This past weekend we made a family trip to the Equine Affaire held at the Eastern States Expo. in MA. This is something I go to each year and normally I am just like everyone else. Just wandering around looking at all the stuff I can't afford and don't actually need. It was a marketing overload day where you walk out feeling exhausted even though you only walked around at a super slow pace. You are tired just because everywhere you look is plastered with marketing slogans and anything else they can think of to get you to stop at their booth. While not directly related to building our dome it was a helpful step in our process. Why?
Because the property will be a mini farm of sorts. Our 8.2 acres will be home to not only our dome but to a few horses and other critters. Our house site is at the back of a 4 acre hay field. It is a pretty long driveway and a long trench to dig for utilities! We think the best way to get the required power and water to build the dome is to build the barn at the start of the project. The power and water can go in to the barn first and then be extended to the house. The barn's roof will also be the future location of solar panels.
This allows us to move our horse (and a friend for her) to the property sooner than if we waited for the CO. This will drop our monthly expenses quite a bit since we can get rid of expensive horse boarding expenses. Currently she is living in a full service facility where we pay to have someone else take care of her daily needs. Accepting a paying boarder as a friend for her puts us in a bit of a reverse situation as well. This frees up cash needed to finance our build or to eat. How ever you want to look at it!
I will admit that I do like to people watch sometimes and the Equine Affaire is the kind of environment that can lead to some amusing things. I got to listen to two snotty women comment on the $300k+ bus size horse van with full living quarters. They apparently thought it wasn't up to par. It was only $300k. Much too shabby for them and not even worth looking at. Apparently the $500k one was more their speed. In the mean time my kids are begging buy it and live in there instead of a house because they really like the idea of showering while driving to school.
I would love to report that it was a fun family friendly experience but....not so much. Fun is different from worthwhile. It was still worth it to go but I do not enjoy trying to get something done while crowds of meandering people block my path. We wandered through crowded buildings for several hours collecting brochures from fencing and farm companies. It is a great big home show except not for homes. It is all horse and farm. Everything from the horses themselves to anything remotely related to them. If a vendor thinks horse owners are their target market you will find them at this yearly event. This makes it very easy to walk down the endless isles of booths and collect a whole bag worth of information about barns and fencing options.
We are renting very close to the property and with a whole bunch of security cameras we can still monitor the animals from our phones at any time we are not at the build site. Gotta love technology!
Because the property will be a mini farm of sorts. Our 8.2 acres will be home to not only our dome but to a few horses and other critters. Our house site is at the back of a 4 acre hay field. It is a pretty long driveway and a long trench to dig for utilities! We think the best way to get the required power and water to build the dome is to build the barn at the start of the project. The power and water can go in to the barn first and then be extended to the house. The barn's roof will also be the future location of solar panels.
This allows us to move our horse (and a friend for her) to the property sooner than if we waited for the CO. This will drop our monthly expenses quite a bit since we can get rid of expensive horse boarding expenses. Currently she is living in a full service facility where we pay to have someone else take care of her daily needs. Accepting a paying boarder as a friend for her puts us in a bit of a reverse situation as well. This frees up cash needed to finance our build or to eat. How ever you want to look at it!
I will admit that I do like to people watch sometimes and the Equine Affaire is the kind of environment that can lead to some amusing things. I got to listen to two snotty women comment on the $300k+ bus size horse van with full living quarters. They apparently thought it wasn't up to par. It was only $300k. Much too shabby for them and not even worth looking at. Apparently the $500k one was more their speed. In the mean time my kids are begging buy it and live in there instead of a house because they really like the idea of showering while driving to school.
Just add enough people to hide all the purple carpet and that was my Saturday.
I would love to report that it was a fun family friendly experience but....not so much. Fun is different from worthwhile. It was still worth it to go but I do not enjoy trying to get something done while crowds of meandering people block my path. We wandered through crowded buildings for several hours collecting brochures from fencing and farm companies. It is a great big home show except not for homes. It is all horse and farm. Everything from the horses themselves to anything remotely related to them. If a vendor thinks horse owners are their target market you will find them at this yearly event. This makes it very easy to walk down the endless isles of booths and collect a whole bag worth of information about barns and fencing options.
We are renting very close to the property and with a whole bunch of security cameras we can still monitor the animals from our phones at any time we are not at the build site. Gotta love technology!
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