HURT

Posted on by
Reply

That’s my back talking. I just got in from mowing, trying to beat the rain that is coming tomorrow. I had another half hour of light before I couldn’t see but my back said no way. If you’ve never driven a tractor, they don’t have springs and every little jolt travels your spine from your tailbone to your head. This wouldn’t have been so much of a problem forty years ago. Yes, the seat has springs, which are a joke. You deal with it by propping yourself up on your left hand on the fender, and steer with your right hand. It doesn’t help that the grass is growing so fast right now that you have to go really fast to keep the mowers from clogging up.

Spent time this afternoon with someone who is travelling Michigan looking for a property to buy. He is interested in returning land to a more natural state with native plants and trees, my kind of guy. He seemed impressed with the land and said he would be back. Also answered an e-mail from a guy in Colorado who is looking for a place to set up new technology that teaches new golfers how to play, and then made an appointment to show the place to a guy from Chicago who has played here in the past.

So all in all, an encouraging day, and if I’m going to need ibuprofen to make it thru the night it may be worth it. Actually doing the mowing is sort of like doing this blog. I’m not really sure it is making any difference but if it tips the balance it will be worth it.

And I have been quite remiss on keeping up this blog. Things build up and I often feel like I am carrying way more than my share of the load. I don’t even know if anyone ever reads this. I have let 176 comments build up because almost all of them are spam looking to increase page views on other sites, but there could be legitimate comments in there that I have not seen.

Just one of many things on my to do list that too often gets overwhelming. It really helps when like today it seems like we might actually end up selling this place. Stay tuned.

SUBDIVISION LOTS

Posted on by
Reply

We own three lots in the Glenn Shores subdivision which we are going to list with a Realtor. This subdivision was part of the original plan when this golf course was built just in time for the Great Depression. It was included as part of the property when my father bought it back in 1946. He eventually sold off the whole subdivision to a developer but not before offering a lot to me and my friend who helped me keep the greens for $100 each. We declined. Well, a hundred bucks was a lot more money back then but we might have gotten it back five hundred times over or more.

None of these three lots are buildable as they stand due to a combination of small size and zoning regulations. Their value lies in attached lake access for anyone interested in day trips from surrounding areas looking for a place to set up a picnic table and bring their family for private beach fun at Lake Michigan. You can pay a lot less to go to the public beach at South Haven if you can find an open spot and don’t mind sharing it with a huge crowd of people.

They may also be valuable to the people who already live next to them or own the adjoining property in forestalling someone showing up with their RV and a dozen noisy kids. Or in having a place to grow flowers or let the dog run or whatever. Personally I would rather live in a small house and own the land on each side of me, but I realize I am in the minority.

STORMS

Posted on by
Reply

I have mentioned this before and don’t want to pull the old man trick of repeating stories, but this property truly seems to be at the center of blessing when it comes to weather. It’s not like when I lived in Hawaii and rented a room and opened the window and didn’t close it until I left. And it’s not like people all over the country haven’t been remarking on the remarkable winter this winter, or lack thereof.

And I don’t want to seem smug in the face of so many these past few days who have lost family members and all they possess in the horrific out-of-season tornadoes. But there is something truly magical about this place, or spiritual, if you will, that tempers whatever else is going on all around. That does not mean that we could not get our share of tragedy or misfortune here, but the odds of this going on now for over twenty years in my last stint back here are way beyond random.

While the storms were going by way to our south, up north there was such a winter hit that in Traverse City the TV news stations couldn’t get their vehicles out on the road to report it and the power was out over a huge area so there wasn’t much point in reporting it anyway. Three counties were under a state of emergency as I write this. We were supposed to get up to 65 mph wind gusts here last night and a blast of snow according to the forecast.

When I walked the doggies on the course today I didn’t even see any branches down, nevermind fallen trees. The only signs of precipitation were occasional small pockets of frozen sleet in places where the ground didn’t melt them. That whole storm system up north was supposed to slowly drift down over the whole state during the afternoon and evening, giving an additional several inches of snow.

Nothing here. The radar showed snow over pretty much the whole state except for a little triangle centered on this property. Is that possible to buy? Well, actually it is, tho the sale of this land doesn’t come with a guarantee on weather. But anywhere else? I dunno, I suspect there are a lot of people who would like to trade places tonight. Time to count my blessings.

BACK IN TOUCH

Posted on by
Reply

This part of our website has been down for a long time for reasons both technical and human. We’re still here. We’ve lowered our asking price for the property to $800,000. If a realtor was listing it, the price would be something like $799,500.  I understand the reasoning behind that and admit that the way the brain is wired and programmed, the lower price really does seem to be lower.

At that level, you and I know that isn’t so, except in a legal sense. There’s an Ellen Degeneres  commercial on TV for something I can’t remember on this very point. Some woman is selling something for something like $14.95 and Ellen keeps calling it fifteen bucks while the woman keeps insisting, no, it’s blah blah blah. Ellen basically is saying I’m not going to play your game. I might be way off on the details.

I would like to think that the person who buys this property is not the kind of person that would turn away from an $800,000 price but who would perk up at $799,500. However if you really think there is a difference, I will either lower the price tag or give you $500 out of my pocket, your choice. Actually, a realtor probably would be even more likely to list it at $795,000. That’s enough difference to buy a fairly dependable used car and I would consider that as well, tho I’m not going to make up the difference out of my pocket.

THIS COMING SEASON

Posted on by
Reply

We are nearly into February as I write this. Before we know it March will be here, the daffodils will be poking up, and sooner or later the grass will start growing. More and more as I walk around the course and think about this, the more I am thinking that it is time to stop maintaining the land as a golf course.

It is time consuming and the expense can’t go on forever with no income. For the most part I am the one who ends up doing most of the work, and quite frankly I don’t want to go thru it again, especially for no pay. It made sense to do it last year giving any potential buyers the picture of what they would have if a golf course was what they had in mind.

We’re still here. I don’t regret the effort last year but as it turns out it was wasted and I’m still paying for it today. In my opinion, the prospect of running this place as a golf course doesn’t compute unless you have the money to maintain it as your own private course or could invest enough to make it highly competitive. Golf courses are in trouble everywhere. The last remaining municipal golf course in Grand Rapids needs half a million dollars to bring it back to profitability.

What I have in mind at this point is to let the greens and banks go, mow the rest just enough to show the lay of the land and to keep things from looking abandoned. Right now a person could bring the course back into playable condition without a lot of trouble. Once I stop keeping the greens, it would take a lot more and much of it would be starting over.

Many of our potential buyers wouldn’t want to maintain a golf course anyway and keeping the greens doesn’t add a penny to the value of the land in their view of things. But if you have been mulling over buying this property as a golf course, low budget or otherwise, now is the time that you need to make your move in at least talking with us about your dream. I’ve pulled these greens out of disaster many times over but once they are let go it would be rototiller time to bring them back.

TOPSY-TURVY

Posted on by
Reply

Yesterday the temperature didn’t get up to freezing during the day. During the night it got warmer and we had a thunderstorm, reached it’s high point of 45 degrees when I got up and then started back down. It’s below freezing again now and will probably stay that way for days.

But who knows anymore? We are nearly thru January, another week and it will be February with March not all that far away. And we have only had to plow the road once so far. That’s really unusual. The whole weather pattern has become unusual with the seasons seemingly blended into each other so you take it day by day.

Out of all the extremes and fluctuations, it still astounds me how this particular piece of land seems to be at the center of a safe zone of some sort, a place where no matter what extremes are happening elsewhere we continue to get off light. I’ve been watching this for twenty-three years this time around and it just keeps on happening. Doesn’t mean we couldn’t get hit with two feet of snow tomorrow but there really does seem to be a focus of blessing here.

ETTA JAMES R.I.P.

Posted on by
Reply

She was born Jamesetta Hawkins a year before me and she was an Aquarius like me. She died just before her 74th birthday. She had a hard way to go and overcame a lot of pain and difficulty, left some music along the way that many remember with great fondness. The world is better off for her passing thru and emptier with her passing. May she find the rest that was so hard to find here on earth and may she find a welcome place to sing her songs.

LAKE EFFECT SNOW

Posted on by
Reply

This time was for real. It snowed and it’s still coming down tho it has let up some. I just finished shoveling out the mailbox so the mail lady can get thru. It would help if the county snow plows would turn their blade straight when they went by the mailbox instead of adding two or three times the snow to shovel. Bless and do not curse, that’s a hard one sometimes.

It’s called lake effect snow when the wind blows across the lake and picks up moisture from the relatively warm water of the lake, and then dumps it as snow when it hits land again and cools down. It depends on which direction the wind is blowing as to how much snow you get. Straight across from the west isn’t wide enough to pick up much moisture but with a northwest wind like today you get the whole length of the lake for a good whammy. Fifty miles inland and you might have a quarter of the snow we have here.

I’m not complaining, we’re almost halfway thru January and this is the first snow of any real significance, and even this is minor compared to what happens when things really rev up. A woman who wants to rent our clubhouse next summer for a wedding called last night to say she was up for the weekend and wanted to look around today. Could she have picked a worse day? I’m sure she could but it would take real effort. I’ve been going out every few hours to replenish the ground birdies’ feed. At least this wind has been angled right so I don’t have to shovel it every time.

SPRING FEVER

Posted on by
Reply

The weather here has been remarkable, but it isn’t just here. It’s making national news. The whole month of December was remarkable and I really needed it to catch up on my firewood after a summer devoted to cutting grass. At this point I’m three or four weeks ahead, depending on how cold it gets. Still have three piles to stack but the projected storm isn’t supposed to start until tomorrow evening. It remains to be seen whether I can psych myself up enough to get it all done.

I gotta confess, I took the weekend off except for regular chores. This seven days a week business gets old after awhile and it’s been a very long while. I worked until dark today under the motivation of something like half a foot of snow forecast starting tomorrow night. I still have to do things like fill the birdies’ sunflower seed feeder and empty the compost bucket and shovel the ashes out of my woodstove, but those take second page to getting a firewood stash big enough to get thru what might turn out to be a month of snow.

Talking about the weather is the epitome of superficial small talk but when your whole life revolves around it, it’s not so small. A good part of modern civilization would seem to be geared toward neutralizing the effects of weather. That’s okay as long as the technology to do this still works and the means to pay for it are still in place. For a long time I have been preparing for a time when both the technology and the means to pay for it stop working.

May never happen. I may have bet on a losing horse. Wouldn’t be the first time. Still and all, I like to keep my hand in, and the money saved by burning wood instead of propane will let me buy a lot of books and other goodies that seem important to me at this point in my life.

REALTORS

Posted on by
Reply

Recently there was a comment from a Realtor from Wisconsin who was familiar with the place and now operated out there across the lake. He mentioned that the lower the price, the better the chance of selling.

Agreed.

I should point out that even tho we are currently selling the place ourselves without the middle man, or woman, we do talk with Realtors and even are willing to give them capital
“R” status from time to time. Anyone from Wisconsin or Wyoming or Wyandotte, if you have someone in mind that you think might seriously be interested in buying this place, if you contact me ahead of time with a specific name, we would be more than happy to discuss a finders fee or split commission or whatever we together figure would compensate you for kicking out the jams.

We would even put it in writing if that was what it would take. At this point we aren’t interested in listing with anyone else but who knows what the future will bring. In any case, half a loaf is better than none and if all you are doing is providing a name, half a loaf is pretty good compensation. Anyway, I say I know how to talk, and I am even willing to talk with Realtors if they aren’t too pushy.