greenjellysnakes

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Dreams can come true
P and I went with one of his workmates and his girlfriend to Manly on Saturday. I don't see what the big deal is! The ferry ride was nice, but of course when we went past the Opera House and the Bridge, even though we were sitting outside up the front, our view was blocked by swarms of snap-happy tourists. The beach was over-crowded, the fish and chips were terrible. The only good thing about the day was exploring the markets, which is always a favourite pasttime for me. I picked up some soap (green clay scented with geranium) from Fluff & Bubbles. It was my only purchase, but that's because I was restraining myself! Anyway, we had fun, but it wasn't as spectacular as I thought it would be.

So, I have a faint glimmer of hope that my dream to live on a property (farm) may actually come true very soon. It is a very faint glimmer at the moment, but I am excited nonetheless. Neither P or I really want to move to the real country to buy land. I wouldn't mind, but I don't want to be learning how to run a farm and planting a church at the same time. So, the next option is land close to home, which is very expensive, and I wouldn't feel right paying the sort of money we'd have to pay to get a decent patch. I asked P about the possibility of maybe buying some land with three other families, so it would reduce the price, and he agreed he would then be interested. I already have two other interested parties, and the perfect piece of land. Of course, it might not actually be "perfect", I am, after all, judging just from the real estate ad.

But, I have been thinking about what we need to do over the next few weeks and months if we were to make this reality, and the list is somewhat daunting:
01) Find at least one more interested family/investor
02) Inspect the land
03) Find out if council would let us build four houses instead of one
04) Have a meeting with all four families to plan and float ideas
05) Discuss the possibility of making this "community" land (more about that later)
06) Get our house ready for sale which involves, at the least, painting, but would also love to redo the bathroom and a few other things
07) Put our house on the market
08) Purchase the land
09) Figure out temporary living areas for all the families until houses could be built
10) Look into "green" housing

I'm sure the list should be much bigger than that, but that list is scary enough. Having said that, I am trying to get some ideas on paper to show to the other people who are interested, and see what they think. From the feedback I have had, they are thinking just purchase the land together and divide it into four equal lots, then each family can do their own thing. My idea was a little different, and I'm not sure how well it would be received. I would really love to see us become a little community, all sharing all the land. Yes, there would be four separate houses, and each family would own and be responsible for their own dwelling. But I was thinking, rather than all of us do exactly the same things on our smaller lots of land (eg. fruit, veges, animals etc), we could all work together on the one larger lot. I know that this would be a difficult thing to do - it is hard enough for everyone in one family to get along sometimes, let alone four. But I really believe that it would be a more efficient use of the land, as well as everybody's time and money.

I like to dream big, and it really excites me to think this may actually happen one day. Of course I realise it may not too, so I am not getting my hopes up too high, yet. I have my own list of how I would like to use the land, whether it be a smaller lot just for our family, or suggestions for the whole acreage. But that is a discussion for another day. My brain has enough to think about for now.

One more thing. P and I are trying an experiment this week - living without TV! I think it will probably be like switching to vegetarian - you don't miss it if you don't know what you're missing. Until eventually you prefer the new way anyway. Well, that is my hope. For now I made a sign to put on the TV to remind us not to switch it on.

Feb-07-2005 @ 8:29 AM