I'm excited to say that we are now the proud owners of 6+ acres of land. This is the first big step toward our dream of living a sustainable life.
It's quite beautiful land although fairly heavily wooded right now. The land starts where the for sale sign is below...
![Land 1](http://whisperingwillowsoap.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/img_1358.jpg?w=300)
...and continues to the second for sale sign that you can just barely see in this picture.
![Land 2](http://whisperingwillowsoap.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/img_1360.jpg?w=300)
The front has a nice cleared portion (at least an acre) that will allow us to start an orchard and a vegetable garden.
![Entrance](http://whisperingwillowsoap.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/img_1363.jpg?w=300)
There's even a small creek.
![Creek](http://whisperingwillowsoap.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/img_1365.jpg?w=225)
We're planning to build a straw bale home a bit up the hill past the creek and some of the trees so that we have privacy. The house will likely be located a bit higher than where Wayne and his mom are standing in this picture.
![House Location](http://belleterre.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/img_1368.jpg?w=300)
The very tip top of the property has a flat portion that was set up as the original home site. It will be my bee yard and Wayne has promised me a honey shed to go with it.
The day we closed Wayne and I took some lawn chairs and had a lovely picnic by the creek. We then wandered to the top of the property and enjoyed the quiet while discussing our plans. I imagine we'll be doing quite a bit of that over the next few years. I had to go back to work, but Wayne spent the day clearing brush and came home rather content.
It's such a relief to finally feel like we're moving forward. I've been downloading every sustainable living/homesteading podcast I can find and I'm listening to them on the way to and from work for inspiration. There's so much to think about and so much to plan.