There is something about the idea of planting an orchard which feels very meaningful to me. It is about hope for the future. Waiting years for the first fruits. Then waiting for the proper seasons for the fruit to ripen each year after that.
This is farming that can be done on weekends. No daily feeding of animals to tie me down if I am still needing to spend a great deal of time on the road. But maybe there would be some poultry when I retire.
I was thinking that I would rent an apartment and a storage unit for my things until I bought the "dream land" and built a storage barn on it. I held no certain idea where this land should be, except that it would probably be in the Mid-west since we have the right climate and soils for the kind of orchard that I want to plant. Renting would give me the option of relocating almost anywhere when the time comes.
Even though my thoughts were about renting an apartment, I still browsed the real estate sales listings for this area. Partly to guess about what my property is worth, and partly to just see how cheaply I could buy a house in Lafayette, Indiana if I chose to do that. But with ideas of becoming a truck driver, I did not think I should buy a house which would then be left empty while I spent weeks on the road. Renting an apartment where people would would be hired to maintain the building and the grounds seemed like the most practical solution. At least until I could be sure I had a stable local job.
Then I came across another idea that lodged itself in my head this week. There are three condo's for sale in Lafayette which are priced around $55,000. The mortgage would be cheaper than rent even with just $3000 down. In fact, the mortgage and monthly maintenance fee for these two bedroom condo's is cheaper than the rent on most one bedroom apartments in Lafayette.
So, I started thinking, "Hmm..... A safe place to keep my stuff. A place to call home. A place where I could build equity. A place were someone else mows the grass, and no one would know if I was out on the road for 3 weeks because the grass was not mowed." (I would have mail sent to a P. O. box.) It kind of makes sense.
And then... OMG! I was reading the news paper today. It looks like the government would pay me up to $6500 to sell my house and buy that condo I was thinking about buying. This new incentive is for people who have lived in their house for 5 of the last 8 years. Stable home owners are being rewarded for jumping back into the housing market... but I think you are required to sell your primary residence and purchase another one. I think it is not for buying a summer cottage at the lake... though that would not be bad for the economy either.
OMG! OMG! OMG! My head was spinning. I was so glad that I didn't sell my house last spring when I was first thinking about doing this. I might have missed this chance to get this incentive if I had already committed myself to another home purchase. I had been worried that I would have trouble selling my house when the $8000 first time home buyers thing was going to expire, but that is being extended too. So between these two incentives, maybe there is a couple who dreams of raising their children on a mini-farm who will see my place and have the ability to say, "This is it. This is exactly what we have been wanting."
So, I took a look on line to get some more details since the news paper article was brief and sketchy. Hmm... the extension of these home buyers incentives will end April 30th. You have to have an accepted offer by then.
Eeeew! If I want that incentive to help me, I have to put my home up for sale in the winter. I have to come up with a quick answer to where I will find new homes for my dogs. I have to be willing to sacrifice pregnant ewes and/or very young lambs.
So here we are. This is a blog entry about sheep after all.
I would love for a miracle to happen. Someone to make a serious offer for my dogs. (I can put my flock in the barn at night again.) And someone to make a serious offer for some or all of my sheep. I could deliver them anywhere in the Mid-west on Thanksgiving Day.
I know it is probably hard to imagine such a radical change in my life. From five acres to no land. From dogs and sheep to no animals. From lab technician to truck driver... or something else... But I look back on the last 5 years of frustration with my job... there is no real future for me there. My debts have kept me trapped in a situation that I would have left a long time ago if I could have found an alternative which did not require me to sell this property.
Having made the decision that I was really going to sell this property brought a real sense of peace. The desire to fight to hang onto it is gone. I have known joys and triumphs, but the cost is too much for me to continue on this path. It is time for me to seek a simpler way to live, and a job were I can experience tangible results from my efforts.
I am still not certain about when I should put my house up for sale. Next month? Or next spring after lambing? I am not certain it will sell quickly for enough money to pay the realtor's commission and give me a little cash for a down payment on another home.
There are so many uncertainties and details to be worked out. And yet, it really does feel like it will all be OK in the end.
