I planted some of the seeds in 2014 - the year our garden didn't quite take off as planned and the tomato plants I had so diligently cared for from seedlings in the house under grow lights were left to languish in their nursery cups, hidden in the overgrown grass in the yard for some time before being set on the patio. They never did get transplanted. The one "Purple Fairy" plant produced two tomatoes, which the slugs loved. The tomatoes were small and oblong, and thick like a paste tomato. I saved the seeds as they were definitely survivors. Given their harsh treatment they still produced fruit, when so many of my poor tomato plants did not that year.
Since Tony went ahead and asked our real estate agent to put in an offer on our behalf (without checking with the bank to see if we still could get the funding after buying the new vehicle), we are next in line, should they accept our offer... I am hopeful that everything lines up. This property is pretty ideal. It has a water source, only one nearby neighbor, huge open field for potential garden, orchard, or pasture, plenty of woods for the kids to play in and explore, mature apple trees, an area where a garden used to be (with mature rhubarb already growing), a young weeping willow (one of my favorites), a huge rope in the back yard to climb - or turn into a tire swing, a room in the basement that would be ideal for a pantry to store canned goods, the spiral staircase and loft bedroom that #1 wanted in her idea of "the perfect dream home," and it's all on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere... and now that Tony has a vehicle that isn't ready to fall apart, the extra travel time wouldn't be an issue. He's even worked it out for the one day a week that he works a close shift followed by an open shift that he can stay at my parents' house in their spare bedroom so he won't have to drive all the way home - saving him time and gas and giving him an extra hour and a half of sleep.
Of course, the realist in me on the other hand is admonishing myself for letting my hopes and dreams cloud my common sense. Why would the bank adhere to our pre-approval after we just took on an additional $320 per month in car payments? I don't (realistically) think that we will qualify for an additional $500 per month mortgage when we're functioning as a family of seven on a single income. Yes, I think we could make it work with minimal disruption to our everyday lives, but I don't think that a bank will agree. We aren't like a normal family. We rarely eat out, we rarely go to movies, we don't take vacations. Right now a majority of extra income is going toward bonus things - like the little kennel we just bought for the extra buck rabbits, the new auto-shelter we will be using as a bunny barn, and for the scratch-post project that I still haven't gotten to. We went for years feeding our family on $50 a week, scrounging leftovers from my parents', and making it all work. We've only just recently started to eat out occasionally and see a movie sometimes on $5 Tuesdays. These are added privileges that we can easily do without and not feel like we're missing out as we so rarely do them anyway and have not done them in many years before. We do not watch television, though we do have a Roku that gives us access to Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon. There have been times when we have had to cancel these subscriptions too, and we survived just fine. We can definitely make a mortgage work (from a strictly financial standpoint), especially if it opens up opportunities to grow more food for ourselves, delve into permaculture, and gives us a bigger kitchen to work in to can, dehydrate, and process our garden bounty. Unfortunately, I don't think that's how banks make their decisions on who they loan money to.