APPROVED!

Hello Ya’ll! It’s been a while since my last BLOG post and probably because there hasn’t been much of an update…UNTIL NOW!!! I didn’t want to bore you with the snail pace progress it has felt since we started, but now…NOW there is reportable progress!

For the last 5 months I’ve truly felt like a farmer. See the “basics” of farming looks something like this…

Step 1: Local Market Research

Step 2: Choose Your Crops

Step 3: Land Preparation – Fertilize First

Step 4: Irrigation Design & Planning

Step 5: Field Leveling

Step 6: Seed Selection & Sowing

Step 7: Fertilization Again

Step 8: Wait for Growth

Step 9: Harvest When Ready

Now you’re probably wondering how this city girl has felt like a farmer when we’re just starting our farm…well let’s just say our dream began approximately 20 years ago when we moved back to California from Texas. Landon & I spent years visualizing our dream…land, dream home, pool, small vineyard, chickens, sheep, possibly goats, a little tasting room & beautiful gardens. We started with the “local market research” when we moved back to Elk Grove in 2007 (from Modesto), discussing what kind of grapes we wanted to grow (Crop Selection) and what size house we wanted to build. We’d been searching for the right property, even asking Landon’s dad if we could build on one of his parcels of land. I had designed the floor plan of our dream home but attaining the land seemed to elude us as we just couldn’t find property that was the right fit for the plans in our head.

Fast forward to the end of 2021 when Landon inherited a 5-acre parcel of raw land and we moved into Step 3…Land Preparation. As you may remember in a previous post how we described clearing the land of all the junk Landon’s dad had accumulated over the last 50 years. We found some interesting things clearing the property, including an old, rusted cast iron clawfoot bathtub, railroad tracks and ties, old tanks used for farm fuel and water, 17+ tractors, 50+ old cars, including the International Scout that was used to bring Landon home from the hospital in 1975. I’m sure once we start building, we’ll find so much more!

From left to right: Landon removing old well pump pipes. Old rusted cast-iron clawfoot bath tub. Turkey nest with eggs.

Step 4: While clearing the property we had to determine if the well that was dug back in 1990 was still good, so we had it inspected and found out that the water table was excellent, but the well pump was dead. Not only did we need a new well pump, but there was no well tank to store the water, so we needed one of those too! We purchased both and had them installed by D&D Drilling, the best well company in the area (Tyler is AWESOME…thanks for the referral Darren). BUT…the pump couldn’t be ran because the power box that was active on the property was old, so we had to upgrade the power box & bring it up to code (thank you Schaffer Electric and thank you Donnie for the referral).

Pictures from left to right, top to bottom: Old well pump. Old well pump with old garage & old electrical panel in background. Concrete prepped for new tank & pump installation. New ag size water tank. New, upgraded to code, electrical panel.

Step 5: Once we installed the new well pump & tank (big enough for farming our acreage) and upgraded the power, we had water. YAY!!! We continued to clear the property, fixing fences, cutting down trees, trimming old oak trees that had been neglected for years, and of course plowed/graded the fields.

Pictures from left to right, top to bottom: Landon, with the help of his brother, got one of the tractors working, so it was time to start grading the driving. Preparing to mow/plow the fields. We sold out hay bails! Anya learning to drive the tractor. Austin learning to drive the tractor. Daddy & Anya posing before the get to work grading the driveway.

Step 6 & 7: Although we didn’t actually plant seeds/crops, we did hire an architect to turn my hand drafted floor plan into our dream home. A HUGE shout out to Mike Nearman for taking my hand drafted floor plan and a few pictures from Pinterest of houses that I liked and created our DREAM HOME! Again, thanks to Donnie for the referral.

In the picture above, the top roll of papers are the original house plans Landon's dad, Zen, drafted as his & Landon's mom, Gail's, dream home. The bottom roll of paper are OUR plans!

Once we had the plans drafted, we also had to get the septic system that Landon’s dad had installed inspected to determine if a new system was needed for the house I had designed (thank you to C&C Septic for the AMAZINGLY quick work of locating the original permits and getting the tanks inspected). The city gave us good news and said for the system in place and the size of the house, we were good to go. We also searched for a contractor local to the area that had plenty of experience building custom homes in the area. We chose Underwood New Life Construction, Inc. (another referral from Donnie). As we worked with Mike on finalizing our house plans, we worked with Brian to formulate our building budget. We submitted what we thought was our final custom home design to the City of Elk Grove in early October 2022. And this is where we started Step 8…

Pictures from left to right: Septic tank covers. Septic inspection.

Now for the last 5 months we have been in a waiting pattern. Wait for the city to review the plan and give comments. Make adjustments (more fertilizer) and resubmit. Wait for the city to review the plans again, make more adjustments and resubmit again. We did 4 rounds of reviews so in essence we were waiting for the growth.

By mid-February we secured our construction loan and waited some more. All that was holding us up was the building permit approval. It seemed like FOREVER, but after 5 months and 2 weeks, we FINALLY got the approval today!

I feel like a farm in the sense of pride that I have in accomplishing so much this last year and can now see the first bud of growth has pierced the soil. We will begin reaping all that we have sown since we inherited the property in December, 2021 once the rains stop and the ground dries out a bit (let’s hope Punxsutawney Phil was wrong in predicting 6 more weeks of winter). Did I cry…YOU BETCHA! I was overwhelmed with relief that what has been the biggest hurdle to date has been conquered. Everyone told us the City of Elk Grove’s building/planning department is one of the toughest in the state and boy I agree, but…it was worth it and I can’t wait to break ground on our Dream home. We have our farm/winery planned in phases. Phase 1 just finished (preparing the land for construction). Now we enter Phase 2…building our dream home, again something we’ve been planning for 20 year now.

So…STAY TUNED!