Whose Woods These Are?

In the 8 months that have passed since I last posted (the highway to hell is now several lanes wide) our lives have changed dramatically. Jessie and Garrett decided to put the Benjamonkey into daycare for the 2014-2015 school year. While we would surely miss him it was really a good move for many reasons. One of them being it allowed us to stay at the beach for the fall. The school year started and we changed our location to Lewes. We choose to stay in the little back house and decided to have new flooring put into the dining room and bedroom. We also decided to paint the walls, since they were paneled  back in the 70s and untouched since then.

The first of our many trips to Lowe's found us sorting through hundreds of paint chips, while Jill agonized over the correct shade of yellow or blue that would go into each room. Let me say here, that I hate to paint. Always have. Always will. So I am not an agonizer. I can be happy with white walls.
Needless to say we found the right colors, plunged into the task and realized that 40 year old paneling is as thirsty as a man lost in the desert. The second lesson we learned was to use a good primer.

As September and October passed, we painted and floored and fished our way through the fall. Then, as we approached November we realized that we really didn't want to go home. So we contacted a realtor and began our search for a house close to the beach that could become our retirement home. Since we share the beach house with my sisters moving there was not a possibility. We found that the further you were from the beach the less expensive the houses were. We also learned that if you were east of Route 1, the main highway here in Lower Slower Delaware, houses were $200,000 more expensive than for a comparable house west of the highway. We settled on west of the highway.

Thanksgiving weekend found us traveling to Lewes, meeting with a realtor and looking at 10 houses on that Friday. The list was narrowed to two houses, that coincidentally had the same floor plan. One had a sunroom and a deck. The other had hardwood floors and granite counters in the kitchen. Decisions, decisions. We had dinner at the Rose and Crown in Lewes and mulled over our options.

Saturday morning found us going back to look at our choices in a different light. After a slight detour from the plan, (we almost built in a new construction development) we chose the house with the sunroom, deck, and 150 acres of woods behind it. And after living here for 3 months, we have no regrets.

So whose woods these are? I think I know. I looked it up on the Sussex County Tax maps, and the 150 acres are divided between two large parcels. We have seen deer, foxes, wild turkeys, squirrels, and birds. My quest is to get a picture of the Pileated Woodpecker that frequents these woods, but is quite elusive. So while we are living near the beach, it is just 7 miles away, we love our little house in the big woods. Oh yeah, and I own the first 50 feet into them .... And I am okay with that.