[Gujarati]

Hope all are doing well in these crazy times. I have picked up new interest/toys since we are staying home 100% including working from home and not going to office.

I have been in off-roading for little over a decade; since I bought my Jeep Rubicon here in USA. I had done a thread on it (link below)

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/4x4-v...p-rubicon.html (Evolution of my Jeep Rubicon)

As you grow older and kids grow up your needs change. I still have the Rubicon and now my daughters are talking about driving that. The older one is about to get her learners Driver's License as soon as she gets an appointment.

Little History on how and why I got these toys:

Over the years we needed to upgrade our home and needed a bigger space but my wife and I both were not into buying big mansion looking home with small front yard and backyard. We thought about it and we just could not bring ourselves to owning something like that and be completely bored. In the meantime our younger daughter at the time 5 years old was asking for us to buy her a pony so she could put in in our backyard at the time.

My wife and I looked at each other and something triggered we decided we will fulfill this little girl's dream but we definitely could not buy her a pony at that home. Growing up in India several of my rich friends had farm houses. It was always my dread to own a farmhouse in India, but since at this point we had zero plans to return to India and basically India had become completely unaffordable even with earning in dollars we decided we are going to fulfill our farmhouse dream in Texas USA.

So, we set out to look for some land with a home on it. Most farmhouses are outside the city since the land is cheaper and available. Since we both work our requirement was that it not be very far from the metro center otherwise lot of logistical issues with kids and commute etc. We decided we needed at least 2.5 acres land with a house on it within 10 miles of our current residence with a house little bigger than our current home preferably. It would most certainly be old house as we could not afford anything new with that much land.

We found one and had a contract to buy it but it did not work out and we were heart broken. Several months later my wife stumbled upon a 5 acre property and she could not believe it that something like that was available in our target area with excellent schools and not too far from our work. Bottom line this place was not for the faint of heart. This property was in complete disarray basically not habitable. My wife was even too scared to talk about it with me. But 5 acres was beyond dream and she had to get me onboard. We went out to look at the place and we had to look past all the negatives and boy we did. Life has been an amazing adventure since we bought this place after ton of challenges, we renovated the whole place ourselves since we could not afford a contractor. Over the period of 6 years since we got this place life has thrown log of surprises thankfully generally good.
We were very happy and fulfilled with our little farmhouse on 5 acres and thought this was the best decision we ever made and we bought it for the price of a normal home and very cheap compared to what it would really cost to own a place like this.

Now the UPPER WALA had different plans for us, it turns out the 50 acres of woods that was next to our farm that we always thought city will eventually own it came up for sale in two parcels of 25 acres each. We were devastated at the thought of builders buying it and building regular homes / neighborhood behind out beautiful farm. We would lose our beautiful tree line and all wild life in it. There is ton of wild life as there is also a creek passing thru it. Well come to find out the builder really needed to buy us out in order for them to really be able to develop that property and we were not willing to sell. Long story short one thing led to another and we now own the one parcel of woods and our small farm is now 30 acres.

30 acres Farm is too much for us to be able to walk and maintain. In USA you have to do all the work on your own unless you are ultra-rich which there are plenty of Indians who are. But for us we do all our work including taking care of the whole farm and all the animals on it (horses, goats, dogs, chickens etc)
That is why I needed these new ATVs (Quad, 4wheeler, bike). The first one I got was 2020 Yamaha Grizzly XT-R 700 and since my daughters would never let me go ride by myself, we ended up getting another 2020 Yamaha Kodiak 700. They both come with power steering, 4 Hi / Lo, lockers and many more goodies.

Hope you enjoy this story and not sure if there is any interest in ATVs in general but I thought I will share. And for the life of me I cannot figure out how to post the pics in line instead of attachments.

Here is a little video of me riding the Grizzly

https://youtu.be/8oLAOTgyYpg

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Wow! You have a beautiful piece of land for yourself. 30 acres of farmland in an urban setting is quite a dream indeed.

How about sharing the riding experiences on the two ATVs? And that Rubicon.

[Gujarati]

I am really enjoying riding both the ATVs. But going fast Grizzly is my favorite.
Grizzly ran hot especially when going slow and weather was hot. Due to emission requirements the engine was tuned very very lean. So did couple of mods to make it run cooler and give it the power and response 700cc engine should have.

https://youtu.be/YwLkyrBUw5c

[maddy42]

Congrats on the farm purchase as well as the adjoining land! What’s the property taxes on forest land like in the area like!

Also your atvs do look awesome and a worth while purchase. Do you use it with a trailer attachment to lug stuff around your land?

I believe you did the right decision getting this land and also try get that additional acreage if you can manage it. Buying the same area in india is a stretch looking at the way prices are going for any piece of land near an urban location.

Maddy