Mountain Lane Homesteaders

We had a few strikes against us to begin with: No building to live in while we built, a highly unusual building plan, no building experience, no tools to speak of except a chainsaw, time limitations because Sam works full time, and being an employee of the bank.

Since Sam works at the bank one might be tempted to think that obtaining a loan would be easier for us than for someone else. Not so. One of the things they are very careful about is showing favoritism to employees because of the strict federal regulations. If there were to be an audit one of the first things they would do would be to inspect any employee loans. Therefore, loans made to an employee are held to the strictest standards.

On Monday I mentioned about all the supplies we wanted to collect before presenting our loan request. That's because we plan to build our house out of mostly stone and wood that we gather and process ourselves. We wanted to show that not only could we plan a house on paper, but that we were resourceful in acquiring our supplies and were willing to get out and get tired and dirty doing it.

Here is a list of some of the things we were busy with:

*Designing the house and getting accurate pricing on everything we will need down to the light fixtures.

*Planning how to build the "shed" we were going to live in temporarily.

*Figuring out how we were going to "live primitive" for a while which included cooking, laundry, lighting, bathing, and waste disposal.

*Requesting a special pole permit from the Forest Service to harvest dead standing lodgepole pine we would use for rafters.

*Cutting said poles and pulling them out of the woods.

*Obtaining another permit which allows any dead wood to be taken out of the forest as long as it comes out already cut to 6 foot lengths or shorter. This is technically the firewood permit but we made the Forest Service aware of how we were planning to use it and they had no objections as long as we followed the rules.

*Gathering lots of those logs and having them stacked.

*Two siding and peeling several of these to show how we planned to use them.

*Getting permission from the owner of our subdivision to remove a large amount of river rock that had been uncovered when they put in the roads where we were living at the time.

*Picking up, loading, and moving lots of those to pallets. These are good sized stones for building with so this was pretty heavy work.

*Milling the logs that were given to us into boards for our shed.

*Asking lots of questions.

*Deciding how and when to tell family and friends about our plans.

We didn't know for sure if we would really be able to get financing on such an unconventional plan but we were going to do everything we possibly could to make sure we did! I'll add more detail on some of these separate things in future posts and include some pictures where I can.

I'm not sure just what's in store for me today. It's cold and rainy so it's sort of one of those wrap up in a quilt with something good to read days. My Hobby Farms magazine just arrived and it looks like it's got some good articles in it this time. Home dairying, fencing, backyard grain production, and an herbed zucchini cheese bread recipe that sounds wonderful. 

But first, my daughter has asked me to make some yams....the marshmallowy ones.  Strange breakfast request but maybe it's the weather.  Sounds good to me though so I think I just will.