Welcome to my world!

We have a nice little piece of land in a scenic part of So. Indiana where we are building a small cabin.   Every time we go there I think it was a great decision to pick this spot . As the real estate agents say "Location, Location, Location".

But in between visits we are getting phone calls about the cabin building process from one (and thankfully only one) neighbor who is really upset about the whole thing.  He's sure we are tearing up the road with the equipment going up and down the hill to the cabin site.  Turns out there are some others in the neighborhood doing things on their land that involves big equipment, too. So even though we are not really wreaking havoc or wrecking roads, the world as he knows it is coming to an end.

Finally, an informal gathering of those in the "neighborhood" was called.  Of course the guy complaining didn't show, but the rest of us got to know one another a bit more as we explored the question of how the private roads will be maintained (snow removal, fixing the asphalt,etc.)  In the process, we discovered that the original rules about what can be done/not done (the "covenants") for our neighborhood group have expired.  In addition, there's no official structure- with any legal "teeth"- for gathering money to take care of the roads. This begins to sound like Tea Party heaven! "No rules...No taxes" at least in our little corner of the Hoosier state.

There we stood, trying to figure out how to take care of the roads without levying fees.  Some offered to pay money toward the fix, but several said they weren't paying anything-even though they agreed the roads needed work.  Someone offered the idea of Work Weekends where people could pitch in to do some of the work.  This has worked OK for clearing the snow...although I got the impression that not all were doing their share of that back breaking job.  However, replacing pavement is not generally done by hand with shovels, so "sweat equity" is probably out as a solution for fixing the roads. 

Yep there we were feeling like our lawmakers.  No taxes?  No way to fix or improve the roads!  We tabled the discussion, much like our legislators are want to do.  Any ideas for my world and yours regarding trying to do stuff without money? Be sure to let DG know.