Did you "settle" for your homestead?

We did settle on the land aspect. once the house is refinished, its exactly the kind of house my wife always wanted. The soil i have is a clay loam, so the drainage isnt good and we have low phosphorus and potassium levels and the soil was slightly acidic. Ill be making lots of soil amendments for a long time, good thing is is that there are high organic matter levels and no one has ever used it for commercial farming, and there are TONS of earth worms. The one thing i wish i had was a pond or a stream, but that makes most properties out of my price range, so ill install a hand pump. we do have a stream during the melt and when we have heavy rains, but no springs or anything... I wish i had a spring.. thats the one thing i wish i would have waited for.

I bought the perfect hobby farm once. It had already been homesteaded for 20 or so years by its first owner, and had things like a barn, fencing and mature orchard already in place. I was privileged to live there!

Later, when that marriage ended and I moved on, I "settled for" the property I own now. Land is much more expensive here in SWPA, and 4 acres on the side of a hill is what I could afford. But, well ... "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without."

Numb's place would suit me fine and dandy if only we had a bit more land and it was zoned for ag. Clearly the township wants the farms all around us to grow a new crop ... of McMansions (yuck). So someday we may have to move on from here, or maybe we'll get old before "civilization" encroaches.

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"I love all of this mud," said no one, ever.

No I didn't settle. I came looking at 8 acres of land. What I ended up with was amazing!

When I went to look at the 8 acres and chatted with the man he not only was selling that but also his home and another 9 acres. I ended up with it all. We had a creek for the animals, 2 wells with hand pumps, a barn, a 3500 sq foot house and 17 acres with cross fencing. Been here 10 years in Oct and have made it ours

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Toxic Free Products

In a way we settled, we had a list of things a property must have, and a list of things it must not have
Musts.
A decent kitchen or room to extend
Bath or room to put one in
Barn(s)
2.4 acres (10000m2)
over 100m2
internet access
Usable land eg, not restricted
Must nots

Overlooked
Too many barns
Powerlines
On the Mainroad
Near a large cow/pig or even worse MINK farm

Green it fits the criteria, orange it's close and red it failed.
The kitchen is terrible, but the room is large enough to make it decent, there is no bath, it would be a tight squeeze to get one in, but possible, also possible to extend the bathroom into the boiler room to get more space.
It has 9988m2 of land, so close enough!

It's overlooked by it's neighbour in winter, his house looks straight into our livingrooms smaller south window. he is about 300ft away though, and as soon as the trees leaf up we won't even be able to see his house.

There's a few other things, the land is swampy, it has historicaly been drained so it is possible, and while it's not on a road I am sitting about 30ft from a railway line. The house is bigger than the minimum which is lovely, but requires a lot of work, including new roof etc.

The main reason for buying this is it was small change. if we paid the loan (from family) at the same rate we were paying rent it would be gone in two years. the plan is 5 years. And we get to play with the lifestyle and see if we like it, without getting into huge debts.

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I loved the old place in NW Oregon... was hoping to retire there.
Stunning place, had beautiful woods, a nice hay field, wonderful views,unlimited High speed DSL for only $35.00
If I could, I would go back in a heart beat!!!


Here... we settled for this place.

My place in Oregon sold, I was moving horses... had a budget that was too low for most places in this area of VA and it was the ONLY place that was not a short sale or foreclosure.

This place was a dump... I saved a long time to get a proper barn...
but this poorly built place.. done in 2000 needed a new roof, as there were holes in it.. just tons of repairs needed and still needed. There went my barn...and at my age... it is never going to happen now.

So yes, had to settle on this place, was the only place with a bit of land that was within my budget and a normal sale.

Had to start over with fencing, hen house, run in sheds, hay sheds...
Am old enough, this is the last time we will be able to start over.
This is the third farm we started from scratch.....

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Shari

When we bought, we were looking for a certain school district. My hubby found an older 4 bedroom, 3 bath on 3 acres in the right district at an excellent price zoned agricultural. That's unusual in our area. Being in a hurricane prone area, I had all the pine trees taken out and had it fenced. We were able to build and rebuild as we want.

We planned to garden, raise chickens, and just grow old here. I was injured at work 2 years ago, so I'm thankful our place isn't bigger. As much as I love hubby, he is more interested in hunting than homework.

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A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within. - Will Durant

Depends on what qualifies as "settling". I might wish that it was 400 acres and had lots of open fields instead of 30 acres and lots of woods, but I moved from the city (a little hell on earth, if you ask me) to a place where no other human habitation could be seen from my window....only beautiful nature. I feel just blessed to be here.

settle ?,,,,nahhh

been in my wifes family for a little over 100 years,,although we only own 52 of the orignal 250 acres it's still doing all I need it to do.

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Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.
Henry David Thoreau

The biggest thing we settled on is that it's not in the school district we wanted to be in. It is smaller then we wanted but that made it where we could purchase it, ans we have a first right if refusal on 200 connecting acres when they decide to sell.

I'm like HuskyBoris, our 116 acre farm has been in my wife's family for years.

Before we got this place, my wife's Dad and Mom owned it - didn't live here - just owned it. Before they owned it, my wife's Great Aunt & Uncle lived here and owned this place - both never married - they were sister and brother.
They got it from their parents - who built the place.

Old farm house, old barn, old shed, and what used to be an old house.

Is it perfect? No. All around the house are hills. Down below the barn is flat farmland - about the only flat land we have. The rest is woods - with much of it on steep terrain.

No, it's not perfect - but who were we to turn it down when my Wife's Grant Aunt asked us if we could trade places with her. She was in her 90's and living alone - we were living in an apartment above my Wife's parents' garage.

So we traded places with her some 23 years ago and have lived here ever since. Added 12 acres of woodland from adjoining property.

Wouldn't trade it for the world - hills and all. We are trying to instill in my son how important our land is.

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Michael W. Smith in North-West Pennsylvania

"Everything happens for a reason."

Not perfect, but it satisfied the critical requirements of isolation and water supply. and was more land than we thought we could get for inside our available budget. And I've ended up spending almost 30 years making a living from the timber, now I'm obtaining some equipment to finish clearing some of it and planning on transitioning to high value food crops. Make a list of requirements, some important that can't be budged on, some variable. Find a place that satisfies the critical requirements and the less critical can be compensated for somewhat.

I sold my old house and had to find somewhere to be out in 3 days after closing and had to pay rent to get that.So yea i settle a little but no place is perfect.You have to make it what you envisioned . I would have liked more land and more privacy but i'm content and really thankful for what i have.

We were just about to close on a small house in town 30 years ago when what to my wandering eyes should appear? A vintage 1886 farm on 8 acres in the country. Got it dirt cheap on contract for deed. You can see it at its Website: http://www.hedgewoodacres.com In 2005 I started collecting antique steel-wheeled farm equipment to go with it.