Neta's grandmother has lived at the farm for at least 50 years and the farm has been in Neta's family since before the civil war. The main part of the current house was built in the 1890's. The property itself is just a little under 50 acres. Neta's dad currently lives on the farm and takes care of the place.
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| LEGEND A. Main house B. Large barn C. Small barn D. Small pond E. Old shelter F. Big pond G. I-16 (Savannah - Macon) H. Goat barn I. Delmas Strickland Rd. J. Starling Rd. |
Last year Neta's grandmother had to be put into a nursing home due to Alzheimer's. The family was worried they were going to lose the farm due to Medicaid rules. Neta and I had always talked of owning a large piece of land, though we'd always thought it would be someplace in the mountains of Colorado or out west, areas we both love. We'd always wondered what it might be like to own the farm in Georgia, but never gave it any serious thought. So when the possibility of the family losing it came up, Neta and I had the crazy idea to approach her Uncle Donald, as he oversees everything for Grandma, and see if he would consider selling us the farm. He was open to the idea, even somewhat relieved, as he was happy to keep it in the family and also getting tired of maintaining the place. Later we found out that the farm was not in Grandma's name (she has a "life interest"), so Medicaid wouldn't be able to take it as her asset, but Donald was still willing to sell it to us, again to be rid of the headache of keeping the place up. With a handshake agreement, we started down the path to owning the farm and figuring out how to buy it.
We figured we'd take out a second mortgage, buy the place and eventually move down. We came up with something of a 5 to 10 year plan of eventually moving down here. The more we looked at things the more it made sense to make the move as soon as possible. We would sell our house in Vienna, get remote jobs hopefully in the DC area and escape the rat race of the DC area. We'd rent a house near the farm while we fixed the place up and start living a better, quieter and much simpler life. Of course a "simpler life" is a relative term when you have to get all of that in place first.
So far we've managed to get the remote jobs in place. Neta will be working remotely for a company out of Raleigh, NC and I contract through a DC company that supports the DC Government. Our house still isn't sold, but we're under contract (again) and things are looking positive on that front. We have our rental "starter farm" in place down here. We live just a few miles outside of Statesboro (think: Allman Brothers) about 15 miles from the farm. And yes, now that the moving trucks are unloaded and the essential boxes are unpacked, life is quite a bit simpler, much quieter and considerably cheaper...well...once we no longer have that Vienna mortgage to pay.
Our ultimate goal is to fix up the main house for Neta's dad first. After that (or possibly simultaneously) we plan to build our own home where the shelter is, overlooking the big pond. Eventually we envision adding a large vegetable garden and a variety of fruit trees. Along with the blueberry bushes that are on the farm there is also a pear tree, a grape vine, a couple of fig trees and about 25 pecan trees. The big pond is stocked with bass, crappie and bluegill. There is also a gator or two and tons of frogs.
So there you have it. As you can see there is a ton of work to do. We have land to clear, barns and buildings to clean out, a house to remodel and another to build from scratch. We don't think we'll be bored. With all that HGTV watching we've done over the last few years, it should be easy!
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