Thoughts on Dirt

Dirt, otherwise known as land or property. Pretend that you have been searching off and on for a few years and only became serious about buying six months ago. Now pretend that you are out in a cow pasture looking at views of the mountains all around you with a stream running along the length of the property. It is a perfect fall day, beautiful blue skies with those amazing puffy white clouds and the temperature is also perfect. And while you are standing there you have that God moment you know the one it goes something like this, the heavens part and you hear the angels going ahhhhhhhhh and the sun is streaming down on your face all the outside noise leaves your head and all you can see or hear in those seconds is your little house and the dogs playing on that perfect 3.58 acre parcel of land with a few chickens and some goats wandering around, your husband by your side and life ah beautiful, peaceful country life stretching out before you. The next sound you hear is that zipping noise the one that comes from a record on a turntable when the needle goes skidding across. That is the realtor saying the sentence, because of the stream you might be in a “flood plain”. A what? You say. Well it seems that a few years ago FEMA looked at every lake, pond, river, and stream and reevaluated them for 100 year flood plain. What that means to me is you cannot build in a flood plain because you will never be able to afford the required flood insurance ever! Ok then we will get the property surveyed and see what we have. Call the surveyor and make an appointment tromp around in the pasture for about an hour and a half get and Elevation Certificate telling you where you can put your house, not as it turns out where you wanted it, in exchange for $450.00. Now I know that life is expensive and all these things are required to build but let us do some simple math here. Ninety minutes, ninety minutes I say divided by $450.00 of our hard earned dollars equals out to be $5.00 per minute. Now I really don’t know what kind of education it takes to be a surveyor or how much his equipment costs and maybe we were his only job for the month but $5.00 per minute. And this person is probably going to have to come back more than once. Not being a trust fund baby or a lottery winner my advice to you is this, before the God moment, look around if there is water anywhere near you run! Run as fast as you can.