Interior pictures of our new mobile home

Hi All,
Just thought now that we have some more interior pictures of our new home that we would share them. We close on all of the land purchases on Wednesday. We started the permitting process today, which seems like (thanks to the economic downturn and reduction in new construction) may move pretty quickly.

The above was probably originally intended as a dinette type area - but we are thinking it will be a mudroom for us - and we will put our dining area in part of the living room type area.

This is the master bathroom. Seems pretty good.

A view of the whole kitchen, lots of good counter space.

This shows a bit of the living room, and its fireplace.

So there are some previews - for more you'll have to come visit once we are moved in.

Jeff

Phase 2

So, phase 2 has officially begun (insert evil laugh here).

I mean, things are going well with our general acquisitiveness.

We now have in hand a signed contract for the 5 acres across the road from what will be our permanent spot.

We also made an offer on a repossessed trailer earlier today (what's the only thing worse than a possessed trailer? a reposessed one hahahaha). Verbally that offer was agreed to over the phone, and the trailer is not available for viewing online anymore - so it sounds like we have it - but there is a catch. Carroll County has an ordinance (or law or something - a rule in any case) that you can only move trailers into the county if they are less than 7 years old. The trailer we have an offer in on is a 1995. So what we can do is bury it underground so that nobody knows about it (maybe another evil laugh here?). Not really (of course) we can submit pictures of it and the surrounding homes (all shabbier looking trailers - fortunately?) to a Compatibility committee and if they tell us it is okay then we can move it in.

The trailer we have gotten is a 28x60 (1680 sq ft) 3 bed, 2 bath pleasure palace. Unfortunately the only photos I have currently are of the outside, and of some of the trouble spots (we had good pictures of the inside online, but as previously noted it is no longer listed online). So I will post a couple of photos - the front door, and maybe one of the kitchen - but remember the interior shot here is intentionally not it's best side.

So, from top to bottom.

1. The outside - which looks quite nice (as trailers go).
2. Under the kitchen sink - which has a leak in one of the drains, but the damage seems to be minimal, and leak seems reparable.
3. The bath tub in the master bath (which is a bit large for my tastes, but what can you do).

I only put the kitchen one in there, because it gives some of the feel of the kitchen, which was one of the big draws about this trailer. It has a nice large kitchen with plenty of cabinet space, and counter space. It is a little bit odd to me that the sink is on an island in the middle, but even that novelty - for the time being seems cool. Sorry I don't have better interior pictures, but the ones online were fine - and I didn't know they would vanish so soon.

Hope you're all well,

Jeff

Buying Land

So,

As some of you may have heard, Annie and I have been looking for a small piece of Carroll County to call our very own. After several months of casual looking (ie internet searches and paying attention to the posted ads at our local feed stores and builder supplies) we have settled on a patch of ground to call our own. What makes this particular patch of ground so very special is that it is only about 1/2 mile down the road from our friends Paul and Terra. Aside from that, the only thing that really made it special was that it was cheap. Here are some photos of that bit of land

I guess I could post more, but that might just get redundant. Essentially it is a few tall trees with lots of scrub and briars. We fought our way through it right after we got the contract on it, and did confirm that there is a creek just off the property line at the back of the property.

Anywhoo, it will be 9.6something acres, and Annie and I will hopefully build our own little house on it and start creating our little patch of agricultural paradise. Interesting recent discovery - our real estate agent was talking to someone else who was looking for land, who apparently knew the land we just bought and suggested it would be a great place to install a pond/lake. He thought it could make a nice 3-4 acre lake, because a large part of the property is already somewhat bowl shaped.

The only pre-condition we put on buying the land in our contract was that it could pass a soil test for a septic tank - which it did. We already know that there is a water source there, because the houses on both sides of our land have city water (Mt. Zion city water).

And tonight's breaking news is that along with Paul and Terra we have (or are about to have?) a contract on the 5 acre plot of land across the street. They need a place to live semi-permanently while they build on their place down the road, and we need a place to live semi-permanently while we build on our place across the road. So we also hope to have a contract on a repossessed trailer - hopefully tomorrow. Then we can begin the process of getting a section of the land graded, making a foundation for the trailer, pulling the trailer on to it, getting utilities and putting in a septic tank.

It is all a good deal of running around, but hopefully we are going to have a pretty sweet trailer for the mean time, and then all end up with decent houses. And then since the trailer is not on the land we want to live on, we can either sell it or perhaps start renting it out and getting some rental income.

Big things are afoot.

Jeff

DragonCon 09

So, it's a little known or publicized fact that the reason this blog is at the address "Freaky Farms" and how that name came about at all is because the blog originated right after last year's dragoncon. The intent was to do a post with a lot of our pictures from that, and then, well we just never did. So here are some pictures from this year's con. Enjoy.

This is Annie with some fellow Battlestar Galactica Folks

An Alien I believe

The Serenity Crew from the show Firefly

Here I am with a girl dressed up as Jane's Hat (Jane is a character from firefly, you can see people wearing the hat in the above picture)

Really scarey guy from Lord of the Rings - I'm thinking his name is Sauron, but I get confused. In any case, I want to run away just looking at this picture, what a brave hobbit Frodo was.

There are lots of non sci-fi related costumes at the Con as well. This is the Swedish Chef, from The Muppet Show.

One of the Members of Sargent Pepper's band. Not sure which one really.

I think this is probably in the spirit of the upcoming movie. Alice in Wonderland.

Walter from the Big Lebowski.

"Smokey, this is not 'Nam. This is bowling. There are rules!"

So there is a little DragonCon flavor for you all.

Jeff

ps. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Annie made another post to put in the pictures she especially wants - so keep watching.

The Flood

Well, we are still recovering from it, but I guess we're ready to blog about it now. On Monday, September 21, we woke up to the sound of our goats crying and then discovered about 6 feet of water in our barnyard. This presented quite a dilemma as to what to do. Eventually, Jeff swam into the flood waters and pulled out 4 of the 5 goats - luckily, there was no current in the water. Lily had somehow gotten over the fence and was tangled up in some privet, and Arthur somehow got into a rabbit cage. Hoppy and her kid, French Fry, were still in the barn, keeping their heads above water by standing with their front legs on the wire fence divider in the barn. Puck was eventually found dead in the rabbit cage next to where Arthur had been, once the flood waters receded. The 2 guineas managed to float inside their rabbit cage on a piece of wood. Jeff freed them from the cage and then set them on the roof of the chicken house. Inside the chicken house, the water level was just above the height of the roosts. Jeff constructed a little raft with which he brought out a few chickens at a time. All but 3 of the adult chickens had been able to make it to the higher places in the chicken house. Unfortunately, all the 1-2 month old Welsummer chicks drowned. So sad!! Nell, the surrogate mom to 7 of the chicks, went down with her babies. She was such a good mom! It was a very traumatic day. After saving the animals that were still alive, we found alternate housing for the survivors. Ironically, French Fry had been scheduled for the slaughter house that day. So he survived the flood only to go to the slaughter house, but at least we didn't have to worry about where to put him. The next day, we buried the dead, and now we are still working on the clean up. One section of fence needs fixing, and there is some mold in the goat barn. Jeff sprayed the floors and walls of 3 structures in the barn yard with a bleach solution already. The smelly job of removing the bedding from the structures was completed with the big help of some friends (thanks Scott and Sara). Hopefully, we can get the chickens back to their home this weekend. One thing is for sure, though: Jeff and I will never house animals in a flood plane again.