I Finally Saw All Our Family’s Land After 93 Years

Finally marking my territory, so to speak, on my 75-acre property. Been in the family for 92 years. I have yet to see every single bit of it.

These trees are so big. Break stuff as you go to keep this trail. They put this in and it's since grown. Look for orange, it's right in front of us. We do own that field. Be a great place to see the sunrise.

You may think it's crazy, but in my defense, the land is wild, woolly, incredibly steep. I found out also hurricane damage ridden.

Let's go, let's go, let's go!

Our project goal today is to walk the perimeter of our farm. Most of it is in woods, so we need to do this before the leaves come back in, and we're running out of time with the spring coming on.

Everybody's excited to do this. I'm excited too. I've been putting it off there. I have not seen all of my property. My family been here 93 years. Now you're gonna see why that sounds crazy, but you're gonna see why most of it is straight up in the woods and has no agricultural use for us. It's over here, bro. Here's the corner. We don't need to mark it, it's so marked. Let's go around. Riding in the car with Dr. Sheena McCullough, coming back from the event. She was talking about marking your territory, so to speak, in your house. Going around, just seeing everything, especially places where you might feel a negative energy, uh, fear. And I do feel sort of a weird energy when I'm on this side of the mountain. And I said maybe because I've never marked my territory, so to speak.

Now granted, it's only one corner that I haven't absolutely been to, so a lot of this is just making sure we remark it and just mark it like a dog, I guess. Go and put our scent on it. Um, just make it a yearly to-do list.

Go over here. Let's find— let's get eyes on our ribbons. Oh, here's the old fence. Isn't that fun? The old-timers knew where the, uh— here's the old barbed wire. I think the trail is right here. Okay, go up through here. Come on, Henry. Yeah, look at the old fence. Yeah, here, see, you guys Pay attention, look for clues. Look, Grandpa Henry would have put a fence up right here, or whoever had this land before him. They fenced this whole—

what did they do up here?

Did they let their cows come up here in the mountains?

Look how long ago it was. Look how much this tree has grown.

So long ago. That's another clue. They put this in and it's since grown 4 or 5 inches over it, so you could find out how this shaggy hickory. Maybe that's a shaggy hickory. We could find out how long— how fast they grow and estimate when that fence was put in. Look for orange. It'll be a Festivus miracle if we get around this side of the farm. This is a 55-acre parcel by lunch, an hour and a half. See, now this is not impossible. We could maybe clear that for some grazing. If there's another way to get to it. That's an old one. That's from the old survey. Don't ever remove a metal one. Why?

Because it's a—

it's been marked by many a surveyor.

All right, keep going.

See the corner up there?

You know me, I don't want to do this by myself. I take the kids even if they're going to slow me down. I am impressed at how well Henry is doing. It may mean the difference between me finishing and not, but I don't care. It's still great to have the kids along.

Now this is probably a corner.

Whoa, look at that! Okay, look at that cool clearing. Can we take these?

That's hurricane washout right there.

Papa, there's one!

Good, that's another turn. Yeah. We might find views, we might find trees, old chimneys. There is an old chimney on the property.

That's a little puppa.

There would be a view over there, but that's the neighbor's property. All right, let's go see what else we can find. Break stuff as you go to keep this trail. The surveyors macheted a trail. Let's keep that up. I wouldn't mind walking this once a month, once a quarter, maybe even building a trail. There's another marker. Oh look, they found a marker on the old fence. I think we're almost to the top. Maybe you'll find a cool camping spot on the top of the mountain. What's this? Where did you find it? On the ground right there, top of the mountain.

Oh my gosh, look, we can see a city!

Oh yeah, find our ribbon, which way it goes.

Can we rest?

So y'all could have a campground up here.

Yeah, we should. We're right 2 inches away from the property line.

Yeah, the boys could come clear this and you can have an epic view. Now we're going along the ridgeline. Watch out for them metal barbed wire. That barbed wire is probably 100 years old.

It's like a hole. Oh my gosh, never get stranded out in the wild.

Okay, the old-timers would plant rocks, I guess. This is all still familiar territory. We even have access trails up here. We harvested some locusts up here. For our decking. Okay, does it shoot up through there? I think it does. Found our track. We lost it for a minute. That beautiful view on the neighbor's property.

What view?

See this orange place? Replace it. You could do it lower.

Yeah, that beautiful place that the flat spot—

no, I was talking about over there. I just shot a view. No, where you guys rested is ours.

Yeah, I know. Lily, would you like to bail in after me? Well, I'm sure she's gonna fall asleep.

Okay, I'm pretty sure our trail cuts to the right and our property goes to the left.

Right there, right there!

Go find our next one. Get in, get on that tree, Lily. Remark that tree.

Whoa, that is not cow bone, that's like a wolf bone. This is like a good stop. The boys should have came up here for the video.

Maybe next one.

We either go this way.

It's about to get wild again. I think I can see kind of a faint trail. We're just reestablishing our trail, putting our scent around the perimeter, just putting eyes on the perimeter of our farm. I think I see another orange.

Do I?

Oh wait, you didn't just pull it, did you? Okay, I'm glad Henry's getting back up. I think this is the last of the climbs, and then hopefully it's along the ridge and then back down.

Kind of like, look, we're gonna see a whole bunch. We're gonna be walking on a mountain.

There's one on a fence on this huge tree. Now we're in territory I don't really know. This is exciting.

Whoa!

It's a huge tree.

Look, this is so long ago I could barely touch it.

We're definitely walking land Grandpa Henry walked. Isn't this cool?

Got this.

You think he brought his kids up here, tagging them along, fussing at them? Probably not. I think they were a very classic culture. The woman kept the children, but I'm not sure if that's true 100%. This is a really good flat spot. You guys could have a camp. I know, commune up here. Should the boys build a cabin on the edge of the land? If that's a marker there, we have a whole awesome flat spot right here. Look at this, we've got to build some trails up here. Right there, gosh, you could have Field games and stuff up at this campsite. There's our path, our roadway right there. Oh my gosh, Billy, where's our next spot? Oh, I found the mountain camp spot. Holy crap, it's a little knoll. You could have a— uh-oh, Papa, you could clear some and have some view down the orange. You think that's the way we go?

Yeah.

Oh boy, I'm kind of starting to think this field might not be ours. We kind of need to go back to the big oak tree because that's a for sure mark and get reoriented. Hurricane doesn't help because there could have been markers there. It's right in front of us. We do own that field.

That's what I told you about.

Good. Let's see where it goes from here. Look at this, this huge tree fell, blew down this tree.

Let's see how powerful that hurricane was.

Look how big that tree is.

No, Papa, I think it— I think it got stuck.

We are here to a ravine and then it's gonna get crazy steep. My phone's dead or I'd go ahead and order the paid version of OnX where you can see the boundary lines. We've lost our ribbons. Keep going that way. Maybe they— maybe they made a turn up that tree. See, I'm not gonna go down and then, uh, that's probably— hold on, Gideon. It's probably a 50-60 degree slope. Whoa, look at this locust post! I know! Hey! Okay, she found it way over there, so this is not even on us. Good eye, Lily! Oh crap, if that's the right one, we don't own the little camping knoll. Yeah, that's it. Shoot, that was our little camping knoll up there.

Dang it, there's a chunk of flat land before that.

Maybe it makes a turn. Maybe it takes a turn down here and we still own it. What does blue and white mean? Does that mean it's a corner? No, because there we go. Maybe go— do you see? Oh yeah, look, it's an iron stake. Yeah, heck yeah! I'm pretty sure that means a corner. You go that way, I'll go this way, and you holler when you— oh, you see one? You see anything? I think I see a ribbon over here. I think, I think that was our corner. Yep, look, look, here's a barbed wire. It's kind of fun. There's one down there. There's also one over there. What's going on? What? Go down there. Okay, then you want to go down to that one and see if there's another one, and I'll go over here and see if there's another one. I suss this area because it's It's cleared. What is this? I'm going the path. I'm an old man. All right, all right. So I look forward to it because I have never been on that portion, but you can see, guys, it's straight up. Hopefully we can hit it tomorrow.

And as I suspected, and trying to take some pressure off of myself, as much as I wanted to get around the whole thing in one day We didn't. Tomorrow's another day.

Back home safe and sound, looking at the map.

We shifted that way, I think.

We, we made it to here. Here's that ravine we were afraid to go over and climb without a ribbon. You were on track. Lily and I came down here. We must have picked up on some ribbons we had made for— maybe we were gonna do a possible trail. And here's the old logging road we walked out on.

I messed up. I saw the old logging road trail.

I thought we might be here, but we were not at the corner.

Look, I just ran down here. You had to go all the way around. Yeah, we went—

where do you think that big oak tree is? Do you think it's right there? Did it make a turn there?

Yeah, it did. It should have. Yeah, no, Lily found that. Remember the river she found?

Yeah, Lily found something about right here. I think this might be— look, this is a ravine. You guys remember that one?

Yep.

Here's the clearing at the top of the mountain. Oh yeah, we might own the campout spot.

Hopefully. But what about Lily that she found? Didn't it go like this? Papa, look, I found a lake!

Yeah, there's the lake.

This is our last chance this week to get this done, so I decided I'm gonna get up early. We're gonna make this an event. I'll just, I'll just take Gideon and we'll have a special time. So we rose up early and got it going. This is where it got crazy.

You ready, wild man?

What?

We made it to about— well, we started over there, meandered way up there on the ridge, made it to about— well, is that the ravine we've got? Yeah. I hope by the end of this video we're down through there, all the way back down on the road. Looking at it from down here, we only did this section. It looks mild from here. What made you want to get up early and do this?

I don't know.

There's something therapeutic about being in the woods. I'm gonna have to do a lot of inside work today, and I said I gotta go do this. I gotta get in the woods or I'll go crazy.

I just moved outside. We have to be back at 10.

10?

Yeah.

Oh boy, why you gotta be—

okay, it's at least it's not—

no, all right, this time we got OnX GPS, paid version. I got a month, that way we can see the property lines. I could see the next orange. You make a path. Oh, this is, this is much better. Follow the GPS until I see the next marker. All right, should we replace it for good measure? Sure.

It looks— I think we already placed this one.

Okay, that's good. Oh look, this is where we made a mistake yesterday. We're supposed to turn here. Go get— uh, that might be the corner. Here, go up ahead of us and get that orange one because that's not us. Both of us. It's not us. That's a bummer. We don't own that big tree.

It's not done by any tree, and that's not either.

Yeah, so we're on the right track. Good call. Okay, go through there until we see our next one. That's our property line. I'm not going. Okay, that looks official.

Yeah, I think so. It's all up and like everything, and then that looks official too.

Okay, establish our corner. Yesterday we went straight up through there because we saw other ribbons, but that's other people's property. The GPS will help us when we get far off like that. It's not going to help us when we get close because it's, it's off a little bit. You see it across this creek?

Okay, I know, I'm getting ready. I'm gonna get—

and then we hit hurricane damage right on the line. There's no way we're gonna find the old ribbons.

Hurricane Felt a lot of trees on our line right here. Okay, I did not know they made locust trees this thick. Too bad it's gone. What? You got the idea. Okay, I don't know if we'll ever recover this property. We're too far in, we're too far in the wild. These trees are so big. This would be a gigantic project. Can you see our farm? Oh, whoa, you can see our house!

This is crazy! I've never been at this like angle.

Yeah, I've lost the ribbons a long time ago. That's where the GPS comes in handy for at least keeping me somewhat near the line. You can see why I've never been here. Like, how do I get through here? That view is nice. But we did have to get it on top of a massive tree that fell during the hurricane. I'm right here. Glad Henry didn't come. This is next to impossible. Weird to be up here at the level with the sun. The fence, Gideon, the fence. Hot dog and markers and an iron pin.

Seeing this barbed You know, we found our bearings there. That's when we knew, hey, we're there, we're back, we found the boundary line. My grandpa walked there. I never knew my grandpa, but he had his feet there, and most likely my dad, who is now gone. I was able to commune with them. I just think that's so special. And then at the same time, I'm communing with my children, and one day they'll go back and mark the perimeter without me, and they'll have memories with me. So it'll be even more special for them. But that's a really neat moment to connect so many generations. Some of us past, like Grandpa Henry, and then some of us future, like my own grandchildren. So in a way, I imagine I'm communing with them in a really fancy Back to the Future kind of way.

Just did— to see this view, be a great place to see the sunrise. Wow, get your sun in the eyes early in the morning, Gideon.

As hard as this was, I mean, this is our second day to be working on this, going through the hurricane, climbing up steep mountains, taking the kids for day one, roughing it with day two with Gideon. We get to the near the edge of our property, and just at that time, the sun is coming up over the neighbor's property, and it's absolutely Beautiful. We don't get that kind of sunrise down where we are in the valley because it's got to get over the mountain first. So it was neat to climb up to the top of the mountain and just take that in. I don't think I'll easily forget that sunrise.

Piece of tin way up here.

What is this?

A car hood or something? Must be from the neighbor's property. It's flat up here on the neighbor's property. About to go to the corner of our property, someplace I've never been. This old logging road is connected.

Could this be a hike?

Could this be a hike to the top of this mountain to see the sunrise every morning? Here it is, I see it. Dang it. All right, I was hoping to find an iron peg, but I didn't. We're at the corner of our property, never set foot here before. Whoa, is that a locust? No way that's a locust, right? 3 feet and die.

Across.

We should do this Gideon style. You see that?

It's that way.

That's us.

All right, I'm not going that way unless we know that's the way for sure. That's almost straight down. Okay, I think I see a trail. This is gnarly. This is not going to be a hike to the top. Looky here, we survived! We lost the boundary a few times.

More than a few times.

We're not— we're not quite to the edge of a property line. Let me show you why. But look, this is the old pig land we cleared a couple of years ago for pasture.

This is why.

Holy smokes, look what the hurricane did! Yeah, our property line is down there.

You did it!

Good job, bud. In plenty of time. What is it, 8:30? You have an appointment at 10. We're doing good.

It feels really good to have walked our perimeter. It re-established our boundaries going into the busy season— spring, summer, you know, before the leaves go in, see the sweet spots, the mountain that we could maybe climb in the morning if we establish some trails or something to see the sunrise, a couple of potential camp spots, and yet a reminder of the power of nature through— we've cleaned up a lot of the hurricane here on our farm, but where we farm, but up there it's still there and it's still present, and it's— time will deal with it in its own way. Nature will deal with it in its own way, and Probably one of the highlights is Gideon said to me, hey look, he went through my phone looking at the app and he said, hey, we've done this before. It's like old times. And yeah, he had— we had done that together and even taken a picture. So just something that was work turned into memories just because we did it together. If you guys want to learn how to do this yourselves, 3 invaluable tools to— it's so bright out here— to explore land, maybe Austin's playing the teaser right now in Abundance Plus.

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