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What’s Up, Dock?

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  Westerhouse Creek borders our property on two sides and plays a major role in the design of our house and how we use the land.  Compared to most other waterways off the Chesapeake it is fairly small and shallow.  By small I mean it barely shows up on a map of Northampton County.  By shallow I mean that at low tide the entrance off the Bay is about 2’ deep because of sandbars.  You could walk across it.  Further in though, the creek widens and deepens.  It’s provides a home to clams, oysters, fish and all kinds of birds including ducks, geese, great blue herons and bald eagles.  The local secret is that it is also a great source for shrimp but, shhhh, don’t tell anyone.  Since it has almost zero access from the Bay it’s mostly used by only a handful of locals and a lot of the shoreline is unimproved.  I mean, who wants to pay all that money for property if you can’t get your 50’ yacht out or show off your McMansion to all the passersby?...
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Properly Prepared Property

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  Our lot is located off of Church Neck Road in Southampton County, VA.  Most of the county is farmland and a lot of that dates back to the early 1600’s.  This particular property has never been built on and I’m pretty sure it is original old growth forest.  Most times driving down Church Neck Rd you might see only one other car in 20 minutes.  The closest big town (big town > 500 residents) is Cape Charles, about a 40 minute drive.  Also about that to the nearest grocery store.  Internet and phone service is sketchy.  Power is sketchy.  People are friendly but keep mostly to themselves.  As far as I’m concerned this place is perfect. After the survey, the next step towards construction is clearing the lot.  We were given the name of a local guy, Major Jones, who does most of the “land disturbance” in this area.  Major (that’s his real name) is in his early 40’s, self reliant, very easy going and knows pretty much everyone i...
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Survey Says???

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  Over the last 100 years or so the Chesapeake Bay water quality has degraded to the point where the Bay is dying.  Its natural resource (crab, oyster, fish, etc) populations had all been reduced to the point of being unsustainable.  What had once been taken for granted is now disappearing at an alarming rate.  When I was a Maryland teenager in the 1970’s you could go into Towson for dinner at a local crab shack.  I can’t remember its name anymore but I do remember sitting down to a newspaper (what’s that?) covered picnic table with a bushel of crabs and a pitcher of beer for hours and it cost about $25 for enough people to fill up a picnic table.  That’s not $25 each.  That’s $25 for the bushel and first pitcher.  The machine shop where I worked had about 50 employees and would sponsor a crab feast every summer for everyone and their families.  All the crabs you could eat, all the beer you could drink.  Those days are now long gone. ...
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Old Age & The Final Home

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Cheri and I originally wanted to slowly sail around the world when we retired in 2015.  We spent six years getting our boat and ourselves ready and then life got in the way.  My Mom needed to move in with us and she couldn’t get on board the boat.  It wasn’t even low tide yet so we knew right away that we needed to make other arrangements.  We were told that Florida didn’t have state income tax but they did have mostly nice weather and alligators.  We bought a house sight-unseen near Jacksonville, mostly because that area isn’t attractive to hurricanes.  We moved our boat down there thinking we could still sail to the Bahamas now and then.  Got Mom moved into the house and then we got old.  Arthritis for me and a heart attack for Cheri convinced us to stay stuck in the dirt and sell the boat.  That door to our dream had slammed shut.  We had huge regrets about that but we’re pretty good at rolling with the punches so we just kinda moved ...
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