Plats and Photos

It's been a long time in coming, but I have finally listed the house for sale.  In fact, nearly four years ago I started the process, or, shall I say, conceded to the plan to sell the house and move to SC near my husband's recently widowed mother.  I awoke the morning of September 6, 2006, planning to begin the process of interviewing real estate agents, and choosing one to list the house.

I checked my email that morning, as is my practice, and found an email from our Pond Association president... the dam for the pond was failing and the water was rushing out, diminishing our 78 acre pond to a 78 acre mud flat.

 

 

That began a series of events that inhibited the sale of my "pond front home." Suffice to say that in the four years since that dam failed, I have:

• Worked as an association member to successfully get the new dam/spillway built ($320,000 thank you very much!)
• Separated from my husband (after spending enough years dealing with his alcohol and drug addictions and resulting domestic violence against me to know I could no longer live that way)
• Filed for divorce after living apart for more than 18 months
• Been notified of his death by my attorney, six days after he died, three days after he was buried....and so, never actually divorced

The natural disaster, tropical storm Ernesto, that caused the dam to fail, was just that, a natural disaster, but it meant that trying to sell the pond front home would be ludicrous....without a pond.  By the time the dam was rebuilt and the water was back in the pond, I was constrained from selling the house I alone had purchased, because the Commonwealth of VA had to decide how much of everything I had worked and paid for was to be ruled as "marital property" and "equitably distributed" between my husband and me.  (I was NOT a happy camper about this process, I might add.)  And so, I continued to work to pay the mortgage on a house I would no longer enjoy.  But this waiting game all came to an abrupt end with his death.

So now, one month from the day I was told of his passing, I have listed the house for sale.  There is some sadness, to be sure.  It is a beautiful place and held so much promise.  It was to be the home in which I/We retired.  But life has a way of changing our perspective on things and this is one of those perspectives that has, for me, forever changed.  I will (I hope) go fishing in the pond a few more times before the house is sold, but if I don't get that opportunity, I will have good memories of last summers' endless days and nights of good fishing.

I will always have good memories of autumn days spent hiking through the beautiful woods, collecting the more that 1000 lbs of hickory nuts I would then sell on eBay, and the spring walks through the newly leaved trees, following the sound of water splashing in the creek that marks my property line, to discover the spawning carp, big and beautiful and BUSY!

 

And to the family who purchases the property, I will betroth my canoe and jon boat.....may they enjoy many years on the pond and catch many, many fish!

 

For me, it is now the final closing of the book for that era of my life. Last night I sent my listing agent photos of the plats for the two parcels of land, one of which is developed and the other which is ready for the new owner to build on.....

I expect it to take a long time to sell in the current economy, but, with it finally listed, I can start to focus more on the old farmhouse and less on the "pond house."