Yesterday I drove down to our property on the border of the state in Southern Hillsdale County. While we were using it, we loved it. However, as more and more people moved out from where ever, it began to lose it's charm. Then the economy started to turn.....at that point it was just a little. The girls needed to be back in Lapeer County and it was necessary in order for us to resolve our orphan issues. It was just time. Turns out it was a really wise choice. We made the decision Christmas holiday 2004. Just think of all the economic doom and gloom since. Well, with all the chaos from caring for Grandpa and Grandma we didn't get down last year during warm weather. So I made the decision to go yesterday just to check on things.
It was a little disheartening to deal with everything I witnessed. Of course there were a very large amount of reposessions. There are everywhere in Michigan. But where I was driving, there was also a huge amount of vandalism. That was a little spooky. Then when I got to the property, I was greeted with the fact that someone had stolen our 3 sided sheds.
As I was getting my bearings about that, I noticed a weird truck casing the road. More on him in a minute. Anyway, the 40 acre parcel of woods across the street was raped of it's trees. It was being logged, but you could tell the work was VERY, VERY shoddy. The piece will be ruined when they are done. Weird creepy guy still casing neighborhood. Then I drove up to the last house on our side of the state line. Completely empty. As in repo'ed empty. Then my missing sheds began to make sense as this family had a habit of having sticky fingers. Meanwhile the creepy guy was still hanging out. Now he was sitting in front of our place. So I drove down and talked to him. He was really creepy and was less than honest with me. So I decided I better talk to the neighbors. Anyway, as it turns out , creepy guy was part of the secondary wood crew. The land had been sold to Amish and they were logging it, but had either worked a deal with the creepy guy to finish clear cutting OR he was in there bootlegging. He had gotten into a big fight with our next door neighbor and that was probably the reason for the lurking and slinking. I think he was probably trying to see if he was home.
Of course during all the neighbor communicating I was doing, I had to hear all about the moron from Hell who lived up on the hill in the original farm house. Now he is harassing the neighbor closest to him over their generator. He has harassed every neighbor there including us. And those of you who know us at all, know we are not the type of neighbor who needs to be harassed. In addition, our sheds were not the only thing pilfered. The theft through there was so bad that one gentleman who had hunting land packed up his camper and moved everything home. So, things have not really changed there for the better. I was so very glad to get home and step foot on my crappy 2 1/3 acres and my beautiful old farmhouse! While things are sometimes boring in the thumb of Michigan, they are never insane like things seem to be all the time down there.
The good thing is that 2 neighbors both would like our land. So we shall see what transpires.
