Update!

When I left off, the seller had given us a counter offer that wasn't very interesting. So, I called the agent back and told her the truth: We do not HAVE to buy this property at this time, so we do NOT want to feel pressured into paying more or closing sooner just so the seller can be an ass (long story short). We gave her a new offer that was three thousand bucks more than our last, but contingent on our closing date.

THEN, we went to the farm near Charlottesville that was started (and I guess is funded) by Dave Matthews and his wife Ashley. This really cool and SUPER smart (and Zen) guy named Matthew (whose wife Suzanne let him go while she worked on packing up their veggies, thank you Suzanne!) walked us around their 40 acre "garden" *eye roll*... I hope to have a "garden" like that some day. You wouldn't believe how beautiful even their DIRT is!!! The tomatoes... like six kinds of them... the eggplants, the peppers... *sigh* Just gorgeous. He even let Ryan climb up on a tractor and play with it... He let Ryan play with is 60 gallon per minute well spigot *insert jealousy here* He showed us this really cool way of irrigating called "drip irrigation"... I mean dude, I learned more in our quick little tour than I could have learned reading a book or two and we didn't even get a chance to tour the orchard for crying out loud.

So, on the way back from there, the agent calls us and tells us that the seller said that we could have our later closing date if we'd pay just two thousand more. It sounded like the perfect compromise, but still, we told her we'd think about it. But there wasn't much to think about. The property is in the right place, it's the perfect property--plenty of land and all wooded so I can decide where things go, a gorgeous house that satisfies and placates Sam, a humongous outbuilding that would make the PERFECT location for a fruit stand later (right now it's being rented by a dude nearby and we'll continue to let him use it), it's about three minutes' driving distance from the schools, the library, the grocerty store... And it's about 20 minutes from Sam's work and the city of Lynchburg. How are we supposed to say no to that? I mean, the place appraised for thirty thousand more than we're going to pay for it. That's instant equity. The only thing left to do is replace the deck (probably gonna cost us 10 grand, but it's not an immediate problem as 1) we're not going to live there right now and 2) it's not THAT bad, I'm just a weenie when it comes to decks and this one is not very well made).

So, we said yes. Duh. We close at the end of October!

I gotta go. Need to pack and have a kajillion things to do before we leave Lynchvegas for Charlotte. I'll post pix on here as soon as I can!

Oh and WOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I have a FARM!!! (well, a wooded 32 acre plot farm-to-be!!!!)