In all the wrong places. When we started this journey of looking for a place to call our own in the wilderness of WA, we found a dream place. It had a fast running creek. It was covered in older growth forest. It had a small clearing we could call our own and could put a small house on as a base camp. We had pretty simple goals. However, that land was not to be.
You see, we put an offer on it. It was accepted and then we went into title. Everything seemed good to close…and then the liens came on. First it was just one. Our realtor assured us, the creditor would likely relent because some payment from our payment for the land would likely be better than NO PAYMENT from a creditor who owed someone money.
Three weeks later: that lien was still in place and 3 more emerged…from the IRS. Now I don’t know what anyone knows about the IRS, but I know 3 things:
- They move slowly and with a TIGHT paper trail
- They ALWAYS GET PAID
- They are ALWAYS the first to get paid
Knowing that, we decided to look elsewhere. I mean we were still in closing. If the lien(s) came off, we could always close. If they didn’t, we were within time to dump the offer. All that being said, we looked at three other pieces of land. One of which was a big NOPE of a swamp, Another that had MANY bears that frequented it and a likely spring moat, and the last one that was just right.
These are just a few of the things that attracted us here. We have a verdant swamp at the bottom of our hill. In spring it’s full of bright yellow skunk cabbages and a chorus of frogs in the evening. The creek runs along the boundary of the land and we’ve signs of beaver at the bottom. And then there’s the view: I could watch the sunset from the top of that hill every night for a hundred years and never get tired of it. We’ve got a long row to hoe here, but It’s going to be worth it.
Olympic Homestead 
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