Okay, so here' s the deal. Mike wants to grow grapes so he can try his hand at making some "estate" wine and that requires more land than we have here. Plus it needs to have some type of water nearby, like a creek or a pond.
Last year, we started scouting around for a suitable piece of property in the hill country; something within an hour or so from where we are now. After looking at dozens of properties in Wimberley, Bandera and Lampasas areas, we saw an ad for a place in Mullin, near Brownwood. A few phone calls later, we had an appointment to see it plus a couple of others in that area. But, when our realtor (and now good friend), Beverly, pulled up to the gate, we knew this was it - even though we couldn't see the house from the road.
At the end of the winding driveway sat a very large barn style log and brick house that had been painted white. The house was vacant except for scads of house spiders and a swarm of gigantic bee looking things that weren't too thrilled to see us. Blanket Creek runs on the far side of the yard - just within eyeshot of the porch.
The place needed lots and lots of work but we didn't care. We thought it was perfect. Long story short - we made an offer, had a contract - then had an inspection. After much discussion, we decided the place needed too much work so we withdrew our offer and resumed our search. The problem was, nothing we've looked at since could compare to the house on Blanket Creek. We were always going back to our photos of this place and wondering why we walked away.
So, some eight months later, we were elated to find the place still available and this time, we're going for it. The owner has done a few major repairs, based on our inspection, which is good. However, just as we were preparing to make an offer, several other potential buyers found our little piece of paradise so there were other offers on the table. So, we made our offer more attractive by agreeing to take the place "as is" and do the majority of the work ourselves. After several anxious days, we finally got word that our offer was accepted. We know what we're up against - pretty much - and we're as ready as we'll ever be to tackle this thing.
Our kids think we're just bored and don't realize how much work we're getting into and the truth is, they're probably right. But they also know we're not happy without a challenge to keep us inspired and physically busy. This place has a host of challenges that will have us using muscles we haven't heard from in years.
We think it will be grand fun.
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