That's nice, in the woods.

Agreed, I love the forested setting.

I wanted to buy a house "away from it all" in about 1974. At
the time, only about half of the houses in the neighborhood were
occupied year round.
local infrastructure has gradually improved over the years, and rising
home prices has introduced a better class of residents. Be careful.
This type of progress can also happen to you.

We bought our property about 25 years ago. We're about 10 miles out of
town, up on a mountain, and was surrounded by thick forest everywhere. The
county road ends a half mile past our place. We really felt like we were
getting away from it all to enjoy nature, our privacy, and peace and quiet.

Over the years the developers moved in, and immediately logged off most of
the forest.

Now we are surrounded by private gated estates with 4000-5000 sq/ft mini-
mansions. Despite having 5 acres to build on, they built one right across
the road that sits up on a hill overlooking our property. It's less than
150 feet from our house. Yay... So much for privacy. To make matters worse,
their landscapers show up every Friday with multiple mowers and leaf
blowers.

We used to have beat up pickup trucks and the occasional weekend partiers
driving up and down our road. Now it's mostly BMW's and Mercedes.

I miss the remote feel we used to have. We have tried to keep as much of
the forest on our own property as possible, but with less than two acres
there's only so much we can do.

Such is "progress"...

Anthony Watson
www.watsondiy.com
www.mountainsoftware.com