First Quarter Update

The first quarter has come to an end and we have achieved most of our goals. The house design has been coming along nicely. We had an opportunity last week to meet with a couple of building contractors / excavators. We wanted to get their input as to what areas were acceptable to build on. Interestingly, our first pick for building the house seems to be the best. It has good southerly exposure, good drainage and a very nice view of the valley and bluffs. It’s also set far enough back off of the county road that traffic noise should be kept to a minimum. It will take more dozer work though, the land is sloped and needs to be flattened out for the floating foundation.

I also bought a tractor! It’s a Massey Furguson 165, gas, 52HP tractor. I looked at both new and used tractors and determined that functionality was more important than the frills that come with new tractors. A Kubota would have been really nice, but the price was too steep for my pocket book. Even used Kubota’s are pricey compared to the older vintage tractors. This 165 has been recently overhauled and professionally painted. The only other thing I need is a front-end loader.   A friend of mine was nice enough to get me 2 – 55 gallon drums to make a barrel stove. I had a chance to try it out last week, and it really throws off a lot of heat. The most expensive part of this stove was the stove pipe! Now I’ve got to get it installed in the pole shed.

I’ve also purchased a BCS 730 walk-behind tractor. I will use this to till in a vegetable garden and to keep the weeds at bay with the sickle bar attachment. In the future, I hope to use the BCS for planting 1 acre plots that will be used for our own vegetables as well as marketing organic produce.

But before I can even begin tilling, I’ve got to get a fence up. It is the highest priority on my list of things to do! I don’t want the neighbor’s cows on our land, and our neighbor’s “part-time” electric fence ain’t cutting it. As they say, good fences make good neighbors.

It’s been a busy first quarter and I’m sure the second quarter will be even busier.