Time moves on and I continue exploring my new home site to be. A few days ago I completed exploring the accessible part of the new property then came to the conclusion, you can’t get there from here.

It seems that the entire southern border of the property is swamp/marsh. There’s more exploring to be done there, there may be some part of it not underwater but that’s a battle for another day. So I continued onward to the west thinking I could get to the back of the property with relatively dry feet.

OK, that’s a pipe dream. There is a band of swamp/marsh running north to south blocking the back. I spent the better part of a day looking at Google earth before realizing that I was unable to get to nearly 3/4 of my property. I decided that was unacceptable and went out and bought some high rubber boots.

The next day I began probing the swamp band running north to south with the idea of finding a passage west. After several hours I was able to find a path which didn’t overwhelm my knee high boots and found myself in a thick growth of pine and cypress with gradually rising ground. The undergrowth also thinned considerably so I found myself making decent progress.

After a few hours I decided that it was time to head out and start the hour and a half drive back to town. Since missing the path back and getting lost is a very real possibility I wanted to give myself some extra time to do a compass check and cut a new path if necessary.

Once I was home that evening I plotted the GPS points and was gratified to learn that I had trekked a little over 1/3 of the way across. It appears that I have about another 400 feet to cover then I will hit a narrow band of swamp/marsh before starting up the elusive hill. If the weather hold and there’s not much rain the swamp/marsh might not be much of a barrier.

Navigating the swamp is challenging. Besides not wanting to get covered in muck there is the danger of water moccasins, gators and quicksand. Quicksand is very rare here but I’ve used up all the luck in my life so I try to err on the side of caution. It’s also very tiring. Ankle deep water quickly becomes 8 inches deep muck when you step in it. Every step becomes a study in don’t lose your balance or you will be face down when the suction breaks.

I did notice that the swamp is down several inches from about two weeks ago. This leads me to believe that there is an outlet somewhere that is draining it. I really doubt that evaporation and plants would be enough to account for this much water loss. It would be great if I could wait until it had dried enough to get a large back hoe in to dig some large holes and a pond.

Last time out I was able to get a lot closer to what appears to be a pond of some sort. It appears to be clear which might indicate that it
is spring or creek fed, both of which would be nice for an off grid life style.

A zoomed version of this pic shows that this might be a pond and not just an open portion

of swamp. The grass is deceptive in that it’s in water knee deep or higher. Hopefully it will dry enough soon that I can get there and find out what this area actually is.

I’m getting all kinds of users registering and not commenting. OK, not much to comment on so far but it will get better I hope.

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Things are kind of hectic right now but I hope for some time this weekend to work on the blog. I would like to add a picture gallery and some other goodies but time is precious right now. I appreciate people signing up and hopefully will soon have comments in place along with some other goodies.

On the new home to be front, the engine in my truck is blown and has to be replaced. Ouch. So far the start date is tomorrow, Friday and a promise of a healthy truck sometime early next week. When it rains it pours huh?

A little over a week ago I closed on 30 acres in north Florida. The land is down 20 miles of one lane mud track and you don’t get there without a fairly robust 4wd. As it is I managed to get stuck twice to the point that I had to use the winch to get out and stopped once to winch out a stuck fellow traveler in a 4wd F150. In two days I saw a total of two people. One was the driver of the F150 the other was a nice fellow that drove by on an ATV while I was checking maps and GPS.

After a couple of hours of wandering around and getting stuck I finally found my land. Yes, I bought it sight unseen. Still I’m happy with it.

My Google Earth printouts were helpful in a way but really didn’t reflect life on the ground. Where it showed wide sand roads I was driving on tracks overgrown with vegetation and in some cases the road was so overgrown that you just powered through and hoped that you didn’t drive into a swamp.

This is the road on my property looking North. My property line runs down the right side. This was taken before the afternoon thunderstorm.

The road south isn’t much different and yes, it’s as narrow as it looks. Note the puddle in the lower right hand corner. It grew to about 5 times that size after the rain.

After finding what looked like a good place to park I backed the Suburban in and unloaded a bit. My idea was to work at clearing a bit and camping for the night. Boy howdie was I misguided.

I started out well enough about 11 in the morning. By 12:30 I was starting to feel the heat and decided to put up a tarp. By the time I had it up it was nasty hot and I was sweating quarts. Then I became slightly dizzy and nauseous. I settled down under the tarp and sat for three house guzzling ice water and wondering if I had brought enough.

After about 3 hours of relentless sun the heat finally started to break. At one point I had stood up, brushed the tarp with my head and it felt like I had a hot iron stuck on my head. Note to self, net time use two tarps one under the other.

At 4 pm the thunderstorm hit and the boy and I were in the truck, windows cracked and dozing off. At 4:45 the slow steady rain came and we slept till 5:30. At 5:35 I stepped out of the truck into 6 inches of water. Maybe the swamp I had parked next to should have clued me in ya think?

So, the boy and I went exploring. Imagine my surprise when I found a high dry area about 100 feet away. Quick like a bunny I was back to the truck and loading up. Fortunately I didn’t need to use the winch to get out.

By the time I relocated and set up camp, it was dark. Not much of a day of exploring all in all. Sitting by the fire I had plenty of time to go over all the mistakes I had made getting ready for this day. Though the list was long it was nothing compared to the incredibly miserable night I had ahead of me.

I had brought a couple of the foam pads used for ground cover when camping. Should be good for sleeping in the back of a Suburban, right? Right? Wrong! Those things compress down to paper thin and you feel nothing but unyielding steel under you. I didn’t bring a pillow so I used a couple of rolls of paper towels. Wonder why they call them rolls? Because every time you move your head they roll somewhere. After searching for them about 40 times I gave up. Oh, I didn’t bring a blanket. It’s Florida for Petes sake. You don’t need a blanket do you? Yes you do. A plastic tarp will work as sort of a blanket. But don’t expect it to keep you to warm.

I would like to say that the next morning I was up early and full of energy just raring to go. I rolled out sore, tired, and totally groggy. Getting the fires restarted helped, coffee helped, still I was tired. After a bit I was ready and get in about an hour of exploring before the sun started to heat up. After the day before I decided to pack it up and head out.

I asked the boy his opinion. He was ready for a Holiday Inn.

Two steps forward and one step back.

As with all plans, nothing is ever set in concrete. My plan was to drive a U Haul truck to closing and pull my 4wd Suburban behind it. U Haul quickly shot that down when they let me know in no uncertain terms that they had no trailer capable of hauling the beast. As if by magic my To Do list grew yet again and my Done list shrunk yet again.

Next week will be hectic to say the least.

After several years of wishing and hoping, I’ve finally found some land in north Florida and will soon be leaving city living behind. By leaving behind I mean the land I’m moving to currently has no water, electricity, sewer or shelter. With winter approaching I am feeling the pressure to get started and just learned that closing has been delayed once more.

The delay doesn’t at all surprise me since it’s been anything but smooth sailing so far. A few months ago I had found what I thought to be the perfect piece of land. After a very short contact with the realtor representing the seller I returned home and turned over everything to my realtor to complete the buy. At that point the realtor for the seller became the bipolar realtor from hell and needless to say, the deal died a sudden death.

I then located more vacant land and scheduled another road trip. All of this land is located about four hours from where I live now which isn’t terribly bad but requires a bit of planning since I have to negotiate some major traffic jams to get there. However, the trip went smoothly and I returned home ready to make an offer on another piece of land.

This time the offer was well received but it was on the wrong piece of land. Fortunately the sellers rep was very helpful and I set out once again. After turning off the paved road I quickly learned that a road which was easily driven the week before could be entirely different to navigate a few days later.

You can’t imagine how relieved I was to discover that there was about four square feet I could stand in and get a cell phone signal. Slightly more than three hours later I was out of the mud lake, the tow truck driver was a bit more solvent and I was faced with whether to try to continue or abort. I turned tail and headed back to town.

So here I am, waiting to close on a piece of land I’ve not actually seen, wondering if I’ll be able to even get my cargo containers delivered once I do close and waiting on my mechanic to call and tell me that he’s completed the last minute tweaks on my 4wd truck. Yeah, it’s an adventure for sure.