New Year's Resolutions

Now that I live in another town about an hour away, in what I believe they call a "neighborhood," with things like sidewalks and oil furnaces and tourists and as much hustle and bustle as a tiny coastal town will accommodate, I found an odd thing happening--I began to miss the woods.  And the quiet.  The mallards on the pond.  The Airline trail in snow.  The phenomenal array of birds: hawks, owls, woodpeckers, wood ducks.  Waterside plants.  Horses clop-clopping down the road. The trickle of a water source that turns to a freight train-like rush after a heavy rain. Woodstove smoke.  Well water.

So, for this month anyway, I've decided not to sell.  No reason to--it's all buttoned up thanks to Don, and MAYBE Mike will put the chimney pipe in this month.  (And we also had the reval, which reduced the cost of building lots to about 25 cents here, so my hopes of making my money back have vanished--this year anyway.)  Plus I am in the process of getting a permit to put in a 100amp panel and 3 GFI outlets as a nod to preliminary electricity.  Bert will help.  And I have written to the health district providing all the plans, diagrams, surveys, regulations and soil calculations necessary to either a) really piss em off, or b) convine 'em that yes indeed I do NOT need an engineered septic plan and can finally get going on that, whick is my big stumbling block.

Last year I had a $10,000 budget.
I kind of overspent.
This year I will stick under it.
The plan is to have heat (via woodstove), electricity, and siding on by the end of the year.  Plus some other froufrou things that are important.  But the object is to be able to stay there overnight.  Perhaps a wee hole for a temporary outhouse . . .

Will get back there next week and take photos.  It still looks forlorn . . . but remarkably un-bothered.  I think the neighborhood takes care of it.