Finding the Right Property

So, with money stashed for my adventure, it has to begin with land.

This is not so easy. First, I don't want to homestead in Westport - my darling little coastal community that I've called home for 10 years. Why?

Well, it's on a sandbar and about 1' above sea level: this means any earth tremors will cause Westport to disappear off the planet. Also, the soil isn't...its mostly sand. There's a fine layer of dirt, sure. But I want the deep dirt allowing me to dig a root cellar, underground cache for storing foods, etc.

So, to begin my journey, I did about 8 months of homework on finding the perfect place to homestead. There are a lot of books, blogs, articles and crap on finding the right place, how to build a permaculture and how to buy cheap land.

All future properties will be compared to this one.

After all my homework was stuffed into my head - I found the perfect spot: 21 acres nestled up against a hillside out North River area. LOVE IT!

The picture here shows the old huge barn on it. The rest of the property is vacant. I fell in love with this immediately. That hillside behind the barn also belongs to the property, along with a creek (a trib to Smith Creek).

I'll take it, right! After calling the selling agent and finding out they'll settle for $119k, I left my heart behind and continued my search.