A while back I came to grips that the oregano plant that someone sent me for Christmas was beyond saving. Poor thing froze on the way here and then the package got left at the post office over the weekend. The plant (and the cuttings that accompanied it) have not made a comeback. I keep my dried twigs in moist dirt under the grow lights in hopes anyway... But when I finally accepted that the oregano wasn't going to magically spring back to life, I sprinkled some oregano seeds into the pot and left it under the light. Today I was checking to see if any of the lettuce seeds had sprouted (they haven't) and noticed that we do have three tiny oregano sprouts! Now I just hope I can keep them alive until they're big enough to harvest some fresh organic oregano!
Tony signed up for a first time home buyer class online last week. It's supposed to be a 2-3 hour long course and when he finishes they contact our lender and supposedly that means we won't have to pay a down payment on the house. I'm not entirely sure how that works, but I've been encouraging him to get moving on the class. It's hard when we have so many other things going at once. He wants to finish that class and wait to see what our lender says on what kind of financing we can get after that. Then he wants to crunch more numbers before putting in an offer on the house. We have to take into account that the roof, one window, the entire screen in the patio area, and some drywall upstairs will all need to be replaced before we can move in. There are also no appliances, and we can't take the ones in our current home with us, which means the added cost of buying a new washer, dryer, oven, and refrigerator.
I know it's been on the market a while now, but seriously, if we wait forever, someone else will buy it. With my surgery coming up in less than two weeks, I know if I can't get Tony prodded into working on this now, nothing will get done until I'm back up and in action. Honestly, with a four week recovery, I don't want to just sit on it for six weeks hoping nobody else puts in an offer. Maybe I'm trying to move too fast, but it's hard to explain. When we pulled into the driveway this week, it just felt like I was home. We (Tony included) have started to talk about the house as though it's already ours. The kids asked "where is my room?" instead of "where would my room be?" and when my Dad asked about the lake, I didn't hesitate when I said "Our property is just the top third of the lake, the DRM owns the property to the south." and it hadn't occurred to me that I had used a present tense on the property ownership until I saw the look on the realtor's face (kind of a confused shocked look).
I've been doing crazy amounts of research on this property. I tracked down the guy who currently owns it (his name is on the county register that is available publicly online), and from there searched his name which pulled up his mother's obituary. In it, she is described as a woman who loved nature, wildlife, gardening, and living in her childhood home (the house we're looking at buying). She also worked at the vet clinic where we take our pets. She passed away in a nursing home of Alzheimer's. I would love to honor her and her family by fixing the house up and continuing on with my Educational Farm project. I would love to garden organically, put up a bat house and bird houses, bird feeders, and grow our gardens using methods that don't tear up large swatches of ground. I want the entire property to feel like a perfect oasis in the country for both people and animals. Perennial berry bushes, fruit trees, and of course, maintaining her beautiful flower beds too.
As we were leaving this week, I noticed a bush with bright red stems. It caught my eye so I stopped to admire it. In doing so, I discovered a second bush growing up above it that was deciduous (leaves fall off in the fall and grow back in the spring) but it appeared to have pinecones! Of course I came home and did more research. It seems the red stems are a type of dogwood, and the pinecones aren't really pinecones, they're the female flower of the speckled alder, a medicinal bush that grows well in moist, rich soils, often along river beds, but is also planted in areas that have been disturbed to help reclaim it back to nature. It can be made into a medicinal tincture that can help stave off infections and ease the pain of toothaches and headaches. One Native American group is said to have mixed alder with crushed bumblebees to help women who were having difficult labors. I think it would be amazing to walk the property with an herbalist who could identify all the plants that are edible or medicinal and take the time to explain them to me. I've never been a wildcrafter, but I would love to learn!