farm dreams

My whole farm plan for the next year is really on hold right now; I'm working on buying a farm, and honestly, it's been driving me a little bit nuts.   

The aggravation this week has been about the appraisal of the property.   The banks appraiser is, honestly, slower than any other appraisal I've ever seen, and it's a pretty important part of the process.  The bank wants this independent appraisal to show that the property  is worth as much as they are willing to lend me.  So I've been waiting for three weeks for this appraiser to come up with a number.  It has to be more than $275k, which is the amount remaining on the land after I make the 35% downpayment ($147,000 to save you the math).   So for this guy to do some work search out some similar properties, I've been on pins and needles for weeks.  

And this is seriously disturbing me.   

I'm ok with a no, or a yes, but this weird maybe state means I can't really make plans for either property; the new one, or the old one.  It's messing up my farm dreams.  

I would much rather be working on what sort of alfalfa I should grow on the new property, or ordering electricity to be installed on the old property -- I've been farming without electricity for 7 years now, and if I'm not going to the new place, it's well-past time to get some volts so that I can do warming pads and heat lamps and all of the other stuff that makes the animals comfortable.  How about lights for those late nights?  

But I'm reluctant to do that because the new place already has electricity and water to all of the barns, and if I move there it's all there already.  

I do what I can with my frustrated planning urges.  I peruse the seed catalogs, and I have my well-worn farmtek catalog (heated waterers!) and I speculate at how many acres of sweet corn I should plant, and I do the chores and I wait.  and dream.