My wife had awakened the owning land/farm dream that I had when I was a child but had let die because everyone told me I couldn't make a living farming so I gave up on it. However, my wife has a farming background and when we got married she got me thinking about it again. I checked 5-6 real estate web sights, regularly, that catered to land/farms but never found anything we could afford. We ended up buying a house in the suburbs with a little less than a fifth of an acre and I tilled up most of the back yard. Fast forward 14 years, I was still checking the land web sites (usually a few nights a week just before I went to bed). By then we realized we wouldn't be able to afford anything close to my job. So we thought maybe we could buy land a little further away and slowly make improvements and transition slowly, working on the weekends type of a thing. Eventually, last year on a local land website I found 40 acres for $60,000. I mentioned it to my wife, she said it sounded good. I set things in motion to take out a home equity loan. I know--more debt, not good. But I did it anyway. Turned out my wife didn't think I was serious. So it was a nasty shock when she realized I had put an offer on it. It's two hours from my job (on a good day), closer to my wife's family though and that's good. It's covered in sage brush-for now. Has a gentle slope it. It has a seasonal stream that dries up in June. I'm currently applying for water rights while I'm trying to dig some ponds to use as water storage. When the ponds are ready I'll put some pigs in to take advantage of their gleying abilities. I'm just starting out with this and I'm honestly terrified that I will do the wrong thing and screw up. I know it's not going to be perfect but I think I need to do my best and learn from websites like this as well as my own mistakes. And we'll figure it out.
