How I Got My 100 Acres

It really wasn't mine, I leased it. I read an ad in the paper and to get the 100 acres you had to submit an essay about why you wanted it. I went to look at the property and I immediately fell in love with it. I could see myself spending my entire lifetime on that piece of property - me and all the animals I could handle. It was also 10 minutes from the track which was a major coup in the dog business. I could work and drive back and forth all that I needed.

So I wrote my essay and the landlord was impressed. Unfortunately I was going through my divorce and my ex had just finished blasting my credit to smithereens. The man wasn't going to let me have it until I had my boss (who was a local big wig car dealer) call him with a personal recommendation. I had the property within seconds after that call.

I still didn't have the money to get the property so I went to my brother. I lucked out. It turned out that he had made several hundred thousand dollars playing the stock market that day. At first he turned me down but I pointed out to him that he could change the entire course of my life if he would just knock off one $800 price tag on that endless column of numbers he was bragging to me about. He changed his mind. Lisa, his wife, brought me the money the next day (I paid it back). I had the property.

The house on the property was a shack. It was sturdily built though and it had running water, power to the breaker box and a gas line. I would need to build everything from that point though - including a road to get to it. I went to my dad. The next day he had a man there with a bulldozer building a road to my house. I had my road. Unfortunately the man ripped out my gas line in the process, so I had to use kerosene heat.

Both my dad and my brother saw the difference that piece of property would make in my life. They knew it would make my future a success.

Next I built a 2 acre field for my greyhounds. I had all my basics now, I just needed to grow from there. Unfortunately that Halloween a bunch of kids threw me down the stairs (there's a blog about that incident somewhere on this site). I was hurt. I couldn't work my farm. I couldn't work at the track. I couldn't work for almost a year and I had no means of support except for the parttime work that a friend was giving me.

oops - gotta finish later