I now by law own a couple of 100 foot tall cottonwood tree along with some oak, cedar, cherry, a whole bunch of pine trees and nearly an acre of dirt. I have my own mini forest. We met with the seller, real estate agents, and bank agents this morning, signed 850 documents, and turned over our down payment. I don’t think we could’ve asked for a better previous owner. Doug something or other, probably in his late forties or early fifties. He mentioned that he had a masters degree but just by looking at his paint-stained shirt and chapped gnarled hands you had to assume he had a blue-collar job somewhere. After all the official business, Doug handed us two thick folders full of papers relating to the property. Topographic maps, soil borings, requests to the city for zoning variances, sewer plans and so on. All things that I’m sure took him months of work and probably will save us a significant amount of time and expense when we decide to build. He even handed us a DVD containing most of the documents in html format. Very cool indeed. He then spoke with affection about plants and wildlife of the property, explained a little history, and encouraged us to really get a feel for the property before building a house.