Rain, shopping, RU, waiting and planning

I was wakened this morning about 1:30 a.m. by a clap of thunder that shook the apartment. It must have upset the two Dachshunds we have in the apartment because they were jumping against Mama’s side of the bed until she woke to scold them thirty or so minutes later. I am not sure when they settled down but I was not bothered by them through the rest of the morning.

I checked the rain gauge as I left this morning and it showed that we had gotten a little over an inch of rain through the night. We really needed it. Spotty showers are predicted for the remainder of the day but I think we have already gotten the bulk of the heavy rain for today. I told Mama yesterday that we need to start feeding a bale of hay per day to the two bovine we have left on the farm because there is very little for them to eat in the pasture. This rain will help.

Mama, Victoria and Peggy are headed to Denton today to do some shopping. I think Peggy has the trip pretty well planned out and Mama and Victoria are riding along to keep her company. Mama has a dress to return from the last time they went out shopping together and she is squeezing in a stop at Sam’s but she did not tell me if there were other planned stops; other than not being sure where they were going to eat lunch.

There is some constraint to the duration of the trip since we have RU this evening and Mama has to do the cooking for the meal we have following the meeting. We are doing spaghetti tonight so she may be planning on cooking everything this evening when we are with the children. I have not been told yet.

We have not heard back from the sellers on our offer on the property in Decatur. Mama and I are wrestling with the options of building and the finances associated with that project. I am not really enthusiastic about financing the entire cost by borrowing the amount we need – which we are certainly able to do provide the banker we talk to shares our vision of a building metal shop/home; many do not.

The other option is to do as much as possible with the cash we will have and pay as we go to complete the project. That is perhaps a three year run – very much like we would have had at the farm. Mama is less enthusiastic about that route. So the choices are twenty years of measurable debt to complete the project in one year versus three to five years to complete the project with very little additional debt.

I am guessing that the answer lies somewhere in-between but I have not spent enough time in prayer to discover it. Mama and I will know more as we move slowly forward and we will work out any differences between our separate aspirations as we discover them.

We will work it our; we always do.

 

Paperwork, training

All the paperwork should be submitted today for our offer on the property in Decatur. Mama is ecstatic about the idea of building on that piece of ground – as is everyone at church. Even Grandma and Grandpa are excited about the idea. I will be more so when I get a set of working prints and a budget set. When all the work begins we will see how long the enthusiasm lasts.

Case in point, Mama and Victoria packed six boxes yesterday – maybe it was only four. For any of you who have packed for a move in recent memory you can understand my underwhelmed response to the packing effort. We probably have only about three hundred or so boxes left to fill and a lot of things that need to be discarded. Then we have to find a place to put our packed boxes while we finish packing and a place to move them to when we have to vacate the farm. No big deal.

Yesterday I gave the title company that will be handling our closing the contact information on the loans we have concerning the Van Bebber property. That closing should take place on the 5^th of September. We are a little concerned about the timing since we leave for Juneau the following Friday. It will all work out at some point and neither we nor the buyer are really concerned about the closing moving a day here or there.

Speaking of the property, on Tuesday evening Mama showed me some insect bites she had suddenly show up. We were debating the origin – since we have dogs that share our seating in the apartment and mobile home. About the same time we were reasoning through the possible sources or handling an infestation our realtor for the property in Decatur called to ask if we had gotten any chigger bites while we were looking at the property with her. She said she was covered in bites. At least we know now what we are dealing with.

Mama had me stop at Walmart on the way home from church to get something to help her kill the itch. I do not know if it worked or not but she was very happy to have anything that was formulated to help. She seems to be more bothered than Victoria and I. I do not know if I have as many bites as she does or if her bites actually itch more than mine do – but she is not a happy camper. She is constantly reminded of the property – as if she needs to be reminded and in such an unpleasant manner.

Yesterday I had CPR/First Aid training at the office. It was a good refresher. I miss being more involved in that type of work. The class was taught by one of our employees. I asked if she would be willing to give the class for Mama and Victoria in the future and she was excited about the prospect. I would love to sit through the class with Mama as a student.

The last classes we sat through together were the training classes we were required to take for the Foster to Adopt program in West Virginia. I do not have any vivid memories of those classes because we  simply endured them in order to complete the program, but CPR training with Mama would be fun.

I’ll have to see if I can set that up.           

Spreading the news

Mama had a ladies meeting at the church last night and since I was not feeling well and since I needed to get a drawing finished to send off to a designer, I took her to the meeting and worked in the office while she was there. She was only there about an hour and a half but I was able to get a good deal done on the sketch I was putting together for the designer. It was time well spent and I could not have gotten the same thing done at home.

The drawing is for a shop-home on the property we are making an offer on. Along with the drawing, I have put together a list of tasks and materials required to build the home. It was staggering to see the costs total up as I worked my way down the list. I had to set it aside several times in order to process the scope of the work involved – and the associated costs. We can certainly do it, but it will require a LOT of work and not a small amount of money.

I feel obligated to get it done now since Mama told all the ladies at the meeting that we are going to do it. Not really, but I did get several very happy remarks from ladies leaving the meeting as I was gathering up Mama and her things. “Congratulations! I’m so happy for you! I can’t wait to see it!” Me, too. I am not at all sure what they envision, but they were all happy about it.

I know we have turned a corner because Mama is more excited about the property we have bought and the dwelling we are planning on building than she is about the farm. In fact, she and Victoria are going to start packing. That is the first I have heard about moving since we listed the farm. As hard as it is to believe, that was only about eight weeks ago.

A survey will be done this week to determine just how much property we have outlined. We will then pay a price per acre for that amount of land. Mama wanted just a little bit more – as usual – but we are now both fine with whatever amount is included in the survey. It is largely based on the old fence lines and should be between fourteen and sixteen acres.

That will be enough for us for quite a long time.

Still looking

Last night Mama and I picked up Victoria at Walmart so we could all ride together to see a little house the two of them had shown me on Sunday evening. It is a foreclosure property. It is a small house sitting on one acre of land. The back of the property is marked by a creek which flows about thirty feet below the ground level of the back yard.

It reminded me of our home in New Jersey. It too was backed by a creek which ran through a gully about thirty feet lower that the ground in our back yard. This creek bed, though, is not nearly as accessible as the one we had on the 6 Gifford property. There is a steep drop off covered by dense vegetation. I would consider it impassible – a natural safe guard to the property. But then, I am too old to see it as a challenge to get to the creek.

Anyway, the house might not be for sale any longer. The HUD website listing the house showed it to be under contract as of last night. Our realtor will check this morning to confirm. Mama and Victoria were terribly disappointed but I get the impression that God is not through with us yet as concerns getting closer to church.

We also looked at a 15.8 acre property a little outside of town that we immediately fell in love with. We are making an offer on it today. The drawback is that it is vacant land. Mama and I will have to build a shop-home on the property. It is something we have always talked about doing and if this is where the Lord is leading us we will finally get to do just that.

Our rough plan is to live in the small house while we build the “barndominium” and once it is complete we will leave the house to Victoria. Since life is what happens while you are making plans, we will see how all that works out. With a couple weekends of work we should be ready to move the horses and our lone heifer to the new property. That is something we really needed.

As we walked on the property and talked with our realtor Mama was looking for ways to include just a little more property than the fences outlined but I asked her to allow the fence line to stand in order to keep me from having to completely redo that length of fence. As it is right now we will have to repair the fence running along the west side of the property – about 1500 feet in length. That will cost enough in time and materials. And what is being offered is more than enough.

We should know today if the offer we made is accepted. It is then only a matter of getting the paperwork signed and the money moved.

Then my work begins.

Updates, shift in direction

Mama and I had a good weekend. I spent the morning Saturday getting one of the front tires off of the tractor so I could take it to get it repaired. It has had a slow leak for some time and I have been putting it off. I thought it was leaking at the plug I put in to patch it about a month ago but the leak turned out to be coming from a patch we had put on over a year ago. The patch had come lose and if the tire sat in a certain way when the tractor was parked it would leak. Other times the pressure would hold for a week or more at a time.

Once repaired, I used the tractor to spread out the remainder of the load of gravel Mama and I had gotten a few weeks ago. I ordered a whole load but what I needed it most for was to spread at the front of the apartment to keep the big dogs from digging out the area. I used the remainder to resurface the circular drive around the apartment. I also spread some in front of the mobile home to get the pile fully moved. It looks pretty good to have some fresh gravel down.

Danny Benson, the man who is buying our farm, came by Saturday morning to meet with an insurance agent at the farm so he could have that to present at closing but the man never showed up. We talked a good while and Mama and I are reassured that he is the right person to buy the farm. If all goes well, the closing will be next Friday. It will be long after that that we vacate the farm. Our hope is to be moved by the middle of November.

It looks like we turned a corner this weekend in our quest for a place to live. Mama and Victoria are looking for lower priced houses and a separate piece of property. That has been a desire of mine for quite some time. She and Victoria looked at a house right off of the road we take when we come into Decatur for church. It is tucked back in the woods a little off the road so it not obvious from the road.

It is an older, smaller house on one acre. It needs work but the price is good. It is in far better shape than one we offered a bid on Friday. It too sits on one wooded acre. The situation of that house is not very impressive and that house has been completely gutted; ready to be remodeled. The only drawbacks are the master bedroom, which is upstairs (bad for Mama) and that there is very likely to be a bidding war to purchase the house. It was listed for $28000. We offered $30000 cash. That will be our only offer.

I do not know if Mama is going to rescind our bid on the house but I would not be surprised. Peggy called her bank on Friday evening while we were at our RU meeting to get us the cash out of her account so that we could offer a cash deal for the property. How’s that for friendship? She, Peggy, went with us to look over each of the two houses. It has been fun to have her along.

This evening we are going to look at the nicer house with our realtor. It is quite a shift in focus for her. But we are also going to look at a property she is listing. It is almost sixteen acres. It is near town – within a few minutes of the church. Mama is excited about the possibility of building a metal building that would contain our home and shop under one roof. I like that idea too.

Time will tell. We are praying for direction.

No go, Mama’s ear, farm update

Mama and I made an offer on the property on Hwy 730 and were countered by the sellers with a price that I had set as the cap of what I was willing to pay for the property. It would have been a go but the sellers started stating conditions that I was uncomfortable with. I got the distinct impression that we were in for a contentious battle to purchase the place from them – so I backed away. I do not have the emotional energy right now to contend with any meanness as I try to find me and Mama a place to grow old in together.

I am obviously disappointed in the fact that Mama and I have to continue the search when I thought it to be over, but more so in the sense that I felt God was in the purchase of this property and I missed something along the way. Who knows what we will learn from this. The bottom line is that it appears that we are back to square one. God is good!

Mama went to Denton to an ENT specialist yesterday so we could get a definitive diagnosis on her ear infection. Peggy went along for the ride – and it was a great help to Mama to have her along. The diagnosis is that she has a plugged up ear and it is infected. The doctor cleaned out the buildup of stuff in the ear as best he could and recommended keeping up the administration of the antibiotic drops she has been using. Other than that she should be fine in a few more days.

She did not get home until after 7 pm since she and Peggy had to go shopping and to dinner. They also stopped at Sam’s in Denton to get a few things. I had set a budget for the trip and she only exceeded it by a little bit but she did get everything we had listed – and then some.

We should be getting the check from the sale of our steers today or tomorrow and based on the market report I got yesterday we should do pretty well. We still have one steer at the farm - we are fattening him up to butcher. On the flip side, we also have Daisy May. Mama and I are hoping she is bred. While we fatten up the steer she reaps the blessing of getting extra grain also. I told Mama not to separate her from the steer because I am afraid she would tear down the fence to get to the sweet feed.

This weekend the man who is buying our farm is supposed to come by with his insurance agent and at some point the surveyor will be coming to confirm the boundaries of the property. I am most interested in the survey. For the moment I have been asked to do no more to the shop and I may have to remove the brackets and wood I have put on the tall part of the shop. The buyer has other plans.

I am not going to undo any of the work I have done for now. I am waiting on the closing to confirm new ownership; just on the off chance that there is a problem with the sale and we end up staying for longer than we are anticipating. I sincerely hope that does not happen but I want to be prepared just in case.

The closing is set for September 5^th. Two weeks from today.

Escapees, Mama’s poor babies

I took off yesterday so Mama and I could load the three steers we needed to get to market and deliver them to the stock sale in Wichita Falls.  Getting the fat things into the stock trailer proved a bigger challenge than I had anticipated.  I had positioned the trailer the night before so I would not have that added frustration the morning we needed to load.

What I did not realize was that as I was positioning the trailer the horses were wandering through the garden area to the open front yard. I had looked for them when I opened the drive-through gate into the calf lot but did not see them. I assumed they were in the pasture where we normally keep them. I did not even think to look at the garden.

When I realized they were out I called to them and walked over to the hog building where we keep their feed hoping to entice them to come back for a tasty snack. Jazz was not interested and Misty seemed confused by being on the opposite side of the fence. As soon as Jazz found the road he threw his head back, raised his tail and took off with wicked determination. I began to pray that they would not head toward the highway and to my great relief they turned up Paddack Road.

I found them two houses down but did not even try to get hold of them. I simply drove back to the farm and continued to pray for help. I had already called Mama who was coming home from delivering Jake to the airport. She, in turn, called Wes to see if he was still in Bowie. As I got up from praying I looked out and the horses were at the end of the road to the farm moving toward the highway.

As I called out to them Rosie started barking and the steers started bawling. I watched the horses raise their heads and turn their ears to the familiar sounds and start a very slow walk toward me. I hurried down the far fence of the front pastures and crossed over to come up behind them so I could steer them up the road.

Misty walked right into the calf lot and I closed the gate since Jazz was in no hurry to follow. As I stood and watched Jazz trying to decide if he wanted to go join Misty, Wes pulled up. He had hold of Jazz in a couple minutes and walked him into the lot where he needed to be. Wes explained to me that when a horse gets out they know they are being bad but are thrilled at the newfound freedom. Rarely do they go very far. They dislike unfamiliar things and places but they can be more disrespectful than an unruly child. I need to work with Jazz to get him to respect me. Then I will be able to handle him better.

Back to the steers; Mama knows the three by name though I have never seen the need to remember them, but one of the three loaded very quickly and we put him in the front of the stock trailer and closed him in. The other two were not so eager to get onboard. I think the most difficult one will be some time in recovering from the bruising I put on his flanks as I tried to convince him to keep moving forward in the chute. All in all, it took only about thirty minutes to get them onboard but I was a sweaty mess as we pulled the loaded trailer away from the loading ramp.

Unloading them was very easy. We were in and out at the sale barn in less than thirty minutes. The three were put in a pen with some Holstein steers roughly the same size; although ours were  a good deal taller. Mama called out to them and they turned and started bawling – “Take us home! We’ll be good!”

Mama was very sad for her babies, but that is why we raised them – so they would be good...meat.

Goodbyes, Running to Dallas, loading stock

Yesterday, somewhere in the mid-after, Jake realized that it would be the very last day he would get to spend on the farm in Bowie. I think he and Mama mourned the rest of the day. They even went to Dairy Queen to try to drown their sorrows in an Oreo-cheesecake blizzard. I think it helped some but the effect had worn off by the time I got home.

In the evening we went out and caught Jazz so Jake could ride for a bit. He ended up riding for the better part of an hour and most of that by himself. We did not let him go too far even though Jazz is about as gentle a horse as anyone could ever wish for. We kept the saddle and bridle on the horse until Victoria had a chance to ride and it was just after dark that we finally let Jazz go back to grazing.

By that time I had started the fire we were going to use for roasting marshmallows and for doing fireworks. Jake and I started the roman candles before Mama and Victoria were through messing with the horses and neither the horses nor the women reacted well to the light and explosions. Everything calmed down pretty quickly but it got a bit testy for a few minutes.

I did not get to bed until late and Mama was much later since Jake came over several times for little things. Mama was concerned she would have to sleep over at the trailer to keep him satisfied but I woke up beside her this morning so the two of them must have worked it out. Today they will pack him up and head for Dallas Love Field to send him home. I can only imagine the goodbyes he will have to say to the animals on the farm – five dogs, three pigs, twenty plus chickens and two horses. He had better start early.

Mama is going to meet me in Decatur on their way to Dallas so she and I can sign papers to make a formal offer on the house on Hwy 730 here in Decatur. It is an offer that may be quickly refused but I wanted to get that clear rejection before going further on any other property. We should know by tomorrow.

I think Peggy and Victoria are both going with Mama for the trip to the airport. Peggy has already suggested that they find a good place to shop while the traffic dies down since Jake’s flight is right at 5 pm. I am pretty sure they will beat the traffic there, but there will be no way to beat the “rush hour” traffic after they wait for the plane to pull out.

Meanwhile I hope to be getting the stock trailer positioned to load the three steers we are taking to sale tomorrow in Wichita Fall. We are going there because it is an easy trip from Bowie and the price we get on Holstein steers is about 30% higher than we can get here in Decatur.

When we have beef steers we will come to the closer market, but not for this run.

Road trip, zip line, spelunking

Mama, Jake and I have been on the road since Monday morning.  We traveled to Dumas on Monday and I started the visits I needed to make in this area on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Mama and Jake have been making the rounds between Dumas and Amarillo. On Tuesday they waited for me at the hotel and we went to Amarillo together so we could get together with Chase and Makaila. Our plan was to visit the caves in Palo Duro Canyon.

When we were driving to the park entrance we noticed a new company in one of the buildings right off of the road. It was advertising a zip line over the canyon. I turned around at the insistence of the passengers with me and we began talking to the man running the business about costs and schedules.

As it turned out the cost was not prohibitive and the next group was going to do the zip line run within the next twenty minutes – so we signed up Jake and Chase for the excursion. Mama, Makaila and I went along for the ride; for a nominal fee. There were three or four others in the party with us as we loaded onto an open, trolley-like, trailer pulled by a Jeer and we headed into the canyon. It was a short drive but it was enough to make Makaila close her eyes several times as we bumped and jostled out way to the launch point.

Mama and I were taken to the terminal end of the zip line and were able to video Chase and Jake as they flew down the zip line. I think it was the highlight of the trip for Jake; even though it took only thirty seconds or so to cover the 600 feet of space. After that we walked to the caves in the canyon and explored a little there as the sun set.

Jake and Chase were entering the caves as Mama and I rounded the bend that opened up to the cliff that contained the caves. They were not in very deep before they hurriedly retreated. Jake quickly explained that one of the walls of the cave ahead of them collapsed as they were going in. They took that as a sign that they should not go any further. I cannot wait until he shares that story several times back in New Jersey. I could be a really good tale by then.

On our way out of the canyon we stopped to get tickets to the play that is put on annually in the canyon – a young lady actually opened up the ticket office for us so we could get the tickets right then. The play is simply called, Texas. I got tickets for all of us to return on Thursday night. The only bad part is that the play starts at about 8:30 pm and runs about two and one half hours so we will not get back to the hotel in Dumas until well after 11 pm tomorrow night.

On Monday, as we began our trip over, Mama started to get an ear ache and it progressed to the point that she went to an Urgent Care yesterday. She was told she has “swimmer’s ear” and was prescribed an antibiotic for the infection.

Unfortunately she is not greatly improved yet.

Meeting Mama, house shopping

I got to meet Mama for lunch yesterday since she, Victoria and Jake were at Peggy’s. I could get used to that. When I got there Jake was already in the pool but Victoria was hesitating because the water was too cold for her. The ambient temperature was near 100®F but I did not touch the water to see what the temperature was like. All of us were getting eaten up by those tiny black mosquitos – especially Victoria. I think she finally got in the pool to escape the little blood suckers.

I met up with them again after work so we could begin our tour of homes. The realtor met us at a home Mama was very interested in – a “Texas-style” house in paradise. Once we got into the house we could not get the alarm to shut off. It turned out that the owners had forgotten that they had scheduled a showing for that afternoon.

It was a moot point since the house was very obviously not a suitable one for us. It was one of those projects that they overdid the areas of attention – the kitchen, the living room and fireplace – and left many other items poorly done – the window seals, the deck and steps, etc. We did not spend very long there. Within fifteen minutes or so we were heading to the next stop.

It, too, was a disappointment. Much like the first house of the day there was great expense put into the master bedroom and adjoining bath as well as the kitchen counters. Also, like the first house many other things had been neglected. Low ceilings (done so to accommodate the AC ductwork) and kitchen cabinets that hung solidly on very crooked walls were enough to shorten our visit there. The approach to the house was over a railroad track – which was built up quite high – and the house sat right off of the road. Two more points against it.

We took a break and went back to Decatur and got Victoria’s car and a bite to eat before meeting the realtor at the a-frame house. We spent over an hour at that property and I think if we were really anxious to buy we might have made an offer on the spot. The house was not perfect by any means but it was more than adequate. The owners/builders had taken their time to do most things very well.

The decks that attached to the house more than made up for any lack of entertaining room in the house. Although it was an a-frame construction it did not have the narrow, cramped feel typical of that style but seemed more open and spacious than I had expected. The shop was what I would have built; 40x40, insulated with fourteen foot walls and a 12x12 roll up door.

The property seemed to lay well but it was not clear what the boundaries were. I walked back to the back fence of the property but it was very overgrown. It appears to be a rectangle with a long edge on the road. That would be a good difference since most properties we have looked are narrow and deep. The realtor has asked for a copy of the survey and we will wait on that to finally evaluate our options. At least one of the three was a possibility.

Today is our anniversary; 32 years today. God is good!

Jake, marathon, formal contract, job front

Mama had quite the ordeal getting Jake yesterday. As is normal for her she planned her trip to the airport to arrive at the appointed time – which was a half hour before the plane was expected to land. Her plan did not include sufficient time for traffic problems and she had those aplenty. She ended up arriving to get Jake about a half hour late. Fortunately, the plane was not particularly early and Jake only had to wait about fifteen minutes for Mama.

Other than dealing with stopped traffic in two separate locations the trip went without incident. They got home just a little before I did. They had planned to drive by a house we looked at online on the way to the airport. That plan was abandoned when Mama realized she and Victoria had used more time at the farm in the morning than they should have. When I called that morning, Mama was getting in the shower - about the time they should have been leaving.

The three of them drove by the house on their way home and I drove by with the three of them on our way home from church last night. It was light enough to see what I needed. I really only wanted to get a feel for the distance to the house from Hwy 287. It was not bad but I am still hoping for something closer to Decatur – something north.

Regardless, we are going to meet the realtor this evening at a house in Paradise (south of Decatur) this afternoon. Mama has scheduled us for a marathon of viewings. We are scheduled to look at four houses this evening. The last one will be the one we drove by last night. None of the homes are in the area that I would prefer except the one in a short sale but we need to look in order to find the one we are willing to purchase.

Mama and I have signed papers for the sale of the farm. She will have to do some more signing when she and Victoria and Jake come to Decatur this afternoon for an afternoon at the pool at Peggy’s house. I realized when I reopened the email from our real estate agent that I had not scrolled down far enough to see the additional addendums sent in the correspondence with the contract. It is a small detail but a necessary one that we can easily take care of.

The amount of paperwork generated and required for the sale or purchase of a home is a little staggering. Mama and I have been through it enough to know what to expect but we are rapidly approaching the point that I will have to separate the selling paperwork from the buying paperwork. The projected closing date for the sale of the farm is set for the 5^th of September. We will see. It is incumbent on me and Mama not to move too quickly on offering to purchase until the buyer gets the financing set on his side of this transaction.

On the job front, my compadre at work who is the Training Coordinator for our asset told me yesterday in confidence that his job has been eliminated. He will have to report to a new position (within the same department) – in Houston. Here I thought I made a wise decision to keep my current job rather than take that one last year.

All along, God was guiding me to help me avoid the mess he is in right now; an unwanted job with an unwanted move.

Home? Maybe…

Mama and I met at the church yesterday evening since she was going on a church outing that night and we drove together to a house we had driven to before but had never taken the time to look inside. In fact, we had taken the house off of the list of prospects while we were considering buying Peggy’s house.  Mama had scheduled with the realtor to meet us there after I got off work. I suppose we were there for fifteen minutes or so before the realtor got there so we looked around once more.

The property had more to offer than we realized with some native grass and a very small watering hole. It would be too generous to call it a tank. It turned out that the property lines were not very obvious and no attempt had been made to identify them – which was curious. The realtor had to call and ask for the plat map so we could see where the lines were drawn. We have yet to view that map but I think we have a pretty good idea what the perimeter would look like.

Once inside we really liked the house. Someone had obviously taken their time in building the home. It was laid out with an unusual floor plan but offered a split bedroom set up with the master suite separated from the other two bedrooms. It was the way the builder had wired the house that caught my eye. Every room was wired for internet and cable. Every light switch was identified. The garage had two plugs for a welder or some other big user. It reminded me of the way Steve Whiddon was building his house in Victoria, TX.

Mama and I worked with the realtor to identify why the house had sat vacant for so long – and we got our answer through her patient probing of the listing agent. It was a short sale with a very difficult bank. The home had been foreclosed on by the bank and was now being sold for less than what was owed to the bank on the loan against the house. Those financial dealings take some extra work to finalize.

Mama and I also found out that there are already several offers submitted to the bank and that several prospective buyers had already backed out of the deals they were pursuing with the bank to purchase the house due to the delay in the bank’s response to their offer. We will probably go ahead and get the prequalification letter from our preferred lender and get our offer submitted by the end of this week, but there is not a great chance of us actually getting to buy the house.

 It is worth a try especially in light of the fact that we accepted a final offer on our farm – as we were driving away from the house. The projected date of closing the sale of the farm is September 8^th. That puts the onus on Mama and me to find a house and get the paperwork going to purchase it. We are being given ninety days rent free to move from the farm after closing – which puts us into the first week of December to be completely moved. As very generous as that offer is from our buyer, that will be a challenge!

God is working and I do not want to miss out.

Help, prospects

On the way to church Friday night our realtor called us to tell us we had a formal, written offer on the farm. He is a little surprised that we are already getting the offer but I have been expecting it. It was a good offer but Mama and I will counter the offer today in an effort to get closer to the listing price. It is a quid pro quo that is customary in buying as selling property. We should know the outcome in a day or two but the bottom line is that we are very close to actually selling the farm.

The offer comes from the man Mama talked with last week. The good part of selling the farm to him is that he is in no hurry to mover there. He told Mama we would be able to take all the time we needed. However, I asked our realtor to include in the counter offer that we need up to two months to move after closing. It is always better to have those things in writing.

I was up pretty early Saturday morning so I could get the porch structure rebuilt. I made a couple improvements to the frame as I extended it past the door toward the flower garden. I took most of the early morning to get that done and I was cutting the metal roofing I had bought for that purpose when Daniel Wycoff drove up. By the time Lee Davis got to the farm we were finished making the necessary cuts and began removing the damaged roofing from the apartment.

It took less than an hour to get all the damaged pieces off the roof and onto the ground. Once we started on the porch roof we got a system going and the three of us had the entire roof replaced in about four hours total. Mama had to help Daniel at one point to get the sixteen foot pieces up to me and Lee but she was only out there for about an hour. The repair is complete. Praise the Lord! One more task off my list.

It was perfect weather for the work. The temperature was below 90®F that afternoon and the wind was very light. It got a little hot for me and Lee up there on the reflective metal sheeting but we were only in the predicament for about an hour and a half. We both got a little sunburned on our faces from the reflected sunlight; nothing major. I slept very well Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.

Mama and I are scheduled to look at a house this afternoon. We have driven by the house and property several times but are not at all impressed by the eleven acres being sold with the house. It is rocky and pretty barren but the price they are selling the house and land for is pretty attractive to me. We will see today if the house will suffice for Mama; everything else I can deal with pretty effectively.

Peggy talked with Mama again last night at our churches ice cream and cake social. She asked Mama if a lower price would allow us to reconsider buying her house but even at the lower price it is still too big a stretch for us to make at this time. As much as I wish I could, I cannot take on that much debt, look thirty years out, and feel confident about the deal. That could change but it is not something I am earnestly praying about.

Tonight Mama and Victoria go with the ladies of the church to the Cheesecake Factory for an outing. Mama is really looking forward to that.

Return visitors, our Anniversary dinner

As Mama and I talked on the way home from church on Wednesday night I told her that if we were on the right track, in the house we were looking at and the consideration of taking on the Rita franchise then we could expect things to begin to happen pretty quickly. She questioned just what I meant by that and I explained that when we finally line up with God’s plan we generally find all the many pieces falling into place pretty rapidly; most of the time God is waiting on us to line up with His plan.

In light of that, Mama called me yesterday in the late morning to tell me our realtor had called her to let her know that the man who had come to our farm last week was coming back to look at the old farm house with a friend who is a contractor. Since neither realtor was present they were able to speak freely and Danny, the potential buyer, is very interested in our place.

He has some life considerations to deal with just like all of us do, but he is interested enough to continue to pray about buying the farm. I do not know if he will be the one to own our farm next, but he would be a good person for me and Mama to work with in the sale. He told Mama that he would not need us to move right away; we would have several months to get all our stull off the property. That would be a good thing.

Mama met me in Decatur yesterday afternoon so we could go out for our anniversary dinner. She had been informed that Texas de Brazil had a special going on and the normal cost of dinner was half price through the end of July.  So we left from the office to make the additional hour drive to Dallas for dinner.

I had called to make reservations and was informed that they were opening a half hour early to accommodate a larger than normal crowd – probably due to the special pricing that was ending that night. So we had reservations at 4:30. We got there in plenty of time and stayed there for over an hour. It was an unusual but fun dinner.

The salad bar was impressive and expansive. We could have eaten that and been satisfied but the whole draw of the restaurant is the fire roasted meats that are served by carvers who come to your table with the meat on a spear. They cut you off as much as you want to eat of the twenty or so varieties they have of beef, chicken, lamb, pork and sausages.

You let the servers know if you are interested in being served the meat by putting a token you are given on either the green side – yes I would like more – or the red side – no thank you, I’m full. You are not obligated to take anything they offer, and Mama refused most of the initial offerings to wait for the meat to be more thoroughly cooked, but it is fun to see what the y are serving as they come to your table. The leg of lamb was especially good.

One family sitting very close to us was entertaining a young man visiting them from Spain so the conversation switched back and forth from Spanish to English. It was delightful to hear them converse in the Spanish I had been taught. Of course, Mama and the matron of their table shared stories during the dinner.

After a small dessert we go the check and it did not reflect the half price special so Mama asked and a coupon was required. The waiter winked and took the bill back, reduced the price – and got a very good tip from me and Mama.

All in all, it was a delightful – and very filling – dining experience.