Gared Has Goals - It's a Mirackle (pronounced like spackle)

Yes, of course I'm stoned, I'm awake and I don't have any out-of-the-house chores today.

So, before I left, I nuked my old PTSD threads - and I'm OK with that, that period of my life is in the past and can safely be let go of now that it's been addressed. However, I've been stagnating for the last year or so - just kind of drifting aimlessly without any solid goals or any sort of plans on how to progress. Thankfully, due to many factors (medications, gentle prodding by my doctor, my annoyance at my doctor's gentle prodding, the ever deepening chasm that is my bank account, etc.), that time is now over. For years (like, 13 or 14 years), Aislynn and I have been talking about moving even further out of town than we are now, buying a farm, and running a working farm and animal sanctuary. Well, now we're making some concrete moves in that direction.

Beginning with setting up a small LLC for a fospice (long- or short-term fostering specializing in end-of-life care) at our current location, we're also working on our long-term goal of using the pandemic and Aislynn's loss of appeal on her disability claim (it's a long and angering story) to cash out and/or take another loan against her 401k and taking donations from wealthy animal lovers to buy a farm property in the region. The farm would be organic, generalized produce - we have a great growing season and the right soil for all kinds of veggies with zero to minimal organic amendments needed... just not right here where we live in town, where we have to buy topsoil because we have a very high clay content in our soil; plus blueberries, cherries, plums, apricots, peaches, figs, pecans, blackberries, raspberries - essentially, we're in zone 9b, and we have an awesome growing season. I just need more acreage. We're looking for somewhere in the 15 to 20 acre range, without a house on it (we have one of those currently), that we can build to suit. Then, ideally, we'd rent the house in town, after making some repairs and improvements, and move into the farmhouse on our new property.

The crazy thing is, we're really close to making this happen. Like, ridiculously close. So, this weekend, to kick things off, I set up a website, Facebook page, Twitter account, Twitch channel (for kitten and duckling cams, coming soon), email accounts, and GoFundMe campaign for a soon to be existent LLC named Dostix Ranch (the ranch registration rules in Oregon are extremely lax and offer me the best mix of options of products and services to provide - I love it). This week we have to set up a bank account, file the incorporation paperwork with the state, and notify the city of our intent to run a home-based business in their city limits (luckily, there are no requirements for permits if we're just fostering animals inside our own home on our own property).

Oh, and because it was so easy to set up the website, and because it's already so much better than 75% of the already very limited number of business websites in the area, I'm going to go ahead and hang out my shingle as a freelance web-designer, reselling websites designed in BoldGrid (WordPress) and hosted by InMotion. It literally took me less time to set up the domain and build the site this time than it did to get through W3C's basic HTML5 tutorial last time, so my days of coding in notepad++ are over. Seriously, this was like, paint by numbers or plug in the cords in like colored jacks difficult.

In semi-related news, I think I may have a bit of an issue with parenthetical statements (and dramatic pauses, and run-on sentences, and other creative-writing pitfalls). Anywho, this isn't a short-term "Oh my god we need money or we're going to be kicked out of our home" announcement, so I'm not sticking it general and I'm not going to ask for a big donation campaign here - but depending on our new lender, and the Pandemic, and the economy the rest of this month, it might become one very soon, so I will at least provide the links. I mean, it would be silly not to, right?
 
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