During construction of the mini-cabin we planted four small Colorado Spruce trees, primarily to see how well they would grow. I think they were about $15 each. We took some soil from the property to the nursery when we went to look for trees and Mike (of Mike’s Nursery) assured us they would grow. Mike smelled our dirt and pinpointed the location of our property right away which was a neat trick so we tended to trust his assessment.

After planting the trees I got tired of hauling water out every week to water them so I built a rain catchment system to catch rainwater off the cabin roof. It worked well during summer but around mid-December the collection containment vessel (garbage can) developed cracks in the bottom, likely from the water inside freezing and expanding. I’m not sure what to replace it with yet.

We planted the trees in May and they seem to be doing okay now in early January.

In January of 2009, a friend and I proceeded to purchase a parcel of undeveloped land in northern Utah. We both planned to semi-retire in the next 5-6 years and wished to establish a location upon which to establish our retirement homes/cabins.

Affordable acreage is available in many locations in both northern and southern Utah. Unfortunately, much of the cheap land is entirely unsuitable for actually building a permanent residence either due to zoning, lack of services, harshness of climate, or general ugliness.

One exception is Duchesne County where affordable land is available. Duchesne County plays host to some of the best camping, fishing, boating, hunting, hiking, water skiing, and ATV riding in the state. The High Uintahs wilderness area is thirty miles to the north and boasts great hiking, fishing and alpine camping. An added benefit was that Duchesne County was only about an hour’s drive from where I currently live.

We started our search for land by contacting land brokers in the area and making appointments to look at land meeting our general guidelines. The guidelines included:

• Size of the parcel
• Availability of services
• Year-round accessibility
• Price

We looked at approximately ten parcels varying in size from 10-80 acres. Ultimately, the size of the parcel and cost per acre became the primary factor in our decision and we decided on a 60 acre lot which directly bordered SR-40, providing good accessibility.

It wasn’t the most beautiful lot we looked at and had a definite lack of trees, but it was very buildable and the price was good at what eventually turned out to be around $660/acre. 60 acres is a lot of land and provides plenty of area for both of us to build our retirement homes.

Here are a few pictures of the property: