Ulog #1 Tropical Dream Reset and Can You Travel If You're Homesteading?

in #ulog6 years ago

I have been MIA here and at work this past 2 weeks. Stress can wear you down and we needed to recover.

Plan 1 Week Ago

We were supposed to go back to the Philippines to settle a nagging land issue. We already booked our tickets way in advance (March) to get a good deal on prices. The hotel was also booked way in advance.

That's our land in the Philippines with neighbor's water buffalos

Roadblocks and Conquering Them

  1. We raise chickens for eggs. One hurdle we had to face is who to trust to take care of the ladies. Our neighbor said he'd do it. Great!

  2. But Mr Neighbor also works for the man. We needed to make a way to set up the chicken operation easy peasy. The idea is to check the ladies every afternoon after work and collect eggs before he goes home.

    a. Got an automatic chicken door opener/closer - Installed! Yay, we get to sleep in.
    b. Long term chicken feeder - We researched on this and found some designs we thought would work but dear @iamstan created the final design and it all worked out.
    c. Long term waterer - It's done too and it works!

    d. It gets hot in the greencoop (greenhouse turned into chicken coop) - Shade cloth is the answer so we took care of that too.
    e. Our ladies need grass, bugs, frogs and other critters they can catch and eat. We just lost a hen to a bobcat! - Mr Neighbor is a stand up guy, he was cool with mowing the yard to give the ladies some grass. And get the bobcat too. We also planned on planting grass in the chicken run.

  3. Logistics for a family of 6 - We had a well thought out plan of how we're going to handle the babies and our carry ons. All documents are in separate folders, snacks and activities are ready.

  4. Bills are paid in advance, stop mail is scheduled and we just need a few things to button up and we're ready.

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Throwing The Towel

As the flight date got closer, I found out one of our relatives sold her land and the new land owners wanted to cut a right of way through our land.

That's BS!

The crappy part is my aunt seemed okay with that idea! I told her I don't approve of it. We're coming home and we're going to settle this issue. They can't cut through my land without my permission and to get a right of way, you have to be compensated if you did agree.

I don't speak my mother's dialect. So I had @purpledaisy57 do a #steemgig for me, translating what I want to tell my aunt.

Talking Things Through...

@iamstan and I revisited what happened to us from the time we bought this land. All the BS we had to go through to get the land titled and on my name, surveyed, water well dug and my explicit plea to leave the land be to let it rest ready for organic farming.

Every step was a battle, money hole and our requests disregarded. But we wanted our tropical dream! Endless growing season! So we kept pushing through hoping my relatives would respect our wishes and see organic farming and permaculture as solution to the family land's deterioration.

When Trust is Broken

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me

Unfortunately we're fooled many times over twice. I asked them not to plant corn. They did. I asked them to plant trees and sent the money to get it done. Still no trees after 5 years. I asked for some videos while digging the well and sent money to compensate for the data expenses and transportation expenses, no video to show for.

An uncle who owns the land next to our land didn't get a survey before building a hut and eventually building it on my land. After many phone calls, my aunt finally fessed up and said it was built on my property.

Oh well, enough is enough. We have a big family to support and we can't go on throwing our finances off to neverland.

Sure, we can go there and stop them from cutting a road through our land. Plant trees along the perimeter. Show them our goals and plans for the land. Bring them with us to organic farms around the region.

But what will stop them from ignoring my requests when we come back home to our homestead?

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New Plans

So that's the end of my tropical dreams in the Philippines. We'll just build what we have here currently. All this took a toll on all of us and so we're taking it easy for now.

This made me think, should we move on homesteading, permaculture farming and living sustainably?

No Trips For You!

Oh well, it's not that we can't afford it. Or can't make arrangements for our place while we're gone. It's just is it worth it to build a dream when you're the only one dreaming?

Funny how @iamstan is at @retiredinsamar's blog talking about what happened to us and why we cancelled our 6-week trip to Philippines.

Somedays I think it might be best to just live on a sailboat... but then you have to deal with pirates lol

Dang it there's pirates everywhere!

Thanks for listening.

Photos from my husband. Permission granted :)

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Btw Thanks to @grow-pro for the dividers. Anyone can use them except for MY footer hahaha

And thanks to @canadianrenegade (Matt & Aimee) for their encouragement, engagement and friendship. It really matters to us. If you haven't checked them out, you should. You're missing out on great content.

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I was so excited to meet you guys. Shame on those people who broke your trust. Maybe next time things will be better and you can come home for vacation and enjoy.

Hi Tita, we were really excited to meet up as well. Hopefully we can just come and sightsee. Maybe when the children are older.

We're glad to send you the ref magnets and be able to bless you. We wanted to surprise you with the extra magnets in person but we're relieved not to have to fight this battle right now.

Hope you get the magnets soon! Now if Terry @surpassinggoogle can tell me where I need to send his gift...

We still love the Philippines and the people, just need to be cautious of who to trust...

Thank you very much I am so happy yes my daughter said she might send a small package next month. It would be better that when you come it will be a real vacation sightseeing and relaxing!

Yikes! That sounds like a really frustrating situation. I would be disappointed too if my family wasn't respecting my wishes and forced me to give up a tropical escape. Sometimes, it's just not worth the hassle. Once you sell your land perhaps you can roll those profits into another dream escape.

Matt and I would see also about being able to leave the homestead once we have animals. His brother will be relatively close by but having a trusted farm hand would be ideal. Matt doesn't have the itch to travel the same way I do, but I imagine he would at least want to get away to the mountains from time to time. He can't resist a good fishing stream.

Thanks for the shout out! We really value your friendship and support too! -Aimee

We're slowly getting over it now and decided to let go because yes, it's just not worth the hassle. The funds going there could have been put to better use here at the homestead. We were half-focused on preparing that place and this place.

having a trusted farm hand would be ideal

Yes! That would be ideal. I wonder if there's a market for roaming farm hand with lots of references for the trust factor. I'm not focused on the skills because that can be taught. The trustworthiness issue is the main concern. What are they going to do if you're not there or not looking?

Thanks for all the support. We're hoping to get a schedule together for the homestead while I'm working and somehow put a schedule together too for Steemit posting/commenting/upvoting!

You're welcome for the shout out, we value your friendship and support and we wanted to tell others to check you all out because we don't want to be greedy. Really good friends are hard to come by.

I am working seeing the same thing! Perhaps the WWOOF webite might have more information. How amazing would it be to have a list of people to enlist that also come with references? I wouldn't want to leave my homestead with just anyone, it is my home afterall.

We also keep talking about working out some sort of schedule. It seems as though there are just never enough hours in the day.

I agree, finding good friends really is hard to come by. -Aimee

Oh wow... what a huge headache! I can only imagine how frustrating that must be, especially since family members are being untrustworthy...

Love the chicken waterer, by the way. I need one of those. I was just talking to my hubby about it the other day, after our galvanized waterer rusted through. Our neighbors have one like yours and they love it.

Best of luck working through your land issues! ♥

I am sorry about what happened to you. Unfortunately, sometimes the ones you think you can trust the most are the ones who will take advantage of you. Been there done that. Put all your efforts to work on your homestead here. I bet amazing things will happen and you will still get your dream. Might not be in a tropical area, but it will still be great!

Thanks for stopping by. I totally can relate. Trust is something we give out so freely but getting burned is tough. We are working on the homestead here in OK and that's where we need to be for now.

Yes, not a tropical area for sure but the potential is great :)

I hope you get your land issue resolved. I really liked the waterer you build. How long did it take to build?

It might take a while for that but we already decided to let go of it. If some miracle occurs that the Philippine govt and the bureaucracies in the Philippines decide to follow a rule of law, that could all change. Until then, the risk is much greater than the hopeful rewards.

The waterer took about 4 hours to build, 4 hours to chase the parts. About a day's worth to build it then half a day to install it considering we had to move some soil and rocks to place the water tank. Husband did a video on it here https://steemit.com/homesteading/@iamstan/vx46wnuz

I hope that happens. Thanks for the answering my question about the waterer. Will check out the video.

We're doing some homesteading once we transfer to our new home :)

That's a good plan! When I came to the US, I realized how I took for granted the endless growing season in the Philippines. There's a lot of effort to garden here with freezing temps threatening to kill young plants or hot summers to scorch your plants. And very limited growing season.

There if you pay attention to what you grow, stay away from the basic crops everybody is growing, you can make a very good living farming.

We think we need money, but really all we need is food, water, air. :D

Absolutely. Thanks for sharing your thoughts! :)

What a bummer. Nice story though. I checked out your chicken waterer post -- very cool design!

Thanks for stopping by! It is a bananamer I mean bummer.

:-D
For all your hard work, here's a snack:

Nice project you've got going on there@lovenfreedom

What project in particular @donrilly?

Nice write up

Hi thanks for coming by but you should read the post.

If you're going to leave a comment, please be thoughtful about it. Like, what's nice about my write up?

Nothing can beat the beauty of nature!

It's nice of you to come by. But you should read my post before leaving a comment. I don't think you read my post.

Not going to flag you this time but please be careful on this generic one liner comments that has nothing to do with the context of the post. Some people can turn you over to steemcleaners.

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