Welcome Lola!

This weekend we added to our menagerie with a new dog.  Meet Lola, a 7 year old chihuahua who has been 'rehomed' to us from a local family who no longer could care for her.

She is a complete sweetheart!   We love her so much...and our little chihuahua-cross boy (Blu) is even more in love.  He has a new lease on life after twelve months of deep doggy depression.

Other farm news...
We started planting vegetables this last weekend.   It was beautiful warm weather and the soil in the raised beds was moist and warm.   Of course living in Maine means that we could still have frosts until the end of May, but we are taking a gamble.   The kids helped plants some seeds in starter jiffy pots in doors the previous week...and so we had some corn and butternut pumpkin plants ready to roll.  Bush beans went right into the soil.  Potatoes are in tires (an experiment).

After the chickens decided to attack the new garden (and we lost about half of the corn shoots) we put wire around the beds to keep them out.....an early and frustrating setback.   But we love that our chickens free range...and so we had to compromise.

I continue to read and study ways to make our farm more 'farm-like'...but have come to the realization that the primary income will always have to be my full time job, and that tinkering is about all we can do.   But its fun to tinker and dream when spring is here!

Spring has arrived! (yipeeeeeeeeeee)

It finally feels like spring on the farm.  After just a few weeks of warmer weather (read above freezing) the snow has now all gone and we have managed to make a start on some outside jobs.  We have started to prepare the vegetable beds, planted strawberries in front of the house, cleaned out the chickens winter coop and worked on some of the electric fencing.  The animals are happy - and when we get to wear T shirts and not ski parkers, we are happy too!

Our bathroom projects have come close to being done.   We have tested the upflush loo system and all works great!   We seem to have a leak in the water fittings behind the shower...so there is our next rainy day project :(  We have to do some trim work, add some kind of a ceiling and we are done.   Still, in the meantime it is functional so number one daughter (who is currently working in a volunteer project in Costa Rica) will not have to share a bathroom with the rest of the family :)

Now we are making plans for how to spend our little bit of savings on the farm this summer.  Fences are my plan...but we might need to rent a tractor to clean up the horse fields and maybe try and clean a spot for a riding arena.  If we had the cash we would buy a tractor...but at around $20K its not in our sights.  We don't even have the cash for repayments as yet - but we are working on that plan.  We will do without with the occasional rental to get tasks done! :)

Still...its getting warm and spring is here.  So all is happy and good on Murramarang.  Life continues to be good!

Lots of water under the bridge - and a killer winter!

I know.  I have been a slack blogger!  Sometimes life just gets in the way of communication :)

First things first

In November 2013 our wonderful tenants in Colorado signed the paperwork and official bought BluBelle Farm.  You could probably hear the shouts of joy and relief from us all over the plant.  It was such a nice feeling to no longer be the owner of the Colorado property...and leave the world of 'landlord' behind.   Yes - we learned a few lessons:

1. Don't be a landlord
2. If you are going to be a landlord, live right near the property so you can deal with things quickly and by yourself.
3. And finally, don't ever be a landlord

Still, it all worked out in the end - but it took almost five years to sell the farm and cost us more than it should to take it through to the sale.    We really did not take a financial step forward with the ownership considering the blood sweat and tears we put into the improvements.  We would have liked to walk away $50,000 better off and not break even.  But, them's the breaks!   It's gone.  It's over.  And that, my friends, is a bloody nice feeling!

Back to Murramarang

Our farm in Maine has been developing very slowly.   Two things have been hampering our movement forward. The first was not knowing when the Colorado farm would finally sell and be off our hands.  The second was money.  Added to this has been a long and bitter winter forcing any improvements being done inside.

With the arrival of our eldest daughter to stay a few months we decided that we really needed more bathrooms.  When we bought this farm we had the plumber add a second toilet in what was a strange 'cupboard' off the master bedroom.   That little room ended up being a storage room with a loo - than a real functioning bathroom.   With a lack of funds but a load of time, we scrounged the local dump each week and finally found a nice bathroom sink etc for just $1.  With a coat of paint and a new set of fittings it looked great.  We finished the walls and painted the 'cupboard' (now the "ensuite"), laid some new vinyl tiles onto the floor and then installed the renovated sink.  A few lights a fan etc and our little brown duck became a wonderful swan.

We then started on a whole new bathroom/laundry area in the basement.  This tested our plumbing skills as we needed an upflow toilet that would pump the waste up and into our septic outflow.  Once we worked out the new toilet process we added a sink, shower and even a hookup for a laundry tub!   We build walls, sheet rocked, added power, light, fan and more.   Quite a project indeed.  As I write we still have to paint, add the flooring and test it all :)  

Outside we still have so much snow.  Its almost the end of March and last year I had started seedlings.  This year we will not see our vegetable plots for another few weeks...and then probably will not be able to plant for a month or so after that.  So vegetables will be a late process.

Our chickens continue to produce.  The five girls give us around four eggs a day and Harry Potter the Rooster does a good job keeping them safe.  Our little hen house worked well through winter with the chickens being given run of the barn during the day.  They are now escaping to the small patches of grass and mud around the farm to forage and scratch.  They can't wait for warmer weather.

Our plans this summer involve fences.   We will not be able to get the whole place done, but I hope we can fence the top few acres with something better than the temporary electric fence so Maggie the horse is more confined.

Life is godd - and we can't wait for spring to really arrive!

Winter was white and long....and spring has officially arrived.

It is now nearing the end of March 2013...and winter weather has been here for months and no end in sight.   We fortunately escaped six weeks of the snow and cold in Australia....but have returned to a world of snow and a blizzard every other day.    Just when we think the snow is melting away we get another dump.   Fingers are crossed that we have now seen the end of it.

Spring officially arrive last Wednesday - and we woke up to a foot of new snow - but spring activities have already started.

The first task was to make a start pruning the row of apple trees on one side of the home field.  Who knows how long it has been since they were pruned (if ever).  Last year they had flowers, but set no fruit.  After watching youtube videos and reading blogs and webpages I decided I was ready to hack into them with gusto!

 I have no idea if I have done a good job - I guess this season will tell!  We have at least five more apple trees on the property - four of them are so large and must be 100+ years old.  They are really now just ornamental shade trees and we will leave them that way.

The next step was to work on getting some vegetables started.   The kids helped with planting the first seeds in containers which we have under lights in the warmish basement until the last frost has gone (in about 50 days).

Already we have broccoli sprouted - something Madie finds fascinating!  Our plan is to try Square Foot Gardening techniques this year to see if we can beat the drainage issues we had last year, make it all more kid friendly, and same us time and work.  It's a big ask, but worth the experiment.

And the final stage for now was to get back into the world of chickens.  We have bought six little girls (well 5 little girls, and a possible sixth who could turn out to be a rooster).   They are currently living in a tote under a warming light as we prepare them for life on the farm.   We will have their company for about two months before they can go outside.  So I guess that means I have two months to build a chicken coop and run....fun!

So Murramarang is starting to feel like a real farm!

The farm in Colorado continues to be a thorn in our side.  The tenants have been great - but the hassles caused by the neighbors continues to have twists and turns to cause us heartache and money.  We hope it will all be over soon and life can be a little more free of stress!

Vale to Princess Belle - 4 October 2012.

It was the saddest day our our life saying goodbye to our little Chinhuahua Princess Belle!   She finally came to the end of her time - her poor heart decided that all the drugs in the world just could not keep her happy and healthy.   After days of indecision, we finally decided that she had given up on her own life by no longer eating and so wanted to give her a dignified end to a wonderful life.

The vet and vet nurses were wonderful - even if we were sobbing messes.  We said our goodbyes and she took her last breath in the arms of he human mother who loved her more than life itself. 

In December 2012 we journeyed to Australia and took with us some of Belles ashes.   We had always wanted to take her to Australia so she could run on the beach at Durras.   In a small way we fulfilled that promise and spread some of her ashes on the most wonderful beach on the planet.

We will miss her......always.

Autumn arrives...so much has been done...

First the Colorado farm news....

I am delighted to have found such wonderful tenants.  They are really working to make the place look great - updating fences, using the barn to its capacity, looking after the house...like WOW!  What a change from the past attempts.  Makes me happy.

But wait....the silver lining has a cloud.  It's the neighbors!  Seems that my tenants had had battles for neighbors about a number of issues...its so sad.   We have a boundary line dispute need to move water pipes and fences and overall a huge amount of stress.   Makes me very sad.

One day I hope we can get through all this and that the black clouds of this farm in Colorado will have a silver lining.    More details will come through once we are on solid ground with a few isues...for now all I can say is STRESS and its costing us a pile of money that we wanted to sink into Maine projects.  

Then the Murramarang news.....

The Farm in Maine give me a huge amount of joy.  Its a long slow process to get anything done as we share the responsibility to look after kids while one of us works on projects.  Since the last blog entry we have been working on a few issues:

Working on the kitchen....it has been out with the old and in with part of the new :)   Demolishing the old kicthn was a much bigger task than we thought.  It was built to withstand a bomb bast - and took a lot of strong arming to get out.

After a few days we managed to have it all taken out and the remains taken to the dump.  We then decided that the existing rotting window should be removed and a larger one installed.  This has brought so much extra light into the house - it is amazing!

Jen stripped off all the horrible wallpaper and we reclad some walls then painted the ceiling white and the walls a pale yellow - again to brighten up the place.

The next step was installing a new floor over the evil old tiles.  We picked up a load of flooring from a discount store that looks like old barn timbers - a little aussie gum-like in look.  After doing all the floors in Colorado, this was an easy task to get in.

We then went and ordered all new cupboards from Home Depot and started to install them to give us more bench space and functionality.  We found that we needed a new fridge in the process...as the old second hand one just kept leaking water!

The new cabinets were easy to install - even when the walls were just horrible.  The new bench tops were more difficult, but seemed to work out ok for us.

Now the big task is to paint all the cabinets and doors - a work still in progress but we hope to have completed by the end of October!

While all this was happening we decided that I really needed a better dedicated office space instead of spilling into a corner of the lounge room and garage.  The only place to do this is the basement - in which we have water issues.   So the first step was to work on the water.  We bought a dehumidifier and let it run n the basement fro around a month.  This was an amazing breakthrough - the basement lost its dusty musty smell and really dried out.   We now run the machine a few days a week - and it seems to keep the place dry.  The next phase is to install a good sump and sump pump - and we hope to do that through winter and before the major thaw (and basement flooding) season starts in spring.


We started the office space in one of the basement corners and decided to be safe, we would build up off the floor so any water that gets into the basement can flow under the floor and be captured by a sump pump in the future.  We build the stud walls and lined them with plastic, so the office is almost a plastic box.  We installed a new basement window (upside down I might add - dumb arse Gary!) in a hole that had just been boarded up with planks.

It is still a work in progress, but we hope to have it functional by the end of October - even it not really finished off completely.

We also made headway on getting the hay loft in the barn back to a working place - the doorway had be boarded over in the past.  A new door way has been made - and just needs a door and a clean up inside to have a space ready to use for storage (hay or otherwise).

So lots happening on many fronts....lets hope winter is not too harsh and we can continue to get the inside of the farm buildings finished and working!

A colorado farm update - late May 2012

A Colorado farm update!

After a failed attempt to rent over the winter and a few months being empty and on the market, we have been forced to get more renters into our farm in Colorado...at the end of the day we just diod not have the money to keep the place empty!

So we advertised on CraigsList and had a flurry of folks come and look.  One set of folks had seen the place before when the first set of renters moved in...and got back in touch.  They went out and looked and fell in love with the place.   Like all renters it seems, they have a sob story of not being able to finance a purchase, but these folks seem very determined.  They want to lay down $10K as a deposit if we will rent it to them till July next year...and then they will buy.

So, starting in the first week of June, we will have renters back into the farm.   I will breath easier that we have some income coming in....but wait for each and every call that they have had some sort of 'issue'........i hate being a landlord!

Some major steps forward.....and its May!

So May rolls forward (it fact its almost over) and we have made some major steps forward on Murramarang! On the house front, we now have a high efficiently propane furnace installed which we hope will save us heating costs in the future. It looks WONDERFUL - instead of a box that looks like it came off a WWI battle ship, we now have a set up that looks more like its from the Star Ship Enterprise (take us up to warp speed Scotty!) Of course, we will not really know how good this all is until next winter...but we hope that it will make some difference! It also means that we can scrap/sell the old furnace and tank and get rid of the fuel oil smell in the basement.

Another step in the house has been the installation of a new septic system. After some slow starts due to rain up here in Maine, the system is finally in. New tank, new leach field...so we hope that the backing up of water in the pipes is now just part of history. How strange it has been to wash the dishes and then find spaghetti strands coming up into the bath! And how nice it will be to have a shower again!

The Septic Digger arrives! 

The final house step has been to replace the water pipes. Our low pH well water has been stripping out the lead from the solder points as well as dissolving the copper pipes. These have all been replaced with PEX pipes by our friendly plumber. He is (as I write) hooking all our drains up to the new septic system, moving a toilet and vanity, adding a toilet (wow...we will now have a 1.5 bathroom house). This all has been a long drawn out process - mainly due to the bank stuffing around with paperwork and payments - but after May we will feel that we have really made some big steps forward. We have many more to do (a new kitchen, putting in a back door, moving the basement stairs, building a deck) All we need to do these is money (and time).

Out on the farm we have moved forward as well. We have put up horse fences for about 2 acres. The electric fence is so hot it is scary....it took two grounding rods, but worth the effort. This allows our one and only horse (Maggie) to roam and eat without turning the fields into mini dust bowls. We also hope that we have space to start to bring in boarders. We completed one stall in the small barn and added a door so that we have better access to the tack/grain room. We recovered some old fencing from family - some picket fencing and some stockade fences. After a power wash, we hired a commercial spray gun and gave them all a coat of white paint. We put a a first coat of paint on our garage - a change from the red/brown to the blue we like.

We installed a fire pit.....

 We have so much more to do.....but we think we have made a wonderful start and hope with good weather and finding some spare cash will help us to move a few steps forward in June.

February ends and we are in our new farm

After so many false starts, we finally made it into Murramarang! And we are delighted!

On the 17 February we finally closed on our small property. It had been a very rough road with complications on every twist of the road forward...and things did not get clear until two days before closing (this was the second attempt to close). But we finally signed away our lives again and were handed the keys to our sweet place.

With the keys in hand, we spent the next four days cleaning, repainting and getting prepared to move in to our three bedroom one bathroom cottage. The place cleaned up so well and with new painted ceilings and walls on all the bedrooms and carpets put down, most of the house looks fantastic!

The kitchen is in its original state. We took out the old propane 1960's stove and, after a flirt with a second hand stove, now have a spanking new stove in and connected. The kitchen cupboards needed to be cut to fit a fridge and we still have a second hand dishwasher sitting waiting to be installed.

The bathroom - well its will wait for a future renovation.

It is a lot of work, it is expensive - but its home!

End of January update!

Colorado Farm
After another sad failed attempt to rent it out (the renters decided that they only needed to pay half the rent in December...so we kicked them out) we have been working to have the place put back on the market. We are trying a different agent who seems so far to be great...and we will be listing it on Monday for $257,500. For that price, it is a steal for the right people - 5 acre horse farm just 40 mins north or Denver, Boulder and the Denver Airport and just 5 mins from a new town center with sports centers, shops libraries and new schools (and land taxes of just $845 a year!). Ok ok...i want to sell it :P www.modeltreefarm.com

Lets hope that with a new agent, a great price and the right time of the year, it will sell this year fr us. We can keep it empty (thanks to Mr Taxman) for a few months....which we hope will make it easy to sell. After a few months we will just have to rent it out again to survive. However i will NOT take it off the market again.

Maine Farm
After two years of renting, we decided we needed to move the kids out of an apartment and into our own place...and so we started looking in summer last year. After a few failed attempts, we finally found a place that is right close to Jen's family (perfect), has 12 beautiful acres (perfect) and a crappy little house (not so perfect). Our logic is that we can fix the house...and the land will always be glorious. So we started the process, went under contract etc. Then we find out that the house needs a new septic system, a new furnace and some plumbing issues fixed. As we did not have the money to do that, we had to change loan types to a FHA loan. Then the whole thing started to become so bloody complicated!

It's way to complex to try and explain - but we are still hoping to buy the place. It means I had to find $16,000 more than we had to pay a larger deposit etc, A second loan and all the associated paperwork with the fear that the sellers will shut the whole sale down. The whole process has cost us $1500 in costs so far - appraisals, inspections, reports etc

If it all comes off we will be happy (but not ecstatic) ...as the whole euphoria of buying the place has been washed away by real estate crap. It it falls through we are screwed...as all our savings have been gobbled up by the process...so we will be unable to put a bid in on something else until we save for maybe 12 months more or longer. The sale of Colorado will help (but not as much as we would like).

So whats the lesson here? Can't say I have one. Other than this - don't think any real estate deal nowadays will be easy. The whole system is upside down....

A new year - lets hope some steps in a better direction!

2012 rang in for us with very little fanfare. However we know it is going to be a better year as soon as we get over the January hum. This month we have on our plates:

1. Getting rid of a set of bad renters in our farm in Colorado. They are supposed to move out by 10 January.
2. Clean up the farm in Colorado, lay some new carpet, fix some deck boards and get the beast back onto the market.
3. Pack up the apartment in which we live in Maine.
4. Successful close on the contract for the farm in Maine we are buying.
5. Clean, paint and re-carpet the house on the Maine farm.
6. Move from the apartment to the new farm.
7. Clean the apartment (boy we will need that deposit back!)
8. Sell the farm in Colorado (ok...maybe we will need longer that the rest of January).

Lucky I have experience in project management (and a great neighbor in Colorado!).

I hope that your 2012 starts off a little less busy and that it goes with much love, health and happiness!

A load of water has passed under the bridge.....

Winter may have now arrived in Maine and we are looking at a few major developments in our quest to have a farm up in the North East of USA.

Our farm back in Colorado did not sell this year and so we rented it out again. This lasted all of three months - with the renters deciding that they could no longer afford it (which is a complete bummer). Come January 10 we will be without renters and income to put food on the table! That sucks! But we know we had good interest in renters last time and sort of hope we can get more renters into it withing two months. t the same time, we intend to put it back on the market using a different agent - and hope to move it through the year. So that's the stressful bad part of the story. Lets not dwell on it too much...

The other stressful but good news is that we are under contract for a place in Maine. It is just over 12 acres of beautiful pasture land with a small crappy house (3 bedroom, one bathroom). It has a great large garage and a small run down barn/shed. We think we can get at least two horses in the barn...with a little room for hay storage...but it will take some repairs to make it stable and safe. The down side is that we need to get a new septic system and furnace in the house for it to be able to be 'home'....but we are working on a loan to include those things in the price (by the way ..its a GREAT price).

Probably the best part is that it is right close to family - you could walk to their place! That will be a big help for us - and t be honest, the whole reason we moved to Maine.

So fingers crossed that we move this one forward.....a few more steps to go, but things are looking good :)

A few people looking....

It's been on the market a few weeks and we are please tomreport that a few people have been looking. It's a good start, and we hope someone soon sees the farm and falls in love with it.

However, it seems some of the "ladies" on the street have decided that they want to skuttle all attempts to sell the place. One on a horse, we are told, informed a potential buyer that the placed used to be a Meth Lab! Don't you just love some people.....nice to your face, and then spread rumors to make your life difficult. I just hope any serious people don't get to meet the neighbors who are like that....other neighbors are just wonderful people who we love and miss.

Let's keep our fingers crossed that things move quickly and we go under contract soon!

The renters are gone and the farm is on the Market!

I just came back from a weekend in Colorado to sort out the farm. After a few days of hard work, the place is looking much better than I expected. The renters did work on cleaning up the house - I have some issues to fix, but on the whole, it was in good shape. I wish I could say the same for the rest of the property.

The biggest issue was the barn. It was loaded full of the renters stuff....you name it I found it! (This includes a 30mm cartridge for some kind of cannon, loads of good kids out-door toys, a set of Olympic-grade weights, mattresses and goat poo! Beautiful!). So I hired a dumpster which I loaded to the gunwales! I also threw a few things up on Craig's List and sold about $110 worth of stuff which helped pay for the dumpster (it was $335 alone!). It took we an entire day...and with some help from a few neighbors, I had the barn looking much better.


I also re-landscaped the front of the house - 30 bags of mulch and a load of weeding. A new door mat and a good sweep and the place started looking like it did a year ago.

After the attempt to sell-by-owner (which was not a bad experience, but was not one we could do from 'afar'), a year of rent-to-buy (which really was not worth the hassle), we handed the Farm onto a local realtor who we hope will do a fantastic job of getting the place in front of buyers. We even dropped the price a little to try and get it moving.

So fingers crossed!

Renters are weeds....

A rainbow shows how close to heaven our barn is on BluBelle Farm.

How sad it is to see a place you put blood - sweat and tears into become run down by lazy renters! After all the work Jen and I (and friends who visited) put into clearing away tumble weeds and putting up fencing - just to see the fields completely over run with weeds and fencing all broken is heart breaking.

I guess I was never cut out to be a landlord. I hate having to chase people for rent. I hate having to send official notices telling renters that they have to 'pay on time or move out'. I hate having to try and tip toe around sensativities when people are living in the last dream we had.

But a landlord I am - and a hard-arsed one at that. The final notice was sent and as of the 18 May, the rent-to-buy process is over....and I will be dealing with just a renter who has 13 days to pack up and move out.

I just need to keep a focus on the prize here. Why should the renters live in our last dream and stop us from moving onto the next dream? Why are they on 5 acres and a 1976 sq 4 brd room house when we are on 0 acres, 2 bedroom apartment?

So we now have our fingers crossed that the next stage (they moving out and us cleaning up) goes smoothly!

The dream has already started....

It may seem funny that we have already have a name for our Farm, but not actually a farm! But I guess that is the way we roll - we work on big plans building on ideas we have from our past experiences and things we have read or seen. And to be honest, this is the fun part.

So let me start by telling you about the name - Murramarang is a special place on the coast of NSW Australia. It is a beautiful national park with the most wonderful beaches, fascinating coastal clifflines and amazing animals (marine as well as terrestrial). We love the place - and even have a caravan (trailer) in a nearby campground that we maintain from the USA....just so we know we always can stay when we visit Australia. We wanted to always remind ourselves of this special place...and so have decided.

So where will it be? We are currently looking, negotiating and dreaming about places in the lakes district of Maine, USA. This is, for the geographically challenged, the most northeastern state of the USA - a wooded, lake draped piece of heaven just a short commuter flight from Boston, New York and Washington DC. It is also a place of mountains, a beautiful coastline and a fascinating history. Each village is a step back in time with beautiful old white farmhouses and red barns surrounded by stone walls. Each stream has the remains of an old mill. Our farm hunt is around 40 min drive inland from Portland (the largest population center of Maine) in a area full of beautiful lakes carved from the local granite by glaciers of past.

Why a farm? After 40+ years of me living in cities in Australia and USA, we bought a small farm (5 acres) on the plains of Colorado close to work. It was just a weed patch - but with sweat and planning we made it a respectable horse farm by putting in fences, a pole barn and other sheds and infrastructure. We learned a lot along the way - mainly how important it was to have water (Colorado plains is really a high desert).