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Re: Bought the Farm Today

Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2010 5:00 pm
by ScottyD'sdad
Congratulations! Ed

Re: Bought the Farm Today

Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2010 10:40 pm
by Brandon Webb
It actually was surveyed in 2006 and the maps we have are very modern. The survey maps we got have bearings on them like N 45 degrees x 55'x 77" for example. Can I use these with a hand held GPS? We actually bought 2 farms the homeplace I know by heart and it is 60 acres, the other farm is 1 1/2 miles down the road and it's 50 acres of virgin timber and some coal. I have never been on it. My grandfather who is 79 said when he was a boy they grew corn there and shoveled coal directly from the seam and hauled it home and heated the house with it. The coal was never commercially mined and it's my understanding the land was just let go sometime after that. This farm for whatever reason was always named Kid Island. Looking at the map it has a Ridge that seperates it right down the middle so I'm pretty excited to see why it's called that. I'm not sure if a person with the last name of KIDD owned it before but I know we don't have any islands here in eastern Kentucky so it must have some type of rocky ledge or something. Tommorrow if the storms hold off I'm headed off on the 4 wheeler to find out. The survey crew hacked out a trail around the perimeter in 2006 and it appears to still be clear enough. I am excited.

Re: Bought the Farm Today

Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2010 7:30 am
by Mr E
Brandon, be sure to take the camera!! :{_}:

Re: Bought the Farm Today

Posted: Fri Sep 24, 2010 8:07 am
by Phillip W. Lenke
Congrats Brandon and Family
I guess that is a testimony to have a Will and or Trust set up . That way the current cartakers can pass it on to who it was intended.
I hope to be able to pass our worldly possesions on to the kids before we pass so I can see how they take care of them , as well as enjoy watching them enjoy them.
Phil

Re: Bought the Farm Today

Posted: Fri Sep 24, 2010 9:19 am
by OliverFarmall
That's awesome ! Very happy for you and your family.

Re: Bought the Farm Today

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 10:52 pm
by Mr Ziffel
A belated congratulations, I know you are still a happy man.
May it stay in your family forever. :D

Re: Bought the Farm Today

Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 9:30 am
by Scrivet
Ok so what did you find out about "Kid Island"?
You said the survey crew hacked a trail around the perimeter, did they mark the property lines or just the corners? They don't always shoot straight between two corners. If they didn't mark the lines have them do it, it will cost a little, but that's nothing compared to what the attorney will cost when you tell the judge "Your Honor I used the maps from the surveyors and my handheld GPS". The GPS is fine for you to get a general idea of location, just not to do anything like building a fence buy, or which trees to log, or where to stop digging for coal. Your neighbors may not have the same location where their property stops. The surveyor marking it puts some authority to it. Who knows that property next door could have the same legal headaches yours did. One of those fifty heirs is all it takes :twisted: . Personally I'd keep the property line and a trail cleared big enough to drive a Cub around :D . I'd also take a can of spray paint every few years and hit the corner pins. You know it's a corner but twenty years down the road to someone else it's a short fence post with no fence.

Re: Bought the Farm Today Pics Added

Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2011 9:00 pm
by Brandon Webb
Finally Walked over "Kid Island" not to long ago. Very steep walking up the side with road frontage we went up. Big Timber that has never been harvested since my family bought it in the 1930's. The property line runs the ridgetops there is still an old fence. The ridge tops are fairly level and probably have 100ft wide flats to them at the widest point. Corners and lines are marked with pins, ribbons, and hack marks in the trees themselves. It has several what I would call rocky knobs at the very top which are basically large rock out-croppings. On the back side of the property your headed down and one raises extremely high. The survey shoots around it instead of going over it, because it's so steep. You can see forever up there and I'd say it's one of the highest places in the county. No plans to log it now. We're going to get the home farm done and then look into stripping the coal. Depending on how that pans out that'll determine what happens next there. Below is an older fall picture of google maps so you can see the ridgetops. The red box shows the neighbors coal seam/reclaimed highwall where the coal was stipped right up to our property line.
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Been really working on the home farm, have had dozers and loggers going pretty much non-stop. Here are some pics the first are from 2008 google maps to show how many trees. Everything pictured is on the upper right side of the farm which is divided by the road pictured.The loggers are taking everything except for selected shade trees and any fencerow tree's. They're using a trackhoe to push the tree's down stumps and all, beating the dirt off the stumps clean, sawing them off and piling them up, and taking the logs and clearing the land with a small dozer and sowing it in grass. Fast and It's working very well. We are going to leave the far upper bottleneck in about 10 acres of woods. They are going to be starting on the lower side of the road probably in a few weeks. It's the flattest part of the land with around 20 acres and all the tree's are scrubby pulp wood. You can see the old house where my grandpa was born, he's 80 now. It's now home to most of my cub parts. The tobacco barn behind it is around 10 years old and we've already got it filled up as well. We plan on painting it this summer and running electric to it. Here are a few pics:
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Re: Bought the Farm Today Pics Added

Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 8:31 am
by OliverFarmall
Nice !

Re: Bought the Farm Today Pics Added

Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 8:57 am
by Oliver Douglas
Brandon, congratulations!

Every now and then I drive by grandpa's 280 acres that sits right in the middle of the best deer hunting in the U.S.!

Grandpa was a dairy farmer and sold the farm in 1966 assuming the place would probably not appreciate in value enough for any of the kids or grandkids to make a living off of it. Not much crop land. Milk sales in the 1930's paid the mortgage when other farmers went under during the Great Depression.

When deer hunting became big business in Pike County Illinois some years ago, the place sold for a half million or thereabouts!

As a teenager, we hunted about anywhere we wanted and nobody cared in the least. Now you can't hardly stop your truck along a county road without someone getting in your face. Times change. Good luck!

BTW, an uncle of mine bought some land that was settled by our ancestors who migrated to Illinois. He's got the land in trust so it stays in the family.

Re: Bought the Farm Today Pics Added

Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 11:11 pm
by Buzzard Wing
Sweet.... that is great news. I used to go to that part of KY on family vacations when I was young. Beautiful part of the world!

I could tell you volumes about right of ways and boundaries (and even 'timber trespass' and 'grubbing'). I have seen boundary descriptions that merely say by so and so's property to such and such's with no mention of corners or distances. If the surveyor 'blazed' the trees, the blaze points to the boundary line and should be painted every so often. If there is a blaze on two sides of the tree it is right on the line. 3 is a corner.

A normal GPS is too approximate to give a good enough (legal) reading.

Enjoy the farm, it looks to be a real treasure!

Re: Bought the Farm Today

Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 11:01 am
by Georgia Boy
Congratulations on saving the farm. That is great news! Every time I ride by where my dads farm was I get a sick stomach, he sold it just before he passed and it is now a subdivision.


And Ricky, I really like the out come of your story. :D

ricky racer wrote:Congrats Brandon!! In just a few years it will be a "Centennial Farm"!!! The property just south of me, in Indiana, is a Centennial Farm and in Indiana that offers some protections that other properties don't. The City of South Bend wanted a portion of land for a commercial development and the land owner didn't want to sell. He was told that if he wouldn't sell they would exercise eminent domain and take the land. Some how a group of Notre Dame law students got involved and found out that eminent domain couldn't be exercised on a Centennial Farm in Indiana and the land owner was able to keep his land!! :{_}:

Re: Bought the Farm Today Pics Added

Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2011 9:21 am
by prjones
I really enjoyed reading this. Growing up in New Jersey I always fantasized about growing up and living in a rural area like this. I now own 108 acres in VA, one day I hope I can get to it to work and improve the land like you are.

Re: Bought the Farm Today Pics Added

Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2011 1:10 pm
by Stanton
Congrats! Nice rolling hills and pasture. Looks like you could take a Cub for a ride and not come back for a while... :D

Thanks for posting pictures.

Re: Bought the Farm Today Pics Added

Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2011 1:26 pm
by Eugene
If you haven't done so stop by your local county ag, forestry, and conservation offices. Find out what type programs are available.

Just finished a course put on by the local (state) forester and a private land conservation officer. Last couple hours of the course were explainations of the current forest and conservation programs and their reimbursment/cost share. Where I'm headed - years ago son and I instituted some practices. Had we known about a specific program and the cost share - the cost share would have paid about 1/3 of the land purchase price where applied - since we did all of the labor ourselves.

Next story. Wife's great grandfather and his brother made wills, skipping two generations, assigning the property to my wife's generation. Property is in eastern Iowa, Avenue of the Saints was being built across the center of the property. Couple of family meetings were held in a large hall holding several hundred people and each sub-families lawyer(s) to settle the estate. What a mess.