WSHILL
Member
I have been lurking here for over a decade. Needed to cut about 8 acres of grass today, but after 2 acres the rains came. So it is a good day to start a thread.
Fokker Hill is a 50 acre farm my wife and I purchased in late October 2018. The name originates from wife's USAF call sign from Bagram in 2017. In the early 80's, she was one of the first female weapons maintainers on F4 Phantoms (first for F16s) in the AF. Weapons maintainers are known as "Gun F@#Ker$". In 2017, as chief of plans at Bagram AB for the 455 AEW , the pilots and other senior officers said she needed a call sign. They named her "Fokker". She wears it proudly. As a mustang colonel it gets her more mileage than ever signing her name with her rank. Hill-- my last name.
When the house and the garage was built in the late 1920's , this was a 3200 acre working plantation with a sawmill and dairy operation. Over a series of unfortunate events it got whittled down to 50 acres. Our neighbor, that surrounds us, has a majority of those acres (total of 14,400 acres) so we don't have neighbors for over a mile. We are very rural. We love it!
My reason for starting this is to have an incentive (maybe a little peer pressure-for showing off) to improve the garage and other farm buildings. Later add a larger, maybe a working garage-mahal after we get a few family members off the payroll (daughter in college - 3.99 GPA, two semesters left, on time to finish May 2023-fingers crossed). Many of the farm buildings were severely damage during Hurricane Hugo in 1989. The cinderblock milk house has to be cut out of trees and taken down. There is a large metal sided pole barn from the 60s that can be salvaged into smaller building or just some really great dimensional lumber. Also an old packhouse that I'm storing lumber in that needs to be redone. The dairyman's house which is residue was going to torn down , but it might have some historical significance (that is a story for another day) and might need to be "restored".
We will begin with the first goal - getting the garage in a useful, organized manner for storage and a functioning workshop to begin the other projects. It was organized and workable, but over the last year it has gotten out of sorts and needs a complete reorg/overhaul.
The previous owners parked their cars in the garage and kept small ornamental gardening stuff in the sides as well as sheltering the two outdoor dogs (they came with the house--then became indoor/outdoor dogs). We added the doors so we could use it for storage and lock it up.
The upstairs is a studio apartment circa 1940 with a full bath that includes a a 3ft long clawfoot tub (pictures to come later). It currently holds the majority of aforementioned daughters childhood belongings because her mother (former wife) won't take them. There are a few treasures -an old floor model tube radio and some antiques that were left with the house. Fokker, the current wife, wants to completely redo this as guesthouse/mancave/party place. Daughter's storage limits is currently under negotiation.
Historical note: When Doolittle's raiders were training for STOLs from Owen's Field in Columbia to the local airfield 3 miles down the road (currently a corn field), some stayed overnight in the apartment. The former family was big in civilian aviation and kept their planes there. They made friends with those heroic pilots.
Fokker Hill is a 50 acre farm my wife and I purchased in late October 2018. The name originates from wife's USAF call sign from Bagram in 2017. In the early 80's, she was one of the first female weapons maintainers on F4 Phantoms (first for F16s) in the AF. Weapons maintainers are known as "Gun F@#Ker$". In 2017, as chief of plans at Bagram AB for the 455 AEW , the pilots and other senior officers said she needed a call sign. They named her "Fokker". She wears it proudly. As a mustang colonel it gets her more mileage than ever signing her name with her rank. Hill-- my last name.
When the house and the garage was built in the late 1920's , this was a 3200 acre working plantation with a sawmill and dairy operation. Over a series of unfortunate events it got whittled down to 50 acres. Our neighbor, that surrounds us, has a majority of those acres (total of 14,400 acres) so we don't have neighbors for over a mile. We are very rural. We love it!
My reason for starting this is to have an incentive (maybe a little peer pressure-for showing off) to improve the garage and other farm buildings. Later add a larger, maybe a working garage-mahal after we get a few family members off the payroll (daughter in college - 3.99 GPA, two semesters left, on time to finish May 2023-fingers crossed). Many of the farm buildings were severely damage during Hurricane Hugo in 1989. The cinderblock milk house has to be cut out of trees and taken down. There is a large metal sided pole barn from the 60s that can be salvaged into smaller building or just some really great dimensional lumber. Also an old packhouse that I'm storing lumber in that needs to be redone. The dairyman's house which is residue was going to torn down , but it might have some historical significance (that is a story for another day) and might need to be "restored".
We will begin with the first goal - getting the garage in a useful, organized manner for storage and a functioning workshop to begin the other projects. It was organized and workable, but over the last year it has gotten out of sorts and needs a complete reorg/overhaul.
The previous owners parked their cars in the garage and kept small ornamental gardening stuff in the sides as well as sheltering the two outdoor dogs (they came with the house--then became indoor/outdoor dogs). We added the doors so we could use it for storage and lock it up.
The upstairs is a studio apartment circa 1940 with a full bath that includes a a 3ft long clawfoot tub (pictures to come later). It currently holds the majority of aforementioned daughters childhood belongings because her mother (former wife) won't take them. There are a few treasures -an old floor model tube radio and some antiques that were left with the house. Fokker, the current wife, wants to completely redo this as guesthouse/mancave/party place. Daughter's storage limits is currently under negotiation.
Historical note: When Doolittle's raiders were training for STOLs from Owen's Field in Columbia to the local airfield 3 miles down the road (currently a corn field), some stayed overnight in the apartment. The former family was big in civilian aviation and kept their planes there. They made friends with those heroic pilots.