Moving a Farm (pt 2)

When we last saw our heroes they were painting, cleaning, installing appliances in the basement and yes they were moving a few farm related items such as tillers, lawn mowers, etc..

But they had not started on moving the house because they had a plan, a good plan called the Moving Partay.

It all started with a simple email sent in early September:

Greetings,

As you know we are moving and we will be having a moving party. This will occur on Sept. 18th (Sunday) starting at 10am. We want to get the big items moved (we should have the house mostly set up by the time this party happens) What we will be moving is a large 3-door commercial fridge, some grain bins, other fridges, freezers and a few other things.

For this part of the effort we need 5 or 6 strong backs and 2 to 3 truck/vans that can carry weight and large bulky items. We also could use 5 to 6 big coolers to put food from the freezers in while the freezers are in transit

We also need a crew to facilitate clean up at the new place. The old owner left a variety of "farm art" (as my friend Pat Flick calls junk in fields) and we need to get it sorted and moved out of the planting area and put somewhere else. Some of the stuff is good stuff some of the stuff can be recycled and some of the stuff can be burned.

We will supply food (pastured chicken, a big tomato salad, burgers, etc.) and beer, wine and a bon fire for the after moving festivities. feel free to bring a dish your self.


Please let me know ASAP if you are coming. If I don't hear from you I will assume you will not be participating.

If you cannot make this event butt want to see the farm we are planning on having an open house some time in October when we are more settled in

The Partay
And on Sunday Sept. 15th it culminated in a gathering of people, a 17' U-haul truck, our Dodge cargo van and a few other vehicles. Eugene's Brother was the only person to show up in the morning and Eugene had to pick up the U-haul truck so we were only able to get the Dodge van and dave's car loaded for the first run to the new place. We took stuff over, foundf no one there so unloaded and went to lunch in eaton. came back and the ferrario family had arrived as had Molly Willburger, A MU student interested in us farmer types. By 2pm Marc and Lisa biales and Chuck herms arrived and later Steve Dana showed up. Soon both places were a hive of activity. By day's end we had managed to get most of the household items moved and even got the living room and kitchen set up decently. Food was provided by my friends Lisa who brought a deelish black bean soup and Karen who brought a spicy BBQ. We supplied the beer and wine. A good time was had by all

The Big Fridge
Moving the household was not too big a job though we do have 2 big freezers, fridges and a few other big items. The big job of the day was moving this 3-door commercial fridge we bought about 6 years ago from Kona Bistro in Oxford, OH when they remodeled their kitchen. The fridge is HUGE and can hold about 35 bushels of food. It had been sitting on the west side of our old place under an metal roof Eugene had built around the thing. I was not there when the crew got to moving the fridge but from what I hear they had no problem getting the roof down and the fridge moved off of its' pad. But they did have a problem getting it into the 17' U-haul truck-it was too tall by about 4". Bummer.

So the solution was to not load the fridge and load other things into the truck instead and get all that stuff over to the new place, unloaded and in the house or barn. When that was done several people left and a few latecomers arrived and as the sun was setting Eugene, Syd, Chuck and Scott decided to go back and wrestle the big fridge into the 17' U-Haul truck. While they were gone us ladies sat on the deck, watched the sun set and sipped single malt scotch and drank beer. Shortly after dark the guys came back with the fridge loaded on at an angle. They got the thing unloaded and than found that the biggest doorway we had was still 2" too short for the fridge so it sat outside overnight awaiting Eugene to take off all the molding around the doorway so it would be big enough to accept the fridge.

The Following Day
After the moving partay was over we were still needing to move more large items before taking the truck back so the next morning we went back to the Crubaugh Rd farm and moved the chicken tractors (these are movable coops, not tractors like what one would plow with. Our chickens do not drive), rolls of fencing, 2 big grain bins (like 65 bushels each) and many really long bamboo poles. Pile those things in the truck, drove back home and when got there we found that one of the chicken tractors had almost gotten loose. Good thing we were driving back roads and not a major highway in case the thing had fallen out of the truck. It seems we did not secure the latch well on the back and it had come loose and the door was trying to slide open. It did not so no damage.

After the final use of the U-haul we cleaned it out and returned it and ran into a problem. According to U-haul we had not rented the truck and therefore they felt they could charge us more than the estimate. We did not like that idea at all so they quickly backed down and than found we were not in their system and that the problem could be traced back to the poorly trained employee who rented Eugene the truck the day before. this was going to take a while so we went to breakfast at the Main St Diner in Richmond (a little hole in the wall breakfast and lunch place that has been around forever). I had biscuits and gravy and some pretty bad coffee. Eugene had the same plus pancakes. After B-fast we finally returned the truck and drove back home via Lowe's to pick up some hardware items for the new house.

Stay tune for part moving pt 3: Living Between two Farms

Moving the Farm (pt 1)

September 1st at around 11:30am we were official landed gentry and that meant it was time to move our stuff. Or was it? Actually no it wasn't. It was now time to go over to our house and take a good look at what needed to be done before we moved in. I figured the place needed a good cleaning but the place had no hot water because the gas was not yet turned on and the water heater was a gas heater. So one day I used the cold, sulfery very hard water that came out of the tap but all that would do is stink and curdle soap and detergent. I had rented a carpet cleaner from the local Kroger's and this water was not up to the task so the next day I hauled hot softened water from the old farm and was able to get all but the living room done.

Meanwhile Eugene is getting into fixing windows and plumbing. This goes on for many days and involves numerous daily trips the various hardware stores in the region plus K-mart. I will go on record here in saying we did not use Wal-Mart for any part of the initial house repair/cleaning/painting episodes. I find I really like the Ace hardware in Eaton, OH.

At any rate, by week's end we have installed a new electric water heater, a water softener, have had the gas turned on than off less than 24 hours later due to a gas leak in the line going from the street to the meter, cleaned a lot of cow shit out of the barn (Carlos forgot to secure the basement of the barn and that allowed 3 calves to have a lot of fun down there tossing objects around and crapping on everything) and because Eugene was really antsy to get things moved in a hurry I suggested that we paint the inside of the place before we started putting our stuff in it. He did not like the idea because he wanted to MOVE but saw things my way and soon he was doing the math to figure how much paint we would need and than we were in K-mart looking at paint chips and picking out colors. Soon enough we were taking many cans of paint home.

The following day our friends Saundra and John came out to help us clean and paint and see the place. They are great champions of local farmers and sustainable food, as well as into historical clothing. They did a bang up job of cleaning the upper rooms and the kitchen which allowed Eugene and I to get a jump on painting. Saundra also made a wonderful lasagna and I believe the 4 of us shared the first meal at the new farm out on the deck looking at the pond

The painting went on longer than we expected but not much longer as the house is in pretty good shape on the interior. While I painted Eugene was putting large appliances into the basement in a water heater and a water softener. The goal was to get 4 rooms painted and the hot soft water running by the weekend when we had planned a moving party.

We missed a midweek farmers' market in order to get the job done. It was a bit difficult getting brushes clean with no water but I learned from my brother that wrapping wet brushes up in plastic bags will keep the wet for days. So despite no having water I did not lose a single brush to dried paint. Eugene had to wire in a new breaker for the electric water heater which put us both on edge but we found out that this process is not much more difficult that wiring up a circa 1980's stereo system, only the wire is thicker.

By Thursday we had the appliances installed and the rooms freshly painted and we were ready to start moving in a way serious manner so we rented the big 17' U-haul truck, emailed friends and arranged for a move to happen the following Sunday September 15th

part 2 coming soon

Buying a Farm

On September 1st 2005 we bought our first farm after 12 years of renting a small farm. Eugene and I are now the proud owners of a 9 acre farm with all the bells and whistles we could want.

The Search
We started our search for a farm after our landlords had a furnace put into the house we were renting and than raised the rent dramatically in the summer of 2004. But until Feb. 2005 the search was not very serious (perhaps because it was a very scary thing for us to do, I mean, my God, buying property and getting a mortgage is a very adult thing to do, perhaps more adult than we really wanted to be) than we decided if we did not get serious we would be stuck in the old place which was getting into worse and worse shape and the rent was getting higher and higher and there were no barns and several other things were not right.

So we started looking. Over the ensuing months we found some interesting places but they were either cheap but remote from our customer base, perfect but way too expensive, in a good location but the buildings all needed burning, cheap but no barns and house too small (and also quite remote), beautiful but house barns need lots and lots of work. this went on for months and months and it seemed towards summer the price of property was rising at an alarming rate and that we may never find anything that would be both suitable and affordable.

We came home from an auction near Liberty Indiana where a 75 acre farm went for $420K (Beautiful farm, house barns needed lots of repair). This was depressing because this was Union county Indiana where land prices are a lot cheaper than SW Ohio and yet this farm was going dear, not cheap. We had set a goal of being in a new place by the beginning of October and here it was the beginning of August with no real prospects.

Than a few evenings later the phone rings and it is a friend of ours who also farms calling to tell us he and his wife had just driven past a small farm for sale that looked perfect for us. So the following evening we drove out to the place on our way to the Preble County Fair. We did a quick walk about and liked what we saw. The place has a house, a barn, south facing slopes, a couple of acres of flat land on top and a couple of acres of flat land on the bottom and best of all it straddled the place where my father used to announce on our trips up to Michigan on US 127 "This is where southern Ohio ends". So in my mind even if the house was falling and the barns were all messed up it would still be a way cool spot. Not everyone gets to live on a terminal moraine. The place also had a small pond and a lot of beauty. Pretty Sweet.

There is sign on the front lawn saying the place is for sale by owner but no phone number on the sign. There is a blacked out area on the sign that we assume in over the phone number. This makes us wonder if the seller is serious about selling the place but we decide we should leave our number and if the seller calls, great. If not, too bad and we will go on with our search.

A day later the owner, Carlos, calls us and we make an appointment to go look at the place. that same day we also looked at another place up in Darke County (really cheap but small, no out buildings and really remote). On our way back from that showing we have pretty much already decided that unless the farm on US 127 has something major wrong with it like no well or the house is missing a wall or a large part of the roof we will likely take the place. So we meet Carlos in person and he shows us the house, barns and store front. He is a pleasant enough person. He used to repair and make horse harness and tack which interested me (I am a long time horse person and worked with horses for a living for many many years). He told us about how he rented the farm and the renters ripped him off leaving very little behind (bad for Carlos, good for us-we don't have to deal with someone else's crap). We decide upon seeing all of the place we like it. As I mentioned earlier it fulfills our needs and than some. But we want to be sure what we are seeing is what is being sold so we go off to Eaton to the courthouse and start researching the deed and title on the place. We don't find anything wrong in our search but than we are not professionals

Sale Pending
So we call Carlos up again and tell him we are VERY interested in the place and would like to buy it. We call up Farm Credit Services and tell them we have found a place and need a loan. They call back a few days later and say they would like to give us a loan but there is a lien on the title to the deed and they will not loan us money until that lien is cancelled-BUMMER. So we call Carlos and say he has to do something about the lien or no deal. He does not seem all that interested in getting the lien canceled and that worries us but we go on with the process of buying the place. the next course of action to take is to get a contract drawn up saying we want to buy the place and the terms involved in buying it. I call a friend who is in the auction biz and has a realty license and he suggested getting a lawyer to do the contract so we hired Dan Huss and met with him and Carlos in Oxford the mid point of August and got a contract drawn up and paid Carlos his Earnest money. the lawyer did emphasize that in order for this contract to work the lien had to be taken care of ASAP and within 5 working days the lien was gone from the title (yay)

So that we had two weeks of waiting for several things to happen on the money end of things. The Mortgage folks hired several different people to vet out the place so we had daily calls from those folks plus lawyers in Eaton who would be doing the closing and it seemed like other people were calling about closing on the property. We were popular folks for a while.

Than the last week of August we were close enough to having all the loose ends tied up that we could schedule a closing date. Everyone involved was into the sooner the better. We had a farm to move and Carlos had a life to get on with so when the lawyers doing the closing asked if we wanted to close 2 weeks earlier than the contract stated we all said Yes. the closing was than scheduled for September 1st, 2005 at 10am.

The day before the closing Eugene and I decided to get together with Carlos and go over things before got into the lawyer's office since the lawyer charges by the hour and we wanted to use as few hours as possible. We go out to the farm and meet Carlos there who is filling out a disclosure form (which he was supposed to have done already) so while he is doing that we wander around the property and notice that there are 7 head of cattle on the place (there had been 2-a cow/calf pair). We ask about that and Carlos assures us they will all be gone before October 1st. This bothers us because we do not want any cattle on the land because they can do a great deal of damage but there is not much that we can do about it at this point. Carlos still owns the land and therefore can put as many damned cattle as he wants to.

The following day we all meet at the Lawyer's office in Eaton at 10 am and we all go into an office and sign papers and hand out large cashier's checks, we get keys to the place (and of course the first thing we did was buy new locks and change them all) and after 45 minutes of so Lucy and Eugene Goodman become landed gentry

Stayed tune to the multi-part saga of moving the farm