Earthship post #5

Our History of how we arrived at the Earthship Part 2

We started looking for land around the valley we live in. I wanted to stay close to be able to get to my parents if there was an emergency, and also I wanted to be close enough to town to be able to watch my grandkids whenever my kids needed an extra babysitter. I know this last part was selfish on my part, but I told myself I was doing it to help out my kids. (Ha!)

We found a nice piece of land about three miles out of town, no utilities, about 12 acres. There were two problems with this piece, the first being the road to gain access to it was almost impossible to get up. Even with four-wheel drive. The second problem was we were a day too late, sold! Not to mention, we didn’t have the money to buy it yet anyway.

We gave up for a while, then we happened to mention to my parents we were looking for land. All of the sudden my dad took a real interest in our quest. He found other pieces of land and when we asked our neighbor, the realtor, to show us a few, Dad wanted to come along. My folks live 40 miles from us, so it’s not an easy thing to get here on the spur of the moment.

I was a little perplexed, but not too concerned when he began to give pros and cons to each piece. Eventually I found out they wanted to move back down here and we would share a piece of land. Well, now everything made sense. One stormy spring day, we were shown a 20 acre plot, but it didn’t have the views I wanted, so the realtor showed us another a little further up the road. We all got out and walked through the heavy brush to look at the incredible views. 360 degrees = gorgeous! My mom and dad offered to buy the land and we would buy it back from them when we sold our home. Then, in turn give them a small acreage in return for some debts we owe them. We all agreed and the land was in our family’s hands.

Now to get our house ready to sell. I was a little over-optimistic in my estimates about how much time that would actually take. We started to clean-up/fix up/renovate in mid-March.

By late August, we were ready to put it on the market. Of course we’d missed the most opportune time to sell. Still I was positive it would be snatched up in no time. And so we waited, and cleaned and showed it, and repeat, and repeat. Four long tedious months with the holidays approaching fast.

Meanwhile, our son lost his job and moved back from Texas to live with us. He has his kids half the time, so they were a part of this new equation as well. I’m not sure who said it, but someone once said, “Cleaning house while having kids at home is like trying to brush your teeth while eating Oreos.” Yep, trying to keep the house show ready, with a one and three year old, plus the holidays, was proving to be my undoing. We took the house off of the market in January. Sad, and discouraged, but it was necessary.

It seemed the dream of living off the grid in an earthship was fading fast. We didn’t give up hope though, and in May after contacting another long-time friend, who is an outstanding realtor, we put it back on the market. One night while getting everything done, I sat down in the middle of our master bedroom and cried out to God. I prayed that he would either help it sell fast, or we could find another path. My strength was gone.

We lowered the price, fixed a few more things, and after the first showing we had an offer. We had three other showings all scheduled before the offer came in, so I had to clean, get everyone (including the dogs, cat and kids) out of the house.

We had a few little hiccoughs till we closed, but on Friday, July 8^th we were officially homeless. We moved everything out of the house and were on our land in a borrowed camper by Sunday. That brings us to where it began.

The lessons we are learning are very clear. If God puts something on your heart, don’t dismiss it. You can fight him and try other ways to get to the same point, but in the end, his way is always best. Are we sitting in our Earthship without a care in the world? Nope, not yet, but I know God always has our backs as long as we allow him to work. We see his promises every day when we look out over our land. The raw beauty of it takes my breath away every time.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11