We’ve gone and done it now.

Our lat­est offer for a house on three acres just north of Chelsea Michi­gan is likely to be accepted. It’s a nice house, big enough for the fam­ily (includ­ing my Mom, who’s mov­ing in with us) and some of our stuff. The three acres include the bog-​​standard devel­op­ment grade-​​and-​​grass crap on the front third, but over­looks a hun­dred acres or so of beau­ti­ful low, flat wet­land meadow to the south in back.

Of which we are buy­ing two acres.

Bar­bara has brought her fero­ciously thor­ough research atten­tion to bear on this project, and thus we not only have the sale prices of all the other houses in the devel­op­ment, the names and occu­pa­tions of at least half of the own­ers, detailed aer­ial pho­tographs from four sources cov­er­ing the last five years show­ing the trans­for­ma­tion of the land from work­ing farm into exur­ban devel­op­ment, a num­ber of gov­ern­ment and non­profit groups’ opin­ions of the degree of pro­tec­tion and devel­op­ment the place can take, notes on util­ity cov­er­age, advice from the County on “how to live in the coun­try”, line-​​of-​​sight bear­ings to the wire­less inter­net provider in the area (I did that), and cost-​​benefit analy­ses of the var­i­ous unfin­ished bits (dri­ve­way, deck­ing, water soft­ener), and what the farmer grew on the var­i­ous bits we’re buy­ing (pota­toes and corn). And how much the devel­oper paid for the land and is charg­ing for the con­struc­tion on it.

We also have a soil map.

See, the lay of the land is what makes it so beau­ti­ful and hard to describe, and also a big fac­tor in our deci­sion to pay what is frankly a scary amount for the place. The prospect to the south is (in win­ter) some­thing like being perched on the shores of a large, dry lake. Of plants. The flats stretch off to the hori­zon, and the oppo­site “shore” is occu­pied only by one timber-​​framed and dis­tant house. In between, the many maps show some drainage ditches (one of which we’re buy­ing in toto, appar­ently), and a sin­u­ous line of tele­phone poles (which oddly also remind me of past vis­its to water­side towns like Port Clin­ton or Tampa).

But, as should be obvi­ous from my eli­sion, that’s not water there. As the soil map makes clear, that’s Houghton muck down there in the flat pic­turesque bits.

Of course, we will like all our neigh­bors pre­serve and enhance the nat­ural beauty yadda yadda &c &c. It’s to look at, not do some­thing with; I know that. It’s not like I’m allowed to, say, build a lit­tle hob­bit house in the back out of straw­bale and cob as a studio/​office/​eccentricity — nei­ther by the deed restric­tions nor my wife. But you know, now and then the earnest and dili­gent exurb con­ser­va­tion­ist will want to knock down the taller weed­ier stuff with a rid­ing mower.

And not sink.

Or put a cou­ple of sub­tle but use­ful benches out there, whence one can watch the red-​​tailed hawks and sand­hill cranes and white-​​tailed deer and blue­birds and such doing their thing.

With­out sinking.

So now I find I must learn about muck. This, I con­fess, is not what I expected.