My dream was always to have enough land to hunt on, not see anybody else on and be as self sufficient as possible. I have 68 acres of mixed woods and pastures. The deer hunting isn't very good, but I am over run with wild hogs and you can hunt them year round, day and night. For years, I shot half a dozen or so a year and enjoyed clearing the land and creating trails through the woods. I always wanted more land, and I always day dream of that perfect ranch with everything on it.
Two and a half years ago my wife got colon cancer. She was 52 and there is no family history of cancer. She is Cherokee, and all her family died of heart disease, never cancer. Chemo and Radiation was successful, but she spent a total of 30 days hospitalized during the process and then the recovery. She is cancer free, but will probably always struggle with the damage done to her "gut" by the treatment.
I know understand and appreciate living close to a hospital. It's 20 minutes away, along with all the other things we need to day to day living. For me, the comforts of being able to get what I want, and being able to deal with any health issues in a reasonable amount of time is a lot more important then having more land, or better hunting.
In all reality, I spend most of my time around the house. We are creating a backyard living area that is very enjoyable. We have 5 big dogs that we enjoy spending time with in a one acre fenced backyard that we are thinking about expanding a little, but that's in the future and not a priority. We have 24 raised garden beds and we're currently picking more tomatoes every day then we can handle. I think my wife canned 30 jars of tomatoes the other day, along with 16 of salsa and a dozen spaghetti sauce.
Having that home area as nice as possible has become a much bigger priority for me than working the land or want more acreage.
I'm 54 and in good health. I have a decent income, but no plans of retiring any time soon, if ever.
My bigger goal for the land is to build a fence strong enough to keep wild hogs and coyotes out of the land. I do not believe there is any profit in selling timber. I've tried on multiple occasions to do so, and there just wasn't any interest by the dozen plus logging companies that I spoke to. My neighbor is the personal pilot for a large timber company and he had then cut a bunch of trees on his place so he could build a runway for one of his planes. the amount of money he got for the trees was about half of what it cost to get the stumps out and the land smoothed out enough to land a plane on. They where on his land cutting and grinding up the trees into chips for the entire summer, then it took two years to get the land cleaned up. I realize that most people don't need their land that smooth, but when I drive over it, I don't think it's all that smooth, and so far, he has not tried landing on it. I've been to a lumber mill to see about selling some of my hardwoods to them directly and to find out what they wanted. All they are interested in was railroad lumber. They want 14 inch butts on the logs. When looking at what I have, that really limited me to what I could sell, and those where the trees that i liked the best.
I'm excited for your new adventure in life. I remember what it was like when I moved to my place.
