The first thing was to find a way thru the property, so I hired a neighbor with a dozer, not knowing it was the start of a wonderful friendship with him and his wonderful family.
Next he brought his excavator over and we started building the front pond. I was always going to put a pond in, but it quickly became a necessity, as we have to use the dam to even get to the back of the property. In clearing out trees for the roads and the pond, we saved all the large cedar trees we could and took them to the local sawmill (10 minutes away!) and have now used those inside the cabins. I absolutely hated every single time we took a tree down.
Over the next few months, the roads and ponds went in and I went to work on making a million decisions. What kind of cabins, what size, where should they go. How do we get electricity and water to them, how the septic system should work and jumping thru all the hoops between TRWD and Henderson County. At one point in time there were plans for a few RV sites as well, but new Henderson County ordinances put an end to that. Oh well, take it in stride and keep moving forward.