All posts by : charles.lafferty

Tanya’s side

Hello world!

Some time has passed since our last post. I believe my husband had Just returned home when we last posted. That was November 2018. It is now October 2019.

I guess it’s safe to say that life got in the way. It tends to do that sometimes. Things get pushed aside and then forgotten about most of the time.

Well I am happy to report that we did NOT forget about our dreams. We have made quite a bit of progress! Let’s fill you in…

Around August of this year we were still browsing properties online as normal. Just seeing what was out there. I came across a listing that I thought was perfect for us. So, I began to talk to my husband about really doing this. I tried to express to him that he needed to “poop or get off the pot”, and “just do it”.

Again, my thoughts were that he wants to retire and start a farm in 3 years. Ok, well, we have zero experience farming. We have zero guarantee that if we start a farm it will produce adequate income for us to survive on. That situation leaves a lot of room for things to not go as planned. Remember: being poor is not an option for me.

So, why not start small scale now? Buy a property where he can still stay in the Army and hobby farm. That way he can get a feel for it, see how the business aspect is going to go, and if this is a venture that (come the three year mark) we decide to go large scale and he can retire from the Army. Should we decide not to go large scale then we still have our forever home, with land, and he can decide then if he wants to stay in the Army or go a different route.

So, I told him it was time, we are not getting any younger. You never know until you try, so stop all this planning and JUST DO IT!

We did just that. We contacted the realtor and set a date to go look at some properties! So exciting. We’re really doing this!!!! Woohoo!

2 months later: house shopping is not exciting. I lied. 

The 1^st house that I saw turned out not to be something we wanted to pursue. House #2 had perfect land (20acres) and a cute house but I didn’t like the house at first. Dad loved everything about it, but I just didn’t love it, it wasn’t what I saw as our forever home. It seemed smaller than our house now. The kids did not love the house either. We dubbed it the “tiny house”.  That aggravated Dad. Dad wanted to go back for a second visit to that property, which we scheduled for the next week. We also scheduled the realtor to come over the day before that to officially list our house for sale. Waiting till the following week gave me time to think about the house and I had a change of heart. This was for my husband after all, it was his dream, and he was obviously super excited about this property, it was perfect for our farm. So, I told him to go for it. The realtor was on her way to our house and we were going to officially list our house for sale and in the same day put in an offer for a new house!

She got a call on the way here, that someone beat us to it and put in an offer on the house. They were not accepting other offers. WHAT! You have got to be kidding me! This house had been on the market for over a year and nothing! The DAY we want to put in an offer and poof… it’s gone. So aggravating! I felt so bad for Dad. He loved this place and was so excited about it. In the end we decided that our only option was to accept that it just wasn’t meant to be.

On to the next one though! The Barn House. This house was AMAZING. It was an 1800’s log cabin on 6 acres that someone flipped, like on the TV shows. It was so beautiful inside.  I was in love! I just can’t describe how stunning this place was. However, it was only on 6 acres and it wasn’t flat land either. We (we being my husband as I was already trying to talk him into being an accountant instead of farmer in order to get this house) decided not to move on this house (much to my despair) due to the land not being the best for farming. We thought of it as our back up house if we couldn’t find anything else.

We looked at many others and seemed to hit the same brick wall. If I liked the house, the land wasn’t right. If he liked the land, I didn’t like the house. So frustrating!

Also, I will add here, that for the price of the homes we were looking at, I expected big, beautiful, glorious, homes. (Remember, southern girl here, used to cheaper house prices.) Instead we were getting $300,000+ fixer uppers with dirt basements. I just wasn’t prepared for this.  If we went with less land, we could get the house types I wanted but not the land for Dad.  If we got the land, the house was not the best of shape and needed work.

We were not having any luck and we were already getting burnt out. We would get excited over a place online and then get there to discover it was not what we thought. On top of that we had lots of showings on our home. This was good, except that it was a pain to interrupt my sons cyber school day, having to clean the house so it was spotless, and get the pets out of the house on time. While we had many showings, only one was interested and that did not work out. I caught Dad saying, “maybe we moved too fast”, “maybe we should just wait and save up money”. I had to remind him that it had only been two months. Patience is a virtue.

We decided maybe we should make an offer on the Barn House as while it wasn’t perfect, we could make the land work since we were not finding anything else. This excited me to no end, and I was super happy. Our realtor had been keeping an eye on it for us because she knew I loved it. My realtor looks into putting in an offer and finds out that there is already an offer on the house! UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Which must have happened in the last day or so as it was still listed as active. Come to find out, it was an active under contract listing which means they do have an offer but if we make a better offer, they would consider it. Long story short, I’m all over that! Bid full price! I want that house! No luck though, it did not work out for us. I was upset to say the least. Oh well, “it wasn’t meant to be”, time to keep looking and move on.

Finally, we found a house that had 12 acres, and a decent house that looked nice online. Had pastures and barns. We go to look at it. Dad is sold (practically before we ever got there). I was a tad hesitant because there was some work that need to be done to it, however, it was only cosmetic issues nothing major. Dad advised the realtor he wanted to make an offer on it before we ever left the property. I was a little shocked by this, I thought we needed to talk more about it. I think Dad was concerned that every house we wanted had gotten away from us and he didn’t want to waste time and lose this one too. That possibility was very real.

We did talk once we left the property. My main concern was that while there was nothing major wrong with it there was a lot of little things that needed to be done. The whole place had carpet which needed taken out and replaced, the kitchen did not have a dishwasher and needed to be expanded if possible as it was super tiny, the bathrooms needed updating, the basement needed a ceiling and updating, just lots of cosmetic things that were not a “have to” in order to move in. Problem is…. I have lived in a fixer upper for the past 15 years. Things that are not a “have to” often get pushed back and forgotten about. For instance, the time it took 2 years to finish the stairwell wall, or the 10 years it took to finish the bedroom. I know how these things go. We had the same mindset when we bought this house. To buy it and fix it up. While we did do a lot to this place, it was not nearly what we wanted to (or planned to do) and it took all of those 15 years to get that done. A fixer upper was exactly what we didn’t want. But here we were, faced with the decision to keep looking an lose this place too or go for it.

So, we went for it. Dad was very concerned that if we didn’t go for it, we would lose it and not find anything else. I was still hesitant about the work that needed to be done but Dad & I made the deal we would just have to get in there and tackle one room at a time and get things done!

We can do this!

We’re going for it!!!

Home and planning 

My husband is home from Kuwait! Home 9 days to be exact. We are happy to have him back and we are getting back into the swing of things here at home!

We had discussed house shopping while he was deployed and decided when he came home, we would begin the process. However, the process is very lengthy and detailed for us as we have many decisions to make and work to be done before we can even begin.

We need to decide whether to rent or sell our current home. Each of those choices come with a slew of other decisions to be made. There is quite a bit of work to be done on this house before we can rent or sell. Walls need to be painted, walls fixed, carpets cleaned, as well as a host of other items that need to be taken care of.

My dear sweet husband likes to say, “we can buy a home and move right now if we wanted”. That may be true but not feasible and not an option we would like to take based on finances so to me it is not even an option to consider. Just not possible for us at the moment.

I am motivated. The process of getting our home ready, deciding on which path to take, and planning is going to take long enough for us. I do not wish to procrastinate. I want to get started early, make timelines, prepare. My husband has two years left before he can retire from the military and start his full-scale farm. I would like to move this process along as quickly as possible so that we can buy a new home, start a mini farm, and see how that goes. It is a great plan for the beginning to see if he truly enjoys it as much as he thinks he will and to see if it is profitable enough to retire and go full scale in two years. I do not want him to wait and jump into something that has great potential for success but also has great potential for failure. Make no mistake, I have the utmost faith in my husband! However, a new venture is never guaranteed, and things don’t always work out the way they are planned. I would like to be prepared for things to go south. I do not want him to get out of the military, start a farm, things go bad and force him back into the workforce (without the previous benefits he enjoyed in the military). I want a back up plan. That is very important to me.

I think that my husband agrees with me on these things, but he does not seem motivated. I know that he will put forth effort to make a good buying choice when purchasing a home. That time is still far off though. We can’t even begin to think of that until the work and plans are completed first.  I know that day 9 of homecoming might sound a bit too soon for some. I also know that 2 years can go by very quickly, before you even realize it. I do not want to lose valuable time that he could be putting forth on his trial farm. The less time he has to try out his desires then the less time he will have to make an informed decision of retiring or staying in the military. Which happens to be a pretty big decision for him/us.

So no more dilly dallying, lets get this party started, start talking and making things happen! Time for me to crack that whip and get him moving! We set a 1pm date today to start our discussions. This pleases me.

Tanya’s Side of the Story

Deployments

Ahhhh… deployments, where to start?

They suck.

The end.

Just kidding. Deployments are hard. Technically this is only my husbands 2^nd deployment since we have been together, however, he has often been gone for weeks/months at a time for various Army schools or overseas for various reasons with the Army. He is gone a lot. It’s the norm for us, even the kids are used to it by now. We don’t like it and we miss him but it’s just normal.

You think I would have this whole “holding the fort down” thing down pat and for the most part I guess I do. The bad part about actual deployments is they are long. A month here, week there… I got that. I started off this deployment having everything under control. Rolling with the cyber school at home, getting the house clean, dinner, errands, man jobs… things got done. We are now towards the end of this deployment and I can admit, I’m slacking. I am just tired. I have noticed that I am just not putting forth my best effort. Its kind of like falling off the wagon and you just can’t seem to hop back on that thing to save your life. You keep trying and one day you succeed, then the next you’re sliding off again.

Things pile up, then I tackle them and feel great only for things to pile up again. I need to burn the trash but the wind has decided otherwise for the past week. Its piling up so I hid some in the shed. I need to get the air conditioners out of the window, but I need help as my tiny self can not handle the big one. Oh, and I forgot to pay those two bills on the counter, need to remember those. I should finish the laundry first though. I have only been trying to do that all week and now its time to do laundry again. Laundry, that reminds me, I need to help Alayna finish her costume for Halloween or it won’t be done in time. In the laundry room I realize I need to do the floors first before laundry, but I can’t run the vacuum till the kid’s classes are over. Speaking of kids, one is calling me now. I need to stop and go help them with school. 30 minutes later: where was I? I have no idea. This is how every day goes. So much to do and not enough time for one person to do it all. It drives me crazy.

I think I’m losing my mind. The other day I spent 30 minutes looking for a shirt that I was already wearing! Yep, loosing my mind. In my defense, the shirt was under a hoodie I was wearing so I couldn’t see it. I think my brain needs to remember so much that it just pushes other stuff out to make room.

I’m trying to get back on that slippery wagon, especially with the kid’s school stuff. I have given them too much responsibility and freedom. I need to be more involved and active. I need to be on top of things and that should be my priority during the day. I have done much better this week with that. Now, to hold on for the ride and tackle another wagon. The house. I must be motivated, and I must get things done. No one else is going to do them for me so I need to suck it up and get to it.

So easy to say those things but hard to make them happen. I just want to take a nap. Sit for a while, finish a book, relax. I feel bad for even complaining. I know my husband would much rather be here tackling day to day life than where he is. I know I have it easy compared to what he goes through, but life is just hard without home here with us. We miss him. I am lonely. I am tired.

Deployments suck.

CJ’s side of the story

     Sometimes it is difficult to decide on a course of action and still be confident that the decision was made to produce the maximum benefit with the information available at the given time.  For instance, our home currently sits on a 1/10^th acre lot in a relatively high tax area.  I could sell my house and use that money as a down payment on a multi-acre property with the same taxes I currently pay.  I browse the real estate sites and look at homes within a given price range that meet my specified criteria (3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, not in a HOA, etc.) and compile the likely candidates so that they are ready when we decide as a family it is time to move.  The facts that cause me the most hesitation are the kids.  My daughter is about to start high school and has expressed a desire to go back to a traditional brick and mortar school.  Although I do enjoy having them home so that we can influence their learning and provide them help when they need it, I will not inhibit their return to a more traditional school if they desire it.  But, then what do we do about the move?  If my daughter goes to high school and makes new friends, it is very unlikely that a move to a different school district, possibly well out of reasonable driving distance from these new friends would be well received.  My son does not currently express the same desire to return to traditional schooling, but he does have friends in our neighborhood that he will surely miss. 

     Then we need to consider the fact that, although these years are super-important to the children from their perspective, I know that as they grow these years will become significantly less important.  Furthermore, they would be able to adapt to the new environment and social situation (likely with some upfront struggle) and would come out of it stronger.  I really don’t know which way to go.  There are benefits to staying put until the kids complete school such as building up a large sum of cash for a down-payment on the next house and providing the children with stability until they are legal adults.  The drawbacks are that those years (six years to be precise) are years that I could be improving my future land, building soil, growing my business, and building a loyal custom base.

     The decision to leave the Army, move to a larger property, and start a full-time farm is not one to be taken lightly.  I weigh the pros and cons often which causes my confidence in my ability to decide to falter.  The safe play financially is to wait until the kids graduate high school, and that is also the one that provides them the most social stability.  That being said, I am almost 40 now, and the years that I will have to dedicate to physical labor are numbered (although I hope that number is a high one).  I will continue to think on it, gather information, and refine my reasoning.  Either way, I am on contract with the Army for two more years, so I don’t have the option of full-time farming until then.  Moving, however, is an option that is available anytime.

Tanya’s side of the Story

I have always loved my little house. The bedrooms are very small I admit, but this house has everything I ever wanted. We have been here so long that I can’t really imagine living anywhere else. I have great neighbors that always help out with things while my husband is away and give me company when he is gone. However, the children are growing up before my eyes and the house is getting smaller and smaller. The children think that the only reason I want to move now is so my dog has more room. While there is a small amount of truth to that, it is not the main reasoning. We (dog included) just need more room.

Today was a stressful day where nothing was going right. I gave up and decided to take a nice relaxing bath, right smack in the middle of the day. Well, as soon as I got to soaking, my son had to go to the bathroom. Ok. I pulled the curtain closed and told him he could go. Evidently, he did not have to go pee as I had assumed. When he finally left, I got to soak and enjoy the nice, heavy, poop smell mixing with my lavender bath bomb smell. Lavender poop aroma bath, not exactly what I had in mind. I NEED two bathrooms! It is a must at this point. The need to move is now. Also, I need to add a bathroom fan to the “must have” list, just in case.

I do worry about how the move will affect our children. I know Alayna wants to go back to public school and I think the socialization would be good for her. She also has her best friend in the neighborhood that she grew up with. Leaving her would be hard even though they do not hang out every day like they used too. CJ doesn’t have any interest in public school and he does have friends here but, now a days, they only ever play online via the XBOX any way. I can’t even remember the last time they saw each other in person and they are both so close I could hit their house with a rock thrown from my porch. CJ probably wouldn’t even know we moved. Nothing will change for him. Gone are the days were every kid in the neighborhood practically lived at my house and called me Grove Mom.

I think that the move needs to happen relatively soon. The children will have struggles I am sure, but they are also at a good point to move. I would hate for Alayna to go back to school, make new friends and then have to leave them. While waiting for them to finish school might be better financially, I do not think that is the best for the children. They would still have to make a difficult choice and possibly leave longtime friends or jobs in order to join us at the new place. Also, I value the opportunities they will have on the farm. If we wait till they are done with school that opportunity to work together as a family may never happen. These kiddos of ours are pretty tough cookies and I think that we have included them in our plans and ideas enough that they are comfortable with them and prepared to make the move.  I also feel that they need more room now vs later as well. Their rooms are just so tiny. I wish my husband could see how they get excited over normal room sizes when we browse houses online. They pick rooms out right away! He will see for himself when he gets home.

Another benefit of moving now is that maybe the kids love the farm and want to live there forever, never leaving their mother? Could happen.

I feel postponing the move/farm life is not a good idea because things happen, life has funny way of getting in the way of your dreams. There is never going to be the perfect moment for any of us. Something is always going to come up or mess our plans up. So, let’s just go for it. Let’s just do it while we can. Worse case, we have a cool new house and lots of land for us to enjoy and live in peace. I can deal with that. Move now, we can start a small-scale farm, get some experience under our belts, get a feel for the business aspect of it and go from there. We have two years to figure out if we continue farming and go full scale or if we turn it into a dog rescue and I can happily foster all the homeless dogs of the world. And by foster, I mean keep all of them, forever.

The time is now, lets get this party started.

Ps… if we wait, I will be old and won’t be able to run from the chickens and I will most likely meet my death at the feet of Mr. Pecker.

I have always enjoyed being outdoors. This realization was not always immediately evident to me, but after 20 years in the Army it became very clear that what I really wanted to do with my time was spend it with my family on my own land. I have become filled with an idealistic vision of developing a landscape and having its production, support my family with a place to live and an income for the rest of my days. If my kids decide they are not interested in entering the rat-race and want to stay and help to build up our land and business, then so be it.

I foresee some major benefits to starting a family farmstead business. The main ones are as follows:

1. My prosperity is directly proportional to my drive to succeed and build a better, healthier life for myself and my family; and that drive is high.
2. I will get back countless hours that were typically spent driving, sitting in traffic, sitting in meetings, stressing about things beyond my control because they directly affect my success, etc.
3. I will get to work outside, raising animals in the most ethical and healthy way possible.
4. My family will be provided with the most healthy food nature can produce, free of chemical pesticide, herbicide, fungicide, any-cide.
5. I will be creating a homestead, and a business that can be passed on to my kids, and their kids if that is the way fate takes us. My children will be welcome and encouraged to pursue their own desires within the context of the farmstead business. For instance, my daughter likes to draw so she will be encouraged, and compensated to produce all marketing-related artwork for the farmstead. My son is more interested in YouTubing so he can explore video editing and become experienced at producing quality content for the farmstead’s online presence.

One of the hardest parts with moving forward with the farmstead plan is fear of failure. Right now I have a good job with decent pay and great health benefits. Once I leave the Army for the farmstead life, I will take an immediate reduction in pay coupled with a large increase in the cost of health insurance. My mind keeps coming back to “If I fail, then I am putting my whole family’s lifestyle at risk.” I know that it is going to be an enormous challenge, but I still need to remind myself that I am motivated and willing to do the work. If I want it bad enough, it will happen and I just need to maintain that mindset to overcome my fear of failure.

At the same time, it is quite liberating to mentally commit to a path and then will yourself to proceed even though the outcome is not guaranteed. I know that if I were to fail as a farmer (which I won’t) that I would find work somewhere doing something to support my family so there is always a backup plan. That being said, I will make the farm work no matter what it takes.

A little further introspection shows me that my fears are based in finance and not in ability, so I just need to overcome the fear of financial failure and rely on myself to make the rest fall into place. I recently watched a speech given by Warren Buffet in 1999 and the part that most stuck with me was that when he spoke with people at the end of their careers (having worked a job that they truly found fulfilling), not one of them said that they would have chosen a more lucrative career path that would have been less enjoyable. To me this means that in the end, money is less important than happiness. I also understand that it takes money to live in the world, but that money is there to be made doing something I enjoy just as much as it is there to be made doing something that I do not enjoy.

Tanya’s Side of the Story

I too have always enjoyed the outdoors. I feel the most at peace with myself and the world when I am outdoors. I crave being outside. Even on a busy day, I will find the time to sit outside and just relax and clear my mind. However, unlike my husband, I do not equate the idea of farming to my outdoor happiness. I equate farming to hard, hard, work. I have never worked on a farm a day in my life, but I did get to see farm life up close with my Uncle Shorty. He was an old school farmer, if he didn’t grow it or raise it, he didn’t eat it. He had no plumbing or electricity and still had a functioning outhouse when I was a teenager. My Mother and my Aunt worked on that farm and I saw the work that Uncle shorty put into it. It was back breaking, sun up to sun down work. It never once appealed to me to be the life I would like to have for myself, even with plumbing or electricity.

So what makes me excited to take this new journey with my family? It is mostly for my husband. He has sacrificed so much of his life and happiness to provide for our family over the years. He has missed so much, over the years so that he could ensure a good life for us. His sacrifices have enabled me to be retired (for the most part) for the past 13 years. I have lived my dream of staying home with my children, not missing a moment of their lives – because he did miss those moments. He willingly and happily with no complaint, drove long distances to work, was gone so often from his family, and worked his butt off so that we were taken care of. He will be able to retire soon and it is his turn to be happy. It is his turn to do what he loves, to enjoy his days, to work for himself, to not have to sit in a car on a highway for hours. If that means I run with the chickens, well I’ll run with the chickens then! I most probably will be running FROM the chickens, however.

I do agree with my husband on the aspect of providing a healthier future for ourselves and our children. Healthier food options for our family and knowing where our food comes from is very important to me. Healthier is happier. I love the idea of the children helping using their talents and doing things that they enjoy. Working as a team, as a family, will bring us closer together. My hope is that we can build something that we all enjoy, can be proud of, and can be passed down to our children if it is their desire to continue.

Does this journey scare me? Of course. I kind of have a serious complex about being poor. I tried that out for most of my life before I met my husband and I can’t say that it agreed with me. By poor I mean that at one point as a child, I lived in a box. Granted it was only for a week and it was a nice plywood box with a mattress in it, built by my father… it was still a box. I have lived in campers, I have stolen sample packs of grits out of newspapers to eat for the week. Poor is not fun, poor sucks. Being poor motivated me to get whatever skills I needed to do better. It took a very long time to do that, but I did do it and I promised myself I would never be poor again. I know that my current life is not considered the rich life to most. To me, I do feel rich though. My children will never know hunger, they don’t go without, they have such a better childhood than I did. Taking a risk, leaving what we know and diving into the unknown, scares me. I fear loosing this lifestyle that we have created for ourselves.

When I have these thoughts however, I have to remind myself that being poor also taught me that when you hit an unexpected low, you will figure things out. At that point it is your only option. I know that my husband would never put or family in jeopardy of what I call being poor. That simply is not an option for him. He is the most determined man that I know and when he sets his mind to something, there is nothing that can stop him. He is also not going all willy nilly into this venture. He has done all of his research and has the work ethic, drive, and passion to make this venture successful. Should something happen, we will find a way to move forward.

I agree that once you get passed the fears, that it is actually exciting. I’ve never wanted to leave this home of ours, but now I find myself excited at the prospect of moving, having more time with my husband, more land for our family to enjoy, and seeing my husband truly happy and stress free.

I will admit that I am not looking forward to the chickens attacking me. I’d like to think my giant dino dog will save me, but lets be honest… he will be more scared than I am!

About me – Tanya

10/7/2018

My name is Tanya and I am a 39 year old stay at home mom of two children, Alayna (13) & CJ (12). Both of my children are in enrolled in a cyber school and do their classes/school work at home.  My husband CJ (who goes by Dad in this house) is in the Army and currently deployed to Kuwait. He has been away since January 2^nd of this year. We have 3 pets, Missy Meow Meow (a Maine Coon mix), Mr. Meow Meow (a rescued stray), and Tank (a Great Dane/Mastiff mix).

My home is crazy busy 24/7. At the moment, I am everything: Mom, Dad, teacher, mechanic, landscaper, handyman, maid and servant to my pets. It is hectic to say the least!

I will openly admit that the farming idea was not my own. I did not grow up on a farm but spent a bit of my time at Uncle Shorty’s farm and it was work, work, work from sun up to sun down. That is not the lifestyle I envisioned for myself. I also ran from a neighbor’s duck the other week like it was a velociraptor, determined to eat me alive. Evidently, I can handle 150lbs of pure muscle dog, but a duck chasing me is just too much.

However, my husband encouraged me back in 2005 to leave the workforce so that I could achieve my dream of staying home with my children. For the past 13 years I have been able to live my dream life because of the hard work and sacrifices my husband has made for our family. Now it is his turn. He deserves to spend the next part of his life doing what he loves and living a happier lifestyle.  I will do whatever it takes to make that happen for him, even if it means being chased by chickens.

I am looking forward to him coming home soon and starting the next journey of our lives: the process of moving forward from our current lifestyle to full scale farmers. From no farming experience, to jumping right into it… this is going to be interesting. I hope you will stay a while and enjoy the experience with us!

• Tanya