Under Contract

Well, our search is in the next phase, we found suitable land and have made offers.  Our offers have been accepted with a few minor changes to contract language.  So now we have a contract we think is suitable, we will need to review it with our adviser and determine whether we need to make changes or continue as amended.  What a relief.  Years of watching, waiting, planning are finally about to pay off.  Our little place in the big desert is about to become reality.  I feel a bit giddy...

 So about the big desert, as research will bear out, the Chihuahuan Desert is the tenth largest on the planet by size and we will own about a millionth of it size-wise.  We had driven 1500+ miles from our current home to our search area in west Texas.  While searching for property and getting more intimate with the area we drove an additional 1500 miles.

 We are now in tourist mode until our rented RV lot needs to be vacated.  During our month here we have met folks doing what we are doing, some folks who wish they were doing what we are doing and several folks we will be keeping up with in the future.  We are well on our way to permanence here.

 Once we have deed in hand and begin our project building permanent structures I will try to update frequently.  For now our prayers have been answered, keep yours coming for us, we appreciate them.

Cheers, life is good!!

Shopping around

Well, after several months we've made it back to the desert.  We spent a couple of days checking on some property here and there.  We have seen land that even in 4WD is a crawl to reach when dry.  We have seen land inaccessible when any rain is falling.  We have also seen some land that is perfect, scenic and quite not-for-sale...

We have the advantage of time, time to wait for the perfect site, deal and opportunity.  We can wait until we find that perfect spot it should not be an issue.

More to come...

Exciting times

I am retired!!  I have been retired for a little over a week.  Exciting times indeed.  My bride and I have been finalizing some things here and have a few appointments before we can head back out to the Big Bend and property shop.  Soon enough we can trade off our ten acres here for X acres there.  My high school algebra teacher would be pleased, for now we have the problem to solve for X.  And when we solve this problem it will be the correct answer.

We are looking forward to visiting again with old friends, and making new friends in Texas.  Our next journey is just about to begin.

Thanks for stopping by

Just moments after sunset in the Davis Mountains

Waking up to a new day

Retirement never meant much until recently.  It was always a distant goal planned for and just forgotten about in most cases.  It is looming close now, really large and close.  It is as I have expected somewhat formidable to think about the journey to this point.  Equally daunting is the task ahead.  Locating land to purchase, negotiating a reasonable price, securing said real estate then building a facsimile of our existing place.  Then we have to market and sell our current place.  Enough about that...

Our hope is to be as close to self sustaining as possible, we have gardened for 20 years and have refined our skills and techniques in that time.  We will now be in a place with basically no water, relying on rain catchment and long term water storage.  This will in itself be a radical shift in our habits and methods, moving from a water well capable of 80+ gallon per minute mean flow to how much can we catch and store?

Further, we know how to survey land types and build safely on each type here, we also know the types which are prohibitively expensive to build on, like swamp and seaside.  In the desert we will have our own new learning curve, dry washes, silt, sand, clay, rock and so on.  We will have to choose carefully with regard to our needs.  While we are not in a rush, we don't want to dally in the transition either.  We need a place big enough for a farm, rabbits, chickens, goats maybe, and the garden.  Then enough buffer to keep us happily separated from our neighbors.  When we bought our place 20 years ago, even being twice the size of where I was raised it is simply just not big enough.  Plain and simple,we need more room.  The trick is to find our perfect place.  That is really the root of the matter, the perfect place.

Enough of this for now, this blog is really intended to be a story line to follow our progress through retirement and relocation to and through the buying, building, selling process.  Stick around, hopefully I can keep it entertaining...