Posted by in-too-deep on August 05, 2015 at 18:57:56 from (208.123.61.197):
Hello all!
My wife and I have kinda reached an impasse. No, we're doing fine, and so is our daughter (2 yrs in Oct.) The issue is, where are we gonna live and farm? Right now, we live in Ulen, MN, which is beautiful, black, open farmland. Wife is from Shevlin, MN, which is mostly wooded and sandy and best suited for beef cattle operations. Think "Minnesota Northwoods". We currently own a small herd of nice beef cattle, and are expanding. We pasture them in Shevlin for the summer, which is about 70 miles away from home. An hour and a half drive. We rely on her sorta inexperienced family to check on things when we aren't visiting and at least twice this summer we've had to drop everything and run over there in an emergency.
On the other hand, we really want to start farming row crops full-time. The goal is to quit my full-time job. There is a possibility of some land coming available for me to rent. Wife isn't quite as consumed by this dream as I am, but she DOES want me to be happy and fulfilled. Farming will accomplish that. HOWEVER, she gets homesick sometimes, and we BOTH would like to live in Shevlin and be closer to family. I understand the homesick thing, cause when I moved from Illinois crop land to the Minnesota pines, I wasn't always happy, either.
Our current little farm is just too little and too muddy in the spring for the beefs. We absolutely LOVE the house and the yard and we've put lots of money and lots and lots of our own hard work into it. It would be very sad to move. We have two married couples that we're pretty close friends with, oddly enough one couple is in their 80's and the other in their 60's. We would miss them dearly, but they both want us to buy their farms one day.
The crazy idea is this: We could sell our current farm and use the proceeds to build a new home and farm on land we own in Shevlin. That would solve the homesick issues and we could spend more time with family. Gotten to be good buds with her brother-in-law. This is near Bemidji, MN, and there are no jobs for a farmboy like me, nor do either of us want me to punch a #$&@^&$*^ time clock anymore. So, the solution would be, rent farmland out in Ulen area, and operate that farm from a distance, and live with the cattle.
I know it's not ideal, being spread out, but it's the best solution that we've come up with thus far. All the equipment would stay in Ulen, and when it's fieldwork time, or equipment maintenance and repair time, or just driving around checking crops time, we'd spend however many days out there we needed to. I'd have all my tools and stuff in a trailer behind the pickup and could drag it to whatever needs fixin'. We could possibly base out of the older couple's farm. He has sheds and a small shop and some grain bins.
Oh, currently I work full-time on a very busy wheat, corn, soybean, hay, and straw farm. I don't want to attempt part-time farming my stuff while full-timing his. There just aren't enough hours in a day and we have pretty small time windows in N. MN. My wife stays home and raises Little Minnesota and manages our money VERY well. We live very simply and downright cheaply sometimes.
So, what do you think? Move to Shevlin and keep growing the cow herd and finally have time to put up decent fence...and farm 500 to 1000 acres out in Ulen and do a good job and make some money.
I'm sorry if I don't reply much, as I'm not on the computer often, but I'm really looking forward to your responses, if you feel like responding. My email is open, too. Thank you for your time!
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