The Land

The land is 3.2 acres of hard scrabble, dotted with the occasional oak being suffocated by the ever present cedar trees. Thus far we have discovered a jack rabbit, a cottontail, numerous lizards and toads, a consortium of daddy long legs, and everyones favorite, fire ants, inhabiting the lot. We will do our best to not displace most of these critters, but a few million fire ants are likely to perish. The lot elevates as you get away from the road, forming three natural and nearly equivalent flat areas where a house could sit. The driveway up to the land is shaped like a flag stick 60' wide that opens up to the flag portion of the land after 200'. On the second flat area there is an old well house (home to the daddy long legs) with an even older well. We were originally told that the well had run dry, but upon inspection we found that the well pump was dead. The well is 400' deep, drilled into the Glenrose Aquifer, and has 65' of (hopefully) potable water. We will be repairing and testing the well at a later date.

One of our first tasks on the land was to get a general idea of the space that we can play with, without losing too many oak trees. We marked out a 24' x 22' spot near the old well house that will become the new well house/storage shed/one car garage, and a 55' x 55' plot that could serve as our general footprint 50' from the well house, both on the second flat level. During this process, Kent Ewing (Tara's father), Tara and I cut and cleared a number of cedar trees, building an impressive burn pile. The first flat area will likely serve as our septic field and home to a 10,000 to 15,000 gallon water tank for a water catchment system. To ensure this was feasible we brought out Richard Heineken from Tank Town in Dripping Springs to inspect the land and advise us. Aside from arriving 3+ hours late (we were taking care of the burn pile anyway), Richard proved to be an affable guy and heartily endorsed all of our ideas. The third level is yet to be determined, but I have wild and crazy dreams of a blue agave farm and tequila distillery. Aren't dreams great!

The big decision from all of this is that we will use a water catchment system for all of our potable water, using the well primarily for gardening and as a back up water supply. I will do my best to post a survey of the land once I figure out how to turn a pdf into a jpeg image to give everyone a better idea of the shape of the lot. For now you can see a google satellite image of the land below. Our driveway is to the right of the house and car port that has photoelectric cells on the roof, and the rest of the land is basically outlined by the dirt paths. If you look closely you can spot the current well house.

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The Title

Tara is a born and bred Texan (a native Austinite to be exact) who in 2003 promised her mommy and daddy that she would only spend one year in the big bad Yankee city. Seven years later, her parents discovered a piece of land by chance that they thought might work for Tara and her nomadic husband (me), when they were driving their crazy dog Chase on the back roads of The Hill Country, 25 minutes to the southwest of Austin to calm him down.

To be fair, Tara had been looking for land for a number of years in and around Austin, with minimal success. She came close to closing on a 1 acre plot off of Tara Lane, but opted to keep looking three years ago. She enlisted me in her hunt two summers ago on my first trip down to Austin to officially meet her family. We thought we had found a great deal when a developer bought up some ranch land off of Fitzhugh Road (which is off Highway 290, southwest of the (in)famous "Y" in Oak Hill). We put down some earnest money in the summer of 2008 for a 1 acre plot of land in what was to become a 100+ home subdivision with a community center, pool, vineyard and winery and a weekend restaurant. We then didn't hear from the developer for 6 months. When we did, he let us know that everything was still on track and that he was just waiting for the loans to come through. A year later, we happened to discover the developer surreptitiously changed plans for the subdivision completely, now hoping to build 70 homes on 2.5 acre lots with an olive farm, an olive press, and a brewery/restaurant. At a year and 8 months of continued spotty to no communication from the developer and our diminishing confidence in his ever-changing information, our hopes of owning land in the planned community dwindled to near nothing; we decided to start looking anew.

In mid-May of 2010 we received a call from Tara's parents saying that they found a lot for sale in an established community called Big Country. Big Country has been around since 1974 and is composed of 5+ acre lots that the owners can subdivide further, but to no less than 1.8 acres. The parcel of land that was available was owned by an environmentally friendly builder who divided the original lot into a 2+ acre space and a 3.2 acre plot. He then built a green demo home on the 2+ acre lot and was selling off the 3.2 acre section. The land had been on the market for over 200 days and had underwent multiple price drops. We were hoping to wait until June to visit the land, but the eco-builder was not willing to take the lot off the market without a large, non-refundable holding fee. So on Memorial Day weekend, we flew down to see this slice of Texas. We liked what we saw and offered the builder 10% less than what he was asking for. He countered with a 5% reduction (which easily covered the cost of our round trip tickets) and we agreed. All in all, we purchased 2.2 more acres for $15,000 less than what Tara almost paid for that one acre plot on Tara Lane. As it always seems to happen, we heard that the day after we made the agreement, someone else made an offer on the land. Our agent told us not to worry so we didn't, and on June 30th, 2010, we closed the deal and received the title to Chase's Chance in Big Country.

Now the fun begins. Tara and I will do our best to chronicle our progress as we turn raw earth into a homestead in the next year plus. Initially, progress will be slow as we are still living in New York City for at least the next year, but we will update as often as events warrant.