Our second 'home', is a cabin I designed and built in the foothills of the san juan mountains, about 35 min away from our primary home in Durango. With 5+ acres of irrigatible land around it, and an additional 5+ of wooded canyon and ponds, the maintenance is definitely not zero. There are ALWAYS issues to take care of, much of which revolves around keeping the place from growing over, and keeping wildlife (woodpeckers, bears, gophers, insects, etc) from damaging the buildings and landscape. Without the big green tractor & the heavy implements I purchased a few years ago, it would be near impossible to keep up with the pasture and other maintenance work. That tractor was the best tool I ever bought for that place.
My DW and I still love going over there, but we're doing it less frequently now, as we travel more. When we come back to it, the chores that require our attention usually eat up all of our time, and we hardly ever 'relax and chill' over there. We're considering selling the place and buying a historic home up in silverton, co, (for summers and winter skiing) which would still require some work, but it would be less than trying to maintain horse property. I'm not a condo guy, preferring to have space around me, so finding a home with a modest sized parcel of land around it would be the direction we're heading. I want to be able to close it up and when I return it's more or less the way we left it.
We love the place, but as we get older, the physical demands of that sort of property upkeep outweigh the benefits somewhat. Really, you kind of have to live there to keep up with it.
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