Hello, I am a new member of the forum but have read posts here for years and used to get Paul's emails.
Maybe what I am looking for doesn't exist on the East coast- but my wife and I would like to live somewhere that gets 4 seasons, but not as harsh in the summer or winter as Minnesota.
We raise Icelandic sheep, so winter is great for interrupting the parasite cycle on pasture- but too much heat or humidity in the summer is not reasonable.
Recently visited the Asheville and Madison County area in N Carolina and liked the mountains- but it could get hot in the summer.
I guess what I am looking for is similar to the foothills of the Cascades in Washington state- low humidity year round, mountains and their resultant weather patterns and microclimates, a little bit of a freeze or even some snow in winter...but a good length of growing season as well.
Working through Farmlink programs seems to be a dead end, as the "retiring farmers" that we hope to find have all been replaced with
land investors, farm brokers, and rich techies who want someone else to make a nice farm that they can come visit.
And we have special requirements- if we didn't already have a flock of sheep, we could move anywhere and start from scratch- but we need to be able to drop animals on (reasonably fenced) pasture day one.
Would love to be able to find a place to rent, so we can get into the area and begin out quest to find a final property to buy, nothing we can do long distance.
Have tried Young Farmers, Craigslist, even Realtor dot com, among other land resources.
What's everybody's opinion of the area they are in? Any land resources we haven't found?
