Maine: Incredible Opportunity - 22 Acres, Detached 2-Car Garage + More

[turbo]

I made an offer on my neighbors' property today, intending to buy the whole parcel, and carve off about an acre and sell the house and buildings. No dice! I have known the realtor for 40+ years, so he'll keep me on speed-dial in case things change. The owners say that they want to move ASAP and I offered them a fair price, and a FAST closing. No bank, no mortgage, no appraisal process. Just my lawyer updating the title search and a fast closing with a check and we're done. She can update the title in a day or two if I ask her. I can sit on the property (house, buildings, garden-spot) for a few years until the real-estate market turns around, if needed.

Edit: I may have to reduce my offer to bring reality home.

 

[brainstorm]

I don't believe Evo's moose story.

Turbo, I just need a husband who can:

"change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly."

You forgot question orders, resist authority, reason independently, and ice skate (lots of cold months in ME).

 

[turbo]

I can build a wall and pitch manure. Proof below. Nice rotted manure loaded in with the tractor and raked out by hand.

 

[Borek]

You overdid with manure. Poles usually don't grow that fast.

 

[turbo]

You overdid with manure. Poles usually don't grow that fast.

If that pole grows, I'm going to order another couple of truckloads of manure!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I don't want to move to Maine [more likely, Hawaii], but you will always be my maine man, Turbo!

 

[turbo]

I don't want to move to Maine [more likely, Hawaii], but you will always be my maine man, Turbo!

I have a friend (younger sister of school-mates) that moved to Maui many years ago and built her own house there. She's my Maine girl. Tough and independent. Youngest kid in a French-Canadian family of 16 (would have been 18 if two had not died prematurely) and certainly NOT spoiled.

 

[Math Is Hard]

You forgot question orders, resist authority, reason independently, and ice skate (lots of cold months in ME).

Hey, it's my husband we're talking about. I reserve the right to edit the list.

I also need to add:
make a grilled cheese, finish a crossword, open a stuck jar, and rub an achy shoulder.

OK, maybe the ice-skating, too. You make a good point.

 

[Evo]

Hey, it's my husband we're talking about. I reserve the right to edit the list.

I also need to add:
make a grilled cheese, finish a crossword, open a stuck jar, and rub an achy shoulder.

OK, maybe the ice-skating, too. You make a good point.

Attention men: I have much lower standards than MIH!

The only requirement is that you can go to the toilet on your own and can clean any mess you make. Nothing else required!

 

[rootX]

Attention men: I have much lower standards than MIH!

The only requirement is that you can go to the toilet on your own and can clean any mess you make. Nothing else required!

 

[turbo]

Hey, it's my husband we're talking about. I reserve the right to edit the list.

I also need to add:
make a grilled cheese, finish a crossword, open a stuck jar, and rub an achy shoulder.

OK, maybe the ice-skating, too. You make a good point.

If I ever get un-marriried, due to circumstances beyond my control, I will relentlessly pursue you. I can do lots of stuff that is not on the list, including making chili relish that will knock your socks off.

BTW, when I make make grilled cheese sandwiches, I need to make the right to use fresh-baked bread bread to whack some nice foods together.

Make good bread, use good cheese and condiments, and eat well. Home-made beer-barrel rye bread, spread with mustard on the inside to combine with the sharp cheddar, and spread with butter on the outside, pulunked into a hot cast-iron skilled for about a minute a side. Perfect grilled cheese sandwich.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I don't believe Evo's moose story.

Turbo, I just need a husband who can:

"change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly."

That's not too much to ask, I think.

Hey, it's my husband we're talking about. I reserve the right to edit the list.

I also need to add:
make a grilled cheese, finish a crossword, open a stuck jar, and rub an achy shoulder.

OK, maybe the ice-skating, too. You make a good point.

Well, if you're ever going to get married, you're going to have to join the reformed Church of Latter Day Saints. I don't know who else you could marry besides me, and I'm already married to Tsu, so it would have to be a multiple wives thing.

We could do like the one Mormon guy who hangs his hat on the door where he will be staying that night. But he had 13 wives, so we may not need anything so formal.

...but don't get your hopes up until I check with Tsu.

 

[Borek]

"change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly."

Hey, it's my husband we're talking about. I reserve the right to edit the list.

So, where did the Greg failed? Was it sonnet or manure?

 

[turbo]

Maybe it's on the unpublished list... Making salsa, smoking salmon, canning vegetables, making pickles. MIH needs someone who knows how to cook so she can kick her Stouffer's addiction.

 

[turbo]

BTW, the organic-gardening neighbor was at work yesterday, but we had his wife, daughter, and two little grand-daughters over for snacks, drinks, and company. The girls insisted that I hula-hoop for them just to prove that I wasn't lying about being a kid when those came out. I am no longer coordinated enough (lack of practice?) to get the hoop climbing on me and dropping my arms to get it up around my neck.

Later, I got out one of my guitars and sang and played a couple of old blues numbers for them. They were pretty stoked up, though at 5 and 7 they are at an impressionable age. Not old enough to be critics.

 

[turbo]

I have a bit of a concern. I'm going to have to reduce the price that I'm willing to offer my neighbors to buy their house. The housing market is Terrible with a capital "T" here, with job prospects worse worse than awful. The sticking point is that the guy is losing his mental capacity, and his wife has already lost hers. She can drive, call the sons, etc, but she has NO ability to properly evaluate this place.

I'll pay cash for their place, sit on the place (maybe rent it) and wait until I can sell it for a reasonable profit, but I'm not going to pay high-dollars for it and wait and hope that a decade or two of appreciation will fix the gap.

 

[Galteeth]

I was just in Maine a few weeks ago. Went to Androscoggin to see Stephen King sights. Also checked out Lewiston/auburn, Portland (which was totally booked hotel wise) Biddeboro, and Sanford. I was a bit surprised by the "rural sprawl." That is to say, I was expecting more undeveloped land. It seemed like there were small rural farm towns across the whole of Maine. Didn't find Ackerman's field.

 

[Galteeth]

I almost went to College of the Atlantic (in Bar Harbor) but the weather + isolation combo scared me off. New England seems like the kind of place I'd want to live, as long as it was always summer. I remember visiting my girlfriend at UVM in late april (in Burlington, VT) during a hail storm. It was literally painful to be outside.

 

[turbo]

I was just in Maine a few weeks ago. Went to Androscoggin to see Stephen King sights. Also checked out Lewiston/auburn, Portland (which was totally booked hotel wise) Biddeboro, and Sanford. I was a bit surprised by the "rural sprawl." That is to say, I was expecting more undeveloped land. It seemed like there were small rural farm towns across the whole of Maine. Didn't find Ackerman's field.

Anything from Lewiston/Auburn and south is all turning into sprawl. Head north from Augusta, and you'll soon be into the land of overgrown farms, woodland, country roads...

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Anything from Lewiston/Auburn and south is all turning into sprawl. Head north from Augusta, and you'll soon be into the land of overgrown farms, woodland, country roads...

About 25 years ago, Tsu and I pulled into Bangor Maine, around 7 pm, on the evening of Mother's Day. Not only was the entire town shut down, but we couldn't even find a public phone to call my mother! [no cell phones back then]

Back then we lived in Los Angeles, so it seemed like we had fallen off the face the earth!

 

[turbo]

And Bangor is a BIG city by Maine standards. It was once the lumber capital of the world, with sawmills, lumberyards and shipping docks lining both sides of the Penobscot river. There is a huge photographic mural in the city's planning office that showed the riverfront during the lumber hey-day. You could almost have walked from shore to shore by stepping from ship to ship. Ships loading at the docks, ships moored, waiting their turn... Very impressive.

Want to pick antiques? Bangor is a good place to go nosing around and knocking on doors. Home to lumber-barons, ship-captains, etc. Lots of interesting stuff turns up there, and there are many old mansions that probably are loaded with interesting artifacts that eventually found their way the attic as people lost interest or the lady of the house exerted more control over what could and could not be displayed in the home.

Speaking of antiques, there were a couple of home-made patriotic flags with stars, stripes, and eagles that dated to the start of the civil war. They were found in a trunk in the attic of an unoccupied farmhouse less than 2 miles from here. I made a deal with the dealer who had them on consignment, after consulting with a militaria specialist. The specialist offered to take them off our hands for $6000. They sold at auction for $16,000 plus sales commission.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

And Bangor is a BIG city by Maine standards.

As was indicated on the map. You can imagine our surprise!

We had an RV. One night we parked in a national reserve of some kind to watch the sunset. I recall that this was about the most Northeastern point in Maine that one could go.

While we were sitting there in our RV looking through the bay window, some guy opens our door, walks in, sits down at the table, and starts talking as if we were all best buddies. Tsu and I didn't know if this guy was just friendly beyond belief, or dangerous. Not only that, we were in the middle of nowhere. Where did this guy come from?!

Turned out that he was the Constable and apparently did whatever he pleased. Great guy, but there was no mistaking that he ran the place. I guess we passed his test.

 

[turbo]

Well, I guess my offer for the house was supremely insulting. The people who are selling it won't even speak to me. Too bad! The next offer will be lower still. I'm the only person who has made an offer, and the house has only been shown one time, and that was through a competing agency, not the one with the contract.

 

[Borg]

Well, I guess my offer for the house was supremely insulting. The people who are selling it won't even speak to me. Too bad! The next offer will be lower still. I'm the only person who has made an offer, and the house has only been shown one time, and that was through a competing agency, not the one with the contract.

The reality check messenger is rarely appreciated.

 

[turbo]

The reality check messenger is rarely appreciated.

I may have to endure another round of the idiocy. My wife hates the appearance of their house (street view), but would like to have the extra space. She's thinking about the possibility of a dedicated exercise room in the finished basement, starting vegetables in the sun-room in Spring, and other advantages.

I hate the thought of moving again, but at least it's only a couple of hundred yards. I also don't relish the thought of selling this cozy log house, but she does have a point about the extra space. The elliptical trainer and the BowFlex could be well out of the way, and she could leave a slant-bench set up with a rack of dumbbells nearby. Add some mats, a TV, and DVD player for yoga routines, and she'd be pretty happy. We had a home gym in a spare room in our last house and she misses that.

OK, anyone want to move to a log house in Maine with a VERY nice garden spot and a custom irrigation system? I think I know a place... ;-)

 

[Borek]

Oh, wives.

 

[dlgoff]

OK, anyone want to move to a log house in Maine with a VERY nice garden spot and a custom irrigation system? I think I know a place... ;-)

How are you going to live without your garden?

 

[turbo]

Oh, wives.

Ah yes, the source of random imperatives.

 

[turbo]

How are you going to live without your garden?

There's a garden spot at that place, too, and I would take a year or two to build up the soil. Plus, cut some large trees on the south of that lawn for better sunlight. I talked the owner into buying a 14 yard load of rotted manure last year, and I tilled it in for him this spring. A partial load of sand to improve drainage would be a good addition, but the garden is acceptable in its current state, if a bit small. That's what the PTO tiller is for, though.

 

[turbo]

Please, some rational PF'er (I know there are at least a few!) buy the place next door! I don't want to sink $105K+ (probably the minimum buy-in) into that place and ride out the housing market until stuff gets "normal" again. Taxes, insurance, and upkeep would erode the gain in value and lock us in for longer than we would like.

My wife and I considered buying that place and moving in, but we can't bear leaving this place and selling it. This house has a nice permanent metal roof, code-compliant chimneys, a new detached garage for gas-powered stuff, and their gas, plus diesel and the tractor. Plus, we have a wholly remodeled kitchen with custom pine cabinets, stone counter-tops with cherry trim, a rebuilt back deck... Plus we have a back-yard pond and a cobbled-together irrigation system that kept our garden healthy during the drought. Just can't give it up.

I have spent the last 5 years building up the soil in this garden-spot, too, with dump-truck-loads of manure, sand, and smaller amendments of peat and organic fertilizers to bring this soil to peak fertility and drainage.

 

[turbo]

I have Portland cement, sand and lots of water. Tomorrow, my organic-gardening neighbor and his daughter (the same people who helped build the stone-bordered flower-garden) are going to tow their cement mixer here and bring all kinds of plastic molds so we can make decorative concrete stepping-stones. Some of the molds are quite decorative, and some allow you to make intricate interlocking pavers for walk-ways. Life never gets dull around here.

 

[Evo]

Sounds fun!

 

[turbo]

Promise to PF'ers who might want to move here - if you buy the place that's up for sale, I will spread manure and other amendments with my tractor and till the garden spot for as long as I am kicking, at no charge. Just be a good neighbor.

 

[turbo]

Sounds fun!

It will be, for sure. If they bring the grand-daughters and Max the wonder-dog it will be even more fun. My wife went down to their place a few months ago to help the little ones mold pavers, and she brought them glass beads and polished stones to embed in them. They were thrilled.

 

[Evo]

You can (kind of) see the natural stone raised rock beds I put all around my house. I picked up all of these stones one by one at construction sites in the area and hauled load after load home. They are fossil rock that is just a few feet under the dirt here, kansas was under a natural sea 440 million years ago, so we have all of these incredible rocks.

 

[turbo]

You can (kind of) see the natural stone raised rock beds I put all around my house. I picked up all of these stones one by one at construction sites in the area and hauled load after load home. They are fossil rock that is just a few feet under the dirt here, kansas was under a natural sea 440 million years ago, so we have all of these incredible rocks.

Nice. Here we have mostly either edgy fragments of ledge or heavily-weathered field-stones (often granite). Glaciation has taken its toll here, so building things with field-stone can be problematic.

 

[turbo]

Well, the neighbors showed up early, and just left. We used 4 loader-buckets full of sand, 5 bags of Portland cement and LOTS of water (thanks to my pond-pump!). Instead of the decorated stepping stones, we did cast-in-place pavers, so now I have walkways though my front lawn, and wending between the flower gardens. They have gang-molds that simulate custom-laid pavers. It is a very nice effect, and a lot cheaper and easier than buying and laying pavers. I'd post pictures, but we covered all the paths with plastic and tarps due to intermittent showers expected this afternoon.

 

[turbo]

Thanks to yesterday's "neighbor blitz" we have all kinds of concrete walking-paths. I have to figure out how to border them, if my wife doesn't take that role. Tomorrow or Wednesday, I have to help my wife make molded decorative stepping-stones out of mortar-heavy concrete. Need the mix to be a bit rich and a bit soupy so that all the details in the top of the stones (bottom of the molds) are well-defined when they set.

I'll probably be on and off the tractor tomorrow, shuttling sand for bordering, etc, but I expect that my wife will want to stay outside and attack that, while relegating me to making tomato sauces.

Any PF babes want to harvest, process and freeze food while I work outside? I think I married a too-capable lady that wants to stay outdoors as much as possible. To be fair, I'm home all week, and when the weather turns nice I should be willing to spend some kitchen-time processing food for the winter. I've done pretty much all the canning, pickling, salsa-making, etc for the last 5 years, so I'm used to it.

 

[turbo]

A few weeks ago, we built the stone raised-bed garden and I filled it with rotted manure. Last Sunday, with the neighbors' help, we made walkways with cast-in-place pavers, and yesterday and today I tilled and hauled manure while my wife pulled out the grass and roots, and planted perennials, set out decorative stones, planters, etc. Still a work in progress, so it's pretty rough, but I'm sure it will be very nice when we're done. Eventually, all of the grass on this lawn will be gone, replaced by flower beds and mulch. Now, we have to figure a way to border the pavers and fill the voids between them. Probably fine crushed stone... Caution: wide panorama.

 

[cronxeh]

A few weeks ago, we built the stone raised-bed garden and I filled it with rotted manure. Last Sunday, with the neighbors' help, we made walkways with cast-in-place pavers, and yesterday and today I tilled and hauled manure while my wife pulled out the grass and roots, and planted perennials, set out decorative stones, planters, etc. Still a work in progress, so it's pretty rough, but I'm sure it will be very nice when we're done. Eventually, all of the grass on this lawn will be gone, replaced by flower beds and mulch. Now, we have to figure a way to border the pavers and fill the voids between them. Probably fine crushed stone... Caution: wide panorama.

What do you mean wide panorama.. Its a 2kb file mang..

 

[turbo]

What do you mean wide panorama.. Its a 2kb file mang..

Just that if you have your windows set fairly narrow and you click through the thumbnail, you might end up with an image that won't size to your display. I don't know how everybody's browser and OS handle this stuff...

 

[cronxeh]

Just that if you have your windows set fairly narrow and you click through the thumbnail, you might end up with an image that won't size to your display. I don't know how everybody's browser and OS handle this stuff...

That thing looks like a tiny green bug on my 48" HDTV screen.. even after zooming in and getting up close to the screen all I see is lego cubes of the pixelated image..

Do you have a 1920x1080 version?

 

[Gokul43201]

No plans to move to Maine, but I might visit Baxter this weekend, and hope to walk the knife edge on Katahdin! Weather forecast's looking fairly good so far - fingers crossed.

 

[turbo]

No plans to move to Maine, but I might visit Baxter this weekend, and hope to walk the knife edge on Katahdin! Weather forecast's looking fairly good so far - fingers crossed.

Color me jealous! My arthritic knees long ago stopped that. I could still climb the steeper ascents, probably, but I'd need a helicopter ride to get back down. Down kills! The Knife Edge is a wonderful walk, with sides so steep that you can't see the slopes most places, so it looks more exciting than it really is. Last time I did that one, a warden asked if we could get across the Knife Edge and safely down the other peak (to a safe elevation, anyway) because there was a squall-line headed our way with lightening. Dramatic weather is very pretty from up there.

 

[turbo]

More good neighbor news! The wife of my friend who sells gravel, sand, manure, etc wanted to start growing garlic, so I gave her enough bulbs to get started last fall. This year, I had a bumper crop, and gave her, her best friend, and two other ladies who volunteer at our town's community garden enough German and Russian garlic so that they could all have large enough garlic crops for next season to keep themselves self-sustainable.

I visited my friend's staging-area/sand-gravel pit/screening plant, and took a pail-ful of material from a pile that is comprised of clean coarse sand and pea-stone. I tried filling and edging a short section of pavers with that, and it was perfect, so I called him and asked him to bring me a load (16 cu yds in his big Peterbilt), and before I hung up, I asked him how much the material would cost, so I could have cash available to pay him, and he told me that his he and his wife thought I should get a load of that material for free, and that he'd try to drop it off before noon tomorrow.

I fully expected to pay $250 or more for that large load of twice-screened material. Good deeds come back around to "haunt" you, around here.

My neighbor who (with his daughter) helped to build our raised-bed rock garden and paths is getting a delivery of some nice 12' hemlock logs on Saturday. His (shared with a neighbor) Ford tractor is out of commission until at least next week, so I'll be heading down there with my tractor to unload the logs and stage them on the log ramps feeding his sawmill.

 

[turbo]

It's official! The neighbors who want to move hate me. They were insulted by my offer on their property, AND they are ticked off because I made the offer to their broker and not to them. How ignorant! An offer made to a broker is legally binding - an offer made directly to a seller is not. The vented about all this to another neighbor.

 

[turbo]

Tonight, I called my friend who gave me a 16 yard load of mixed sand and pea-stone. I had given his wife lots of Russian and German garlic last year, and then again this year, so she could establish her crops and spread the wealth. They didn't charge me for the material that I used (in part) to dress the walk-ways that my wife and I are building walks as we landscape. He has lots of trucks, heavy equipment, and heavy trailers. I told him that I'd be glad to top-dress his wife's garden with manure if they wanted to add lots of organics this fall, and then deep-till it. He just has to show up with a heavy trailer, chains and binders to get my tractor to his place, and I'll groom that garden-spot.

His wife gleans the garden, and then let's her horses into feed on the plants, so I'll wait until the horses have had a good feed on the plants until we arrange a good tilling.

This is a wonderful place to live. The most satisfying actions we can engage in are driven not by barter or "you owe me" attitudes, but by thoughts of "what can I do for my friend?". It WILL come back to you. We all have too much interconnectedness and respect for one another.

 

[turbo]

We have a new neighbor. The people who are moving back to Mass sold to a 62-year-old woman who breeds Yorkshire terriers. She intends to install a gated chain-link enclosure in the back of the house (downstairs) and use the finished basement to house her doggies. I haven't met her yet, but she is on-track to start moving into the place the weekend after election day. Hopefully she is a nice person. If she likes to garden, I'll use my tractor to till her garden spot (very neglected, this season).

 

[Evo]

We have a new neighbor. The people who are moving back to Mass sold to a 62-year-old woman who breeds Yorkshire terriers. She intends to install a gated chain-link enclosure in the back of the house (downstairs) and use the finished basement to house her doggies. I haven't met her yet, but she is on-track to start moving into the place the weekend after election day. Hopefully she is a nice person. If she likes to garden, I'll use my tractor to till her garden spot (very neglected, this season).

Do you know how much they sold it for?

 

[turbo]

Do you know how much they sold it for?

No, but probably somewhere upward of what I offered them. She wanted to move here to be close (4 miles or so) from her daughter and son-in-law. At some point in your life, you start strategizing about ease of maintenance, cost of living, transportation, access to assistance if you'll need it.

I was actually a bit nervous about making a $105K cash offer on the place because real estate moves SO slowly here. Throw in the cost of heating and maintaining the place, taxes, AND insurance on an unoccupied dwelling (I checked) until it was sold, and my profit could have been minimal, unless I had some success harvesting and selling off the timber. One little problem: timber prices are depressed because demand is down due to the depressed housing/construction market. There are a LOT of factors that led to my conservative offer.