Bigger and better

The pig business is pretty good these days; it's to the point that I don't advertise anymore; all of my production is sold to people who come to me from word of mouth, and I'm able to sell everything that I produce at my farm gate, or pretty close to it, which is nice.  

the 1910 wooden barn on the new farm

I purchased my current farm in 2013, as an upgrade from some land i was farming in the flood plain, and it's been a good 6 years here.  This property came with big barns and a 4 bedroom house, and while I do like having half an acre under roof I'm not in love with the county government taxing me to death for owning it, and my special neighbor is on her 6th year of harassing me.  I'll take my profit and move to something better.   

I'm going to put this farm up for sale soon; I'll offer it as four parts, and an interested buyer can buy any or all of it:  

  4br/3ba 2500sq ft house on 10 acres, with 4000 square foot horse barn

  35000 square feet of commercial barn, milking parlor on 10 acres

  45 acres of great, flat cropland

  5 acre building lot, off flood plain.  

I'll be moving my operation 8 miles to the east, to a larger farm (larger in the land sense), but smaller in the house and barn sense.  there's a single 1910 barn on the property, a wood barn, and a 1200 square foot house.  2 br, 2 baths.    

over the next year I'll be designing and building a farm that is purpose-built for my operation.  The last few years have been an exercise in trying to fit a pig operation into a cattle structure, and while i've done it, to be honest, I'll would never have built the barns like the guy did here.  he lost his farm because of it.  

I'll be doing all of the things I did here on the new property; a survey to figure out where the edges are.  Fencing along the property lines.   Remodel the house a little before I move - paint and flooring, update the bathrooms, make sure that it has proper insulation and ventilation.    

The new farm has a pretty substantial gravel deposit on it; a couple of million tons of it, and I'm going to take a stab at permitting a gravel mine on that property over the next year or two as another income stream for the farm, and I'll continue with the pig business, but I'll probably build a processing area as part of the new farm to accommodate those folks who like to process their own pigs.  

Life has had its ups and downs in the last two years, and I'm liking the direction its taking now.