Subscribe and receive email notifications of new blog posts.
RSS Feed
The World's Best (for real!) Zucchini Bread
If you're a "country Christian," you probably already know the running summer-time joke: Don't leave your car unlocked in the church parking lot on Sunday. Nobody'll steal anything, but you'll come back to four bags of zucchini on the back seat.
It's that time of year. Early peas and lettuce have faded in the heat. June strawberries are a pleasant memory. Tomatoes are just starting to blush. And zucchini and weeds are getting out of control.
A quick trip to my garden this morning revealed zucchini a day past ridiculous. One minute, there's not a squash in site. The next minute, they're topping 18" and coming out my ears.
If you're any kind...
"You mean we're making these cookies for murderers and thieves!?!?"From the archives, this is reposted here today, Father's Day 2018, in memory of my father, Gene Neill. Race car driver, Marine, Mafia lawyer, convict, popsicle salesman, coal miner, prison minister, Christian. Dad spent more than 30 years traveling to prisons around the world sharing the love of Jesus with the forgotten, in what he called "The Church in the Shadows."
"Closing costs" is a confusing term. Depending upon who you're talking to, it can encompass various monies which will be required of a buyer in order to get up from a closing table with a new set of keys (hopefully with a 
Heritage Real Estate keyring attached). There are numerous charges and fees involved and buyers frequently get the terms mixed up. More often than not, neither lenders nor Realtors thoroughly and clearly explain things to the buyer.
Firstly, there is a difference between "closing costs" and "down payment," something first-time buyers frequently misunderstand. I recently had a deal go south because the buyer's agent didn't bother to explain to him that "zero down" didn't mean there were no costs involved. Imagine his surprise when, two weeks into our contract, he learned he had to come up with $4,000 in closing costs.
Your "down paymen...
I was sitting in a local coffee shop with a nice, young couple giving them my crash course in first-time home buying; everything from loan pre-approval to the costs involved, to inspection contingencies and contract clauses.
They'd dated since high school, been engaged for a couple of years, were about to be married, and ready to start shopping for their first home. "Is there anything we need to know," he asked, "since we're not married yet?" It was an astute question.
A lot of things have changed about the real estate business since I got into it nearly 20 years ago, including the number of unmarried young people buying homes together. A surprisingly common scenario is one in which young, first-time home buyers have only been dating a few months and decide to save on rent and buy a house. Often, one of...
I sell houses to support my farming habit. To call myself a farmer would be an insult to all the real farmers since the Lord "put Adam in the Garden of Eden to till it and keep it." To the men and women who have, and do, 
eke their living from the ground, I tip my pink camo Tractor Supply cap. I wish there were more like you; we'd be a better nation, a better world.
But I've had my share of planning, planting, struggling, sweating, nurturing, joy, wonder, loss, and failure, followed by mustering strength and hope, and trying again. Each fall, the old farmer saying, "There's always next year," has consoled me when little went as I'd planned.
I planted my first 83 apples trees here at Zion Heritage Farm in the fall of 2013. It took me three days. When the last tree went in the ground, I could barely st...
Bill Porter, Broker
(304) 612-3746
Translate
