"Buy land.  They're not making any more of it."  Attributed to Mark Twain and Will Rogers.  They had something there.  

My great grandparents had 150 acres in a small township, Jackson, buried deep in Nevada County, Arkansas.  They were farmers and raised food for their family and cotton to sell for profit.  About 40 years after they moved from this area "to town" to Camden, their land was divided, spearheaded by my grandmother, into 25 acre plots and gifted to each of the 8 children.  After the family moved away in 1941, this property was never touched aside from dismantling the 10 room house and selling the lumber.  

As time marched on and my grandmothers generation left us, their children inherited the parcels and somewhere along the way my grandparents purchased an odd 20 acre parcel in the same area.  My grandfather had the idea that they would build a home there and move back to the place where they both grew up.  On the face this sounded like a good idea and on 99% of everything he wanted to do my grandmother went along with.  This wasn't one of those things.  Virginia said to Raleigh; "You'd be living there alone.  I'm not moving back to where they have to pipe in sunshine and wipe the owl shit off the clock every morning."  The parcel is still vacant of a homestead.  

These parcels are now mine.  Where I'm not a timber heiress like my family liked to refer to my mother as, which is really a kind of snide thing to say (IMHO), I do have the opportunity to buy my great-uncle's 25 acres that abuts mine that was part of the original home place.  I've contacted a timber management company that my family has used in the past for evaluation and also maintenance on the others.  With some guidance from a dearest friend, Mrs. Sally Graves, I'm forging ahead on a venture that is the slowest moving process I've ever had.  Now days the physical labor has pretty much been all replaced by large machinery and a little 25 or so acres is not desirable for a company to maintain or even clear cut.  They like to start with 100+ acres so I'm learning to be patient even though I'm standing here with product and money in hand to make a transaction.  

This has started from my great uncle, Venis, who lives in Nyack, NY, and recently moved to a nursing facility at 94.  His son has put his estate in a trust and was advised to get a value on every piece of real property and if able, sell these large assets that are so far away.  I was so touched that he asked me to buy the land.  Around 2000 there was a huge uprising when a cousin had most of this property clear cut and divided the proceeds in a very - unfair - manner.  It divided most of the family and Venis/Jimmy (his son) wanting me to have the first opportunity to have this parcel really does mean the world to me.  Anyone can buy land but buying land that has been in the family for over 100 years is a big deal, at least to me. 

The other day when I was going through parcel maps and paperwork, I found $7 tucked in.  This was my mom's money.  She was notorious for having things scattered about and then scooping things up on a quick clean up.  You never knew what you'd find and where.  This made me laugh.  If she were still alive and I were to tell her I'd found this she would have wanted me to send it back to her.  Her things were hers and that's just how it was.  So, I put this in my savings account and it'll be part of what I buy this land from my uncle with.  

I view living in this area the same way my grandmother did - not going to happen.  Also, the timber market is in the toilet and has beed since the housing crash of 2007.  Owning what has belonged to 3 generations before me though, that is a sentiment worth far more than anything else.