Propagating can be frustrating at times. Just keep at it. I did a lot of propagating in college for my agriculture degree. Lots of trial and error. But that's how you learn. Did you not have a small greenhouse that you were putting up in one of your videos at one time? That could really help you out if you had a small greenhouse. Anyhow good luck with house shopping. Hopefully prices have come down somewhat from a few years ago.
Yess, but the winds snapped it in half . . . twice. We get nasty 65mph+ winds out here from time to time . . . usually right after I get a project up :(
Concolor are finicky. If the needles are all brown it’s probably wind burn and most likely they will come back in the spring. I had a field of them that wind burnt for three years. Not a needle left but they came back every year. It did stunt their growth a bit.
It looks like you made it out to American Living. When we were shopping around we went there as well. We ended up going with another company but stayed with Ritz-Craft. Take a look at the Easy Street model. It had everything we were looking for as a small farm family. 3 bed, 2 bath, back mud room and much more. We made some upgrades in design and added a sink in the mudroom and the Mrs. wanted a wood burning fire place. Attached garage and front porch were in the package. We had a full basement and added a root cellar under the porch. We've been our house for just over a year, we're very happy with the quality and have no regrets. Being in construction I know quality and I'm very satisfied with the Ritz-Craft quality. I hope this helps, happy house hunting.
I'm sorry to hear about the trees. I've accepted the fact that if I find land, I won't be building a house, I'll build a shack because thats the most important part to me and their is no way We could afford or would we trust builders to do a great job. Its also hard to find a place we would be happy with . Its frustrated a lot of people i know who got land and ran i to the priblems I mentioned. I hope you find what youre looking for along with a good builder. Take care!!
@WTFarmGirl I can't believe I wrote that with so many errors....... I always told my wife I'd rather have 100 acres on a mountain with a shack to live in, then a big house with only 1/4 acres. None of that worked out but the sentiment is the same.
We moved a double wide back in 2001 from Muskegon to mid mich. It wasn't the same after setup. Had a couple of bad cracks in the ceiling and they got fixed but you always knew it was there. Had to make inside storm windows for the winter to help keep the cold out. The piers were poured wrong and had to get 8 x8 's to support the house. Couple of the inside wall also had issues but were left alone. Sold the home about 10 years ago.
I've heard horror stories of modulars as well :( Our doublewide was well used when we moved it onto our property, and overtime it did begin cracking along door jams. prices have jumped pretty high on them now, and we can easily get what we paid for it, if not more :O
Bedrooms at opposite ends with ensuite 3 Piece Bath. 2nd bathroom near entrance door. Remember in a few years there will only be 2 residents. Dark trim/cupboards make rooms seem smaller. Get upgrade roofing, Metal if possible. Porch / kitchen facing South. Full basement with tar parged outside walls. Big Septic Tank/weeping bed. 200 Amp Service. Check type of interior water piping . There is good and bad Pex. Check for Copper not Aluminum wiring. ^" Exterior walls, Spray foamed. Most of those old light fixtures are too large and Dated. You may be able to sell your existing home. Consider one side (North) for double Carport. Just a few Hints. So sorry about your crop loss. They look dry.
E-Built normally means it is built to a higher insulation level and with better windows and set up for more "environmental" friendly things. Like the power panel may have room for a solar or wind system to be added. As you likely have already found out, some builders will allow you to change the plans on some of their builds, more on modular than "mobile homes" though. Mud room wise - Do what I did, I would come in from a fire/ems or out of the shop covered in funk, Got sick of coming in the door, stripping and hitting the shower then needing to deal with the mess. So I built a larger "mud room" as a breezeway between the house and garage. It has a shower and the laundry room as part of it so you can come in, close the door, strip, grab a robe, Then toss your clothes in the washer and go into the main house to take your shower. If you come in really filthy you can just empty your pockets and step right into the shower and start rinsing everything off.
*Suzanne, sorry you lost all your xmas trees... So instead of buying & hauling in a new home.... why not extend & renovate your home that you already have, as it looks great from the outside. Plus also lift it up to give you a rumpus/mancave room (or spare room for guests) for your boy as he becomes a teenager. That way you can renovate to fit that huge kitchen into your home. Cos it will only be a few years away when your lad will be heading off to collage (if that is what he is wanting to do) 🙂.*
Yes, we have looked into that actually! At one point we had considered splitting it back in half and adding a large addition down the middle :D But the builders we talked to said it would cost almost as much to renovate and we'd be better off ground building. And we'd have no place to stay, so we'd be back to square one of living in a camper, hahaha! But we did have a pretty cool house plan based on that idea ;D
I had a friend doing something similar to what you are doing with the Christmas trees but not with Christmas trees. One thing that I remember is that he mixed water with the root growth hormone so that it was a paste that he would just have to dip the branches into. I don't however know the root growth hormone he was using or if it was meant/suppose to be mixed with water or if he was just doing this on his own. It did work great for him and he swore by it. But seeing how you like to experiment it might be worth a try to make it faster and easier, and I wouldn't mind knowing the results if you did decide to give it a try.
Hello, yes we actually had two different growth formulas we used, one wet one dry :) But I think the two biggest hurdles were watering properly and tree shock going from cold to warm, lol
@@This1LifeWeLiveI agree with the possibility of shock and I'm sad that happened and the set back it will cause you guys. I was just passing on a tidbit of information that I have learned even though I didn't have all the information on it just in case it came in handy for you in the future.
I'm surprised none of those mobile homes seemed to have been built to have a wood stove. I would think that would be a given for your area and they'd be factory built with a recommended placement for a stove to provide maximum heat throughout the home. I didn't see anything that looked like a factory install for chimney piping in the ceiling. I guess people install them after-the-fact? How is the insulation in those mobile homes? How much do shipping containers in your area cost? For what you're paying in renting storage you may have been able to have purchased a shipping container which of course you could use for the rest of your life on the property.
It is strange it wouldn't be an option considering they are made in Michigan.... They are 6" walls though. Shipping container idea was floated around a bit, but they get wickedly hot and the concern was the heat melting the glue on the cupboards :) So while it's a bummer paying so much to store them, the storage unit is totally dry with no condensation or water creeping in :D
In many places it's against code for a wood stove to be installed in a manufactured home, so because they can ship them to other states they build them to meet all the US codes. Plus in any manufactured home they still have the BS Federal code to deal with when it comes to installing a fully approved wood burner in them. Once it is paid for and installed if the owner was to put one in then it's not the builder who is responsible. If I were going to build these days I would start with a good poured wall foam insulated basement, install a larger gas/oil/wood furnace and then drop the home on that. Just helped a friend install a pellet furnace in his place. It is a multifuel that can burn pellets, corn and pea coal, and if you pay extra you can have an oil or gas gun installed in there as well.
I think here in MI it's now code to have the walls foam backed and several layers of waterproofing for any basement. But I'd much rather deal with that than icy cold cement floors on a slab build (which would require radiant floor heating, and be a pain if something went wrong) :)
Hi Suzanne. I’m really enjoying the videos through the years and coming back to them and catching up. This isn’t really a question about what’s going on in the video I’m sure you guys will choose the right thing to do when you find it when it comes to finding a new home or what to do with the homey right now. But I have a question I remarked on something on another video and it seem to be you that I ask To message you through messenger is this something you do? And if it is you on messenger I’m just checking because I was testing the purse and it felt like it was night yourself. Thanks for your time keep up the good work you and the family. Signing out, Malcolm.
Scammers are hitting RU-vid pretty hard creating fake accounts asking people to message them. I have a direct e-mail address, lol, I would only ever ask someone to message me on that, NOT a whatsapp account :)
Modular homes are so much better than homes built today on site, I would never buy a site built home knowing what garbage materials are used and the shoddy workmanship. You can literally punch your way into a blank wall area and be inside within minutes.
Suzanne seems weird you are complaining about the size of the kitchen. It has to be bigger than the one you have. Better than the 500k you were talking about.
It has to fit the kitchen we have in our storage unit :) The 500K plan was designed to fit our kitchen and THEN some. It was excessively large though overall. BUT . . . I cannot say anything yet . . . . not until we actually break ground . . . maybe in June, lol stay-tuned ;D
At one point, we had designed a plan to SPLIT our double wide in half and build a tall addition in the middle, using the two double wide halves as wings :) It looked pretty cool! But all the builders we talked to said that going that route would be ALMOST as much as simply building from scratch (due to needing a new foundation and such). LOL but don't worry, you'll see sooner than everyone what's going in by June ;D Ahem... IF Erik actually pulls the trigger . . . waiting for final price quotes on a few things, but so far looking promising!
Having watched more of your videos I have noticed a lot of newer expensive equipment for a small 20 acre farm. I really think you need to sit down and come up with several business plans and consult your university agg and extension offices before you make any more decisions. Obviously there is a primary income that is supporting this endeavor and or inherited cash. You are most likely financed to the hilt and that is a recipe for disaster on a small acreage. Unfortunately these days due to consolidated corporate farming, farming in general is a quantity of scale endeavor. Not to say there are not niche models you can be successful in. If you truly want to see high margins per acre for small farm then produce is your best bet. Sweet corn, half runners, cabbage, loose leafe greens, home preserves, mustard and collard greens, water melons and pumpkins. Set up a small farm store or mobile produce stand. Start raising bees and sell local honey. It is A LOT of work but when properly done it will be your highest ROI. If you ran the numbers for hay on that small acreage with the equipment you have your return on investment will be about 45 years.
So, we run a fully debt free farm and homestead. Instead of going on vacations or buying nice cars and houses, we reinvest into the farm and pay in cash. We had enough years ago to buy a new house, but decided to upgrade the tractor to upgrade our farming. Had we known housing prices were going up 400%, we would have gone with the house 😆. But you are correct. 2 years ago we realized we had NO WAY to increase our hsy production without major spending, and it wouldn't be profitable. Wed need a disc bine,, a better baler, a real accumulator, a bigger barn and MORE LAND. Financially it didn't make sense. So when erik suggested Christmas trees, I was still skeptical. But I began running numbers and checking them with other locals. IT MADE PERFECT SENSE. We were perfectly set up for a nice U-CUT farm. Plus, it required very little to begin since we had so much already. It's taken a LONG WHILE to save up for a new house, and MANY hours of Erik working hard at his job, but we have enough to begin and pick at it bit by bit 😀
@WTFarmGirl though I am surprised to hear that your debt free I am glad to see younger generations making a go at it. I had thought I you had said in a video that you had pulled an equity loan for the metal building. Either way I believe you are not understanding the means of calculating farm running costs. I read a great breakdown and analysis of Christmas tree farming from university of Michigan the other day just to make sure I understood the model and was not missing anything as I am only doing livestock, row crop, and timber. I used to do hay but am selling my equipment this year as it's just not viable any more. The university paper says basically what I assumed, that you run your books the same as any farm with only slight variable changes. So let's take just the example of your lawn mower. Your husband said he had a zero turn with a 60 inch deck. We will assume a 6k value. You are mowing roughly 20 acres. That equipment is a depreciating asset that needs to have the ROI figured into the model so that the farm it's self can pay for the replacement. Usually what you would do is estimate a total usefull life of the machine at 10 years, take your tax depreciating each year on the equipment then estimate the cost to replace the machine at the end of that term. The replacement cost is the true figure. The estimated cost per year over that 10 years is now a running debt if no income has been produced. Hence why a farm is one of the greatest tax write offs on3 can have. All of your inputs and equipment must be calculated this way in order to truly know what the farms running debt is. One of the best sources you can find for these type calculations is through the universities. Look at how they do corn and other crops as well. I think one of the misconception you have is that your mixing your husband's income with the farm income and they are not the same. I made this error myself when I was young and it bit me in the butt and forced me to reevaluate how I handled my books. I hope some of this makes sense and is helpful. I am happy to see the younger generations taking a swing at farming. I just hope that some of us older groups can help to keep them from drowning in the pitfalls they don't know.
@@chemiddleton8543 No, we have only taken a loan out on the hay rake, and that was because it was fully interest free and we could reinvest the extra cash in other areas. The metal building was $30,000. We paid cash for that too I know because the bank wouldn't let us purchase the lumber package without 100 hoops to jump through, lol. Now it IS true that erik does go out and buy extra things with his own money, similar to what most country folk without a farm would do. Our neighbor paid over $20K for a new JD tractor with attachments to put in a deer food plot . . . I have dialed him back a LOT on that, lol, and after 10 years he's gotten to the point of asking about using "farm money" for things. Especially direct farm related, like buying Christmas trees or supplies.
I'm with @andreacrashe9894 - Please now show/tell us what is wrong with your current house such that adding on to it wouldn't be better and cheaper than buying a new "manufactured" home (aka mobile home). And if you add on to your current house you would have 6" walls instead of the thinner walls on manufactured homes. Thus stronger and better insulated. And you could build it with better quality materials. I could see buying something you were looking at if you didn't already have a house.
Manufactured here in MI are required to have 6" walls. Our current home is far from energy efficient and being on a slab means the heavy winter winds suck all the heat out. It's always been the goal to build a custom home, the doublewide was a compromise to trying to survive a very awful winter in our camper. Starting the tree farm also means less time in the coming years, and with home values shooting 4x higher in 10 years, we may never be able to afford it in our area if we wait any longer. SO it's really now or never :(
