Getting started

This is my first post of the new blog on building out our Texas homestead.  I've never done a blog before and am a little nervous but a lot excited about what we're doing.  I've created this blog primarily to be able to chonicle the progress of our endeavours and share it with friends and family so they'll be able to see what's going on and perhaps offer comments, ideas and suggestions on how we're doing and what they think we should be doing.

Our guiding principals here are to create a self-sustaining property.  We don't plan on being "off the grid" but we would like to create ways of generating power through solar and wind to power the property and perhaps create a little extra back into the grid.  We also plan on having gardens sufficient to create our supply of vegetables and have a few animals (the current thought is chickens for eggs and meat and goats for the milk and meat).  We want to keep things at a minimum since there will be a lot of construction activities over a few years' period. 

Julie will hopefully be able to transfer within her company to a job in the area and I'll be full-time on the projects going forward.  The adjacent property is our daughter, her husband and children and her husband's family so that's a major motivation for being there.  We love the land, the area and (of course) the proximity to some of our family.  The other kids and their families are in Minneapolis and Bakersfield, so there's no way to be close to all of them at the same time and Julie purchased this property a couple of years ago when it was available with the intent of building "sometime in the future."

The future is now.  Here's what's going on over the next few months:

• We have contracted with a company to build a 40x100' steel building on a portion f the property.  We've also contracted with a firm to do the concrete slab both for the building and a large porch along the north end of the building and down both sides about 20'.  This will be 104' of 12' wide porch.
• Half of the building will be for our house.  2000 sq ft of living area plus over 1000 sq ft of porch.
• Last year, we had the local electric company bring in an underground service so we have power.
• We're talking with a couple of well drilling companies about the water well and should have that effort complete within a month.
• We have a plumber providing estimates to rough in the plumbing that has to be in the slab before it is poured.
• A good friend from CA, now in TX, is an architect and we've given him our plans for the interior of the building so that he can refine those into a good plan going forward.
• We'll be arriving late June for a couple of weeks (along with our son from CA) to enclose the front portion of the house so that the overall building will be in "lock up" status.  We won't be able to build out the interior of the house at this stage as that's all the time and money we have available at this point.

Our daugther, her husband and family will keep an eye on things while we're not there and will be taking a lot of pictures of the process of the build so that we can post various pictures along the way.  I'll try to post a few pictures of the land and the area on which we're going to build so you can get a view of what the area looks like.  It's a sandy soil area with lots of oak trees - a few of them beautiful live oak trees.  The soil is basically an "inert media" without a large amount of nutrients, although areas that have been mulched in the past are lush, so the ground will grow anything if properly cared for.

I hope those of you reading this blog enjoy the information.  It's pretty sketchy right now, I know, but I will keep it updated and keep information and pictures as they become available.