“We’re not hikers, we live here!”
Melissa and I have been living on the farm in Virginia for two months now. Things are moving along slowly but surely, and I wanted to share with everyone our progress.
For those who don’t know, “the farm” is 180 acres of forested property that was originally settled by my great-grandfather. It’s located in the New River Valley of mountainous Southwest Virginia; the nearest services are 15-20 minutes away in Pearisburg, seat of Giles County and one of the many towns that the Appalachian Trail passes through, and 25-30 minutes away in Blacksburg, home to Virginia Tech. The nearest town is actually Eggleston, but its glory days have long since past as it now has little else to its name but the post office.
The property has been abandoned and unoccupied for decades. The house had fallen into disrepair and was dismantled by a neighbor of ours, who has restored some of it on his land. There are two buildings remaining, a large animal barn that’s something of a landmark in this area, and a small shed that was used for food storage. The property was logged about 7 or 8 years ago, mainly for the abundant yellow poplar that grows straight and tall. The logging company left behind a maze of paths all over the side of the mountain, and created two unsightly bare spots near the road which they used as loading areas. This road bisects the property and turns from hardtop to gravel as it passes on toward the New River; our journey to Blacksburg begins on this well-maintained track that hugs the west bank on its way to the bridge in Eggleston.
When we first arrived in early March, we slept behind the barn in an old tent that’s barely large enough for two. That first weekend was a cold one, and we eventually moved to a campsite on the south-facing slope of the mountain, which was warmer and more remote. It had been our plan to arrive with a travel trailer in tow, but we didn’t end up finding one before we left North Carolina, so we spent the first few weeks scanning eBay and the local classifieds. Most of the trailers that we called about had already sold or weren’t really what we wanted, but one of the sellers eventually got back to us saying that she’d accept our offer because the original buyer backed out on her.
The drive back from Raleigh was a bit scary, as I’d never towed anything that large before, but we made it home without incident and are now living in an 18-foot Midas travel trailer from the mid-1980s. We don’t currently have electricity, running water, a flush toilet, or any other amenities, so we make the most of our trips to Blacksburg by charging up our gadgets and using the wireless Internet at the public library and by taking showers at the aquatic center. We were pleasantly surprised to find that we get cellular service at the farm, so we bought a mobile phone to stay in touch with the world (540-818-6128).
Our first order of business upon arriving and getting unpacked was to find out if there are in fact enough trees remaining on the property to build the type of log home we have in mind; we obviously don’t want to live in the trailer forever. We spent the first three days roaming around the property with a GPS in hand, looking for the straightest trees we could find that appeared to be at least 30 feet in height and tapered as little as possible. I’m pleased to report that we found over 100 such trees without straying too terribly far from our proposed homesite; we girdled these poplars with yellow ribbon and marked their location with the GPS so we can find them again when the time comes.
Next on our list of things to do was to clear out a lot of the vines and brambles that are choking everything in sight, particularly around the homesite. We rented a brush mower for a day, which did great on the landing areas that the loggers had already cleared out, but was impractical to use on any kind of slope or when there were a lot of saplings or larger trees hemming it in. I think what we need is a brush cutter, which is basically a heavy-duty weed trimmer that accepts a number of dangerous looking attachments, but for now we have a Stihl chain saw that I’m using to clear out more space.
Then we turned our attention to starting our garden. We’ve prepared a dozen or so beds in the landing area near the barn, which used to be an orchard back in my great-grandfather’s time. Melissa built a small greenhouse out of 2×4s that we’ve covered with 4 mil plastic, so we’ve already got lettuce that’s almost big enough to eat. The long-term future of the farm may rest with the success of apple and other fruit trees, but for now we’re focusing on our row crops. We’re hoping to have enough vegetables and flowers soon to start selling at the twice-weekly farmers market in downtown Blacksburg.
So while things are generally looking quite positive, our overwhelming concern now is financing. I’ve had some success finding work in the area, though I’m still on the lookout for a full-time job. I’m training to teach SAT preparation courses for Kaplan, which I’m genuinely excited about, and there are a few other part-time gigs that I’m hopeful will turn out. But I’m really hoping to find something permanent so that we can confidently purchase the equipment and supplies we’ll need to grow the farming operation, and so we can move forward with our home construction. One of the financing options we’re looking at is Prosper, which advertises itself as “the online marketplace for people-to-people lending”, but ideally we’d like to take on as little debt as possible. I’ve had modest success selling some old hiking gear and electronic gadgets online, which is keeping us fed for now.
I imagine everyone is curious to see what the farm looks like, but most of my computer time is spent looking for jobs and whatnot, so I don’t have any photos to share just yet. But I have posted photos of the three places we volunteered at over the winter:
http://eric.trailfaqs.com/photos/ov/
I’ll send out another update when the farm photos are posted.