I need to try to not get too excited. I talked to our real estate
agent this evening, and she said that the owners of that other lot we're
interested in have already filed the lot subdivision with the county (so
no chance to negotiate boundaries to drop the price) but that $130,000
was still a "definite maybe." They are supposed to get back to
us in a day or two. The coolest thing, though, is that it turns out that
they are planning to have horses on the part of the property that
they're keeping and are hoping for neighbors who will take care of the
horses when they're out of town. "I could do that," says the
gal who went to horseback riding camp for several summers and bugged her
parents for a horse for years on end. 
Bob was a lot more excited about the horses than I expected him to be
when I told him - he said he'd always wanted to live by horses. Who
knew? Maybe it will turn out that chowderhead from the
"architectural review board" did us a favor after all...
Since the real estate agent had told us last night that the perimeter
of the lot was now marked, we drove out there this morning - and met the
sellers! They were out there putting up fencing (not on the perimeter of
the lot, on the other side of the access road, which is where they are
planning to build). They're a couple who seem to be about our age,
really nice - turns out she's a rehab nurse for the inpatient part of
the children's rehab clinic we take Laurel to a couple of times a year.
I told her that I'd heard that a hippotherapy place might be opening
down the road and she was excited and said she'd enjoy helping with
something like that. We told them all about Laurel and why we wanted the
lot. I think it went really well!
We also found out that the actual lot isn't where we thought - it's more
on the top of the hill in the woods, with some winter views of the
mountains and lots of mountain laurel, holly, and old oak trees. It
would take a lot longer driveway and more clearing than we were
envisioning - but I think we'd really enjoy it.
More excited than ever... 
After a couple of rounds of negotiation we've reached a price of
$145,000 for four acres of land...obviously that works out to more per
acre than $160,000 for five acres, but we just didn't feel that we could
go the $160,000 and the lowest we could get total was $137,000 for three
acres, which felt like kind of a crummy deal, especially as we had been
going to pay $130,000 for three acres that were directly off a paved
road (as opposed to off a gravel access road and then up a long
driveway), already had electricity, and were closer to town. I'm a
little disappointed we couldn't do better in the negotiating, but I'm
pretty sure that was their final offer and I think we'll be sorry if we
don't go for it.
We're heading up to Northern Virginia for the weekend and then taking
Laurel to the National Aquarium in Baltimore on Monday because she has
the day off, loves aquariums, and we've been meaning for ages to take
her sometime when it wasn't likely to be crowded. But there is supposed
to be a contract for us to sign when we get back.
We have a signed contract! Now we just have to make sure that all the
practical matters will work out - that we can get the house pieces to
the site (a bit of a worry, the roads are twisty and in one direction,
there's a one-lane bridge) and that the well comes in OK. But the
sellers even offered to go in with us on the price of getting the
well-drillers out, because they need to get theirs drilled too. How cool
is that - people who will actually work with us? We're not going to
totally let go and get excited until we're sure everything will work
out, but we're getting there.
I can't tell you how relieved I feel that it's just practical things and
not waiting for someone to pass judgment on our plans...