The Cat Is Out of the Bag

The Hotel on Block 46, in Whitefish, MT (photo credit:  Flathead Beacon)

Well, a few months ago, I hinted that “Something New” was coming.  Now that my current employer has been notified, and my new venture has an inked contract, I can tell you, too:

I will be leaving my current employer as of January 15th, 2016, in order to pursue a new career in Finish Carpentry with my dear friend and pastor, Charlie Frederico of Berean Bible Church of Kalispell.  Over the last 2½ years, having been in very close contact with Charlie and his lovely family, I have learned that he is truly a man after God’s own heart, a skilled “tent-maker” in the ministry, who pours all he has into every relationship, every task that the Lord sets before him.  I look forward to furthering our friendship and brotherhood in Christ as we labor together with our hands.  This will also represent a major shift in another area…

For the last 4+ years, I have been working in vocational fields that are somewhat outside of my personal interest.  In 2016, I will begin to get my hands on WOOD on a regular basis… and get paid to do so!   🙂  (See my portfolio here)

Those of you who know me well can imagine how elated I am at the thought of this.  Charlie and I — and a few others — will be installing all the doors, windows, cabinets and trim for the 89-room Hotel, pictured above.  We should be done in the Summer, then moving on to the next project.  My hope is that this line of work will afford me (God willing) the flexibility to begin building our house in the Spring.  I will admit that I am a little nervous about doing carpentry for a living — I really want to do it well!  But as we are fond of saying: “It ain’t rocket surgery!”  🙂

I praise God for every opportunity He brings… and for every trial He allows.

A Decision, part 2

(Image from StoneMill.com — posted here for inspiration’s sake 🙂

Well, in my last post, I mentioned that Something New is coming, and it is.

But this is not that.

This is something else.  This post has to do with our home building plans.

In my post back in February (“A Decision“), I wrote about the decision to take out a construction loan to build our home.  Well, it seems that we may have to go a different route, given certain financial obstacles that are proving repeatedly difficult to overcome.  And so, we are grateful to God for this “trial” (James 1:2-4), for it will compel us to build with little-to-no debt, but requiring great resourcefulness.  I am truly thankful for the necessity of having to go this route.  Why?  Because once our house is built, we will own it free and clear.  We will not be beholden to a 30-year mortgage.  And in America’s current economic landscape, that may be vital.  (Perhaps I will not be enslaved to the 40+ hour work-week, for the rest of my life, after all?  That’d be good.  🙂

A few things of note:

• Montana’s “building code” requirements are extraordinarily minimal; so while we will strive to build everything “to code”, we will only be bound by excellence of craftsmanship, within the bounds of frugality.
• We already have water (a well), electricity and phone/DSL going to the property.
• We have always had our sights set on heating the home with wood, since that resource is abundant at the property site.  That decision remains.

In summary, here’s how I see things unfolding, Deo Volente:

1. We will install a septic system and a (mostly-finished) basement.
2. We will temporarily roof the basement and live there, while we plan to build our timber framed home above it.  The basement will be 1,280 sq.ft… which is at least 200 sq.ft. larger than the place we have been renting (!) for the past 4 years.
3. All former rent payments (and all other available resource$) will go toward purchasing building materials, prioritized by immediacy of need.  Building materials (both purchased and gathered/salvaged) will be stored in a timber-framed barn, which we will build on the property (near the 40’x80′ garden), as a “test build” in preparation for building the home.
4. Once the Timber Frame House Plan is complete, and the timbers designed and fashioned, the frame will be constructed, clad with SIPs and roofed. (Timber material will have been harvested from our property, milled and stacked.)  Basement occupancy will continue, until…
5. When interior walls and flooring have been framed and clad, the family will “move in”, and continue with the “finishing touches”.
6. Estimated completion time: 5 years from start date.

This is all I have time to write… thanks for reading, and we’ll keep you posted.

Little Birthday in the Woods

For her birthday, my Dear Bride wanted us all to do some work on our future home site.  So we all willingly obliged, cutting up some firewood for next Winter, and weeding the garden area.  It was a lot of fun, and the children all did their part.  Thanks, Uncle Dave Graham, for letting us use your tractor & log splitter!

The Firewood Production Line!

Every time we ask Ellie to smile, she also sticks out her tongue…

 

…See?

Wood stackin’ & haulin’

Something New

 

Something new is coming.

Something completely different, but longed-for.

However, I must wait to announce it until all is “official”.

Keep watching… I’ll post the news as soon as possible.

A Decision

Years ago, when we began this dream of building our own home in the woods of NW MT, we soon became aware of a decision that would have to be made, which would affect many other facets of our life, for decades:

To mortgage, or not to mortgage?

We could build our house little by little, over the course of several years — even decades (!) — only as (or if) the cash became available.  We’d probably be living in an old single-wide trailer on-site as we built the house piece-by-piece.  Perhaps by the time our children had grown and had children of their own, our house would be finished…

-OR-

We could assume a construction loan/mortgage, take on the responsibility of paying it back over the next few decades, and enjoy the privilege of spending those next years in that house with our children, having made not only the house, shoulder-to-shoulder with our dear family and friends — but also having made many memories, and having given them a crash course (pun not intended) in home construction.

————————

Now, perhaps I can hear the cries of “go debt-free!” from all the Ramsey-ites.  I don’t disagree that being debt-free is a blessing.  Still, under the circumstances, the mortgage — and finishing construction in under 1 year — was the way to go, for us.  It was no small feat to bring our family of seven (now eight) from SoCal to NWMT.  We did it, in part, to pursue all the things we couldn’t afford in the uber-inflated economy of California:

• wide-open spaces
• agricultural pursuits like chickens/bees/high-volume gardening
• no HOA telling us how to use our land
• hunting & trapping wild game on our property
• even the simplest thing of owning a dog, with room for it to run around on.

All these things center on having a warm, safe, dry and secure “home on the range.”  To be constantly pushing back that dream of a “clean, well-lighted place” would undoubtedly frustrate and exasperate my family (Ephesians 6:4, Proverbs 13:12).

So wisdom was sought after… and received.  And then we acted.  We secured the most trustworthy General Contractor & Carpenter that the Flathead Valley has to offer, and we are currently pursuing a construction loan.  Please keep us in your prayers as we move forward, by faith.  I will post as much of the process as as I am able, here on this blog.  Thanks for taking the time to read, and may the Lord bless your days, as you trust — and rest — in Christ.

Clearing the Land

A few weekends ago, we found ourselves trudging through the light mud and melting snow to fell a few trees that were either too close to our “house-pad” or causing too much shade over our future garden location.  Most of the larger trees (12″-16″ diameter), we merely felled, de-limbed and cut into 14′ sections, which will be laid together and “seasoned” until we decide how to use the timber.  More than likely, we will “mill” them (if we can find an economical way to do so — maybe this), and then “sticker” them for drying and later use.

Here are some pics…

Starting the Log Pile

“Working Smart”

The much-needed arrival of a necessity.

The Pile gets bigger…

This is where the house will sit.

I installed a tree swing for the kids.

We’ll be doing lots of this, I’ll bet.

Where the pavement ends, our bliss begins — 1.7 miles down the dirt road.

Everyone’s working together (except my dear and very pregnant Bride.  She’s supervising.  🙂

Pulling up roots…

…So we can “put down roots.”

 Have a great weekend!

No, not the one in Scotland.

Heading out to Eastern Montana, in a 4-seater Mooney, like this one.

Today’s post finds me at the end of a two-day out-of-town tower-work gig in Glasgow, MT.  (Excuse my gratuitous use of hyphens.)  The daytime temp is in the 50’s, the sky is clear and blue, and the wind is tolerable.  However, being on the eastern part of the treasure state, the topography is not quite as eventful as it is in lovely Flathead County.  Here’s a picture I took… now imagine a 360° view of this:

…Yes, that’s Valley County in a nutshell.  The upside of this terrain is that there’s nothing — and I mean nothing — to obstruct the view of Montana’s “big sky”.  Taking in landscape like this makes one feel… well, in a word:  small.

Sunset

Here’s another something that made me feel small today:

…Watching my boss climb halfway up a 200′ tower.  Not for the faint of heart.  The highest I’ve been on an edifice was about 160’… but that one had stair steps.  And handrails.  Today, the boss-man had neither of those.  It was an impressive sight to behold.

Tomorrow, we head back home.  No one wants to stay in a faraway hotel any longer than one absolutely has to.  We’ll have to come back here again soon, for there’s more work to be done.  But since the Dear Bride is due to give birth in late April, these trips will have to wait, when that time comes.

Thank God it’s been a safe trip.

Winter Plowing

(Little Miss makes a snow angel…)

Dear friends:

I have received word that our land tract of 1.5 acres has now been parsed off of Uncle Dave’s land, and that we now have our own physical address!  One giant step forward.

Here are a few pics that our oldest daughter snapped, while we were getting ready to plow all-Winter’s snow from the homestead driveway…

 

This is the driveway to Dave’s pad… covered in 1-2′ of snow.

 Around here, giant piles of snow means endless opportunities…

…to build Quinzhees!

Meanwhile, Dave and I got busy, putting chains on his tractor for the winter.

…And off he went, to plow a ton of snow off the driveway…

And then (as if the Google+ image enhancer knew what was going to happen 🙂 it started snowing again, just as he was near the end of the driveway:

__________________________

Please pray for us, as we organize the myriad of details involved in building the “Little House in the Big (Mountain) Woods.”

–Ric

The View from the Living Room window…

What in the world is a "Frolic"?

 Photo from AmishAmerica.com

I was talking with a couple of my brothers in Christ recently, when the subject turned (OK, I turned it 🙂 to the building plans for our home in the woods, beginning in the Spring/Summer/Fall of this year.  I told them that it became clear to me LONG ago that there was no way I could accomplish this endeavor with my pea-sized knowledge of construction (or lack thereof).  I then asked them, if I put a date on the calendar (say, over the course of some upcoming three-day weekend), would they come out and help us “raise the roof” and eat a bunch of food?  One of them, who’s had extensive interaction with the Amish in both Montana and Maine, said, “Absolutely!  The Amish call it a ‘frolic‘ or a ‘work-bee‘ “.  They were both quite enthusiastic about the possibility of helping building our home, which came as no surprise to me, given the reality of the love and Spirit of Christ operating in their families’ lives.  (Not to mention that they both have some serious labor forces in their families!  🙂

Then I got to thinking.

God has blessed me with such dear family-in-Christ in other locales as well, several hours’ drive away, but reachable nonetheless.  I suspect there may be many who would like to visit Montana in the Summer (a gorgeous time to visit here; isn’t it always?), and perhaps swing a hammer or heft a saw in productive fellowship on the outskirts of beautiful Whitefish, Montana.

So, here it is:

If you’re interested in being a part of our family’s biggest project to date, a labor of love that will represent the culmination of a lifetime of prayers and dreams, please consider joining our “Frolic” this Summer.  If you are seriously considering making the trip to join the effort and fellowship, please leave a comment on this post, or send me an email, letting me know when you might be available.  If you are unable to attend, please pray for the Lord’s protection, provision and wisdom as we build.  This will undoubtedly be a very long project, overall, but we would be honored to enjoy your company for even a small part of it.

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Ransacked!

Yesterday, I used the word “ransacked”, and my 4-year-old daughter (“Little Miss”) asked me,

“What’s ram-sapped?”

I explained to her that it’s when someone breaks into your house, and leaves a big mess, while looking for something to steal from you.  (One of my favorite little mental games is trying to break down complex words or ideas into a sentence that even a 4-year-old could accurately understand.  What can I say, it keeps me occupied.  😉

Well, that same afternoon, it became obvious that our garden had been “ram-sapped”!  You see, yesterday was, in the words of Winnie the Pooh, a “very blustery day”.  Apparently our deer netting had blown down at some point in the last 24 hours, and our all of our kale, carrot tops and some of the outer leaves of our red cabbage were stripped bare by some wild and reckless herbivore. Even some of the parsely was gone… I guessed that devious creature wanted to have sweet breath after such a bountiful feast.  So, we pulled the carrots — a fine lot of orange, yellow and purple specimens — pulled the worst-hit cabbage and prayed that the kale plant, with its stalks intact, would continue to grow more leaves.  Yes, it is the end of the growing season, and the nights here are dropping below freezing, consistently, but the kale has been thriving in spite of the cold, and was producing some very dark, sweet leaves that we were thoroughly enjoying.  We’ll see what comes of it all.

————-

Saturday, November 9th will be “hunting day” with my 14-year-old son (the “Man Cub”).  I’ve read that the cattle on a thousand hills belong to our Great God… I’m hoping he’ll bring one or two near to our muzzles, for a harvest.  Should we be blessed in such a way, I’ll post pictures here.

Have a blessed day, and remember, “my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”