The Last While

Hello everyone. It seems like forever since I posted anything.
It has been a chaotic time here but it seems things are finally starting to get even more chaotic with [what we pray for] the sale of our land out west.

We felt sure enough of the pending sale that when Ralph got extra time off with the bakery slow down we decided to do a rapid land tour of our top 9 properties. To actually "See" them. They all had file folders filled with information on acreage, elevation, growing season, building condition, house size, water sources etc., but we need to actually see the land.
Like Ralph told the realtors when we called...it doesn't matter how nice the house is if the land will not do what we need it too.

The top 9 are now whittled down to the top 4. It was a good trip despite horrible weather and almost snow fall at some farms. We knew we were probably looking at the places at their worst. This might be the way we should look at all land purchases.

We learned a lot about how poor the drainage was at one place and how the new porch that looked so good at another, caused seepage into the basement because of the way it had been added on.


On another pick the big tobacco barn that looked so good online and was "perfect" cover for all our livestock in bad weather had an awful lake in it when it rained, partly from a huge tear in the metal roofing and partly due to a small creek that ran into it from the NW side, drainage from a very manure filled corral.

I know when we stared this trip we had our favorites and both of had at least one property on the list that the other partner did not really like. The place Ralph picked that I was only okay with turned out to be far better than I expected and I found myself thinking ,...hhumnn this would work fine, or hey this is perfect for the big production garden.

Then when we arrived at the one I liked and Ralph was lukewarm on, he came back in after hiking the place with a happy look on his face. When we were back on the road he smiled and said that it was a pleasant surprise and the land looked really good, despite more hill than was perfect it had good useful places to garden and a really nice woods at the back.

We found one place was well kept and the house had been totally renovated extremely well but, despite the listing and the Realtor saying you could have a garden, it simply did not have enough flat land to have a tiny garden without terracing and no where for even a small hayfield for the stock.

There are some wonderful places out there, perfect warm and welcoming. We met wonderful people who are so proud to show us what they have done with their farms. We toured a mix of properties from 97 acres to 24 and all would work. Some need more work than others but it was an eye opener to see them all in the flesh so to speak.

So overall we are glad we took the marathon trip, it has given us some food for thought and now we can start to allocate money for a budget. This budget will be made before the offer on the land. We need to have money to repair buildings, or fence or do a number of things we want to do to make any place our own. We do not want to spend all our money on the land then be left not able to make the needed repairs or changes, or get stock and machinery.

Now I am not sure we will be posting a lot but we will post as often as we can and with the good and bad of moving in winter and of course the final selection when it comes to that hard choice we are going to have to make.