Under the Snow, Revealed

005. We Purchased, Sight (Kind Of) Unseen, And Now The Ground Appears

A risk we took on in purchasing this property in the dead of winter was knowing there was a good chance we wouldn't get through contracting without seeing the dirt.

We had a slightly longer than normal contracting period — 48 days — in hopes we might find some leverage (or, better now than later, big red flags) beneath the snow melt.

We got lucky with a bit of warm weather in February that allowed the Pond Guy to assess the leaky pond situation. Cooper used other investigative methods to try to catch details that might have a major impact on our ability to use the property the way we intend to. Tools like GIS, Google Earth images, heresay from neighbors, site surveys, and local government records uncovered juicy plot twists. For a minute there, one record told of the dramatic conflict over a previous owner’s right to visit her grandfather’s gravesite—on the land. I was starting to feel like we were stepping into a Yellowstone spin-off! Turns out that part of the land was sold, so that relationship will be our neighbor’s to navigate.

We knew there would be surprises no matter how much detective work Cooper did before signing. But we leveraged the biggest findings in final negotiations and felt confident enough that we could deal with the issues we'd continue to uncover, and that we’d done as much as we could to be diligent. At some point, it’s simply a leap of faith.

Finally, a few weeks after closing, the snow melted.

Welcome to the Holey Land

Driving up the driveway for the first time, we braced ourselves for the true condition of the fields.

The land was once, we hear from long-time locals, home to some of the best hay fields around.

Most recently, the property was used for cannibis cultivation, which, I'm learning, doesn't often pair with the most regenerative land use practices. As we stepped cautiously into the field, I felt wild-west-Explorer-meets-super-chill-islander, making discoveries about what would be in store for us while, with a calm that surprised me, letting go of expectation, judgement, overwhelm, and just taking it all in, bruh, no problem eh?

Lingering patches of snow highlighted the acre, or three, of moguls. Apparently it’s common in pot growing to put huge pots of pot out in the field, burying them slightly. The result is basically big holes everywhere.

The lumpy field rolls into another field of long mounded beds, covered in plastic row covers.

One of Cooper’s first projects will be flattening the acreage with his tractor and various implements, but not until we pick up all the plastic row cover and detritus out of the field, by hand.

We have two hopes in this case. One is that the material covering the field is biodegradable, in which case we'll still pull it out by hand but would be able to do so much less diligently. The other hope is that it's got enough integrity to come up in big pieces. Otherwise, we'll be out there with pokey sticks picking up tiny scraps of plastic for weeks.

Seeing Past the Plastic

Being able to walk around the property on foot rather than on skis made the whole concept of homesteading a little more real. I couldn’t help but picture daily life on the homestead, the massive projects we'll be undertaking this summer and every season thereafter, and the distant moments we'll have walking through rows of apples or watching kids run around.

I've started asking myself lately, if today were my last day on earth, would I be happy with the life I'm leading? Of course there many criticisms that come to mind: I should write more, be more creative, spend more time with my loved ones, spend less time on the computer, more time doing work that really matters. But these are all things I'm actively working towards, little by little by little.

A

nd if we can unlearn the narrative that we're supposed to have everything all at once, that we're supposed to grind and be grateful and someday earn happiness, that we should have already figured it all out— then it starts to feel so obvious:

What else is there than little-by-littling?

TLDR;

• We Bought in Winter — With 48 days to investigate before closing, we hoped for a snowmelt and did as much due diligence as we could.

• There Were Plot Twists — GIS tools and local records helped us surface a few surprises—including a graveyard subplot worthy of Yellowstone.

• Snow Finally Melted — And revealed fields full of buried pots, plastic row covers, and plenty of cleanup ahead.

• The Work Starts With Undoing — Before Cooper can even the fields with equipment, we’ll be out there pulling plastic by hand.

• Seeing It Changed Everything — Once we could walk the land, the vision got clearer—and so did our calm, steady pace forward.

• Building Life Bit by Bit — It doesn’t need to be perfect or all at once. Just honest, intentional, and yours.