boosters + rotary telephone + adirondack chairs + dolly parton

Kids, you kinda get a barrage of posts from me instead of neatly sprinkled mind farts throughout the month because I tend to fixate on ideas that then lead to other ideas, and then it all spills forth via the interwebs and you are forced to digest my BS in large doses.

Anyway, Jay asked me a couple weeks ago or so regarding our upcoming trip, "So, what are we gonna do out at the holler this time?" Which, of course, prompted me to compile the Last Trip Before We Move list of things we might want to do while the holler is still our vacation getaway and not yet the survivalist paradise that we are planning.

Numero Uno in terms of priority is to get our Wilson Electronics DB Pro signal booster set up. We previously bought the Wilson SignalBoost DT repeater kit and hauled it out with us on our last trip in November/December, and while it definitely worked to boost the signal on my phone (I'm normally able to text from the front porch but have to walk toward the barn to make a call - the booster gave me 2 to 4 bars of 3G inside the cabin), it did absolutely nothing for Jay's phone, which makes no sense because our phones are identical and we both have Verizon service. Jay would get bars but no 3G or 1X icon. This made him very angry, especially when I would flaunt my texting capability (and then when I actually got a phone call from my Ma on the front porch, which is when he just about threw his phone in the creek).

MUST HAVE CONNECTION TO OUTSIDE WORLD.
[ amazon link ]

I was told by the sales rep that sold us the previous kit that we really needed something stronger, so we returned it and are gonna give this new kit a try. We're hoping to use our phones as Wi-Fi hot spots for internet access from our laptop and desktop in addition to phone service. If it still doesn't work, we'll return it and have to resort to satellite internet, which I've heard sucks in a major way. I think having a landline phone again would be kinda fun because I would get a sick old rotary model like this one:

I have character but take forever to dial.
[ etsy link ] 

Alas, we'd rather have internet access than a bitchin' landline phone, so fingers crossed that this booster finally works.

The other item we have ordered through lovely Amazon and its fabulous free super saver shipping is the push reel mower. Even if it doesn't work well on the grownup grass, I think it will get a lot of use once we get it tamed. Which brings me to the next item: securing a mowing service so that things stay neat and tidy until we move out there.

We plan to bring several checked bags again (up to three free with first-class service) chock full of miscellaneous crap we don't really need right now but can't bear to part with. Like my clothesline, some decorative throw pillows, and my halogen landscape lighting. Don't laugh. I already yanked the latter up this past weekend and hosed it off and plan to package it up somehow this weekend (because we leave on Tuesday, woot woot!).

I'm going to experiment a bit with rearranging furniture, like maybe floating the sofa in the middle of the living room and using the cheap-o plastic dressers we got from Devil-Mart as a headboard of sorts and positioning the queen bed in the middle of our bedroom. I don't know why I always want my furniture to be floating - maybe it's partially due to the awkward layout of the cabin. I have furniture arrangement issues.

I want to build a simple a-frame level and mark the contours of the finish-mowed area so that I can get a better idea of where swales and terracing will need to be used for the future garden. As I plot them them out, I thought of using the reel mower to mark the contours instead of flags or inverted spray paint because the biodegradable stuff is really expensive and I can only find it online.

I'd like to tidy up the porches on the cabins and stow some of that stuff in the barn for now. Speaking of which, I think it would be fun to do some organizing in the barn, but I don't think Jay considers that kind of stuff fun or vacation-worthy, so that may need to wait.

Those resin adirondack chairs that were impossible to find on our last trip are finally back in season at Home Depot and Lowes so I plan to get two pairs of those - an orange pair for the big cabin and a red pair for the small cabin. 

A few local attractions we might be interested in are Elrod Falls, Bays Mountain and its fire tower lookout, Lawson Falls, Wake Forest Falls, and Natural Tunnel State Park. And.... DOLLYWOOD! I love Dolly Parton, and the guy that leases the hunting land above ours called the other day to find out when we'll be in town and to tell us that he scored us some free passes, woo hoo! So we hope to hit that up on the Monday of our trip.

I've bookmarked some restaurants that we'd like to try, mainly based off reviews on Yelp, a few of which include:

• Amis Mill Eatery in Rogersville
• Harvest Table Restaurant in Meadowview (VA)
• Scratch Brick Oven in Johnson City
• Ridgewood Barbeque in Bluff City
• Purple Cow in Kingsport
• Cafe Jubilee in Rogersville
• Rain Restaurant in Abingdon (VA)
• Cootie Brown's in Johnson City

Of course, this week seems to be crawling by at a snail's pace, and Tuesday can't get here any faster.

~ Mitsy

deer antlers and spiders

Folks, my time is short today, but I wanted to leave you with just a few reminders of the holler:

Not that I can talk, but methinks someone had low expectations.

You just stay on that holly bush there, buddy. Far, far away from my slumbering melon.

I'm not really afraid of spiders, and I recognize their valiant contribution to keeping the bug population in check, but I definitely steer clear of the big ones. I make Jay get the thick-legged ones that get stuck in the bathtub, and even he is sometimes a bit creeped out.

Speaking of creepy crawlies, I awoke at some God-awful hour of the morning recently to what I'm pretty sure was a spider dropping from the ceiling onto my cheek. It was a relatively heavy thunk, so I think it was big.

< SHUDDER >

Carry on.

~ Mitsy

listhings and another map

As you may have guessed from my other OCD leanings, I am a compulsive note taker at heart and have used myriad apps and software to feed my need for electronic note taking.

I hate my handwriting with a passion and feel much more at ease on a keyboard than with even the finest pen in my hand, although my favorite writing instrument of all time is the uni-ball Signo 0.7 in black (which, much to my dismay, is only available in Japan; the Signo 207 is the closest model available in the U.S. and inferior in every way - the Pilot G-2 07 is an acceptable substitute, and I enjoy using it, but it will never meet the standards set forth by my favorite Japanese pen).

I think I hate hand writing so much because my thoughts spill out at such a rapid pace that the mechanics of my hand simply cannot keep up, and so I get frustrated and my writing gets sloppy and illegible. I also do not have good control over my cursive and cannot write fast to begin with, so my Ns end up looking like Ms, the curvature of my S is limp, I always have one two many dots over my lowercase Is, and I end up skipping letters altogether by mistake. It's just ugly. I much prefer writing in uppercase, but then it looks like I'm yelling when I'm really not.

I used to keep an extensive SlickTasks database on my Blackberry, but then we switched to Android phones, and I discovered that ST was not available (I might have actually stayed with RIM had I known that - fortunately, they just came out with an iPhone app and are soon to release an Android app, yesssssssssss).

I used to use Google Notebook religiously, but then they decided to discontinue support for it. Bad Google.

I tried all the mainstream online note taking sites, like EverNote, Springpad, and UberNote, but they were all way too complex for what I wanted. I finally found listhings.com, and although there are a few changes I would not mind seeing (like bulleted text, auto dates, etc), it pretty much works perfectly for me right now. It's post-it note chaos, folks, and I love it! (There are other post-it type note taking sites out there, but I think listhings is the most visually appealing.)

Anyway, anytime I think of something that I might want to remember later or just want to document for all eternity, I note it at listhings. You can create multiple tabs within your database for organizing, and, oh yes, I have many a tab that relates to homestead life. We're looking forward to exploring our new area, so I decided to notate how far away some major attractions/cities are:

Destination  Hours/minutes
Gatlinburg TN  2:10
Asheville NC  2:30
Chattanooga TN  3:30
Lexington KY  3:30
Charleston WV  4:00
Nashville TN  4:30
Atlanta GA  5:10
Charleston SC  6:45
Myrtle Beach SC  7:35
Memphis TN  8:00
Jacksonville NC  8:00
Sandusky OH  8:30
Pensacola FL  10:00
New Orleans LA  11:30
Syracuse NY  12:45
Port O'Connor TX 19:30
California  way the fuck out there

[ larger version here ]

• Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge is supposed to be fun, although the first thing I think of is Dolly Parton's big rack.
• Asheville is a hubbub of arts and music (and hippies probably).
• Chattanooga apparently has some fun attractions like caves and an aquarium.
• Lexington is the closest big city to us in Kentucky, and Nashville is music central in middle Tennessee (apparently, people think East, Middle, and West Tennessee should be separate states - like NorCal and SoCal - we definitely understand).
• Atlanta is, well, that's where the nearest IKEA is, and yes, I know I have a problem.
• Charleston is the closest ocean beach, and Memphis is Elvis, of course (not that I'm really an Elvis fan, but I'd like to see all three regions of Tennessee).
• I'm not sure why I listed Jacksonville, NC - maybe because I fear I will miss the ocean a lot so it's another water access point (not that we ever go to the beach anyway).
• Sandusky, OH is the shortest distance to the great lakes, Lake Erie to be exact.
• I've always wanted to see Pensacola and New Orleans.
• My bro-in-law and nephew live in upstate NY, although the BiL recently moved back to the West Coast.
• My parents are retired on the Gulf Coast, and Jay's parents are in Cali, although they are looking at real estate in the Tri-Cities in order to stretch their retirement dollar farther.

So yea, we have a lot of sight-seeing to do, although I don't know how much time we'll have to devote to travel with all the farm projects we have in mind. More than anything, we want to explore Appalachia and are really excited about discovering local parks and natural attractions. More on that later.

bye for now, pussycats,
Mitsy

whoa

This was like the calm before the storm. You should be enjoying the silence (aka, lack of posts) because you will be overwhelmed with pics from our trip the holler this past week.

It was awesome, people. We got 20-degree lows, 65-degree highs, lots of sun, a fair amount of rain, and even some snow - a real taste of late Fall, I'm telling ya. We got to see how our property drains during heavy rains, that our roof doesn't leak, and that our wood-burning stove works REALLY well. Almost too well. Pretty sure we got the cabin up to 100 degrees inside by mistake. Whoops.

So be prepared for mass picture overload commencing manana!

somewhere to park my ass and melon

With all the money we saved by using our miles to buy our tickets back to the holler, we'd like to get a few basic furniture items for the cabin. Thanks to the eagle eyes of my BiL, we were able to find some bar stools for the kitchen island last time, and we almost bought a small love seat, but funds were already tight at that point, and we didn't want to spend anymore money than necessary.

Poorly done www.floorplanner.com 3-D layout of the big cabin.

The layout of the main room in the cabin (living room/kitchen combo) is kinda awkward in that there's only really one place to put a sofa or seating, which is up against the wall between the two bedroom doors. It might be possible to float a sofa in the middle of the living room, but regardless, we need something pretty short. I saw this sofa in person at Target the other day and it's quite petite and it folds down click-clack style into a guest bed.

Target's Thompson sofa bed in Mocha.

I can't believe I found a mid-century-ish sofa bed at Target for $200! I'm sure it's cheap as all hell, but as long as I can fit it in the Grand Cherokee, I'm totally stoked on it. (Target does have free shipping, but it requires a delivery appointment be set, and I don't know if we will be able to do that with our limited cell service out at the holler.)

We slept on the shittiest air mattress in the universe last time and would like to not repeat that experience. Also, I've been dying to try out one of those memory foam mattress and platform bed combinations, so here's what I think I've decided on (yes, I realize I'm saying "I" instead of "we" but Jay just really doesn't care about this stuff):

I better get some lucid dreams like this mattress promises.

For $249 and free shipping, I don't see how you could go wrong with it. The smell is supposed to be a bit strong for the first few nights, but it has the best reviews, and I'm sure the consumption of many cocktails will help alleviate any issue we have with plasticky smells.

Of course, you gotta have something to put the memory foam mattress on - a regular bed frame won't work since there's no box spring.

This is about as basic as it gets.
Because this is the holler and we're not fancy like that.

Good (non-squeaky) reviews and $135.99 with free shipping.

My only concern is that although we have an address, we have no mailbox, but I don't think that really makes any difference to the shipping companies. I guess we'll find out. I will sleep on the floor before I get onto that air mattress again.

Less than $600 for what looks like will be a pretty dang comfortable bed and a decent place to sit and relax while imbibing and/or possibly playing Mad Gab.

the beginning...

The purpose of this blog is to document for all eternity the adventure that my husband (Jay) and I (Mitsy) have embarked on in the form of buying a rural homestead and turning our dreams of self-sufficiency into reality.

Our we-wanna-be-homesteaders aspirations began some time ago.
I built that chicken coop myself. Clyde Dog was not much help.

We searched for and investigated property in many shapes and forms for several years and finally closed on our little homestead in the Ridge and Valley Region of rural Appalachia on July 20, 2011. Our requirements seemed simple enough, but finding the perfect piece of dirt proved to be quite challenging.

Number one was that it had to be in the mountains - any mountains really. We both grew up in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California, and finding another beautiful mountainous area was imperative. We be mountain folk to the core, ya'll. We had already lived in Central Oregon for some time and were not interested in the Pacific Northwest - too cold and wet and we had already been there, done that. Southern California was out because, well, Southern California totally sucks. We wanted to get out of state anyway. The Southwest was appealing, but it's hard to find property that is ON a mountain, not just next to one. And as much as I love the desert, creating the infrastructure to become self-sufficient in such an arid climate seemed a bit daunting. We looked at NW Arkansas and Southern Missouri, and while very pretty, just couldn't find anything we liked there, and the mountains were rather piddly in size anyway. New Hampshire/Vermont/Maine had beautiful mountains and the coast to boot, but it's really fucking cold there, and I just don't know that I'd survive very long blanketed in snow for six months of the year.

My search focused on East Tennessee, SW Virginia, and SE Kentucky. We wanted at least 20 acres, total privacy, a reliable water source, full sun year-round, plenty of mountainside and woods, and within reasonable driving distance of basic shopping. It needed some sort of habitable structure, but it didn't need to be fancy. We almost bought a turn-of-the-century farmhouse in SE Tennessee, but the transaction was fraught with red flags, and needless to say, we're really glad it didn't materialize.

Finally I came across a listing in NE Tennessee that included wintertime images of the property, which I considered a bonus because it's easy to fall in love with land at the peak of summer when everything is lush and green, blooming, and full of life. I want to know whether I will thrive somewhere when the garden is a dead, frozen mass, my fingers almost fall off feeding animals when it's butt-fuck cold out, and I'm wearing a thousand layers of thermals because I'm really a cold-blooded lizard and unable to function until I warm up.

The property spanned a south-facing hollow (or box canyon) all the way to the top of the mountain. It was at the end of a county maintained road and had a rustic but solid 2/1 built in 1999 and an even more rustic 1/1 that was built in 2006. Bonus for the in-laws and any visitors that trudge out to see us!

Cold but sunny. Totally workable.

60 acres? Yes, please.

A guest cabin so people don't have to
wake up to our ugly mugs when visiting.

Definitely needs color. But solid and secure.
And it has reliable heat. And the roof doesn't leak.
And, and...

I showed the listing to Jay on May 17, 2011, and we booked his flight to see it the next day. (Okay, slight exaggeration, but you get my drift. We were excited!)

I won't bore you with the transaction details, but after getting a survey and jumping through many hoops, we were finally able to get our loan and closed on it the day I flew out to finally visit it with my MiL. Jay and I finally got to see it together for the first time at the end of September.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh.

My BiL came out to enjoy the scenery with us, as did my parental units. They totally get it. Family compound? Maybe not, but we'll keep that idea on the back burner.

So for now, the hollow (aka, "the holler") is our refuge and we remain in California until we can figure out what to do with our current house. Although the idea of just packing up and moving away without taking any responsibility for our current mortgage holds some appeal, we both know this is not practical (or ethical for that matter), and fulfilling our mountainsteading (yea, you heard that term here first, people) dreams will take some planning. And we have to figure out what to do for income in the poorest and second least-populated county in the state of Tennessee. Hey, that means minuscule property taxes and fewer social services I have to pay for, and I am A-OK with that. Onward!