Opening Day

The first thing that popped into my head after we bought the property was "oh my gosh, DH doesn't have the equipment anymore to mow TWENTY ACRES." I said it to him out loud and he knit his brows together and told me he had been thinking the same thing. It was an overwhelming prospect to be honest, coming from our miniscule 0.3-acre city property; even our rural property was only 1 acre. 

Hurricane Sally took almost all of his lawn equipment, his tractor, dump trailer, and most of his tools. 

DH's dump trailer underwater, two days after the storm

DH's 11-month-old Mahindra tractor with a new front-end loader and top

Fortunately, my stepfather has acreage of his own, so DH has access to many of the implements we would need to keep the property in working order. DH called my stepfather, Papa Gon, and made arrangements to meet up the following week to officially mow the property for the first time. 

There is absolutely nothing on the property besides a power pole and a well, so we had power and water at minimum. Though we weren't planning on camping at the property for a few more weeks and I'm not a huge fan of camping, but I spent my next week researching things we would need to camp with like chairs, bags, blankets, and of course-a camp toilet with waste bags. YES I know it's the woods but I also know I'm a big girl and am NOT going to hover this hefty tookus over a hand-dug latrine to use the restroom. Firstly, if I didn't fall in the daggum thing, I'd wee all down my leg. Or worse. DH does not understand this thought process and was not a fan of purchasing essentially a toilet seat with three legs on it, but sometimes I have to put my foot down so it can be happy wife happy life here. Haha!

We planned our day to accommodate for the fact that we had at least two stops to make on the hour drive to the property, and also to give time for children to get their clothes and boots on and herd their sleepy faces to the truck. Fortunately, we left at 7:30am, we didn't realize we'd also be stopping at the local supply store because one of the children's boots didn't fit anymore. After a stop at a friend's home to pick up a gate and then the hardware store to pick up some supplies, we were on the road. 

Midsouth Lumber, Youngstown

By 9:30am we were finally pulling into the property. It was the first time I had seen it since the purchase. It was ours. Pulling into that makeshift driveway was calming and exhilarating all at once. There was so much to do, and so much time to do it. So many possibilities. 

I got out and started to unload shelter next to the power pole. It's hot here in Florida, even this far north we have a tropical climate nearly year-round; as I said I'm a big girl, so I can assure you the first thing I'm going to do besides work is find some shade and a chair at minimum. I put up the screen tent and got the chairs out to set up base camp. The men got to work hooking up tractors and mowers and unloading my dad's four-wheeler he let us borrow and our golf cart we brought from home. Within 20 minutes the sounds of mowing started, and the soft watermelon-rind scent of fresh cut grass wafted through the air. 

Papa Gon ran the tractor with the 'batwing' mower on the back, and along with mowing the property grass he cut a swath between the two ponds where a four-wheeler trail used to be and widened it with the mower to accommodate trucks. We fondly named the reclaimed trail 'Snake Alley,' I'm sure they're there, but we've yet to see one thankfully. If you follow Snake Alley to the end, the property opened back up and revealed about a half an acre alcove, a fresh air grotto if you will, surrounded by trees and dotted with wild yearling scrub pines. 

Backside of Snake Alley in the alcove

Our oldest driving Papa Gon's truck through freshly mowed Snake Alley

Of course, I was on the golf cart puttering around supervising. 

I scooted back and forth on the golf cart in Snake Alley until Papa Gon had a path cut so I could get to the back section. DH joined me and drove us around looking for the property line markers in each corner of the property. 

The first one was on the northeast side of the property, at the top of the alcove. There looked to be several attempts to mark the property, a couple were wooden stakes with a leaning concrete post, drunk from years of storms and environmental abuse. 

Concrete marker with I10 in the background

Clear fence line

The fence line appeared to run on the property line and was clearly cut from the neighbor to the east. They say good fences make good neighbors and I agree, but more so it should be modified to say accurate fences make good neighbors too. 

The southeast marker was spot on with the fence line as well and made a clean and crisp delineation between the properties. 

South west marker

The west side of the property was a different story. In all fairness, it appeared the church had planted a row of privacy trees with a fence line immediately on the backside of the trees well inside the actual property line. The line in its entirety was badly overgrown, and it was startling to walk into the dense tree line and see a cattle-style fence with a galvanized farm gate chained to a post. 

Disheveled privacy tree line

We opened the cattle gate and noticed fresh neon surveyor ribbon at a place many feet inside the gate on the back fence. It appeared there was a permanent ground marker at that ribbon as well, but the markers were all blended together with years of overgrowth and a teenage cedar tree. Seeing the marker, however, let us know that whoever owned the property to the west adjacent to us had the property surveyed and should have been well aware of the property lines. 

The southwest marker was much more difficult to find. There is a smaller ditch running north and south that feeds into the main road ditch and appeared to be the property line. We searched for the markers for almost half an hour. Anything. A post. A stake. A flag. We even had a metal detector to look for a buried or broken iron stake. There was nothing. 

Until we got well over onto the neighbor's property and realized there was a surveyor ribbon on the bushes next to the driveway, nearly 100ft from what generally appeared to be the line. 

Section Township Range line

A sinking sense of dread filled me. My paralegal brain started percolating....

I know the property laws in Florida and the rights a person has to property that has seemingly been abandoned and has been upkept and commonly used by the owner, I just knew this would not be a good scenario. I imagined the church had put the trees up as a setback from the property line and a barrier for the privacy of the neighbor and the cemetery, however with years of overgrowth and no one maintaining the west side of the tree line to the property line, the neighbor had taken advantage and utilized the seemingly discarded sliver of land. 

No one was home at the west-side property, but it did appear there had been activity on the land. Apprehensively, we returned to our base camp where Papa Gon was resting. He told us the property to the west of us had just been sold to a new owner, but he hadn't met them yet. We explained the markers and he shared his similar concerns about the need to essentially make a good fence. 

We decided that was to be for another day when we could talk to the new owners face to face. 

The sun was still high in the sky, but the mowing was done. 

A life of leisure after the work is done!

We let the kids play on the four-wheeler for a while longer while DH used the golf cart to set out and place NO TRESSPASSING signs. The gate would be for another day as we didn't bring the posts to install it, so we laid it on its side in the grass next to the power pole.  We rounded the kids up then started to load up to get home. We would need to wash the golf cart and four-wheeler when we got home, plus unload tents and supplies, so it was best that we left sooner rather than later. It started to look like it was going to rain anyway.

On our way home, we stopped at a cute tiki bar and grill that DH and I had found on one of our journeys to look for acreage. It's located on a large lake just outside our home county line and overlooks a quaint little boat ramp and dock. The first time we went there was live music from a solo artist that was very talented, the beer was cold, the food was hot and delicious, and the restrooms were clean, so we decided to stop again. 

The same beautiful view, and this time we got to share it with the kids. The soft pretzels were delicious with the beer cheese, the kid's menu was well suited to their taste, the service was quick and friendly, and the cider was ice cold just like before. If you're ever in the area, it's definitely a five-star hidden gem! 

The Cove at Compass Lake | Alford FL | Facebook

DH visited the property (which I'll refer to as the Far Piece Outpost, or FPO from now on) several more times before I was able to have a free weekend to go with him. I have a strange schedule and am on call multiple times a week, so when the stars align and I have a rare three-day weekend, we go camping!

Get excited!