All that hard work for nothing :(

Been married almost 30 years and finally am happy. I was always in love with my DH but I don't think we were truly happy until we closed the door on our parents (both sides). His parents thought I was spoiled and my parents (mostly my SF) thought he had nothing to offer. Well, we were the blacksheep for 25 years. We turned out to be the only ones that stayed married, held down good jobs, raised good kids, and on and on. It took years to realize it was envy. We were happy with what we had. We were told how dumb our dreams were and we would never have anything. We were asked to leave the family farm, which we rebuilt the house on, because someone else wanted it when in reality they just thought we were wasting our money on our animals, etc. We actually were making money.

We left and lived in town (small town but still town) and hated it. The kids hated it. Luckily we got to use the ag farm at the school to keep the kids show stock.

Moved where we are now, bought animals (lots of them) and both ourselves, our grown children, and our grandchildren are happy.

If you like your lifestyle sometimes you just have to get out and get you a place of your own so that you can do what you WANT to do. This just sounds like control. I feel for you but my advice is to get it handled now before it becomes even a bigger problem.

Folks....... This is what we call "major thread drift"... please keep on topic, keep your strong opinions and gossip about others to yourself and follow the intent of the original post.

Boermomma, I am so sorry that you had to part with your beloved animals. That is never fun. I've been through the same lately and I can hardly look at a barn, a goat, a horse or even a field without heart ache.

Praying that you have an opportunity to start up again in a better place.

I know you said you'd rather the thread die, but I wanted to offer a possible silver lining. I had a similar situation. Many years ago now we had to move, and had few options. Our best option was to rent a house owned by my aunt (by marriage). It was a farm house on 5 acres with a barn. We really only intended to find an interim living arrangement, but she offered for us to use the barn, have animals, etc. We started talking about buying on land contract. She wouldn't talk specifics until we'd lived there a few months and made sure we wanted to buy it. The day we moved in a man from a neighboring farm came to ask us for the contact info for my aunt because he'd like to talk to her about something.

So we move in, start doing renovations (lead poisoned my baby, too, but that's a whole other story), and acquiring animals. 2 months in I started talking about land contract again and then find out that she wanted 3 times what the place was worth, and wouldn't budge an inch. 3 months in I asked her to sign a form that would allow lead-remediation at no cost to her, because of the baby showing high levels of lead after we moved in and she refused. The next day she sent a letter that said we had to leave. We had 2 months to remove all animals and move out. She said she'd rather tear the house down than to let us continue to live there. She claimed that we were too dirty. Uh, huh. 3 months after we moved out she'd leased the house and barn to the neighboring farm to start a tourist operation much closer to the major highway than is their farm.

We had to find new homes for rabbits, chickens and turkeys, 2 mini horses, 4 sheep, and 13 goats. It was MUCH easier than I thought it would be. We moved back to the city, and spent the next few years getting our poop in a group. I researched and researched where we wanted to live, what kind of house, what kind of land, what kind of mortgage, etc. We were prepared, and heavily "planned." I planned how to avoid all the things I'd done wrong last time (like trusting anyone but me to have my best interests at heart). This summer we bought our current house. It's ALL ours, and we can do what we want here.

So, I'm just trying to give you heart. It's a setback. That's all. It's hard to see it when you are in it (all my dreams for that life going down the drain over something over which I had no control was hard), but you can use this. Use it to make your dream a reality, on your own terms. I wish you the best of luck!

__________________
Jessica
Sweet Peas Farm
Facebook Page

After re-reading Boarmomma's last post I went back and read her prior posts. I get it now and yes, I think it is a touchy thing. You really have to read everything she wrote to understand how complicated this issue was. I feel for her having to get rid of any of her animals but I am very happy she is able to bring some of them with her to the farm.

Sorry for jumping a little overboard with my post. I should have read more carefully.