Thursday, January 28, 2010

Pics Of The New "Ranch"

Here's a few...crappy...pictures of the new place. It snowed all day on Wednesday and all of last night. But the temps are nice, so it's not incredibly miserable. After I got done putting Miss Beretta back in the barn yesterday, I figured I might as well see if I could get some pics of the new place.

This is coming up the drive...


The first thing on the right there is that funky little two stall barn. The stalls are cement block. I'll be putting rubber lining on those puppies to keep horses from banging themselves up. There is water and electricity in it though and sliding doors coming out of the stalls. I think it is worth keeping, because if nothing else, it will make a nice place to keep horses seperate from everything else. Add panels and you have a nice turnout for them too.


This is the south side of the drive...


I thought those corrals were just weird out there all by themselves, but come to find out there used to be another barn there. The footer and a cement slab are still there. I will probably keep the cement slab because there is a water hydrant right there...Washrack-Yayyyy!


The shop behind those corrals is completely finished inside. Cement floor, insulated and sheetrocked walls, an office and plumbing for a bathroom and washer/dryer hook-up. Because of the way they finished it out, it's not big enough to store all of MH's "toys". That is kind of a problem. He just built his "dream" shop on the property he already owns. But this shop is definitely going to be a nice place for him for his bike building and car re-building projects.


The corrals and the rest of the junk around there is coming out. This is where the roping arena is going.;-) We'll probably save the pipe the corrals are built out of to build another corral for the roping stock.


This is the only junk we told the bank, absolutely has to go before we will close on the place... Supposebly the previous owner was making "bio-diesel"...Personally, I think he was working his way up to "cooking" other stuff. We sure have found a lot of strange stuff around. Lord knows what we will find after all the snow melts. :-O


The house is okay...


Like everything else, needs a severe cleaning, carpets shampooed, walls painted, etc., etc. But the shingles and the windows are in good shape. I'll get indoor pics for you guys when I go over for the home inspection on Friday. The kitchen is a.w.e.s.o.m.e! So is the living room. The bedrooms and bathrooms leave a lot to be desired. They are very small. But ya know, I'm not much of a "house" person, so it's no biggie. At first we really weren't contemplating moving into this house. But now it's open-ended. It's going to be a beautiful property once we get it all cleaned up.

That is the raised garden in the back there...


And the round-a-bout is raised as well(that's to the right). Lots and lots of $$ invested in those blocks. Yeesh! The garden has a watering system next to it that is hooked to the irrigation water, so yayyyyy! All of the irrigation water shares come with the purchase.


Here's the "alley" of the barn...
Both stalls are heaped with stuff and you can see all of the junk left lying around inside and outside. We told the bank to leave all of this stuff and we will clean it up. Interestingly enough it is all brand new electrical and plumbing supplies. Thousands of $$ worth. My Honey figured he could talk one of his electrician friends into straightening out all of the wiring in shop in trade for all of this stuff. Definitely too good to just throw away.


All in all it's a pretty interesting place. Some of the things that were done were absolutely top of the line. Some completely cobbled together. Very strange.


The perimeter fence is all in very good shape. The corners are made from pipe not posts, so they will last forever. There is a gate in the back leading to the Public Lands that border the property. Not endless riding, but a fair amount. Enough that we will not be stuck in the arena everyday. If looks like the ground was hayed last year, so that means at least they kept up with the watering and all of the grass did not die out. Learning how to irrigate properly will be a #1 priority this spring. MH has done some irrigating on this property, but nothing like what it takes to properly grow grass.

The properties surrounding are all of equal size and most everyone has a few horses and/or some cows. Shouldn't be any worries about the neighbors trying to infringe on us doing the same.


So that is a bit of what things look like. I know how I want some things, but haven't quite figured out how I want to set up the pens and shelters for the horses or small grazing pastures. I guess we'll just get everything cleaned up first and go from there.

One other interesting and funny little fact we found out...All around the yard, on the north side of the property are these huge posts with a blue canvas stretched between them. The canvas can be slide up or down those posts(I'll get pictures). I looked at that for the longest time, trying to figure out what the previous owner was trying to accomplish. Finally, I asked the realtor what that fence was for. He hemmed and hawed around, but finally told me the previous owner was a "nudist" and that his neighbors had insisted he put up a privacy fence.

OMG!! Is that too funny or what?

Of course, since I have concocted a theory that he was working his way up to cooking Meth and/or growing pot in his shop(considering all of the strange stuff we found)...what better cover than to be a nudist and have your neighbors insist that they don't want to see what's going on in your yard? ROFLMAO!

18 comments:

Nuzzling Muzzles said...

That would be a brilliant strategy. Maybe I should take up nudism. Perhaps that's something my neighbors wouldn't want to watch. Well, the property looks nice and spacious. I can't wait to hear what you find when the snow melts. What an adventure.

Mrs. Mom said...

Oooo that place is going to be aawesome!!! Cant wait to see how it comes along... Girl, after what i just went through fighting for space in my kitchen to make slow simmered cube steaks for supper tonight, I'd do a lot of stuff about now to have a house with an AWESOME kitchen!!!!!!

Sooo uhh-- whats the job market looking like up there? ;)

cdncowgirl said...

Looks like it'll be a darn nice place once you, MH and Miss Megs put some work into it. (not to mention your 'stamp' of style)

I hate junk left lying around a place. The neighbour across from where I board has all kinds of "stuff" in his yard. The BO finally complained to the municipality so hopefully he'll be forced to clean up some.

cdncowgirl said...

@Mrs Mom - but there's SNOW in those parts!! lol

Sherry Sikstrom said...

Definitely a nice place once you get all th creepy stuff cleaned up .Nudist my Arse! I think you are far closer to right with the meth/pot grower idea

Mikey said...

Looks pretty cool, even in the winter. I agree, he was cooking something... not buying the nudist thing, lol.

Unknown said...

Hey that looks like a pretty neat property! It will be interesting what you find when the snow melts - glad you like the kitchen - it's important cause its the hardest to change...

sue said...

it's a diamond in the rough.. and I bet you will have a great time getting things just the way you want them to be.. nothing like a big project (hummm....) to fill your time :-P keep the pics coming, I love to follow other people's projects!!! and congratulations!!!!

BrownEyed Cowgirl said...

Cdn...I'm trying to convert MM back to her Yankee status. LOL

Mrs Mom-I believe the words they are using is "cautiously optimistic". I've got my ears open for ya.

On another topic...I am about ready to kill the realtor! He is a complete moron. Everything is in place on this deal. It's almost like he is trying to F*%^ it up. Things are on a pretty tight timeline and we have adhered as much as we have been able to to that timeline. The signed contract was late getting back to us-taking over a day off of our time to get the appraisal and home inspection done. I got the home inspection scheduled...AND was the one to make arrangements for there to be propane. All the realtor had to do was get the electicity and water turned on and he was making a HUGE production about that. It's the SELLER'S responsibility to make sure the utilities are available for the home inspection, NOT ours! GAHHHH!
And then because we decided to put the appraisal AFTER the home inspection(you now, just in case?), he sent over an addendum for MH to sign, but the dip put the wrong address on it. Of course I told MH not to sign that one, so he headed to the field and won't be home until late this evening. Now the realtor is pissed because he doesn't have that document signed TODAY. He actually asked if MH could come back to town to sign that(well, you know it's only a 75 mile drive, ONE WAY). Holy CRAP! I went off on him. HIS mistakes DO NOT constitute an emergency on our part. I told him if that was how it was, he could send us back our earnest money and I would cancel the home inspection tomorrow.

Since he knows the financing is in place and we can close after the HI and Appraisal come back, he shut up and told me tomorrow morning would be fine.

Arrggghhhh...I HATE realtors. I am sure there are some really good ones, but I seem to have the worst luck and always get the idiots.

Fantastyk Voyager said...

That's all very exciting! Looks like a fair amount of property, how many acres of land is it?

Pony Girl said...

Wow, how fun, to have new property and start build a place together! It has some nice features, can't wait to see what you do with it and what it looks like with horses on it. It's funny, the nudist theory, LOL!! Seems a bit fishy with the barrels though..... ;)

cdncowgirl said...

UGH realtors!!!
We've had THE most piss poor realtors for the last 3 years while we've been looking for a horse property. I don't know how many times I've had to tell them the absolute deal breakers only to be completely ignored.
Things like 1- no further than 30 min. from work (due to Pie's hours) and 2- must have enough land for our horses (so here that 10 acres or more).

cdncowgirl said...

Oh, the best is that we would have bought a place last summer if our realtor had moved on it faster to get our bid in. Don't they realize that it costs them money when we get screwed???
(and the realtor was Pie's cousin!)

Michelle said...

Ooohhh, I love projects! And horse projects are even better! I hope you keep posting progress photos as you guys work on things! Congrats again.

Unknown said...

This is going to be amazing!

I have heard there is a test you can run to see if there was meth cooking happening, which you may want to do as a precaution. Some old meth houses are actually quite toxic.

If you think it's likely, there are some very specific cleaning instructions to follow. Just in case.

BrownEyed Cowgirl said...

I just had a home inspection done today Breathe. I worried about those very things, after hearing some of the horror health stories in AZ about people buying meth houses. No meth.

Interestingly enough, the home inspector had been to this property before. He came over to check out the bio-diesel cooking systems the previous owner used to build and sell.

Find unusual stuff these days though and a person had better check them out. Better to be safe than sorry.

Unfortunately we did find mold under the house. The bank let the water freeze and busted some pipes. They took no precautions to make sure the crawl space was properly ventilated. Now the mold inspector is going out to check and test that.

I'm really hoping the bank steps up to the plate(especially since the financing is in place) and helps remediate this. I'm trying not to take a hardline on it, but if it is severe enough and the bank won't do anything about it, it could be a deal breaker. CRAP!

Unknown said...

Yes cleaning should be on top priority.if cleaning won't be there then it will be dirt and messy everywhere.
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Vaquerogirl said...

This looks AWESOME! I can just envision your dream here! Good luck, I'm pullin' for ya!