Month: March 2017

Why oh why?

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We are a mid aged husband and wife who found ourselves being pretty “comfortable” and even happy with our lives, so why change? We both have this drive to be more than ourselves, to do bigger things than ourselves 16 x 32 shedand to have a positive impact on more than ourselves. On this blog you will find the chronicle of our attempt to do all of that and make a living in the process.

This blog was created for multiple purposes, to document our journey, to keep our friends and family up to date, but more than anything else, to INSPIRE!! Through our journey we hope to inspire you to find your dream and build it into reality! We live just once, what are you going to do with that opportunity?

So much to talk about

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Wow, I’m not even sure what to think anymore. It feels like we have been here so long . . . but then not long at all. Very confusing.

We had our first crack at burning away the vegetation today, firefighters on hand and all of that.

Fire fighting Harlingen

It was going pretty well initially, but then the wind kicked up and we weren’t really able to burn as much as we wanted (all of it). There ended up being a small brush fire down the street (not caused by us) and a truck had to come help them out. So while they were leaving that fire, they stopped by to ask if we wanted some help putting ours out. Yes, please.

Fire truck

Fire Fighters

The REAL good news is that we FINALLY got approved for our shed! I know, how hard to get a shed approved right? Well down here they have become very particular about such things. It seems there is a bit of a history of people just building “sheds” and then living in them. The weather is so nice here I could really see that being an issue, so they have really tightened up the permit process etc.

Shed starts

It’s very important for us to get the shed done because just about everything we have is in storage . . . a monthly bill with just a monthly RIO (ROI being a place to have our things) tied to it. Building the shed gives us something that as storage will have a full pay off in a little over three years . . .and we’ll get a whole lot more use out of it to boot! Also, it allows us to have our property on site and on shelves! Boxes are collapsing in the paid storage because of the humidity. We hope to be able to get out of the storage place in April.

I was just looking through pictures, have you guys seen this one yet?

Pirate ship

That was on the way back from South Parde – such a cool place to live!

 

Everything old is new again

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Ever hear the saying “everything old is new again?” well remember that big old tree that our guys took down right here?

Big Tree

Well, it seems as though it had different ideas. One of the guys jumped up on and it started to cut off the big branches….

Cutting off huge branches

And didn’t account for gravity. Once the large branches were gone, the tree took for for a bit of a ride. To right back to where it was before.

Tree back in it's hole

Hmm, right? Now we just have to figure out what we are going to do with the bees.

Seems that they have a number of kinds of bees down here. These little buggers aren’t the “Killer Bee” variety but they are pretty darn aggressive, and they aren’t honey bees. They look just like killer bees but won’t follow you to the ends of the earth in order to cause pain and death – just about 25 yards to do so.

We have this little thing around here. You just keep your ears open and be alert as you are working, listen for the word “bees” to be shouted out and be ready to take cover fast! So far I think we have found five hives on the property. One of which IS honey bees. I’m going to talk to ol’Ken next door and see if he would like them. Until then, we’ll see if we can’t stay clear of these buggers.

Bees on a tree

Moving fast, let’s see where this goes

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construction

When I was looking for an office in the area I just happened to walk into the office of a local developer. We started to talk about office space but once he started asking question about what kind of work, how did we end up here, etc, etc, he was pretty interested.

We spent about 45 minutes together with him showing some of the development they are working on, some really nice stuff. He was also very clear about the perils of just “running on down here, buying a piece of land and thinking things are going to work out”.

Then he asked about what we were working on . . . hmm, did I see a glimmer of interest?

He asked for more . . . definitely interested now.

He went and grabbed a large ipad with a map of Harlingen on it, “show me where you are doing this” he stated.

I pointed – he asked me to zoom in. I grabbed the ipad, zoomed in on the property and said “right here”.

He likes it! Alot!

He wrote me later that day and asked if we could come in today with our property layout, he’d be interested in helping wherever he could.

Interesting times indeed.