Meet the New Neighbors!

It seems like I have been waiting forever for the day when I could introduce you to our new neighbors, Dave and Christine.  Please take a moment to meet them over at their blog, The Deadly Nightshade, and learn about how they have turned their suburban yard into a veritable edible paradise. They love old houses and dogs, keep bees, and have even more chickens than we do.  Dave likes to brew beer and mead (so we know where J. will be), and Christine teaches popular local classes on herbs and has even published her first book.  What's not to like?

The way in which our fates intertwined is actually kind of crazy.  Back in October, Christine posted about a Victorian house that she had fallen in love with, but the price tag was a staggering $595,000.  Now I will say this...I fell in love with it also.   If I were rich I would plop the cash down today and move this weekend.  But $595k?  In St. Joe?  That seems kind of insane, even if it's on the National Register.  But, seriously, if you love Victorian houses, you have got to watch the virtual tour.

It was right about that time that J. and I were thinking about putting our 1893 Victorian project on the market, so I posted a comment that she could find really nice Victorians for much less than that one and that we were going to put ours on the market.  How could I have known that one little comment would leave to a wonderful new friendship and selling the house without it even going on the market?

Christine and I hit it off immediately when we first met - her energy is just infectious and she's so giving. She offers alot of her classes for free. When she and Dave came over that first night, they brought us a gift of unfiltered honey from their bees. Such nice people!

She has even more energy than I do, so I think Dave and J. might be in trouble when the two of us get together. She's already planning for a huge orchard on the property, which is something we're interested in doing here at Cranky Puppy as well. We started with 3 dwarf apple trees, but we're talking now about planting at least another 5 trees in 2013.

With the closing scheduled for February 6th (just 3 weeks away!), we had the appraiser and inspector over today.  Christine also had some folks over from the Giving Grove and the Lincoln County Extension to talk about plans for the orchard not just on the 3 vacant lots that belong with the house, but also plans for creating a community orchard on some of the vacation lots that we have here in the neighborhood.  I think it's an awesome idea, as it's been shown that getting the community involved in shared gardens\orchards actually reduces crime.  I had to work and couldn't join them, which was disappointing, but I'm sure Christine will fill us in over on her blog.

Thanks  again for stopping by and, if you haven't already, take a look at The Deadly Nightshade.  I promise that Christine's humorous style will have you adding it to your list of blogs to haunt every day.  And stay tuned for our adventures as we combine forces this year to create an urban mega farm.  We are so excited!

Til next time,