I mentioned a few weeks ago that we had some big projects coming into our lives here on the homestead. Some of you even tried to guess what the news could be. And no we are not pregnant lol! But I hope from the trials we are facing, that others learn from us so that they can avoid the unimaginable predicament we find ourselves in.
To put it bluntly we live on land belonging to a relative and built our home and homestead here under the promise that the 1 acre that they have been giving us for over 20 years would be deeded to us. That hasn't happened and now the relatives have decided that they no longer wish us to be here and quite honestly I don't think they ever really intended for us to have the acre. Not only do they intend to get us off the land, removing the roof from over our children's heads, they wish us to dismantle every building including our house, barn, even the parrot enclosure. Oh and all this by the end of June per a letter we received from a lawyer. I can not fathom why this has boiled down to this as we are buffered by quite a bit of woodlands around us so we do not even see anyone unless we are driving out of the road past my Aunt and Uncles house. We are quite different people in life choices and work ethics which maybe there in lies the issue of dissolvement of our relationship. Needless to say we find ourselves in quite a spot.
Yes we too have sought legal council and have a very strong case against them to actually have them forced through the courts to deed the land to us. Our dilemma is do we pay the thousands of dollars in court fees for an acre of land that once we get is then sandwiched between two hostile parties? Or do we use that money which is all we have left to buy something else and begin our life somewhere else taking down all we built and using the materials somewhere else. Moving the house is not possible as we are land locked and the amount of tree cutting that would have to be done in order to take this out of here would be extensive not to mention the cost to transport it. This doesn't include the purchase of new land, clearing and installation of a septic and well.. $$$$
At this point no matter what happens it looks as though we are going to have to downsize quite a bit. Financially we are not going to be able to swing a mortgage and feed our livestock. We were very fortunate to build our home mortgage free over the last 4 years sinking every penny we earned into finishing it off or expanding the homestead. Now we find ourselves with unuseable equity because the land is not deeded or leased to us so we literally live in nowhere land... and have no money :D
So locals.. if you know of someone who is selling a house in and around Skowhegan that may need some work.. please let us know. If you are looking to start your own small herd of dairy goats either Nigerian Dwarf of Nubian/LaMancha - please let us know. We also have our two Chinese gander geese that we will be homing. At this point we are going to try to keep a few rabbits and hens for laying. Depending on what we find for housing that we can afford, we may even be selling off orchard trees, the smoke house, parrot enclosure, coops, rabbit cages and some shelters (small lean to) we have 3 of them for the goats and pigs. We also may even have quite a bit of building materials which is all dependent on what we find to buy.
Although this seems like such a dark time for us at the moment, we have to keep the faith that something much better then we can imagine is waiting for us just around the river bend. If anyone has some out of the box ideas.. we would love to hear them. PM us for inquiries on buying things although at this point the only thing we can get to is the animals lol.. everything else is buried under snow.
Moral of our story: Trust, love and honesty are all beautiful things but not sufficient or guarantee enough to gamble building a home on. Promises are easily made and easily broken. We were told they would lose their VA income if they deeded the land to us. We trusted them that this was true and that their word was good. Both of these we find out now were not. Please please please! If you ever find yourselves in a situation like ours where someone gives you land even in Gods name, do the deed first before you break ground. It will save you a lot of heartache and stress later on. Homesteading is knowledge of a way of life.. that can never be taken away we only have to find a more unique approach on how we are going to continue Heidi's Happy Acre Farm into the future...
So now a new adventure begins..