One of the true highlights of our first year of land ownership was achieving American Tree Farm System (ATFS) Certification. “ATFS-certified family forests meet eight standards of sustainability and are managed for multiple purposes: water, wildlife, wood and recreation.” All Certified Family Forest owners have a management plan that addresses air, water, soil quality, wildlife, special sites, invasive species and integrated pest management as described in the ATFS Standards of Sustainability. Continue reading
Buildings & Equipment
Interestingly, before we even purchased our parcel of land, we had already purchased our first piece of equipment. I blame this at least in part on our dear friends who were visiting us from Scotland, Ruaraidh & Marion. While they were here, Ruaraidh (pronounced like “roary”,with a Scottish lilt), was interested in seeing some of the outdoor sport stores.
This led us by some all terrain vehicles (ATVs). Ruaraidh astutely pointed out that I could not possibly do without one of them! We were in Orlando. I happened to have a drawbar and hitchball in my vehicle. We got a great deal. I became the proud owner of a blue Polaris 550 4×4 ATV. Fortunately my wife tolerates this sort of shenanigans. Continue reading
Family
I am going to switch gears a bit with this post. While it is no doubt obvious that a lot of personal benefits are received by Jeanette and me with our farm ownership, the main goal of land ownership was to offer a recreational oasis for our family and friends. 
Quite frankly, this has gotten off to a bit of a slow start. Our family is quite dispersed with the closest of our kids living about 2.5 hrs away and the most distant living a two days drive away; yes, our Fayetteville son Chris, his wife Clara, and their 3 sons moved recently to St. Louis :(. We have had some meaningful experiences however, and we continue to have the belief that “if we build it, they will come”. Continue reading
Hunting
If you remember back to the beginning of this blog, you remember that the lead introduction to land acquisition was my adventure into leasing hunting land. This post will highlight some of the early hunting related experiences associated with our new timber farm acreage. Since it is a discussion about hunting, there will be discussions and pictures of dead animals so proceed with caution! Continue reading
The Burn
We have been fortunate to get lots of professional input into our land management, from state, private, and NWTF foresters along with NRCS officials and state biologists. 
It was pretty much a universal opinion that our first goal was to do a controlled burn of the forest areas. Needless to say, we needed a lot of education about this as the thought of setting fire to our woods was scary, if not outright frightening. So, the knowledge search was on! Continue reading
Management Plan
As mentioned before, we had a short, complementary management plan from the NC Forest Service that served to assure our tax basis as agriculture. Technically we are a Timber Farm. We are farmers! Exciting, but believe me when I say that we are glad we don’t have to make a living from this. While this plan was very useful, in our minds it didn’t offer much direction for general habitat improvement directed at all the native flora and fauna. This is where the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF) in general, and Graham Hanson in particular came to the rescue. Continue reading
Now what?
We are now landowners but know nothing about owning land. Where do we start? Taxes. Insurance. Management. Etc. Much to learn. Overwhelming actually. Fortunately there are a lot of public resources in NC to help with the journey. It truly is a journey as we are learning and developing new skills with nearly every visit. Continue reading
The Decision
Which land?
While the first impetus for a land purchase was deer hunting, what we really were searching for was acreage of enough size and with enough varied features to facilitate a variety of outdoor activities. Our family likes to fish, hunt, watch wildlife, hike, etc. We set our target on 100 acres or so with woods and water. We really knew nothing about purchasing undeveloped property, and quite frankly, most of what we have learned, we learned after the purchase! Continue reading
How it Began
How the heck did we become land owners in the first place?
Our son, Brad, and I had leased some hunting property in South Carolina south of his home in Charlotte. We both shot our first whitetail deer there and really enjoyed having the space to get away. There were however two main problems with this. First, it was not ours to manage; we had to use it pretty much as it was. Second, while it was relatively convenient for Brad (about 45-60 min drive), it was pretty inconvenient for me (3.5 hr drive). While the drive was fine for a fun, destination trip, it was too far for me to “pop in” for a quick recognizance visit. This planted the seed so to speak, for us to purchase some land of our own to manage as we wished for our enjoyment. My wife, Jeanette, and I started a search. We first looked at available properties between Fayetteville and Charlotte. We focused on areas within about a 1.5-2 hr drive from us. We found some promising acreages.