City to Gritty

We were so overcome with nerves and emotions for our first trip up to our property as the new owners.  After two visits kicking the proverbial tires, we are finally going up as the owners, it is not a dream anymore, it is a reality.  Now to see if we have what it takes to get to our goal.

The zoning for our property is EFU and due to this we had to jump through certain hoops in order to build on it one day.  The folks we purchased the land from were the original owners from the 1970’s, but in the 1980’s Crook and Wheeler counties passed very strict zoning laws that would no longer allow people to apply for a building permit on properties smaller than 100 acres.  Since we were purchasing from the original owners they could apply for a lot of dwelling and put it in our name, this would give us four years from the lot approval to apply for a building permit, so we have to apply for a building permit by February 2026 or we lose the ability to EVER build a residence on this property.  The heat is on…

The property is a raw 32.44 acres and has two easements for other residents to access their properties and we have no driveway, so we had nowhere to park when we got there for the first time as the new owners on Friday March 11^th.  We needed to bushwhack and clear a loop to get the truck and camper up to what we chose to be our future homesite. We got there at 2:30pm and by 4:30pm we were up on the shelf that will one day be our homestead! AH!  By Saturday afternoon we finished the loop and piled up several large burn piles for next winter. 

Other goals we accomplished this weekend was to establish a fire pit area, this will need more leveling, and build a picnic table.  Done and done! 

We are so lucky to have gotten to meet some of our neighbors this weekend as well!  We received such warm and genuine welcomes from a few folks that live in the area.  Turns out there are so many more neighbors than I thought since we cannot really see any other homes from our views.  One of them has some machinery and, in true neighborly form, he offered his services to excavate and gravel our driveway!  This has the potential to save us a huge amount of money on our budget since we are one hour from a town that rents machinery like this…

Keep following our journey, it is just getting started!