Mountain Moved, deal closed...

   Well if you hadn't already heard, we bought a farm.  Before I get to in detail about it, let me back up and tell a brief story of how we got here.  Some of my Facebook friends may have seen some hints on my wall posts, about "My God can and will move mountains", "I hear it rumbling", etc...

We shouldn't have gotten this farm. Period, End of sentence, Finit, whatever else you want to say.  However...it was so God's will that we got this farm.....CONFUSED......let me digress and explain.

Up until a while ago, our plan was to retire from the Navy, move out to WV and build on the 15 acres that my Mom inherited from her father.  It was prime Monroe County farmland, currently growing hay. One small problem, that didn't seem too hard.  We had to wait until her and her sister settled the estate following Grand-Dads passing.  Things drug on for a while with her sister, hemming and hawing about how to divide the land, etc...Mom bent-over backwards to accomodate her sister, and now 2 years later still is.  But her sister just doesn't seem to want to move on and settle this stuff, even when she comes out ahead.  We extended a year in the Navy to help give a little cushion for them to settle things, but when we hit the 10 month out from retirement, there would be no more extensions, we had to make the hard decision that maybe this wasn't what God wanted for us.  After all it was raw farmland and we were going to build gradually as we could afford and eventually move in on my retirement date.  After some talking with mom, realizing her sister wasn't budging, and it may go to court, we knew we had to move on.  So I started looking online for homes with land, we always wanted lots of acreage.  We kind of gravitated to TN for some reason, maybe because it's so beautiful, or probably more that they don't have a state income tax on normal earnings.  I was looking at places with small houses, from the 50's or so, knowing we would eventually tear it down and build what we really wanted, and at least 20 acres, with a few of those acres tillable.  It was slim pickings, cause even though the house would be temporary, it was hard to look past how ugly they were.  Stick with me here, this is where it starts getting good.  In the sidebar of the website I was on, popped up one of those "more property like this" type ads, it said 27 acre Certified USDA Organic mini-farm, I thought, no way would we afford this.  The picture showed a gigantic green house and a looooong gravel driveway to the house and red barn.  First thoughts....wow, no way we could afford this.  But what the heck. CLICK.  Up popped the page for this place.  It was awesome, on the side of that long driveway was about 6 acres of flat tilled, and currently growing vegetables organic garden.  It was nestled between 2 mountains that are part of the property, it has a well, natural spring, and underground creek, all of which we can pump water from, the house is about 1500-1700 sqft, with a walk-in basement.  It's solar powered and heated with wood. I was in love...

My gigantic front porch...a coffee drinking porch...

         I kind of hid it away and asked the realtor for more information.  I wasn't quite ready to show Erin yet.  Not only did I get an email from the realtor, but the home owner also emailed me to answer a few questions.  I started chatting via email with David, the homeowner and really started falling for this place, it was getting serious.  Erin came by one day and I showed her the webpage, without hardly seeing the pictures she said, "buy it", We decided I should go look at it in person, and so one long weekend I drove over to TN, mom came with me, David had already moved out, so the place was empty.  We walked around and looked in the green house, the barn, the guest house, and even the fruit stand at the front road.  Then the house.  Honestly the house isn't the way we'd build it, if we started from scratch, but it's a good start and we'll no doubt make it our own.  A downstairs master suite is already in the plans.  I'd seen enough....I wanted it..but I didn't want to seem too eager in front of the realtor.  I took mass pictures and even walked around the property and house with my camera phone rolling to give Erin a tour.  After the realtor left, David had suggested we find the neighbor Carl and talk to him about the community.  Carl was a hoot, he was probably in his early 50s and lived in a cabin with no electricity at all.  Just running water, and he collected carts, like horse carts, he had a barn full of them.  I sat on his porch for 2 hours talking about the community, it's mennonite, and how tight everyone is.  He assured us we'd be tolerated and/or accepted as long as we didn't have wild parties or start a nudist colony.  When I got home and showed Erin all the pictures and video, we decided to make an offer.  Now I'd pay list price for it, that's how bad we wanted it, plus I honestly thought it was worth that and still be a good deal.  We made an offer, below list, and asked for closing too.  David, the owner, accepted right out of the gate.  AWESOME......now what.  Here's where God really shows himself.  Being a vet, I naturally wanted to use my VA loan, for 0% down.  But since this was a non-traditional house, the solar, and wood heat, VA was not an option.  No biggie, intrest rates are low anyway and NFCU even had a 2% down loan option.  I started paperwork with them, first question they asked, is it zoned residential?  Yeah I said, it's got a house on it.  But I decided to confirm with David.  To my dismay I learned it was in fact zoned Agricultural, better taxes.  So what does that mean, oh it means that NFCU or any other big bank with the great rates will not loan on it.  Plust the 27 acres was scaring them away.  I'd never thought that finding a lender would be difficult, I mean I get junkmail all the time asking me to refinance.  So we had this awesome place and no way to pay for it.  David had paid cash when he bought it.  I took a stab in the dark and googled farm loans.  Low and behold there are farm credit unions.  I called one and spoke to Nathan, and asked him, here's what we want to buy, here's what we have, is that something you could do for us.  I was ready to get down to business.  He calmly said, yes sir, that's what we do, loan on farms...SWEET, lender found.  But then he dropped the bomb on us.   It would be a traditional, 30yr, fixed, with 15% down.  15% down, we didn't have that kind of cash laying around.  Options...quick, what were our options....a signature loan for the down, NO that would be dumb, and dad would kill me if we did that, borrow from family, NO, didn't want to do that, we prayed and prayed about it.  God revealed and we moved some investments around and cashed out a few things and were able to pull together the down payment.  SWEET now we're cooking with butter.  The only thing left that would sink us was the appraisal, which it appraised fine.  We were off, the lender drew up the paperwork, and said oh, i'll need proof of insurance on it before we close.  No sweat, I call USAA to get a policy.  Screeching brakes...what do you mean you don't insure vacant homes. (we won't move in full time till June 2013).  Too much risk they said.  I called State Farm or Farmers, can't remember, they did insure vacant homes, but it was like $2700 a year.....wowsa...that's a tough sell.  Then he told me that if it was a second or vacation home, and we occupied it occasionally, it would drop the rate.  DEFINE occupied...I said.  It just has to be livable and someone has to visit it once a month.  DEFINE livable...I said.  You have to have running water and power turned on.  And you have to be able to stay there on vacation.  DONE...write it up.  So next week we are heading out the farm for a 4 day vacation, dropping some furniture and dishes out there to satisfy that part, flipping the switch on the solar, and opening the spring valve for our water.  Livable....

   Oh and this will be the first time Erin and the kids see it in person.  So to make a long story even longer, God moved so many mountains during this whole process (the VA, lender, insurance, etc) we have no doubt it's where He want's us.  

View from my front porch.

We've also been able to kindle this relationship with David, the previous owner, that I'm sure will help out tremendously our first few years.  Oh speaking of God's timing..listen to this.  After everything was moving along and closing was in sight, David emailed me and said that one of the neighbors, Eric, had asked him if he would ask me if we minded if he could keep a small herd of goats on our hill side to graze until we moved up there.  Now, no kidding, not a day earlier, I was thinking once we closed, I was going to contact Carl, the other neighbor and see if he knew anyone that wouldn't mind putting some goats or sheep on the property to keep the weeds down...isn't that unreal....

We're all super stoked, and most of our friends seem just as excited, some even more, than us.  We are officially Farm Owners...soon to be Farmers....

More to follow.

Casey