Due to a surprising and wonderful set of circumstances, we were blessed with the opportunity to purchase a farm on Valentines Day 2014.

We knew we wanted to look at property in North Georgia, but we also realize that we know nothing about land and what we should be looking for.  How do you find good land and how do you recognize it when you find it?  We bought a book (of course) and quickly became obvious that we weren’t going to get a feel for land by reading a book.  We were going to have to just get out and drive around the mountains.

It was January and the day was gray, overcast, and a bit rainy.  We found a real estate listing that looked interesting, so we jumped in the car to check it out.  We had our iPads with a real estate app that also showed us listings that were near our current location as we were driving.  Our goals were simple; check out the listing, look around, start learning about the area and what we should be looking in land.

We drove up to our listing on this rainy gray January day and it wasn’t love at first sight.  Not only was it not love at first sight, I hated it, but we looked around for a while and realized that we probably needed to talk to a real estate agent to help us find other listings, so off we went to Chestatee Real Estate on a blind visit to see if they had any other listings that met our limited criteria that we could look at.  We met with Bob, who was very patient with us and take us to look at the property the next day and also do additional research.

I didn’t really want to go back, but it seemed like we should go back and do a proper review with Bob, our new found agent.  As we drove up, somehow this property that had looked more like an ugly duckling on the previous day was somehow transformed.  Perhaps just the hint of sunshine peeking through the clouds to let us see her true beauty.  And there it was…  LOVE at second sight.

But it was the first property we had looked at so we pushed;  to research additional properties, look in other areas, have Bob show us other options.  We were hesitant because we simply didn’t know any better.  Bob knew right away saying to us “Why would you even want to look at anything else, after you have seen this”.  We came to learn to trust and appreciate his gentle advice.

From there things happened quickly and on Valentines Day 2014, we bought a farm.

We…  Matt and Martha along with our daughter Meagan and her partner Morgan.  We are hoping to add others to this adventure as time goes on and circumstances allow.  They know who they are, so I will just leave it at that for now.