We'd been saying for years, "wouldn't it be great to have a little piece of property? Maybe five or ten acres?" Every married couple dreams of it, and so did we. Acreage seemed so pricey compared to a few years before. It's still that way.
I got a wild hair one year and decided to go to night school and get a real estate license. A local broker encouraged me to do so, and I took the bait. He liked my fishing business clientele...Chicago trout fishermen, and was sure we could both make a good go of selling recreational properties to them. I eventually left real estate because the business was so filthy with self dealing and backstabbing, I just couldn't remain a part of it. I now realize that God let me get a real estate license so I could find my property. No more, no less.
In the first month with my license, my broker took me to see a 72 acre parcel with trout stream on it. He thought I could match up a client to it. It was surveyed and split up into four parcels, three contiguous chunks and a 10 acre piece with a small log-sided house and garage.
I remember walking down the field road and rounding a corner into the shadiest little grove of boxelder trees, water gurgling past. The creeping charlie was all in bloom, mixing violet with the kelly green grass, and it had such potential to be a lovely little park. I went home that night and told Vicki that I had seen the most beautiful piece of land.
She said, "Really? Like it enough to buy it?" Of course I did, I told her, but it was so much more land than we could afford. I wasn't interested in the house, but I sure loved the vacant land.
I showed the property to seven or eight clients interested in land with trout stream, but as fate would have it, virtually all of them found an excuse to pass on it. Each time I returned I loved it more, and more, and more. But at $920 per acre, that was $60,000 and where in God's name would we secure that? It was insane! Why, land like this was just $400 an acre not three or four years before!
Needless to say, we found a creative way to finance it, thanks to the help of a friend and financial guru. Now, ten years after buying it, if you check into the local real estate scene, you'll find that parcels like this are advertised for three or even four thousand dollars per acre. My dad's words are still burned into my brain... "God ain't makin' no more land. It'll always be worth what you paid for it."
And then some.
In the first season, I would take off with Dirty Dog in the evenings, stocked cooler in tow, and drive into the Shady Grove, sometimes in the dark, start a fire and pitch my tent. Dirty would go and sit on the bank and wait for beavers and muskrats to come swimming by and then jump with a kersplash into the drink and try to catch them, but he never actually got one. I would sometimes just listen to the fire crackle and the river chant, and other times I would listen to the radio for news, or enjoy the Prairie Home Companion. Sometimes I took a fiddle along and squeaked for the deer and crickets.
Cole was a boy then, of ten maybe, and we would camp there together sometimes. Gracie was only two or three. Once we bought a family sized tent, we would all go when we could and spend overnight time there. But mostly, I have to say, I reaped the benefits of owning the land. Me...and good old Dirty Dog, who is now buried there. Merle hasn't yet had the chance to really know and love this place, but he will. There isn't a dog in this world who could dislike the Shady Grove.
Among my most powerful memories of that first year or two was finding myself frequnetly saying out loud, "I can't believe this is mine" while I stared into the popping campfire, one hand on Dirty Dog, and the other on a long neck bottle of cold beer.
We make a bond with the land we own. And, even though it could be argued that we only put our name on the paperwork for a while, and then it passes to the stewardship or abuse of another, owning land carries with it a pride like no other, and the dream of owning our own land is a worthy aspiration. Once you have some, you realize what a blessing it is to call it your own.
I got a wild hair one year and decided to go to night school and get a real estate license. A local broker encouraged me to do so, and I took the bait. He liked my fishing business clientele...Chicago trout fishermen, and was sure we could both make a good go of selling recreational properties to them. I eventually left real estate because the business was so filthy with self dealing and backstabbing, I just couldn't remain a part of it. I now realize that God let me get a real estate license so I could find my property. No more, no less.
In the first month with my license, my broker took me to see a 72 acre parcel with trout stream on it. He thought I could match up a client to it. It was surveyed and split up into four parcels, three contiguous chunks and a 10 acre piece with a small log-sided house and garage.
I remember walking down the field road and rounding a corner into the shadiest little grove of boxelder trees, water gurgling past. The creeping charlie was all in bloom, mixing violet with the kelly green grass, and it had such potential to be a lovely little park. I went home that night and told Vicki that I had seen the most beautiful piece of land.
She said, "Really? Like it enough to buy it?" Of course I did, I told her, but it was so much more land than we could afford. I wasn't interested in the house, but I sure loved the vacant land.
I showed the property to seven or eight clients interested in land with trout stream, but as fate would have it, virtually all of them found an excuse to pass on it. Each time I returned I loved it more, and more, and more. But at $920 per acre, that was $60,000 and where in God's name would we secure that? It was insane! Why, land like this was just $400 an acre not three or four years before!
Needless to say, we found a creative way to finance it, thanks to the help of a friend and financial guru. Now, ten years after buying it, if you check into the local real estate scene, you'll find that parcels like this are advertised for three or even four thousand dollars per acre. My dad's words are still burned into my brain... "God ain't makin' no more land. It'll always be worth what you paid for it."
And then some.
In the first season, I would take off with Dirty Dog in the evenings, stocked cooler in tow, and drive into the Shady Grove, sometimes in the dark, start a fire and pitch my tent. Dirty would go and sit on the bank and wait for beavers and muskrats to come swimming by and then jump with a kersplash into the drink and try to catch them, but he never actually got one. I would sometimes just listen to the fire crackle and the river chant, and other times I would listen to the radio for news, or enjoy the Prairie Home Companion. Sometimes I took a fiddle along and squeaked for the deer and crickets.
Cole was a boy then, of ten maybe, and we would camp there together sometimes. Gracie was only two or three. Once we bought a family sized tent, we would all go when we could and spend overnight time there. But mostly, I have to say, I reaped the benefits of owning the land. Me...and good old Dirty Dog, who is now buried there. Merle hasn't yet had the chance to really know and love this place, but he will. There isn't a dog in this world who could dislike the Shady Grove.
Among my most powerful memories of that first year or two was finding myself frequnetly saying out loud, "I can't believe this is mine" while I stared into the popping campfire, one hand on Dirty Dog, and the other on a long neck bottle of cold beer.
We make a bond with the land we own. And, even though it could be argued that we only put our name on the paperwork for a while, and then it passes to the stewardship or abuse of another, owning land carries with it a pride like no other, and the dream of owning our own land is a worthy aspiration. Once you have some, you realize what a blessing it is to call it your own.
