Okay! I admit when I posted a bit ago I was in the throes of losing hope about our move along with a healthy dose of PMS. I'm now over that!

Been doing some surfing and my excitement is re-igniting. Reading over at SolarHaven has got me riled up again. Just seeing that other people have done it makes me see that it's a very real possibility. I laughed when reading about their problems with neighbors because we'll likely run into the same ones. We'll have older farmers all around us out there, with the exception of my brother and his family across the way. While they probably won't see it this way, I do actually agree with them about keeping land for farming and cutting way back on development. Our moving a mobile home onto the property isn't evidence to that belief, but I'm on their side just the same. My mom owns over 250 acres out there, most of which is rented out to one of the farmers now. We won't actually be using up any farm land at this point, the mobile home will go on the lot where the old farmhouse used to stand. In all honesty, I would like to have a bit of the surrounding area at a later time to get my garden going and such. I guess while I agree that urban sprawl and over development are really bad, I don't think over-farming is all that great either. Especially the traditional, pesticide and herbicide laden farming that's done in these parts. We grow way too many crops in this country as it is, much of which is just destroyed or let rot. Then all the farming subsidies kick in. I'll be honest in that I know just enough about the subsidies to be dangerous. The small farmers are still getting screwed even with subsidies and such. So for them, I can see where assistance is helpful in keeping them in business. The mega farms are the problems...they grow too much which makes the small farmers suffer, they get the best benefits of the subsidies, they're a powerful lobbying force. I don't know what the solution is. I think paring down and buying locally grown and only growing what you need in your area would help a lot. I think organic farming is a largely untapped market in Ohio. I think the farmers reliance on big business like ADM or *shudder* Monsanto is dangerous. I think society wide changes are in order. We can't tell the small farmers "just get a different job" because there aren't any of those out there either. We have to change how we look at growers and how we buy the food they grow.

Tangent city, I know.

Anyway...I hope the local farmers out there don't see us as just so much "trailer trash" taking up their land. I hope they see that we're trying to live more sustainably and closer to the land. My hopes aren't high though.

We're pretty sure we're moving onto that section with the existing septic system. Have to have the Health Dept check it all out though, then have one of the local contractors over to see if it needs repairs or whatnot. That will save us over $4,000 right there. Well, depending on the extent of the repairs I suppose. Scary! Rainwater catchment is looking very viable (it's also $4000 just to hook up to the water company out there). It's starting to make sense to me I should say. I'm not the most mechanically inclined person in the world. It seems with the right equipment and filtering system it can be entirely potable water. I don't know why I feel so shocked at that - I'm sure what comes out of our taps would scare the bejeezus out of me if I saw the whole process that it goes through and what it starts out as. And well water definitely isn't better. It's just easy to sit back and not think about where your water comes from, though, similar to how it's easier to buy those pink packages of meat at the grocery store without thinking about where they came from.

Anyway...suffice it to say I'm getting excited about this change again. No mortgage and little to no utility payments, that's exciting enough!