Cob: Re: Your acreage

[William Lewis]

-----Original Message-----
From: Mariah Meriam <mariahm at krl.org>
To: William Lewis <wmlewis at thebestisp.com>
Cc: coblist at deatech.com <coblist at deatech.com>
Date: Monday, June 28, 1999 6:03 PM
Subject: Your acreage


>
>> I just bought 44 beautiful acres of woods, pasture. . . that's where
everyone has to start, right?
>
Would it be terribly presumptuous of me
> to ask what you paid?

> Your cows? :-))



I just answered another letter like yours and I'll probably get more. No I
don't mind you asking, as I expected to get inquiries. I'll just paste-in an
answer I just composed. . .

*************
Price varies widely, but generally the farther you are from Minneapolis the
cheaper the land. Stay away from any area with lakes unless you want to pay
through the nose. The terrain and soil (clay/rocks or sandy) varies widely,
so you really have to just spend some time tromping around on what you can
find for sale. First you might want to pick a general area you like, and
then see what's for sale within say a 25-mile radius. In my initial search I
discovered the little hidden-away farming town of Prairie Farm to be a
delightful place, and the people open and laid-back. Yet other communities
are more clannish--sometimes you can feel it by just driving through.

Vacant land in this area is going for around $1000/acre for larger parcels,
but a nice 1-acre lot on the outskirts of a small town can cost $5-10K, so
the larger the cheaper.

North and east of Eau Claire land is generally cheaper, though.

*********
Congrats on YOUR deal! I envy some of the advantages of building in your
area, like not having to guard against freezing. And I love the cool,
moderate Puget Sound climate. (I'm not a sun-worshipper.) Plus the support
you have close at hand of other cobbers, etc. Out here I feel pretty
isolated in that respect.

As for the code regulators, I feel your pain. If you can hang tough and
fight the necessary battles with the power-that-be, you're a better woman
(I'm assuming Mariah is a woman's name, but I could be dead wrong) than I.
Myself, I wouldn't even try to build under those conditions. I count myself
extremely fortunate in that my area is fairly free of restrictions, except
in the area of sewage disposal (as it should be).

Those are the neighbor's cows. We're working on a fence because the cows
like "going" up into the woods where I like to camp and generally be in.
That means flies, smell, etc. They'll still be in my other pasture that's
pretty isolated on the other side of a hill. I'm letting the farmer pasture
them for nothing, for good relations and the fact that I like them there.

Bill