I may make a farm boy out of him yet!  When we first looked for a house here 2-1/2 years ago, we really wanted to live out in the country but with Chad living at home, and going to school and working, we didn’t want to be on the back roads too much and we ended up smack dab in the middle of town.  The open range keeps calling us and I do believe Vince is ready to respond to those calls.  The problem is . . as with the rest of the country . . try selling a house!  It’s not gonna happen!  So, our best bet is to find some land with nothing on it so it’s affordable.  As of now, our plan is . . once we find the land, we’ll determine where the house will be some day, then we’ll put in a well and a septic system, then we’ll build about a 30′ x 40′ pole barn, insulate it, put in a little bathroom, a shell of a kitchen, some kind of sleeping quarters, air and heat, always keeping in mind that one day it will be Vince’s shop.  A shop with a bathroom and a kitchenette. Once we sell our house in town, we’ll live in the barn while we build.  We had talked about sticking a mobile home on the land but we can put up a pole barn and fix it up to live in for not much more than getting a decent mobile home set up and then the pole barn will be much more useful than will a mobile home once the house is built.

But this weekend Vince was looking online for land and he found a piece of property — 40 acres where someone has started building a retirement home and lost interest and now it’s for sale.  We contacted the realtor and drove about an hour to look at it.  When we got to the realtor’s office, she was asking us all kinds of questions about exactly what we’re looking for and then she told us she had the perfect piece of land!  Also 40 acres. Has an old farm house, built in the late 1800′s . . lots of little outbuildings . . needs work.  We drove out there.  OMG!  Forget work!  What that place needs is a bull dozer! I felt like I needed a shower when I left.  I tell you . . I just wanted to leave and go home . . back to my own  house!  There was so much junk on that land  . . old cars, probably a dozen shacks of some kind or another and the house was . . I don’t even know how to describe it.  It was so darned bad that I didn’t even take pictures . . not even of the outside.

Then we went on to look at the house that we had originally started out to look at.   After seeing the first place, this one wasn’t bad but it wasn’t good either.  Someone started building it and apparently had no plans . . no idea what goes where.  We weren’t sure what was the master bath and what was the master closet.  Not sure where the kitchen was supposed to be . . no plumbing anywhere . . just put it where you want it! OK . . today was a bust.  And, both of the houses we saw were on dirt roads.  Farmer or not . . Vince does NOT want to live on a dirt road.

But, what we did find was a fantastic place that is for sale but it isn’t for us.  The views are wonderful!

This is when you turn into the driveway off a paved highway.

Some of the rock outcroppings on the back of the property.

The view looking from the front of the property.  This land was just gorgeous but it has a small newer house and a bunk house and other buildings on it that aren’t what we need and cause the price to be too much for us to pay and then turn around and build a house that we want.  But, it surely was pretty property.  We may end up back there tying to negotiate but for now, we’ll check out a few more leads.