Okay, today we are going to locate the northeastern corner of our property.
Over on that side there is one corner of our property where I’ve never been quite certain about the exact boundary. The property line plunges down a cliff to the lakeshore and runs along the waterfront for 297 feet before coming back up the hill. There are no fences along there separating us from adjacent property owners. It is densely forested with rugged uneven topography.
One end of the waterfront is fairly accessible. My neighbor there is a fisherman who makes frequent use of his lake access. Soon after I bought my property he showed me the iron pipe that marks that corner. Logically there would be a similar marker at the other end of the waterfront.
But I’ve tried several times in the past to find it without any success. Trouble is a half-inch iron pipe sticking up three inches or so is not that easy to see on the forest floor. My neighbor over on that side lives out-of-state and from what I’ve heard almost never visits the place. As you go through the forest that direction the terrain gets more and more rugged.
It’s hard to pace off a distance very accurately when you are following animal trails and ducking dead branches. Following the waterfront would seem an easier choice but the shore is rocky. After I’ve stumbled a few times and wound up on all fours I kind of lose some accuracy by this method too.
So I decided I would actually have to measure it with something.
With a lot of help from Tricia I got together enough rope to stretch exactly 300 feet and the two of us went down to the beach. She stayed at one end and unrolled the cord while I went over the rocks. When we got the full 300 feet unrolled I went up into the woods and searched around. Sure enough there was an iron rod. I piled up some stones over it and tied a bright yellow nylon ribbon on the nearest tree branch.
At last I knew where my property boundary was.
Comments (4)
But are you sure those pipes are your true markers? There are plenty of steel pegs near the corners of my property, and my neighbor was sure which ones were the right ones. Based on that, he cut down most of the forest, but it turned out he was wrong about the corners and much of the forest he took was mine. Old timers may think they are certain where lines run and then pass this info along, but it was only when we have an accurate survey done that we found how unreliable this kind of wisdom is.
perhaps a new career in the making?
There is indeed some comfort in knowing where one’s property begins and ends.
How expensive is it to get it professionally done? At least then you would know it was correct.
My neighbors fence is 1 foot over on my side, but she had a fence up before I built the house. So it now is HERS! (or her estates, as she just died)
When I had my survey done I paid more than $1,000 to have an imaginary line drawn for a quarter mile in my forest. Some older records and reference points were lost, so extra work had to be done that pushed up the cost, but I felt it was important not only to know where the true line ran but to show the rest of my neighbors that I was serious about property lines.