I came back home after 13 months thinking the hardest part was behind me. Turns out I hadn’t even seen the real problem yet. From the road, something felt off before I even parked. Like when you walk into your house and a chair is just slightly out of place. Except this wasn’t a chair. This was an entire hillside. And the worst part is, I already knew who did it before I even stepped out of the truck. I bought that piece of land back in late 2020 just outside a small mountain town in Tennessee.
Quiet area, nothing fancy. Just trees, slope, and enough space that you didn’t have to hear your neighbor sneeze. I wasn’t trying to build some big dream house overnight. I just wanted something steady, something I could work on between deployments. The lot had a steep grade on one side, and I knew from day one it was going to take time. Drainage first, then retaining walls, then maybe eventually a small cabin. Slow progress didn’t bother me. I was used to that kind of pace.
