cate crawford

wow - that is truly an AMAZING story. I am only the 7th generation in this country (since the amish mennonites fled france due to religious persecution). And actually - even though we know where so many of the extended family farms are/were and still have a very tight-knit community, I have honestly no idea where my ancestors original farmstead was. your situation sounds very rare. you are truly living on a treasure.

if you don't mind me asking - how many acres do you now have? And - of that acreage - how much is currently in use for sheep?

I agree with your observation. It is absolutely exhilarating to shop for new land. to be honest I don't think we did a great job on selecting our first piece. Because of some previous neglect and grading, bringing it to where we need it to be has proven to be a much longer-term proposition than we originally planned. But, the upside to all that is that we do get the really rewarding feeling of seeing the land (slowly) transform. One of our big reason for buying this second piece of land is that - in order to get our business up and going more immediately - we need property that has had less abuse/requires relatively less restoration. And - from what we can tell - this new property does fit the bill. so yes - all very exciting.

I have to say though - i look at your situation and think it's just about ideal. When we decided to get a farm going we would have done just about anything to have gotten my grandfather's farm and farmhouse back. While I don't practice any longer, I come from an Amish Mennonite family and my grandfather was still very observant. Over time, he had built up a 300 acre farm with a sugar bush and very popular sawmill. When he retired, my mom didn't want to buy it (even though he begged her). Now the place is split up into parcels, the barn (that he and the community built together) is torn down and most of the field are just growing corn for industrial dairy farms in the area. It's like piece of history (not to mention some excellent craftsmanship) has been wiped out forever.

But there's always an upside, I guess. Because if we were farming his land, we'd be in 4a. Our current land ranges from 4b-5b. And that is a big difference. I guess there truly is no "perfect" situation, is there?

btw - so neat you're doing sheep. We really want to get into them too. but probably can't take that on for another couple years minimum.

Hi Travis - thanks for this detailed response. Since I posted this, we've learned more about what may be in place on the land. Like you, we were theorizing that they might have been put in on one rather obvious swale line. however, that seems that it may not be the case. Instead it seems they were installed (also in my grandparents' day) above the current driveway/farm access road - (very sensibly) to keep the access road passable. We are closing on the property in 2 weeks and will be doing a site walkthrough with the current owners to get the precise location.

Funny you raise the issues on New England being so wet. We are definitely seeing the effects of that on our primary property. Areas that have - in our experience - been suitable for growing are now progressively getting too wet - particularly last year and this year. It's been an "interesting" ride addressing that for the couple of areas where we happened to have perennial crops started.

Conversely though - for the new plot of land (the one with the tile drainage), we understand from a farmer who has worked near the property for years. that this property can actually run on the dry side. So - for this season - we will be carefully observing that and seeing if we need to additionally put in some pond systems etc. We may indeed have the opposite issue than we do with our current land - we may need to actively retain water.

Thanks again for your help!

Has anyone had experience with permaculture projects on tile drained land? We found a very nice piece of land we'd like to buy - 28 acres, good southern slope, near our current land, hasn't been sprayed in at least 8 years (possibly longer). South slopes +no spray is not so common around here so it feels like a very good find. That said, we have never dealt with tile drainage before. And though I could see how they could perhaps be leveraged in a permaculture design (i.e. helping feed a managed pond system), we can see real potential downsides (indiscriminately moving water off the property). Before we submit an offer we are trying to find out:

1) where are the current drains? This helps us understand if they are pervasive or localized to one area. It also helps us with any water system design we would do post purchase
2) what "problem" were the drains installed to address (the current owner did not install the system)

For #1, we are working with the soil and water conservation district to see what they have on record. for #2, the district has also pointed us in the direction of the person they think owned the land prior to the current owners. He still lives nearby, so we may just go see him.

In case the additional context helps, we hope to use the land for pigs and poultry, a food forest and vegetable production. It's a lot of space so will clearly be a multi-year project.

I did find 2 threads on permies that talked about how to take tile drainage systems out of use (for example - one can put a temporary stop on the outlet pipe and then observe the changes to the land). However, we'd clearly have to actually own the land before we stop up the system! Anyone have any wisdom and/or dealt with a similar situation? Any input could really help to inform our decision to buy/not buy.