Bits and Pieces of my life

We started our search, and soon found that there was nothing within our price range within commuting distance of the Twin Cities. And then a coworker told me about the house he was buying in Wisconsin. Older farmhouse, 20 acres, $120,000!!!! I couldn’t believe it, we’d been looking and looking, and found nothing west of the St. Croix/Mississippi River for anywhere near that price range. I’d never in my life thought I would ever become a Cheese Head, but we started looking for places in western Wisconsin, and in January 1999 we found one. This was farther away than we had planned on moving, but it had everything we were looking for. An older, two story farmhouse in need of repair, a cow barn in very good shape, and a newer tin pole shed, easily converted into a work shop. Another shed that would work for the horses and a single wide trailer that the elderly mother stayed in during the summer months. But the real gem was the grain shed. This was the oldest building on the property, and had hand hewn beams. The only drawback was the owner only wanted to sell the homestead and small pasture to the west between the house and the cross street. This was estimated at 10 acres, but the buildings took up so much, it didn’t leave much room for pasture, and none for growing our own hay. The current owners, a couple not much older than us with no children, wanted to sell the homestead with a few acres and build a new home on the other end of the farm up near the highway. Their realtor told ours they would consider selling more land, so we put in an offer above their asking price, contingent on getting 20 acres. They accepted, and we could not believe our luck.

Selling our suburban home was the easy part. It was a starter home in a decent neighborhood (for suburbia) and it sold for full price as soon as it hit the market. The only concern was the buyer was going VA, and my husband had heard enough stories during his time in the National Guard about VA loans that he wasn’t happy with that. I didn’t think anything of it. Everything seemed to be falling into place. We’d been pre-qualified before putting in the offer, so the only thing needed for us to obtain our dream farm was the survey and appraisal. My daughter wanted to move before the school year was out, so we asked for a closing date in the middle of March, allowing for only 45 days. The realtors were ok with that, and everyone got to work to make this sale go through.

I was so excited about this. When we were first married, we talked about owning land and raising a few animals, but then reality set in, and we never thought it would ever happen. In order to qualify for the loan, we had to stay at our current jobs, but we both planned to find something closer to our new home once the paperwork was signed. The mortgage payment we would end up with was less than what our house/horse board payments had been, and we could afford a decrease in pay without it being a burden. My hubby planned on quitting his job at the school, and getting back to work in the field. I figured I’d find an accounting job in one of the small towns near by. Our son would commute back to his old school and finish his senior year, and our daughter was excited about meeting new friends.

I made my husband drive out to WI every weekend. I took lots of pictures (this was before I bought my digital camera) and started making plans for how we would fix up the old house. I was so excited about moving out to the country, I showed the pictures to anyone who would listen. A month had gone by, and we were still waiting for the owner to get the survey done. The appraisal was complete, with the stipulation that the house would sell with at least 15 acres. We asked what the problem was, and our realtor told us that the owner was having a hard time coming up with 20 acres. It turns out the original area was closer to 7 than the 10 acres the owner had guessed, so instead of doubling what he wanted to sell, he had to near triple it. He had several hundred acres, so it wasn’t like he was significantly lowering the amount he would have left, but he said he didn’t want to cut up the existing fields. We agreed to accept as little as 18 acres, and were willing to end up with something that wasn’t rectangular in shape.

We were getting things all packed up and ready to move out our old home. We bought a stock trailer to move our goods and horses and were anxious to be out of suburbia. Because the track of land we were buying part of bordered a main highway in Wisconsin, the survey had to be sent in to the State for approval. Our chunk was on the end opposite from the highway, so no one thought there would be any problem with approval. But it would take more time, and the closing got rescheduled for a week later. The closing on our house was still on track (as far as we knew) so the owners of the farm agreed to let us move in and rent from them until we closed on the purchase. They finally got the survey done and marked out, so we drove out there to see what we were going to end up with. It turned out to be a just under 18 acres, so we weren’t sure how much that would be. The property was boarded by roads on two sides, and the owner wanted to keep the field to the north of the fence line, so it was just how far east our land would go that we didn’t know. We found the first stake by the road, and walked back to the corner. The plot was rectangular, with a triangle shape added on to the northwest corner. The north line followed the fence line and then angled farther north along a ravine, and then went straight south to the road.

We stood out in the field, looking over what seemed to be a vast amount of land. We could not believe this was going to be ours in just a few more days. We smiled and hugged each other, and danced around in the hay field. We would have enough land for a nice pasture, and about 10 acres of field already in hay. We would finally be able to live the type of live we’d given up ever having. I can honestly say that was one of the happiest days of our life together.