Settling for Imperfection and Dreams for the Near Future

Our house

Back in November and December of this past year, we were looking for someplace to homestead in Maine.  We’d already decided that we wanted a place that was live-able now, given my health and the fact that my mother is part of our household.  I’ve long dreamed of starting from scratch, building my own cabin in the woods using trees from my own property and re-claimed materials, and laying out my homestead according to my own vision.  I’ve also dreamed and done a lot of research about tiny homes, cob building, and shipping container houses.  

One of my visions of the dream house (http://archive.feedblitz.com/500801/~4516092

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And I wanted to be in the wilderness, far from the nearest neighbor, and completely off-grid.  In the end, though, none of those things proved practical or obtainable given our current situation: my chronic health conditions, limited financial resources, and a live-in mother. For example, I would have loved to live in a tent or a camper while we built a tiny cob house to our own specifications. But I wouldn't want to live in a tent or a trailer with my husband and my mother, and I don’t have the strength or stamina to do the physical labor of building a house from cob.  And once we calculated how much time and money would be involved in buying land, putting in a well, creating some kind of waste management system, and creating an off-grid power system, we decided it made more sense to buy property with a livable home already on it.

When we were looking, we were in a temporary rental and paying rent.  Every month of rent we paid was money that could being going toward our homestead so we wanted to buy as soon as possible.  I’d been looking at properties online for several months, since we were back in New Mexico, so I had an idea of what was available in our budget, how many properties were available, and how often new places entered and old places went off the market.  In the whole state of Maine, at any given time there were maybe twenty possibles. 

We wanted a house that wouldn’t require us to take on a mortgage or go into debt for repairs or additions of basic systems to make it livable.  We also wanted something with five or more acres for gardening, livestock, and firewood.  We had a budget of under $90,000.  In most places in the county, this would be laughable.  But one of the attractions of Maine is the low price of property and housing, compared to the rest of the country. 

All of the properties we looked at were foreclosures, and they were scattered across the northern two-thirds of the state.  Because Maine is such a large state, we had to contact agents from across the state to show us the properties we were interested in.  Looking at properties was itself a hassle.  We had to drive more than two hours to get to the closest property we were interested in.  Some properties were located at the far northern tip of the state and would have meant a full days drive there, a day to look at places, a night in a hotel, and then another day’s drive back.  We started with the closest places.  

Right off we found a house I really liked and it had some definite attractions: it was close to a food co-op, it was in an area with lots of people and activities related to community agriculture, and a funky town with a movie theater and good ethnic restaurants.  However, it was only four acres and there was really no place to go walking from the house since it was on a narrow but busy blacktop road. It also needed a lot of work inside.  

M. and I went by ourselves to look at another property—it was a big farmhouse surrounded by fields, and with a great view, a definite asset for M. who does a lot of night photography.  We could see that it needed a new roof and there was water damage inside the house.  It was also located down a mile-long dirt road with poor lots of hills and poor drainage, a road we would have to plow.  It turned out that that this house was further away than our agent was willing to travel and we’d have to find another one to get us into the house.  We set that place on the back burner.  There were quite a few places in the geographic center of the state we were interested in so we found an agent and made the drive up to the area.  After speaking to her, we learned that several of the places on our list of possibles were just too remote—several miles in the woods on un-plowed dirt roads—or were very primitive—meaning the cabins and their systems weren’t winterized.  We looked at several properties.  
One had a great cabin but not enough room for us and my mother, and the southern exposure of the garden space was blocked by large trees on the neighbor’s property.  Another was a really funky house that I would have loved and it had enough space in the house itself for all of us, but the property stretched out along a busy road and would have been difficult to fence.  Since we have a blind dog, this is a problem.  

We then saw a place we really liked.  It was a well-insulated cabin that had a second smaller cabin that would be appropriate for my mother.  It was deep in the woods and walking distance from several lakes.  It was off-grid but wired for electricity and had a generator.  It did have problems:  it had electricity only when the generator was running (no inverter, solar panels, or battery system).  We would have to plow the access road, over a mile long, ourselves.  There was no cleared area for gardens or livestock so we would have to do that work before we could plant or get animals.  And it was about $30,000 more than we wanted to pay.  Regardless, I was smitten by the cabin and I loved the location: thousands of acres of wilderness in all directions.  We decided to submit an offer.  Our agent thought it was over priced and we agreed, so the offer we made was considerably lower than the asking price, low enough that we wouldn’t have to take out a mortgage to buy it.  The owners turned it down and offered a compromise that knocked two thousand off the offering price.  This price, together with our other reservations about the property, let us to the conclusion that we should keep looking. 

Before we looked at the cabin in the woods, we had looked at a big farmhouse located just outside a small town.  It was almost dark and very cold when we looked at the property, and it was right on a blacktop road, so we quickly toured the house and then dismissed it as a viable option.  But I kept thinking about the place and we decided to go take another look.  It had definite advantages:  the first floor of living space was mostly refinished and there was room on the second floor that, while not yet remodeled, was livable and could be used for bedrooms or an office.  It had an attached barn and a garage, and it had several acres of fields that could be used for animals and a garden with a little brush-hogging.  It had a small orchard and a pond. 
 

Our pond

There were about six acres of woods that could be managed for firewood.  It had electricity and a well and the roof didn’t leak.  There was no long road to plow.  And it was cheap.  We could buy it and not take on any debt. We could even have a few thousand dollars left over for improvements. 

On the downside, it wasn’t remote.  It was walking or biking distance to town.  I could see that this closeness to town was an advantage especially if we needed to get out for medical emergencies in the winter, but I really had my heart set on being in the wilderness far from neighbors and traffic.  The house was right on the road which I didn’t like because of the dog and the lack of privacy.  It also wasn’t off-grid which was both a positive and a negative.  Access to reliable electricity is pretty great and we’d just gone through a pretty tough year in New Mexico in an off-grid house where we had periods of no water and no heat.  But I was committed to using renewable energy as much as possible, and this house meant we’d have to invest in all the infrastructure to make that happen.  

Thinking about this house and property, and the other places we’d looked at, I realized that it was highly unlikely that we’d find the ideal place, given what we were looking for and our budget.  We’d have to settle on something that met some of our criteria while it came up short on others.  The hard part was deciding which things we were willing to let go and which we weren’t.   

We decided to make an offer on the farmhouse and the bank made a counter-offer that we then accepted.  I’m mostly content although I admit that I have an unfulfilled longing for the wilderness that remains unsatisfied.  Which is funny because most people would think that we live in the middle of nowhere.  But it feels too close to civilization to me.   I do see the upsides of our closeness to town and our easy access to the hardware and grocery stores.  We can order a pizza and have it here at the house in twenty minutes.  We’re one of the first roads plowed out after a storm.  

I’m not ignoring that longing for the wilderness, though.  I plan to do something about it.  I also have a strong desire to travel, to see new and wild places. I want to spend time in remote locations looking carefully at the insects and plants and the sky.  I want to live as close to the outside as possible and as simply as possible.  I want to be able to sit outside naked under the sun or the stars or in the rain and feel the weather on my skin.  I want to give my full attention to observing and thinking and reading and writing, and have my obligations for doing things to be as minimal as it possibly can.   Living in a house, sleeping in a bed surrounded by walls of wood and insulation and sheetrock, cooking in a kitchen at an electric stove, bathing inside in a plastic enclosure, sometimes these things make me feel like my senses are suffocating.   I want to be outside.  

Sometime in the near future, I want to travel during the cold parts of the year to the wilderness.  I’d like to stay in a tent or camper or under the stars, on public lands.  I’d like to stay in one place for a few weeks and then travel to a new place.  We can get someone to stay in our house during the coldest parts of the winter, and take care of the animals for us while we travel, and then we can come back just as the weather begins to warm to get our garden going again.  Maybe we can even bring a few chickens with us on the road.  I’m already imagining how to design a portable run and coop for them.