Almost there.

[oldsoldier]

Congratulations on the great BOL, the soil and those prices sound oh sooooo wonderful.

Might want to be careful how you use those RR ties. I have been told that creosote treated and CCM treated woods will transfer some bad nasties to the soil. Could be OK for herbs but would be very careful with food stuffs. Anybody else have more accurate information on re-purposing RR ties?

black soil, WOW, more than 40 inches of rain from the sky every year, WOW. Next time you get a chance reach down and scoop up a handful of that dirt and give it a smell. What does it smell like?Enjoy

 Bee.... Your correct about the "poisons" in RR ties. However the old ones ( ones the rail road has replaced)  have been exposed to several years of weather and most of the pollutants has washed out. I have used ties like these forever for raised bed gardening with no problems. Just make sure they are old ties. One way to check is pull off a sliver of one and see how easily it ignites and burns with a match applied to it. If it catches easily and burns hotly it still has to much creosote in it.

 The smell of the soil is hard to explain....... Imagine the first smell of bottle of fine wine, the smell of the air after a spring rain, a loaf of fresh out of the oven bread...... Add all those and more and you'll get the idea.

[oldsoldier]

UPDATE!!..... Got a call from the guy who sold us the land last week, seems he has decided due to " getting older" ( he's only a year older than I am) ( 50) that he's going to sell of some more property. He's got a cabin on about 5 acres that borders the land we already bought. He's willing to "let it go to us"  for $90.000 with 1% down on a 15 year owner financing at 2% interest. The guy has lots of property as he inherited a lot and has invested in more over the years. The good/bad is we can't move right now as it's 70+ miles away one way. But there are vacation rental places in the area that would " contract" the cabin and rent it for us, they would maintain the place, watch it on a daily basis, clean it, do all the needed repairs ( we'd supply the materials) take care of rental paperwork and in turn they get 40-45% of the rental fees.  The timing is perfect as we plan on going up saturday anyway for vacation next week so we'll check it out and I'll update when we return hopefully with pics, 

[opsec]

That sounds like opportunity knocking to me.

[Ozark Lady]

Congrats on the land.

Hey, I have high speed internet through my phone company.  It is possible.  And I have wireless hookups on my modem if I wanted one.

I guess this means, that every free weekend we will know where you are... don't blame ya.
And every waking hour will be preparing, planning, and gathering stuff that you need.
Again, I don't blame ya.  But, don't forget to stop by, say hi, and post photos for us!

[oldsoldier]

 Thanks Ozark lady.  I've got a wireless modem through my cellular carrier, so I can get service through it if I want. Oh yes I will definately ( at least try to) post some pics when we get back.

[oldsoldier]

Well.... we just got home a little while ago, due to rain and flooding we couldn't get to the property we wanted to check out ( road was under 3' of water) so we plan on going back up in a few weeks and checking it out and getting pics. We actually ended up coming back a couple days early because of flooding. When we went the road to the place we stay was flooded and we had to take the high water road but due to another 3-4" of rain it was about to flood and the highway was under 7-8" of water and rising so we "bugged out" for home. When we get back up I'll take and post pics then.

[Ozark Lady]

Flooding?
Could this be a major issue if you lived there?
I don't live where flooding is even a likelihood.
I remember having to evacuate my home, when I lived in North Dakota.  That was a real nuisance!

I suppose there are advantages in living very near the highest point in my state!

[oldsoldier]

Flooding?
Could this be a major issue if you lived there?
I don't live where flooding is even a likelihood.
I remember having to evacuate my home, when I lived in North Dakota.  That was a real nuisance!

I suppose there are advantages in living very near the highest point in my state!

 Usually they don't have that much rain that fast in the area. They/ we had over 6" of rain in a few days. I guess that there IS a chance of flooding in the area. The property we own is with the exception of an area along the creek is high enough to be safe from flooding. However when we do move to the "place" will be when we (or at least the wife) retire and if we get flooded in that won't be a major deal. Since there is a creek along the property deep enough to use a boat. So part of our long range plan is to purchase a pontoon boat. So worse case we can always boat out to a nearby marina.