Monday, December 31, 2012

Arrrrgh! Dogs!

Yesterday, I posted about natural stick railings and how attractive they are.  I mentioned that Pam noted that Ruby loves sticks, and she might look at the railings as her personal chew toy.

Well, yesterday's blog was sort of prophetic, only it wasn't Ruby, it was Olivia.  And it wasn't a stick, it was a piece of our parquet floor.  Yep.  She also chewed it up in our bed.


While Olivia was getting yelled at real good, Chevy came over to the head of the stairs to see what all the fuss was about.


So now you've met the dogs.  Ruby and Chevy the pit bulls, and Olivia the floor chewing German Shorthair Pointer.  I think they'll all love living in the woods in Bleecker where there's more sticks than you can... well... shake a stick at.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Natural Wood Railings and Ruby

I saw a photo of a natural wood railing posted on Facebook today by Wholesale Log Homes.  Although we don't intend to build a log home, they post many great ideas applicable to what we want our place to look like, like these...


I think that's absolutely beautiful.  They're made by a company called Mountain Laurel Handrail.

They're woven mountain laurel, but there's no reason I couldn't make my own railings using our own trees as a resource.  One downside of building railings using branches is that our dogs LOVE to chew up sticks, especially Ruby.

Meet Ruby.


Ruby might look at a rustic wood railing like a toybox.

If she can't find a stick, she'll play with what's handy.


No, I don't know why she thinks a five gallon bucket would make a good toy.  She's a dog.

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Tonight's Sunsets

We're presently living on a boat in Georgia's low country.  One thing we love about it here is the gorgeous sunsets.  We're going to miss these when we move to Bleecker.


And then just a few minutes later...


We're hoping to have a nice view in Bleecker.  We're having it logged now, and hopefully we'll have a nice view across the valley to the mountain.  We won't see any sunsets, but will see sunrises.

Friday, December 28, 2012

Game Changing Solar Technology?

I've been calculating our planned home's energy needs.  What I've come up with is a need for 50 245 watt solar panels.  That's a lot of panels, and a lot of real estate.  I remember reading about new technology last fall, but for the  life of me I couldn't remember the name of it.  Well, I found it.  It's V3Solar.

One problem with flat solar panels is that they're rarely optimally positioned unless you have an expensive tracking system.  The performance of photovoltaics also decreases with heat.  V3Solar has come up with an ingenious way around both of these problems, and are claiming their system yields an astounding 20 times more energy from the same number of cells.

Rather than me describing it, watch this video.  Prepare to be amazed.


If it's truly 20 times more efficient, that means that I'd need 20 times less panels.  I could get by with three of these.  They even have "trees" to mount these things on to take up less space.


Probably scare the crap out of the chickens, though.  And my neighbors in Bleecker would think aliens moved in.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

On again Off again. The Grid.

Blog Layout:

First, the layout.  This blog is pretty new.  I have another blog that documents our buying and fixing up an old boat and cruising down the east coast from Albany, New York to Brunswick, Georgia.  I'm very happy with that nautical looking layout, but it wouldn't work for an off-grid cabin in the woods.

So I've been tweaking the layout, moving things around so it doesn't look quite so cluttered, but at the same time it will be easy to find what you're looking for.  I also enlarged the size of the text because my old buddy Bob couldn't read it.  There's always reading glasses, Bob!

Off-grid versus On-grid:

In my research into off-grid solar energy, I'm getting a bit overwhelmed.  Not by the technology (although I figure I need 50 245 Watt panels, so there might be an issue here), but by the regulations and the bureaucracy.  I've learned that NYSERDA rebates require that you sell excess power to the grid, so there may go the off-grid thing, and we may wind up running power lines for a quarter of a mile and do grid-tie.  The utility company has to buy my power at full retail, and since I'd generate lots of electricity in the summer and not so much in the winter, that might be a good thing.  I wouldn't need the huge battery bank since the grid would be my storage.  Still, though, there's all those other charges buried in each utility bill to consider.

It's stuff like this that is telling me I might want to contract with someone well versed in solar.  Or maybe, more appropriately, in solar red tape.


Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Energy Efficient Appliances

I've been working on sizing our solar array.   Right now, I have it down to 52 245 watt panels if our furnace doesn't have a fan.  I need 20 more panels for that.

We use about 900 kilowatt hours a month on Drift Away.  I'm guessing close to 1,500 with a 1,000 square foot house.

Pam doesn't need a large refrigerator.  She says 10 cubic feet is fine, but she wants it frost free.  New refrigerators are much more energy efficient than they used to be, but still consume a lot of electricity.

So I'm now on a hunt for energy efficient appliances.  I know they must be out there somewhere.  I even posted on "Our Energy Independence Community".  If their forums are anything like the sailing forums I sometimes frequent, I should find some in depth answers there from people who have already researched this to death.

As I'm writing this, Bleecker New York is getting pasted by a snowstorm.  Between 12" and 18" is forecast.  With that much snow, tree branches come down taking power lines with them.  I'm more determined now than ever to keep our place off grid.

Oh, and now snow storms have names, by the way.   The Weather Channel decided so.  This one is named Euclid. That's not much fun.  I think they should name them after movie villains   Imagine getting hit by the Terminator Blizzard?  The Hannibal Lecter snow storm?  Now that would be memorable.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

It's Christmas, fer Pete's sake


I lived most of my life in upstate New York and enjoyed many white Christmases there. I now live on a boat in Georgia. It's forecast to be in the 70s on Christmas day. There is nothing white nor traditional about Christmas for me here.

One holiday tradition I have, though, is to think back on Christmases past that I spent with my family.  I particularly like the photo below.


It was 1959 at my great-grandma's house in Lansingburgh, NY. My grandfather is on the left, next to my great-grandmother, then my mom (she was only 30 and "expecting" with my sister), and my dad's uncle. My grandpa had his glass of beer as well as a cigarette. Behind him are Christmas cards taped around the doorway. A small copy of the Last Supper is on the wall on the right. A jar of my mom's canned pickles is on the table. I remember this day well, even though I was only nine years old.


They're all gone now, but I have many fine memories of Christmases past to remember them.  The laughter, the love, the food... the joy of being a family.

I hope today's Christmas will be a memorable one for you and your loved ones.  Merry Christmas to you, from everyone here on Drift Away.

Honestly, I'm looking forward to Christmas 2013 where I hope I'll be posting to this blog from Bleecker, NY... sitting in front of a roaring fire in the wood stove, snow falling outside... me complaining about the snow and cold..  a Norman Rockwell kind of utopia.

Yes.  I am a hopeless romantic.  I enjoy being a hopeless romantic.  I am the king of hopeless romantics. If there was a hopeless romantic flag, I would fly it proudly.  If you're a guy reading this, c'mon... admit it.  You know it's true.  You miss the ghosts of Christmases past.  There's nothing about Christmas memories that makes you less manly.  Go ahead.  Today is a perfect day.  Dig out your old photo album from 50 years ago and think about Christmases past.  The funny parts, the loving parts... it's Christmas, fer Pete's sake.  It's OK.

- Dave

Monday, December 24, 2012

Internet Access

Our building site in Bleecker, New York has no cable TV, no DSL, and no cell service available.  This is a problem for us.  We don't care too much about television, but we do care about internet access.  We're both internet junkies.  We blog, we Facebook, we post on message boards, and we research things like internet access in remote rural areas.

When I was in the computer business, satellite was a good option for rural areas.  Back then, download was via satellite and upload was via telephone lines, a decidedly inferior method for large files (I upload a lot of photographs to Flickr and other sites).

It looks like Hughesnet offers satellite internet service that is both download and upload.  I know this blog is new and only has a few followers, but do any of you have any experience with Hughesnet or any other satellite internet service provider?  Maybe a relative or friend?  I'm curious about the quality of the service and its speed.

We have a Verizon 4G hotspot on the boat that we like, but that gets zero bars in Bleecker.  A ham radio friend has a method of shooting an antenna high up into a tree, so we might try that to see if we can get a signal, but I'm not too hopeful.  The closest cell antenna is in Northville, 22 miles away, and there's a mountain between us and it.




Sunday, December 23, 2012

Sawmill

It's my understanding that I can get rough cut lumber for free, or next to free.  I'd use that for the siding because I like the way it looks, and I've thought about using it for flooring and interior paneling as well, only I'd need to cut off the wavy parts to square it up, probably with a big table saw.


I could also cut a few trees and make my own lumber if I had my own sawmill.  I wonder what they cost?

So I googled "sawmill".  Number one was a wikipedia definition of what a sawmill is.  Second was a data analytic tool of some kind..  Third was a gay campground in Florida, and then a bunch of ads related to sawmills.  But below that was sawmill-exchange.com, self described as North America’s largest source of used portable sawmills and commercial equipment for woodlot owners and sawmill operations.  Perfect!  I scanned down the list, not having a clue what I was looking at.  Except for the prices, that is.  They were running from $1,500 to over $10,000.

I found this company through a Craig's List ad- Hud-Son Power Equipment.  They have new band saws starting at $3,600.  For my limited use, it might be worthwhile, since I could sell it once I'm finished with it.  Something to think about.

Then I'd need planers and joiners, and a covered place to dry the wood.   Might be easier, and more efficient, to just buy the lumber I need.  No sense in overdoing this self sufficiency stuff.

It's 29 degrees here in Georgia at 4 AM.  It's 23 in Gloversville NY.  What the heck?  We traveled many hundreds of miles to save six degrees?  At this time next year, hopefully, I'll just toss another log into the wood stove and be nice and toasty rather than watching rivulets of condensation run down our single pane boat windows.

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Bleecker Statistics

Bleecker, New York is where Pamela and I will be putting down roots in 2013.

Bleecker was first settled around 1800.  It is an area of 59.5 square miles.

Population peaked in 1860 at 1,060 and it's been downhill ever since.  The 2000 census found 573 people.  According to the 2010 census, the population of Bleecker was then 510 people.  63 people moved on.

That's a population density of 8.57 people per square mile.  At this rate of decline, no one will live in Bleecker by the year 2095.  I would be 145 years old, so I don't suspect I'll be there, and so I won't care and won't be there to ruin the trend.

The entire town of Bleecker is located within the Adirondack Park, the largest park in the United States at almost 6 million acres.  It is made up of both publicly and privately owned land.  Many folks object to the restrictions imposed upon them by living inside "the blue line" but few would move anywhere else.  As for me, I like zoning restrictions.  It means that a waterslide park won't be built next to me.

I dislike waterslide parks.


Friday, December 21, 2012

What We Envision

So what do Pam and I envision for our little place on Bleecker Mountain in upstate New York's Adirondack Park?

This is the most fun part of a dream, the part where you envision a utopia, a place of perfect peace and harmony.  Yeah, I know.  It never usually works out that way, but there's always hope.

For the house, we both want something small.   We've been living on a boat for the past three years, a 46 foot trawler.  While that's a pretty good size as boats go, as living space, it's pretty tight.  Especially with three dogs.  Our main saloon measures 10 by 15, and that includes the galley.

While in Savannah, we went to Home Depot to buy paneling for the boat.  We passed by a row of storage sheds.  One of them had the doors open, a 10 by 20 two story with a gambrel roof.  We walked in, jaws dropped.  "We could live in this!"

It's funny how your perspectives can change.

The little house we intend to build will be small, but not quite that small.  Pam found one called "Granny's Cottage" in a borrowed book (thanks Kim!) titled Small Log Homes.  It's 1,064 square feet on the first floor, with one bedroom, one bathroom, and a pantry.  My grandma's farm house in West Charlton had a pantry, and they make perfect sense to me.  Lots of storage, and easy to get to everything.  There's a loft area on the second floor that can be a work area, or a bedroom for visitors.

Granny's Cottage was designed by Beaver Creek Log Homes in Oneida, who also sell log home kits.  I'm not sold on the energy efficiency of logs and plan to stick build.

Our main source of heat will be a wood stove.  I'll look for an old Vermont Castings Vigilant like the one I heated my house with in Saratoga Springs.  For backup, I'll install a propane furnace.  That will only be used for those times when we're away.  I'll set the thermostat on that to 50 degrees, just so the pipes won't freeze.

The place will be totally off the grid. Our main source of electricity will be solar, which will feed a bank of batteries.  I'll also add a D400 wind generator, and possibly a water turbine which will be powered by the small creek that runs in the spring and fall.  While we'll use mainly 110 volt appliances, which means we need an inverter, most of the lighting will be 12 volt LEDs.

The water will come from a well.  I'm going to look into a windmill to pump water into a storage tank in the basement of the house.  Our 400 gallons of water on the boat lasts us for almost a month, so a 400 gallon water tank should be plenty for the house as well.  I'll install a marine water pump and pressure tank to feed the water lines.

Hot water will be solar, augmented by propane.   Cooking stove will be propane as well.

Half the land is being cleared as I write this.  This spring, we'll plant several varieties of apple trees.  We also want bee hives for honey, chickens for eggs, a horse or two for riding, and perhaps milking goats.  I'll need to build a small barn and a chicken coop.

We want a large garden, which means either a rototiller or a plow horse.   We're leaning towards a plow horse which can also be used to drag logs out of our woodlot.

Dreaming is fun.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

The Logging Has Begun

Pam called her mom, who lives next door to our property on Bleecker Mountain.  She reports that the logging has begun.  I have really mixed feelings on this.  I love the woods and I don't like killing trees, but by the same token we need lots of open space for our house, out buildings, solar array, orchards, gardens, bee hives, and so on.  You can't have it all.

I know we're going to be facing a huge mess when we return in the spring.  We'll probably spend most of our free time for the first few months clearing brush and logging debris.  By free time, I'm referring to the down time between our mad rush to drill a well, install a septic system, build our solar array, dig a foundation, and build a house, all in the matter of a few short months.  What may slow us down considerably is waiting for the part time building inspector to do his job and approve each step in the process.  While we're waiting, let's clear some brush!

On the solar array planning project, I carefully estimated the electrical needs of our tiny house.   I estimated the power requirements of each appliance, calculated the irradiance at 43°12'6.96"N latitude the amount of sunshine we'll get on average), and found that I need 165 140 watt solar panels.  ~sigh~.  I guess (I hope!) there's a bug in there somewhere.  165 solar panels would power Microsoft, and would cost $23,000.  I must have moved a decimal point somewhere.

I found a website called wholesalesolar.com.  They have packages that include everything.  I clicked on the link "off grid solar" and then "small off gird AC solar cabin".  They claim I can get by with 4 245 watt panels for a mere $5,840 not including batteries.  Now we're talkin'!  Let's make it simple.

Still, I want to understand this stuff.  Back to the books tomorrow.

I wonder if the Unibomber started this way?  He was probably a normal guy until he got to this phase.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Studying Solar Energy

I'm pretty much a doofus when it comes to electricity.  I just don't get it, and take most of it on faith.  I don't understand why electrons don't leak out of the outlets and pile up on the floor.  Lack of expertise hasn't stopped me, of course.  I've tackled all kinds of electrical projects over the decades, both at my homes and now on our boat, Drift Away (http://www.trawlerdriftaway.blogspot.com/).

I want our Bleecker home to be completely off the grid.  First of all, I think it seems illogical to pay the power company to run power lines from the road to my house in order for me to buy electricity from them, at the lofty prices they charge for it, only to be at their mercy when power lines come down in storms.

Secondly, I don't want to have to rely on some big mega-corporation to power my home.  If there's a large power outage in the area, you can bet the little town of Bleecker will be the last to get it restored, and I'd be the last one since I'd be the last user on the line from Northville.

Third, this will probably be my last house, until I die.  That might be a few months, a few years, or a few couple a decade or two.  Why worry about power bills if my retirement funds run out and those punk ass congress people decide they can't afford to redeem the treasury bills that Social Security bought?

Fourth... it would be cool.

So solar it will be, perhaps augmented by a D400 wind generator like sailors here at the marina use.  I ordered a copy of the Solar Electricity Handbook, 2012 Edition by Michael Boxwell .  I cracked it open yesterday and arriving at the second chapter, I panicked.  It was full of formulas, like

CURRENT X RESISTANCE = VOLTS
I X R = V

Current is amps, and amps is represented by the letter "I"?  Why is that?  Why not "A"?

In high school, I learned that 

WATTS = AMPS X VOLTS
W = A X V, in my mind.

In this book, it's

VOLTS X CURRENT = POWER
V X I = P

I think that, once I figure this all out and get my solar array installed, I'm going to write a simple five page book about solar electricity intended for guys like me that don't give a hoot about the science behind it and just want it to work.  The chapters will go something like this...

1. Buy a bunch of solar panels.
2. Build a frame to mount them on, angling them more or less at the sun.
3. Connect the wires to the panels.
4. Connect the other end of the wires to a bunch of batteries.
5. Pop open a victory beer.
6. If you run out of electricity, add more solar panels and more batteries.
7. Pop open a victory beer.

If you're new to this blog and you haven't read my Drift Away blog, you will soon learn all about victory beers.

And now, back to this stupid book full of formulas where amps is represented by the letter "I" and watts by the letter "P".

- Dave

Monday, December 17, 2012

Making Progress Already

The ten acres of land that Pam and I bought in Bleecker was purchased some time back by Ed, a friend of my in-laws, who intended to move there.   Ed and Earl (my father-in-law) worked on putting in a long driveway (or short road, depending on how you look at it).  Ed later became ill, and besides dragging a mobile home in there and parking some construction equipment, nothing else was done.

Pam and I had to drive to New York from Georgia, where we presently live on our boat, for my daughter's wedding.  While there, we went to the Fulton County sheriff's office to get assigned a mailing and 911 address.  We then went to the county  highway department to arrange to have a guardrail cut so we could access the driveway.  We tied a bright green ribbon on the rail so they could find it.


Looking from the bend in the driveway to the road.


Looking from about where the house will go up to the bend in the driveway.

The land comes complete with a rusty dump truck and a broken bulldozer.

Most of those woods will be cut, all except for a couple of dozen that I marked with green ribbons.

Oh, while I think of it, see that fallen in old mobile home?  That's free for the taking.  I understand that there's some money to be made from the scrap metal in it, and that the undercarriage frame can be used to make utility and flatbed trailers.  The only condition is that you have to remove ALL of it.

- Dave


Sunday, December 16, 2012

What If You Have Two Dreams?

This is the first post on Bleecker Mountain Life.  It is also a post I made on my other blog, Drift Away, the trawler my wife, three dogs, and I cruised from Connecticut to Albany New York to Brunswick, Georgia.  I think it's a nice segway from the dream behind curtain number one to the dream behind curtain number two.

I present What If You Have Two Dreams.

Warning.  This is a long one, and profound.  I usually try not to be that serious on this blog, but this is a good one.  If you've come here while you have a few minutes to kill at work, you might want to come back later.  But if you have the time, this one might strike a nerve.

I've had the dream of cruising in a boat ever since I learned that small boats can cross oceans.  I was in my early 20s and had just started boating.  I first learned about it from reading magazines at my yacht club, and then from books borrowed from the local library.  I was awed by tales of brave men and women single handing their small vessels against the power of the sea, and intrigued by their descriptions of tropical islands with waving palms and white sandy beaches.  You can actually do that in a little boat?  And live to tell about it?  I started dreaming, and hoping that I too would one day be able to cast off dock lines and wander where the wind took me, without a care in the world.

I've never been too interested in crossing oceans, but I always thought I'd cruise in a sailboat one day, probably to the Caribbean.  As it turns out, our boat is a 46' trawler, and our islands turned into the ICW.  But the dream is the same, and I don't think I've missed out on anything.

We cruised, in a weird way.   We wintered in Connecticut, cruised south, stayed on the Chesapeake until  after New Year's, and summered in Georgia.  Yes, I know the way it's supposed to be done, but I've always marched to the beat of a different drummer.  Ask anyone who's known me for any length of time.  There's something wrong with me.

But listen, I've had a second dream, for many, many years.  It all began during the energy "crisis" during the 1970s.  Energy prices were soaring.  There were shortages, especially of gasoline.  There were odd-even days to refuel your automobile depending on your license plate number, and gas lines.  Remember gas lines?   And you could only buy up to ten gallons, no more.  Gasoline was suddenly a precious commodity.  Prices soared to $1 a gallon, but we felt lucky to get it at any price.

I was in my late twenties, with a family and a raised ranch house in Saratoga Springs New York.  It's only heat source was electricity, which was very expensive.  What if those prices became unaffordable?  Or what if electricity was rationed like gasoline?  What would I do?

Being a sort of impulsive person, I dove into research of alternative energy, and long story short, bought a Vermont Castings Vigilant Wood stove and installed it, along with a Metalbestos chimney.  I loved that stove.  It provided wonderful heat, and the fuel could be found by walking in the woods behind my house.  Later, we had a 20 acre woodlot where we could harvest our winter's fuel.  Utility companies could kiss my ass, and it felt good.

We started a weekly "Energy Conservation Night" at our house.  We turned off the lights, the TV, and the stereo.   No computers, no games.  For light, we used candles, kerosene lamps, and the fire from the wood stove.  My daughter, Becky, who was maybe six or seven, was very dismayed.  No TV?  Well, her mom and I got out a board game, I don't remember which one.  We played it, sitting on the floor in front of the warmth of the fire, illuminated by the soft glow of candles and oil lamps.  We talked, we laughed.  We had fun.  We loved it.  She loved it.  We all looked forward to it.  Before long, her friends asked if they could come to our house for energy conservation night.  It was a hit.  Half the neighborhood kids were at our house, interacting like kids did a century before.  It was a hoot.

A few years later, I returned to college as an adult student.  I took an earth science course, with the professor focusing on environmental issues.  Half our grade was a final paper.  I chose to name mine "A Self Sufficient Homestead", using what I learned about alternative energy as a basis.

It was an involved project.  I won't go into detail here, but it involved Clivis Multrum composting toilets, solar hot water heating, passive solar heat, and energy efficiency.  I even wrote a computer program that calculated the solar gain of things like southern orientation (including latitude), the R value of insulation, moving and sizing windows, etc.  The paper got me an A+.  It also planted another seed.  Another dream.

I always thought it would be wonderful to actually be able to implement some of those ideas in an actual house.  Live like people used to, harvesting the land, living free from ties to big oil and international corporations.  Now, I have my chance.

My wife, Pamela, and I bought ten acres of land in Bleecker, New York, in the Adirondack Park.  If nothing else, I think land is a good investment.  They're not making it anymore.

The Adirondack Park is the largest protected park in the United States, roughly the size of Vermont.  It is a combination of state owned and privately owned (and regulated) land.   It was officially protected in 1894 by New York's Constitution and declared forever wild.

Our little ten acres, out of the park's six million, is all woods, with a road built from a ramshackle trailer that was hauled in there by the previous owner out to the road, which was blocked off by the county highway's guard rail.  It was logged a couple of years ago, and the really valuable timber was gone.

Pam and I, and the dogs, drove from Georgia to New York for my daughter's wedding in Vermont last week.  While up there, we went to the Sheriff's 911 coordinator to get a mailing (and 911) address, and then to the county highway department to arrange to get the guard rail cut so we could access the road.  We called a logger, met with him, and arranged to have half of the ten acres cleared.

On the two day ride back to Georgia, we talked about going back north in the spring and what lies before us.  We'll be busy contracting with a bulldozer guy to come in and level and smooth everything off, which will also get rid of logging debris.  We need to get a well drilled, which we'll contract out, and then build a small guest cottage, complete with outhouse until we install a septic system.   We want to be off the grid, so power will be by solar panels and a wind generator, using what I've learned over the years in boating.  The power to pump water from the well will be by wind to cisterns.

I know, you're thinking "Whoa, slow down there!  What about fixing up Drift Away?  What about finishing that?  You're so close!  You're only a few days away from the Bahamas!  Have you lost your mind?"

No.  Well, OK, maybe.  OK OK, yes we have.  Cruising has been my dream for 40 years, but it has only been Pam's for a handful.  Don't get me wrong, Pam loves the boat and our lifestyle, but she's also been a horse person her whole life.  On our trip north last week, we stopped at some kind of horse rodeo thing.  Pam's friend Kim (you'll be hearing a lot more about her) was in some kind of horse event where you ride into a herd of cows and cut specific ones out and send them off.  Yep, you get it.  I have no idea what they were doing, but Pam did.

So why not combine my dream of living in a small, self sufficient homestead in the woods with Pam's love of woods and horses?  And her love of family back in the frozen tundra of upstate New York?

Call it mountain insanity if you will.  When Pam and I went to New York last summer, we instantly fell back in love with the Adirondacks and the forests.  When an opportunity came along to buy a piece of it, and just like with Drift Away, we snatched the gold ring.  Just like with Drift Away's dreams of cruising off without a care in the world (HA! Yeah right!), we have dreams of a small cabin in the woods, with a large garden, a few chickens, and a couple of horses to boot.

What of the boat?  We have a few months to consider that.  Do we keep her, or sell her?  We've invested a tidy sum making her a boat again, and we're at the point where everything works.  It's only cosmetics now.  Wouldn't we be nuts to sell?  Probably.

Next spring, we'll be busy cleaning up the mess that the loggers left behind, using the money we get from logging to buy a chipper and wood splitter.  If we're lucky, we'll get the small guest cottage done by winter.  We could then go back to Georgia after the holidays... or we could stay in Bleecker working on the property.

Should we sell the boat, and focus on Bleecker?  That's the heavy question weighing on us now.   Selling Drift Away and swallowing the anchor seemed unthinkable a few months ago, yet here we are, at yet another fork in the road of life.