There must’ve been another light freeze last night due to there being frost on some of the rooftops and lawns around our City this morning. Fortunately, once the sun climbed high enough, the temps rapidly rose to where it turned into a very pleasant afternoon. Let’s hope these days continue at least until our farmers get their crops out.
Just this afternoon I received a renewal on the listing I have at 425 – 1st St. NE here in Mason City. It’s currently a 4-plex which was converted from a once grand old family home. I’m pretty sure it was moved from the Historic Downtown back in the 50’s because it’s concrete block foundation is much newer than the structure above. If anyone should happen to have photos of that street back in those years, I’ll bet that home wasn’t there.
This particular 4-plex would warrant being de-converted from apartment house back to a single family residence because the lot size is standard, and its particular district is becoming all the more popular due to those unctuous sub-standard multi-family homes having been bought out and scraped off by the Good Shepherd so to make way for the construction of Prairie Place on 1st. Nearly no one realizes the Good Shepherd donated to our community over a million dollars towards the purchase and preparation of that land just so to do their build-out of such a beautiful condominium complex.
Mason City as a whole should be eternally grateful to Good Shepherd for scraping off that mess which was created over the years by greedy rental housing investors. I’ll never forget what those blocks looked like, yet nearly none of those give-a-shite owners cared a hoot about them as long as they got their ill-gained rents. Oh well, I’m glad they’re gone and that neighborhood is back on the map of being delightfully pleasant. Now if someone converts 425 – 1st NE, it’ll be one more rental taken off that district’s radar. I assure you, that structure’s intrinsic and quality components, are well worth restoring.
Over my noon hour, I personally had my first showing of 38 N. Willowgreen Court, and it went very well. The buyers may possibly have a home to sell, but I’m certain the owner is not willing to wait, so hopefully they’ll find someone to buy theirs more sooner than later. Their home is located in a halfway popular district which is definitely in their favor, but with winter coming on, and the Holidays not far off, the number of buyers may be soon decreasing at a rapid pace.
I decided to have a public open house at 38 N. Willowgreen Court this Saturday from 1:00 – 3:00 pm, and I’m confident there’ll be a good number of prospective buyers in attendance simply because of the neighborhood, and the number of bedrooms and baths it offers. Now that the leaves are nearly off the trees, the view of Sunset Lake from the rear of it is breathtaking. If I were a buyer, I’d turn one of the upper bedrooms into a master, and add sliding doors to an upper deck which would offer a pleasant place to hang out on warm Summer evenings. Hopefully before Saturday, the home will be appearing on many on-line websites. Irregardless, the home is a great buy for a growing family looking for all that much more space, bedrooms and baths.
While I was out in our hinterland yesterday, I made sure my camera was in hand so to take photos of anything I considered worth sharing, and while I was walking past a herd of cattle, one of them broke ranks and started walking towards me. He stopped about ten feet away and simply stood there curiously watching me with those big brown eyes of his. I started speaking to him in a coaxing tone, but just couldn’t get him to come up to the fence so I could pet him. Even though he didn’t let me do a little petting, I was still moo-ved by his willingness to come as close as he did, while all the others of his clan, glaringly watched the two of us, all those many more feet away. Cattle are interesting creatures and worthy of close observation. Perhaps in the future we’ll learn something from those gentile creatures.
Tonight’s one-liner is: Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.
