August 26, 2013. Artemas, Pa. Bedford, Pa.

It was an exercise in frustration, but with many other endeavor, we ended up enjoying ourselves.   On Thursday, I contacted an attorney in Bedford, recommended to us by our Realtors, to have him execute a Power of Attorney for our farm.   It could sell when we are out of the country so we wanted to be ready for any and all eventualities.   I gave the assistant exactly what was needed so Ken and I expected to review it, sign it and leave.   Not so quick.   Nothing had been done and it turned out that the attorney, who we do not know, wanted to talk with us before writing it.

Now we drive from Artemas to Bedford, which takes 45 minutes and when I realized that we were not going to leave today with the POA, I almost lost my cool.  But we chatted with this older attorney, who has lived his whole life in Bedford.   He seems competent, or as Ken said "He asked all the right questions".   We talked about land and farms and houses and learned that although farm land has gone up in value, the houses in Bedford have not.    Country property are selling well too but not in the town itself, says the attorney.

He owns an eight apartment building right across the street from his office, and he owns another multi unit building along the street.   And he owns the small house where he keeps his office.   He is not pleased.  The tenants are terrible and the properties probably could not be sold.  Bedford itself is busy, due to The Bedford Springs Resort, but real estate in Bedford is not booming.   Now we must return and sign the document, whether we want to or not.  Living in the country has it's charms...and it's frustrations.