Sold the farm today!

[gspren]

 After 36 years of farm ownership today we sold it and are now down to slightly less than 2 acres. I wanted less maintenance and more free time to go to our beach house and the mountain cabin I share with my brother. I kept the chainsaws for cabin firewood so I won't bail out on the forum, will tell more later.

[Firewoodjoe]

That's a big step and could have been difficult decision (would have been for me) but sounds like your ready and I wish you best of luck. Enjoy! 

[B.C.C. Lapp]

Had to be rough even if its the best thing for you.   But good luck.  As a farmer myself all i can say is you'l certainly have more time for lots of things now.

[Southside]

Enjoy your time.  For sure a hard decision, I am in talks right now with a friend about buying his farm.  He approached me with the deal and even then I can see it's hard for him after 40+ years.  

[SwampDonkey]

Congrats! Enjoy your free time. Full steam ahead.

[thecfarm]

A different way of life is ahead of you now.
Enjoy!!!
I suppose someday I will do the same.

[Roxie]

Farmers never actually retire, you're just living on less land. Happy for you!  

[Peter Drouin]

After living some place for a lot of years and moving, I bet it's hard. After I lost my Ann, I thought about it too.
But when I look around and see all that I built here,
It was raw land when I got it.
There is a lot of work to do. Some I just don't do anymore.
Like letting open land grow in again.
The house paint is falling off too. :D
Maybe next year I'll fix that.
As I get older, I don't have the gas to do as much as I did before. So when things get not looking as good as they use to. I think I am not as good-looking as I use to either. ;D
God willing, I'm going to die here.
I wish you the best of luck in your new place.
 

[gspren]

It was a tough decision and took nearly 2 years of looking for the right place to buy. Although our new to us house is on much less land it is still in the country, next to last house on a short private dead end road. We do have a neighbor nearby on one side and across the road but the other side is wooded and out back is the pasture to an Amish farm. If we sit on the front porch and look to the right we can see another Amish family working their fields with horses, I've already talked to them about getting one of their boys to run the weed eater, he's only 11 but dad says he can do it. For me it's mainly going from 1200 feet of sloped gravel driveway to 100 feet of mostly level blacktop and a ranch style house with only 2 steps up from the attached 2 car garage, I also had a 46'X64' pole building put up to tinker in.

[Peter Drouin]

Sounds like a nice place, A Farmer always has a barn bigger than the house. 46x64 made me smile. 

[petefrom bearswamp]

Congrats on your downsizing.
I'm slowly divesting us of our properties  too.
I have sold one of my forested properties of 53 acres about 70 miles away and am in the-process of selling my "home forest" of 119 acres to my son, Keeping our house, shop and 6 acres
I have another distant parcel of 57 acres of Northern red oak forest that I had listed for sale but have pulled that off the market for now.
My son and I did a 100 percent cruise on that land and found that the timber value alone was almost twice the value I had it listed for, so will keep that until I do a harvest in a couple of years, lord willing.
Peter, my shop is much larger than the house too, isnt that normal?

[Corley5]

We just added fifteen adjoining acres to our farm

[gspren]

We just added fifteen adjoining acres to our farm

At your age I wasn't interested in selling. We bought our 75 acres in 3 stages and sold it in 2 stages. Now at 70 this 1.9 acres we are on is the least I've owned since my 20s when I bought a 3 acre plot. Although I lived on a farm for 35+years I never quite considered myself a farmer, we raised and sold goats and hogs but always made a living in machine shops.