A REFUGE OF BEAUTY & TRANQUILITY EVERYDAY OF YOUR LIFE...

It’s 10:12pm on a typical Saturday evening. I don’t know what it’s like where you are, but here there isn’t a sound other than crickets & frogs a few hours earlier the doves were cooing their evening call to each other. Some nights an owl or whippoorwill might chime in with an occasional coyote or two. I suppose later this evening you might hear the freight train that runs through Afton about 5 miles away. When it’s hunting season coon hounds baying in the distance add their voices.
       I said typical but what I mean is always. It’s always this quiet. Day time is not much different. Pretty much year round. I’ve lived on this farm since 1996 when I bought it from my brother, but I’ve been coming out here since 1955 when my granddad owned it. I’m the 4th generation in this family to call this place home. No matter what is going on in the rest of the world, it’s always quiet here. (grandkids not included)
      Now on the 4th of July you can hear the distant noise of a half dozen major fireworks displays going on around the lake & nearby towns. There is a 35’ tower out in the middle of the pasture that allows you to see them all. But if you hear noise loud enough to wake the baby you probably made it yourself. And if noise is your thing there is no limit to how much or how loud or how late.
      Around Thanksgiving we have some neighbors that live out on the highway who go all out with Christmas decorations, but there are only two lights that you can see from this place. A tower light a mile away in Bernice & a yard light that’s about the same distance. Other than that, it’s the sun, moon & stars. Next month tho 10,000,000 lightning bugs will flood the yard & adjoining hay meadow that borders two sides of the house all the way out to the pound & beyond. Last year we literally waded’ out thru them with the grandbabies. They were floating all around us as if we were inside a snow-globe full of fireflies.  It was like something out of a Disney movie. .
     No buildings other than your own are visible from here. It’s an all natural setting, so peaceful & serene it’s easy to forget the world is in such turmoil. Speaking of which, if you see the “writing on the wall” as well as I do, you could not ask for a better place to “ride out the storm”. With three water sources ( a 6’ deep pond, a spring & a cold water well ) lot’s of wildlife for you carnivores & all the acres you need to grow whatever you like to eat for all the vegans. Growing naturally in abundance are walnut trees/ blackberries/persimmons
w/wild grapes not so abundant, and  producing plum trees & a pear tree I planted myself. Add to that wild onions, watercress & mushrooms & you got yourself a feast. Life is sustainable on this property.
      Of the 140acres, about 65 is in mature hardwood. The majority are oak hickory & walnut. These are mature trees some of which were standing when this was still Indian territory. Back before my brother sold out we spent several years looking for land with trees. Most of the time when the ad said timber we would arrive to find new growth trees about as big around as your leg & 20’ tall. That’s not the case here. However in the 16 years I’ve been here I have selected certain portions to create habitat & it’s pretty wooly. This area is not included in the 65 acres. If the trees are of no interest to you they can be sold to the pulp-ers who have repeatedly expressed an interest. I never got a price as I was not remotely interested in clearing the trees.
      So that leaves about 65 acres in pasture. Of the pasture that is smooth enough to bale you can harvest about 110 round bales of prairie hay-fescue-yellow hop clover. These run on average around 1100 lbs each. The pasture/pond will comfortably support 40 head of cattle year round. With a  near perfect balance of timber & hollows and flat level pasture this land is ideal for a horse ranch type of operation. Although the only barn is over 100 yrs old & unusable I have approximately 3000 recycled concrete blocks that would make a good start for one.
   What I’m focusing on in this description is the absolute peace & tranquility & abundance of wild life. A complete & total contrast with city life. This house was built in 1971 by my father. The most unique feature of this house are the doors. They have never been locked. Not once. Going back even further, my grandfather/great grandfather never locked their doors either. That takes you back to before the land rush as great-grandpa Garland was a True Sooner. How many break-ins? None. Property stolen. Again, none. Ever.  I’ve never locked a vehicle here. Homicides, burglaries, armed robberies-etc. All none all the way back to when this was still the territories. How rare is a place so free from conflict?                         Everyone says their’s is unique. This one truly is & there is a real simple explanation for it. The county road never went thru & ended at the entrance to this farm. The result is nearly 2 square miles of uninterrupted land. That’s why the wildlife come here. That’s why its so quiet. Normally you only find this type of solitude in remote inaccessible areas miles & miles from …well, just about everything. No worries here. You are 1 mile from Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees w/1300 miles of shoreline-3 miles from Monkey Island & 3 world class 18 hole golf courses at Shangri-La, St. Andrews & Bird Island.
       Shangri-La is a 4-star resort w/airport that can accommodate your Lear jet. (I just park mine out behind the barn.) yacht clubs & numerous fine dining/entertainment establishments. Casinos are EVERYWHERE. Huge ones. With headliner superstars from Rascal Flatts to Ted Nugent.
      If this place is so fine, why would I want to sell? Actually I don’t. But that “writing on the wall” thing tells me I need a place the bank doesn’t hold the note on. The equity I have in this place will allow me to do that. I will settle for much less land so I don’t have to look over my shoulder or watch that shaky market. My loss is your gain.
      Are you living in the city fighting traffic smog & crime, hiding behind locked doors & barred windows & barking dogs w/neighbors so close  you can hear them flush their toilet & you have to check with the “city fathers” before you water your lawn, cut your grass, have a barbeque in your own back yard & you send your kids off to drug infested crime ridden schools ran by gun wielding gang-bangers & you’re paying $300,000.00 for a 2000 sq ft home on a half acre lot for the privilege????   Then you’re just the one I’m looking for. You  could be living here on 140 acres of NONE of that with all the freedom of the last century right down to whether or not you get dressed to mow the lawn. Wrote a song about that very thing once. …Honk when you pass the barn…It’ll give me time to put some britches on. 
      (btw the school bus drives mile down the drive-way & picks the kids up at your front door.) The local school is a true country school located 5 miles from the nearest town. ZERO drugs/crime. If you think no such school exists you are wrong about that. Cleora  country school is all that & more, with a strong emphasis on academics ranking in the top 10% in test scores in the nation.
 
 That’s about all I’m going to tell you for now. If you’re interested I will be more than happy to go into the historic past i.e. Indian mounds, wagon road that still runs thru, the time & stories I’ve heard all my life of battles between Spaniards and Indians & a wagon load of silver thought to be buried somewhere on this farm. That’s no joke or sales pitch either. Serious researchers have been out here in years past digging with back-hoes trying to find it. But whether or not you’re the lucky one that finds the silver, this place is a treasure in itself. Come and see.