Thursday, September 9, 2021

 Brownsville and back.  Saw an absolutely horrible accident today.  It was an RV - a motorcoach, the kind that has it's own engine.  I came up on this accident shortly after it had happened, people had just gotten out of their cars to run down to it and see if they could be of any assistance.  This was an at least 40 foot long coach and it was pulling a pickup truck.  I have no idea what happened, but the entire coach was flattened.  The whole thing had just collapsed in on itself and was completely destroyed.  The driver's seat area was not looking good.  

I wondered if anyone had lived through that. I saw several accidents today, actually, but that one takes the cake of most accidents I've seen anywhere in a while.  Just from the sheer damage, I've never seen anything like it.  

Anyway, just like that, my coughing all but stopped yesterday. Which was an amazingly wonderful thing, I didn't feel near as horrid as I thought I would.  I got down to Brownsville at near 1:00 am, got out of there this morning near 11:00 am and just cranked it back up.  I fully expected another run for tomorrow - which didn't happen.  

So, tomorrow I'm run over to Longview and get the angle stock for James to build a set of heavy duty ramps for my trailer.  I'm also going to stop by the place that rents the steer skids and see if they will rent one to me.  I don't exactly know how to operate the thing, but it won't take long. Yet, they might not much care for that particular detail.  But, I have to try and it's only a few miles away from the steel company.  

That's the plan for tomorrow, anyway, whatever materializes - we'll see. I really just have this internal need to get something done on the property to make me feel like I've got a start on it beyond just acquiring the land. 

I was thinking about this situation this morning and have changed my mind on yet another thing.  I don't know why I didn't think of this in the first place.  Yes, I probably won't be able to produce the money to get all the lots full hook up - namely: sewer.  But how does that stop me from building all 60 lots?  There will just be 40 lots that don't have full hook ups- yet.  They may, indeed, have no hookups, but the work will be done.  If I can get power to those other 40 lots, I can still try to rent them out.  Regardless, there is not real, good reason to not at least develop the lots and have them ready for conversion into full hookups.  I also have - loosely - come to the decision that I can run 30 lots down the western fence line and 30 pull throughs in the center instead of the other configuration I was originally thinking of.

That would mean I wouldn't have any lots along the existing driveway.  Doesn't mean I never will, all of that land can remain available for future use.  1,200 feet of pads going down 2 rows, all lots at 55 degree angles.  

This is a fluid situation, my mind changes as I think about how the customers would like it to be.  

Here's the deal.  A row along one side of the westernmost driveway and a row on the other.  This reduces the amount of heavy duty electrical cable I'll need.  Ok, I may only go 29 or 28 on each side.  I'll need room at the end.  I'm hoping the septic system can go at the very far end of the setup.  

It also - could - mean  that I won't even need to use the existing driveway at all.  Just have a turnaround at the end that does not connect into the main existing driveway.  I'm not saying I will never use that driveway- adding more lots would invariably mean using it and putting the 3rd row of lots along there.  I just don't feel the need to have 90 lots.  Let me get the thing up and going and see what kind of usage I can get after advertising it everywhere possible and if interest grows, I'll think about doing that - in the future, when I hopefully have more money.  

The land was officially mine as of yesterday. Yes, I signed all of that paperwork on Friday, but they handed out the money and filed the paperwork yesterday.  They sent me 66 pages of paperwork today via email.  I'm going to print the whole lot of it out and carefully read every bit of it.  

Anyways, it's almost 11:00 pm and it's time to go to bed.  

G'nite. 

 Friday late-morning Typical morning when there is no work.  It was, I should say, until the new guy called.  "There's nothing wron...