13 acres and a backhoe

Because if you have 13 acres, you need a backhoe.

I can't quite believe this happening. On Sunday we are meeting with a real estate agent, drawing up a contract for putting our house on the market, and making an offer on 13 acres and a house contingent on selling our house. On a sopping wet day this week, I walked every square foot (just about!) of the 13 acres and loved what I saw. Yes, I could wake up every morning and look out on to those 13 acres and be glad they are mine. It has gently rolling hills, with a little bit of wet land, a little bit of woods, plenty of flat space for garden and orchards--and oh, the potential for flower gardens and landscaping! It is well set back from the road.

A great big plus is the huge pole barn (the former owner built biplanes in it) and a large garage/workshop/horse barn that you could park 4 cars in with room to spare. Terry will be in heaven. I am sad that the woods were almost destroyed by loggers maybe 3 or 4 years ago. You can see that they were once beautiful woods, but were totally ravaged by someone who's only thought was how much money he could get for the lumber and cared nothing about preserving the beauty or health of the woods. None the less, woodland in Michigan is quite resilient and in 10 or 15 years they should be beautiful again.

Oh, and there is a house. You have to have some place to actually live while you are planting your gardens, caring for your orchards, tending your flock of hens and all. It is cute house, a bit different, and needs some updating (new kitchen for sure). But one could move it tomorrow if you had to.

Terry is happy that the property is close to his backhoe. He got the backhoe for free off of Craig's List last winter. When I heard about it, my only stipulation, was, "You CANNOT bring it home and put it in my yard!" Good grief, our neighbors put up with a lot from us, I don't want to know what their reaction to a backhoe as a lawn ornament would be! (The backhoe had some engine problems and he worked out an agreement with the owner that if he fixed the engine and let the guy use it, he didn't have to take it home until he has a place to take it home. I'm happy with that arrangement. Though I can see that it will come in very useful once we get a piece of land out in the country. I will need it for digging out my pond, for one thing!

Of course, actually buying this place depends on selling our home, and the owner might not even be willing to take our offer, so I'm not getting my hopes up. There will be another piece of land somewhere else if this one doesn't work out. We are putting our house on the market on Sunday regardless, and starting the process of getting the place ready to sell. That means finishing up a bunch of details in the house and putting in a decent driveway. Even if we don't sell the house, we will be better off with getting these things done, so it is nice to have the extra motivation.

I've had to rethink what to do with my garden this year. I decided to go ahead and plant it just as if I had no other plans. I did decide to make it a bit smaller, though, and make it square instead of a misshaped mess. I was going to make it square this summer anyway, except that I was going to make it a bigger square rather then a smaller square. Actually I won't really be loosing any growing space for vegetables. Because of the black walnut tree most vegetables won't grow past a certain point anyway, so that extra space was flowers, I will just be pushing the flower border back. I think having a neat flower border will be more attractive to potential buyers.