10 Country Do’s and Dont’s
What follows are 10 lessons from my “now I know better” collection. Perhaps these lessons learned will ease your transition from the city to wilderness.
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1. Know thyselves. If you are a couple who bickers over which way to hang the toilet paper roll, don’t buy raw land.
The path from raw land to indoor plumbing is fraught with hundreds, if not thousands, of decisions. If you can’t pull as a team over the little things, how will your relationship survive decisions like where to sink a well (that one can be worth, oh, $20,000), where to put the kitchen, do we buy or rent equipment, do we build a log house or glue it up out of egg cartons? We built hte log house to make our Bed and Breakfast dream come true.
We have several guys (one of our neighbors included) sitting around our county amidst their half-finished projects all by themselves because the little woman couldn’t handle it and ran off mid-construction. On the other hand, we have another neighbor couple who knew that they weren’t cut out for the house building process. They bought undeveloped land and put a manufactured home on it. Save your marriage (or whatever) and buy a house.
2. Know thy neighbors. You may be under the false impression that since you are moving from more crowded to less crowded conditions that you will have more privacy and that neighbors matter less. Au contraire.
When looking at rural property, you will find yourself driving down many a dirt road. If there is more than one home on that road, it is a neighborhood, like it or not. Look closely at the homes and residents on that road. If your house catches on fire or you hack your leg off with a chainsaw, do you think you can depend on them to help? Fortunately here on our road up to the Fish Creek House, we have the greatest neighbors that'd help you out in the proverbial New York minute
When we were searching the great wilderness for our dream property,we drove down some rural roads that actually triggered the theme from Deliverance in the back of my brain. Find some excuse to go chat up some of the neighbors before you buy. Introduce yourself and ask them how bad the winters are, whatever, just get a feel for the folks you may have to trust with your life and property.
3. Know thy driveway. I rarely see this subject discussed, but in the country, the length of your driveway can make or break the whole experience.