My Forbes Park Background

I purchased my lot in December of 2012. I chose my lot because it was heavily wooded. I was living in San Antonio at the time and was looking forward to escaping the heat. I dry camped in a motor home for about two months during the summer of 2013. Coming from a much lower elevation it took me several days to acclimate to the elevation. I spent my first few days napping frequently.

After acclimation, I locating the corner pins of my lot using a metal detector was the first order of business. Two acres may not seem like a lot but after I walked the span of the property, I find out rather quickly I didn’t want to forget tools needed for any task. The brush and undergrowth usually meant that I had to do a lot of navigating around them. I did try to clear pathways using a variety of tools such as a machete, a hatchet and pruning shears and found out quickly how exhausting this work was. The Juniper brush seemed to be everywhere and these branches are very tough. Sometimes, I would lose my way in the forest which blocked line of sight to points of reference.

I was the first person to stake corner pins on the adjoining lots. Even with a plat plan and GPS coordinates from Google maps, I realized that a corner pin of a lot could be anywhere within a large area. I had purchased a laser measure which was almost useless due to the lack of line of sight blocked by trees and brush. Eventually, I did get lucky and find all four pins. I also found out that pulling a 300-foot, reel-type tape measure was next to impossible due to the heavy brush. My goal was to clear out line of sight from pin to pin but there generally seemed to be a huge ponderosa pine right on the property line obstructing line of sight. Removing the brush was exhausting.

The next task was to shoot grade using a laser level. This also proved to be a daunting task due to the heavy underbrush. I found that I could place stakes at locations throughout the lot where I did have line of sight, usually limited to about 50 to 100 feet apart. Thus, I wouldn’t have to remove quite as much brush. I could also triangulate each of the stakes to mark its position in my CAD drawing. I could also shoot grade for a group of stakes, move the laser level trip to another group. From there, I could extrapolate grade for the entire lot.

Dehydration was a constant issue. Even in the shade of the trees, the moisture was getting sucked out. Sometimes I would get so immersed in my work, I wouldn’t realize I was dehydrated. I wasn’t even aware of the flakiness that comes from the depletion of the electrolytes. Each day I would have to consciously remind myself where I was. I also found that an orange flag tape on a stake might be visible if within 50 feet of that stake but could quickly disappear from visibility once I was further away. There was no way I could see all the corner pin stake flags from one point. I could also hear the wind blowing through the treetops and was quite thankful for the protection the forest canopy offered.

I distinctly remember working around the southeast corner of my lot, fully immersed in my work, when I started to become aware of nuts falling around me. I also begin to become aware of a squirrel chattering at me from above. I then realized he was “yelling” at me and throwing stuff at me. I was on his turf and he didn’t like it! That was my first experience with adverse possession of property: after all, the courts would rule that the squirrel was there first and his ancestry had occupied that area for millennia. I didn’t argue.

The first neighbor I met was Jim Drain. He was building his cabin on Cary Lane. Jim is an ex-marine from Delaware. A savvy, practical and tough character. He had been building his cabin over the summers. I helped Jim put siding on his gables. Standing on the scaffold I could look down into Bucksnort Valley where the train tracks meandered and elk gathered. This was quite the intoxicating experience. I felt like I was in heaven. Jim told me that on an autumn night he had to chase a bull elk away from his camper; it kept trumpeting and he couldn’t sleep! I found this to be hilarious. Elk are normally considered to be mesmerizing to watch but this one was a nuisance.