Solar powered lights in a non-electrified shed

When we moved to our acreage, we inherited a 12x24' pole shed located out by the edge of the property, well away from the house.  Of course, there was no electricity run to this building, which meant I had to bring a flashlight any time I needed to put something away after sunset.  It didn't take very long before I got tired of that and installed a solar powered, motion-sensing, LED security light inside the shed to light my way after dark.

Let's go exploring

So today's the day.  In a few hours, the movers will arrive to take all of our large furniture (including our beds) from our old house to our new acreage.  It's a day that most of our family has looking forward to for several years now.  The gravity of it didn't really set in until the last couple days.

Easing the transition to our new place

After what felt like the longest four weeks in recent memory, we finally closed on our new acreage on Friday.  We spent our first day at our new place on Saturday, mostly just nailing down our to-do list for the coming weeks before we move in.  The whole selling process has been very easy, thanks in no small part to the great relationship we've developed with the previous owners.

Green acres is the place for me

The new 10-acre plot that we just purchased has about a quarter of an acre (100x100') that the previous owners used for gardening.  That's obviously too big a garden to manage without either a large team of people or some mechanized assistance.  The family from whom we bought our acreage also had a 1952 Ford 8N tractor that they were willing to sell us, so that sent me on a three-day crash course of not only figuring out which tractor to buy, but also what implements would be necessary and how to use them.  Here's what I learned.

Our search is over!

Two months ago, we finally put aside any hope of building our dream home and focused our efforts on finding an existing acreage home that would suit our needs.  We looked at a lot of options online, visited a few of them, and even made an offer on one great place that got rejected.  Finally, just two days before Christmas and nearly four years after we bought our empty lot near town, our offer was accepted on a nice, 10-acre home out in the country.

House shopping around Lincoln

Back in October, we finally put aside any hope of building our dream home, and focused our efforts on finding an existing acreage home that would suit our needs.  We looked at a lot of options online, visited a few of them, and even made an offer on one great place that got rejected.  Along the way, I got pretty good at searching for properties, so I wanted to share some tips I learned.

Working with one last builder

After working with three different custom home builders this spring and coming up empty, we decided to give it one last shot with Brester Construction.  They were great to work with, but really not much cheaper than the other builders that had already fallen through for us.