Our friend Rob owns some undeveloped land in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. He and his brother bought it to enshrine in a sort of nature trust, forever preserving the woods as woods. It exists, he knows it exists, and that’s enough for him. It’s very admirable. Mature, even. Maintenance costs are… low.
But for most people—Molly and I included—owning property comes with comparatively silly and immature demands, like being able to use, or even visit our property. And that difference can be expensive.
Now, when talking about maintenance I’m disregarding all the initial work—the carving of logging roads 120 years ago, our clearing brush and leveling parking and building pads to make usable space, and our many construction projects.
That labor was immense, and the evolution that brings additional work is ongoing, but today’s lens is only on that sweet sweet maintenance—the cost of being able to visit our plot in the woods.
First, there’s trees. Man, are there trees.
We’ve brought out tree crews on several occasions to deal with problems beyond our capabilities. And since we started keeping records in 2018 it’s added up to $8700.
That might not seem like a lot for seven years of tree work, but keep in mind we’ve also spent a few thousand dollars on chainsaw and milling equipment and have taken down (literally) hundreds of trees ourselves.
Sometimes they fell themselves.
Trees fall, like, all the time. Sure, they seem straight and strong, but then you visit for what was supposed to be a nice weekend and find the above hot mess.
Now, those redwoods were weakened by our wildfire and subject to unfamiliar winds in the fire-thinned forest—it’s not really their fault. But trees with less resolve, such as tanoaks, truly flop over with little cause or warning. When friends visit our property we’ve often armed them with a saw because we don’t know if the road will be blocked.
Of course, cutting them down is the easy part. Trees that we fell, or ones which topple on their own, must then get milled, chopped, chipped, or burned.
On a couple of occasions we’ve rented a wood chipper to get ahead of this problem and we once camped out and toiled for an entire week, dropping and chipping dead or failing trees. It helped. But it also cost—$1685 in total for the chippers, and I (literally) got a case of trench foot.
Vegetation is a blessing and a curse.
Of course we relish the verdant landscape of an ecosystem that’s bounced back post-wildfire. But, as the fire deleted much of our canopy, the sun-drenched undergrowth is extra thrive-y, and it’s honestly not something we can keep up with.
Some paths have been fully abandoned. And each trip to the property devotes a portion of the day to beating back the bushes that devour our roads and trails.
I can’t possibly put a dollar value on the hours we and friends have poured into combating nature, but the landscaping tools are about $1000 and I’d estimate roughly 600,000,000 hours.
Landslides also happen from time to time.
Clearing them usually means bringing in heavy equipment, or leaning on a neighbor’s machine. But landslides are just a punctuating moment in the larger picture of ongoing road erosion and upkeep.
Roads need to be occasionally graded. Water bars cut and kept up. Drainage ditches and culverts ought to be cleared during most winter visits. And fresh rock or asphalt shavings should be laid down every handful of years, depending on use.
Since 2018 we’ve spent $12,900 on earth-moving, rock, and a culvert, though that number should be higher; the wildfire really sapped our desire to visit the property, which happened to stretch out the life of our road rock. One minor upside of a catastrophic loss.
Costs are also reduced because, frankly, we’re doing the bare minimum to keep the land accessible for our sporadic use. Responsible residents who live in the area full time are more dutiful and it shows in the quality of their roads and better-tended-to water flows and vegetation.
Potable water isn’t cheap either.
I presume wells and rainwater catchment systems have ongoing maintenance costs—but we’re actually on-grid with our water supply. Technically, anyway. Our infrastructure is… rustic. And despite being owned by the utility company, it requires our work to maintain if we and our neighbors want to keep the sauce flowing.
I’m not really sure of the total hours or effort on water maintenance, especially when considering extracurriculars, such as our water tank and all the lines we’ve run within the property. But, I do know the price of the main infrastructure upkeep and repair—$3074 to ensure water gets to the property and that we have a water bill to pay.
There are numerous minor issues and costs that crop up—many of them part of the learning curve.
For instance, a lock rusts, so you replace the lock and do a deep dive on higher quality padlocks. Or, your outdoor shower dies because mice got in the heater; replacing the heater is annoying, but relatively cheap, and the fix ends up being screens over the heater vent holes. Or, of course, owls to eat the mice.
But then your owl dies and replacing one of those is tricky unless you’ve got a great owl guy.
In total…
Adding up the Maintenance/Repair tab on our 2018-2024 spreadsheets we’ve spent $31,267.58. That’s $4,500 a year, or $375 a month. Factor in the incalculable hours and irreplaceable owls and it’s… a lot.
Is it worth 20 Netflix subscriptions each month to keep the property afloat?
Sure. Maybe. I don’t know.
I’ll concede that arriving upon a heap of fallen timber on consecutive visits can get pretty disheartening. So Molly and I do find ourselves weighing the cost vs benefit of the work required to simply keep a place usable. I could see us eventually trading in the land for something with flatter ground and fewer trees.
But, if all this seems like complaining, it isn’t.
Learning how to fell a tree, mill its lumber, maintain a road, and de-mouse a heater has been a privilege. For Molly and I, the care and development of our property—and all the skills building, shared excitement, bonding with friends, and personal growth that’s come from it—has been the single greatest value-add in our lives.
I wouldn’t trade that experience for all the $31,267.58 in the world.
(sound on for skills building, shared excitement, and bonding with friends)
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This is a great reminder for all of us with tiny cabin in the woods fantasies. That said, $4,500 a year actually sounds... low? Maybe that's the New York City in me talking?
I've never maintained anything more than a houseplant but still found this deep dive incredibly interesting. 🤔