We bought our house in the Spring of 2018. A small, modest house in need of a lot of TLC. At this time I was 7 months pregnant with our first born, Declan. It wasn’t much on the outside and not any better on the inside. In order to make it our dream home it was going to need ALOT of time and work on Matt’s end. I was very doubtful because of the timing of us having our first baby and having such a big move, but we signed the contract and moved on in. Matt would spend days on end, over the next few years overhauling the inside and continues to modify the house to make it our dream home. Needless to say he exceeded my expectations. But we didn’t buy the place for the house… we bought it for the property. A nearly 3.5 acre parcel of land, nestled in the back corner of a small development, backed by hundreds of acres of state game lands. Heavily wooded and quite secluded, it was the perfect place to start a family. The kids could grow up being able to play in the woods, ride ATV’s, be in nature, see the wildlife, learn to hunt, fish, and garden, and so much more. It was our own little cabin in the woods.
It wasn’t until a couple months later when the foliage started coming back, and the storms picked up that we noticed just how dangerous some of the property directly surrounding the house was. We needed to make some changes, fast. Twenty, eighty foot tall white pine trees surrounded our house. Every time the wind roared I would flinch praying none of the trees would hit our home. After seeing how truly scared I was, especially with our new baby boy in the home, we contracted a tree removal service. They came out and took down all of the trees that threatened our home, the majority of which were in the front yard. Later that year, Jim Keiper Excavating came in and assisted in cleanup, where he removed the bucked trunks, dug out the stumps, and piled the brush. Matt spent the next few years slowly chipping away at the massive brush piles.
It wasn’t until 2020 that we decided to make the front yard a vineyard. After having the vision to start our own vineyard and winery, it would take another three years for it to come to fruition. Early spring of 2023, we had enough money to start making our dreams a reality. Jim Keiper Excavating came back over and cleaned up what remained of the brush piles and graded the front yard. It was finally time to set up the vineyard.
