When we first bought this property it was completely wooded. All the neighbors we talked to said it had always been wooded. We were told it had been logged twice, but at different times and in sections, but never all at the same time. No one we talked to had ever seen it cleared. So when we started clearing the property I am sure it was fascinating to other people, the same as it was to us.
Considering that the property went from looking like this..
to this…
and then this. Well, I guess I can see the fascination!
Jim was working on the dozer clearing Virgina pines one weekend in early 2017 when he kept seeing cars driving up the driveway. After the 4th or 5th car he decided he needed to go see what the fuss was about. He told me that afternoon that he thought maybe I had changed my mind and put up a For Sale sign on the road. NOT! He was really joking, but he had no idea why so many people were driving up the driveway.
He drove the dozer up to the driveway to see one car leaving and another pulling in. The car that was pulling in didn’t see Jim and just kept going up to the house site. Jim waited and when they came back to the road he stopped them to see what was going on. A lady and her friend actually jumped out and apologized for trespassing. As it turned out Jim actually knew the lady’s friend. Jim seems to know everybody! They told Jim that they had grown up in the area and were just curious to see what was going on there. A few days later we met some other people on the driveway that were just curious as well.
Everyone seemed to want to look at the land we were clearing and see what we were doing. Most people were fine. Just curious really. Some people went off road and we even found motor bike tracks and 4 wheeler tracks all through the fields a few time. For the most part, no one ever hurt anything though so we were fine with it.
When Jim’s friend, Joe, came to finish the well and install the septic he ran into similar visitor traffic apparently. He said he knew a few of the people and proceeded to tell us where they live and who they were. Some of the people he had no idea who they were. And Joe probably knows everyone in Rutherford County!
When Joe went back to pick up his dump truck, he couldn’t even get out of the driveway. Our driveway is a quarter of a mile long and he kept meeting cars pulling in. By the time he left, he said he had met 3 different people wanting to look at the property. Since he didn’t know any of them, he explained that maybe they should come back when the owners were home and politely encouraged them to leave. In all fairness, he couldn’t leave until they backed up and left, so you can’t really blame him. He said he has never seen another property that has people so curious. I’m not sure whether that is a good thing or a bad thing!??
Once the grass started really growing…
people acted like it was a state park, stopping in all the time to look, walk around and take pictures. Mostly everyone was gracious and polite, so we were hospitable when we met them.
Joe told us one day that we should charge a nickel a piece for every person that comes down our driveway every day. “We would make a fortune!” he said. Hmmm… how do you go about setting up a toll booth on your driveway? Any ideas???
