Our New Property

So much has happened this fall, I was moved to a new project @ work, Jenn and I finally tied the knot in Belize and my search for property finally came to an end. Though I haven't written about the wedding and the included trip (it was great) this post is about our new purchase. I have been wanting my own piece of the Earth for a long time, man I would guess since before I was 18. Finally thanks to some sacrifice, saving & investing, we finally were able to purchase a place to call our own. While I was in Utah on business I noticed a nice plot of land had dropped its price significantly and right into our price range, when I arrived back in KCMO, I couldn't stop talking about it to Jenn. Finally I decided that we had to take a trip to see the place from the road, the trip would either firm up my ambitions or cancel the whole thing altogether. Well, after we saw the creek, we knew we had to look into it further. We left, only seeing what we could from the road, to head down to one of the numerous MDC areas that are nearby. We had a great trip, Jenn and I both agreed that we would pursue this property as our 1st big purchase together. We contacted the agent that had helped me with my home purchase and through alot of stress, we finally came to terms, the land was ours. 93 acres with almost 1 mile of a clear, rock bottom creek that is over 20' wide in sections was ours! When we closed we got to walk the property with the owners, which was cool, we learned very little about the place since they had only used about 1/3 of the total area. The land is severly degraded in about 2/3 of the land, it is grown up hedge and locust trees with scattered oaks. The other 1/3 is large trees in the river bottomland. Our goal is to restore the property to its native state and clear most of the hedge, locust and cedar back to a glade/savannah/prairie. There are currently about 4 miles of trails, Jenn and I will likely double that in the next year, I have already bought the necessary equipment for that (chainsaw, steel blade for weedeater, loppers, etc...). We have grand plans and I think I will likely spend my weekends camping @ the property. There is almost no noise, except the faint sound of a train in the distance. The KC area astronomy club has a property a couple of miles away, the night sky is supposed to be brilliant since we are so far from KC. Jenn and I have been keeping our bird list going, so far we have every species of woodpecker in MO, plus many other birds including a Bald Eagle & hermit thrush. Skipping forward, Jenn and I again visited our property this time with my brother, who drove us down to help with putting up a gate. The prior owners had a chain between two trees but they took it with them. I decided I wanted something more significant, I wanted a gate. Our property is rocky and Brent and I fought like hell to get even 2' deep, we used a hammer and a piece of rebar to bust through stone, finally we got the posts in and the gate in. I am proud of the gate, finally I have an entryway to our soon to be kingdom!