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About Us |
| Conserving during the 70's and 80's was more of a necessity than a passion.
It became habit-forming. By osmosis it branched out to conserving on food costs.
Of course this lead to growing a garden, then learning how to can your crop for use
later that winter. After a while my wife even asked for a sewing machine.
We began reading books and magazines on all types of housing when we realized that if you built your house right, you could heat from the sun and use the earth to moderate the temperature. One of my favorite magazines to read in those days was one called Mother Earth News. It is still published today with the same ideas it had back in the 70's: protecting the earth and living what I call the good life. Life as independent as possible. I will never forget the day my wife came home and told me "I found it!" Hmmm, I thought, found what? She continued "I found the perfect lot for our earth home." "Oh" was my reply. Like many a good husband, I had parked the idea of building our dream home in a recessed corner of my brain a long time ago. "Wanna go see it?" she said enthusiastically. "Ah, sure. Why not?" Off we go to a road I never even knew was on the map but, not too far off a paved two-lane highway. She pulled down a lane and I knew the minute the car stopped she had indeed found our perfect lot. It was 2.75 acres with a gentle slope from the north-east to the south-west. We met with the owner the next night and on a handshake bought our dream property. Now all we needed was......money, house plans, money, a plumber, money, we had the carpenter (my son), money, a block mason, and money. Well, you get the picture. We knew from our reading the most inexpensive way to build a home was to build it yourself. We also knew getting a bank, any bank, to go along with the program was going to be difficult. After shopping around, my wife found a mortgage company willing to give us the money. We found an architect in Virginia who's specialty was passive solar homes and he agreed to work with us via fax and phone. My wife drew plans on graph paper, faxed them to Virginia, they came back with circles and arrows and comments. This process took nearly a year back and forth, but it was well worth it. I obtained all the necessary building permits with only one change in the blueprints. Construction began and a short 10 months later our home was completed and the occupancy permit issued. Move in and let the gardening of vegetables and flowers and strawberries begin! Children, grandchildren, flower beds and gardening, living the good life. So, "who are we?" Just look in the mirror you will probably see someone just like us staring back at you! |
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