Land Update

We went to the bank and it was kind of a trainwreck.

We currently own thirty two acres just north of the farm we lease and it was there that we built the house a few years back. We rent the house to a few college kids who seem to take good care of it. I'm pretty sure they sit around, smoke weed and play video games. It's better than keg parties. We were hoping that the equity we have in that property would make for some borrowing power to purchase the hill next to us. We didn't want to put our land and rental house on the market until we knew, for sure, that this land next door to us could be ours. It just feels really smart to have a chunk of real estate to fall back on......
But it turns out that it won't go as smoothly as we'd hoped.

It entirely goes against Bill's nature for him to sit still for any serious length of time, so having him in bed with the flu for four whole days was like having an alien shacking up in my bedroom. And since he couldn't do anything productive with his hands, he put his head to work. In between feverish ramblings he came up with the idea that we would tell the owners that we wanted it, offer to pay the full appraised value and let them get back to us. If/When (when, when, when!) they agree to that, we would then ask if we could put down a "good faith deposit" right now and pay them the full price in the fall. Should they agree, we would put the 32 acres and beautiful house on the market right away and pray pray pray that it sells quickly.

That's all we've got.

The owner, a very sweet lady from New York City, called us this week to see where we were with it all. Bill gave her the low down and she told us that her brother was flying into the country (from god knows where) and her husband was returning to the city (from god knows where) this weekend and they would be discussing it.
We're expecting to hear back sometime next week.

And my birthday is Tuesday. I've been asking the universe for some pretty heady presents, I know. A coffee shop and one hundred and seventeen acres of pristine land. I remember the first year I moved to Vermont. I was grateful for a thunderstorm on my birthday. My demands are growing, I guess.