# Farm? Acreage? In Town?



## Palfrey (May 29, 2020)

Wow, @AbbySmith You have a lot going on! Sounds amazing actually. Do you sell the beets for sugar? I'm surprised you don't have a horse already, what's the hold up? LOL! 

I didn't know alfalfa was that delicate. 

Well this is what I got: 110 acres of farm land. 2 old barns (probably circa 1820) that will need a serious spring cleaning! Horses at home (bless the people that board, I don't know how ya'll do it!) Chickens running amok--maybe around 20 of them. And some barn cats. Fields haven't been put to use for about 12+ years which is much to my chagrin. Would love to hay the fields again. I mean, the horses on them, but that's it. My great uncle up the road does the hay still in our family. 

I do small scale gardening, raised beds. Had horrible luck last year with deer--first time in my 10+ years of back yard gardening! I usually sell my heirloom squash and pumpkins down by the road but it was a no go this year. I sell my horse manure too, but that's spring and fall.


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## All About Hope (Nov 10, 2020)

I live on almost two acres. I have thirteen chickens, a dog, and in the summer we have a big garden where we grow green beans, greens, beets, sunflowers, carrots, potatoes, kale, okra, tomatoes, and sometimes corn but it doesn't ever do well. I know I missed something... We're surrounded by a few hundred acres of farmland with cattle. It's nice but the main road we live on is loud sometimes.

EDIT: I forgot to mention we live in the outskirts, the rural area, of an almost 40,000 person town. Fortunately we aren't too close to our neighbors and have privacy.


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## Sawlog (Jan 16, 2021)

We have 3.5 acres with 1000 Christmas trees so far. 20 chickens, 2 dogs, 2 coop cats, koi pond, and a new to us horse as of Saturday.
We live at the edge of a small town of 200 people. Still in city limits.


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## AbbySmith (Nov 15, 2020)

Wow! I feel so lucky for where I live lol! I would hate to live on a small property!!

@SteadyOn, no, we don't sell the beets, we only planted them cause they have a high nitrate content, and it was good for the soil, seeing as it hadn't been worked in very many years. That's why most of it was planted. I did end up picking some of the carrots for the donkeys though. I probably picked some for them every day, it's like 1.5km walk to get there lol!
Why don't I have a horse?? I have no idea!!! Dad's talking about it now though at least. We put in fence posts last year, so dad says I get to fence that off for a horse this year!  Also why he's planting alfalfa in the one field. He doesn't understand when I say horses eat Timothy hay, he thinks it has to be alfalfa or something. I don't understand, but whatever, I should get a horse this summer!!!!

Also, your gardens sound amazing!! We had one three years ago but mom never went outside or did anything with it, so dad got mad and ripped it out lol! I did plant 100 potatoed last year though!! I think I grew like 500ish! Hopefully I can do even more this year!!


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## PinkPrancer (Nov 10, 2020)

We live in the suburbs, basically cheek to cheek with our neighbors. It didn't bother me so much growing up, since it was all I ever knew, but as I've gotten older it grates on me more and more. 

Fortunately, we're moving! Our first goal is to sell our current home by early April and move in with my parents. We'll stay with them throughout the spring/summer and save up as much as possible. Then, come fall, my whole family is picking up and moving across country to North Carolina. 

Obviously it's too early to go house hunting, but the goal is to find something with 2-3 acres. My husband would prefer closer to 5, but honestly I just think that's out of budget for us. We don't have horses yet, and even when we do the goal will be to board first so we can really learn as much as possible with experienced horse people. Then, when we feel knowledgeable enough and can afford two horses, we'd like to keep them on our own land. 

As much as I love animals, we're not looking to start a farm of any sort. We already have two dogs and are planning a third (a big one that will have enough space to run around), and aside from the horses, that's all we really have in mind. Of course, that's if things line up exactly how we plan, and plans are always going astray!


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## JCnGrace (Apr 28, 2013)

We live on a 50 acre farm in a rural area. Most of it is pasture for the horses and the rest is a tiny yard and a heavily wooded area with a wet weather creek running through it.


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## Part-Boarder (Aug 17, 2019)

I live downtown and have a large garden by city standards - lots of perennial flowers and others I grow from seed. My veggies did well last year and I hope to expand - mostly kale, arugula, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and herbs (we eat a lot of salad!). There are lots of trails and parks close by for walking or skijoring with my dog. The barn I part-board at is north of the city (about a 45 min drive) near beautiful trails. If I owned that’s where the horse would be - there’s really nothing closer. We also have a plot of land on a lake about two hours north of the city - 10 acres of forest, part of which is zoned rural. It’s very rustic - no running water though there is a dug well, but it does have electricity. We think it could be well suited to a paddock paradise track with run in shelters if we ever moved there permanently and got horses (we would also have chickens and bunnies and I would love a sheep as I have tried spinning my own wool for knitting) but that’s far in the future. My husband comes from farming families on both sides and it’s fun to have a space to try out some small scale homesteading on the weekends in the meantime.


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## farmpony84 (Apr 21, 2008)

79 acres here. We have about 20 cleared. I live next to my parents (Can't see their house from mine but abut a 10 minute walk) and then on of my brothers is on the other end of the property, you can't see any of our houses from the road or through the woods.

We are backed up to a 100 acre field that rotates between corn and soy beans. That backs up to the river. On the other side of it is 450 acres that belongs to a subdivision. I don't think they will build on it. They use it for hunting.

I'm about 30 minutes from town.


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## QtrBel (May 31, 2012)

"We planted one field in a tap radish, beet, carrot, cabbage, pea, alfalfa, and oat mix"

Sounds like what we used as a border crop to keep deer and other animals out of the fields when I lived up north. We'd ring the fields with that mix or similar depending on time of year. They'd eat that and not wander into the crop.


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## AbbySmith (Nov 15, 2020)

QtrBel said:


> "We planted one field in a tap radish, beet, carrot, cabbage, pea, alfalfa, and oat mix"
> 
> Sounds like what we used as a border crop to keep deer and other animals out of the fields when I lived up north. We'd ring the fields with that mix or similar depending on time of year. They'd eat that and not wander into the crop.


We've actually never really had a problem with animals eating our crops. Probably cause it's mostly just hay not grains of any sort. That is interesting though, we planted that stuff but for nutrients in the soil cause the field hadn't been worked in at least 13 years. 

@PinkPrancer and @Part-Boarder, hopefully you guys can get your dream farm one day!!!

@JCnGrace, does your creek run year round? We have a small one too that j can't wait to ride through, but it dries up in the heat of summer. 

@farmpony84 that sounds amazing!! I would love to live closer to family! 
You can't see our house from the road either. J love the privacy!


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## Caledonian (Nov 27, 2016)

I'm semi-rural, my house is on the edge of a village. I've neighbours, but they're a good distance from the house and garden. It's wooded on one side and on the other it's next to the fields and buildings where i used to keep my horses. 

The village is one of a number that sit around a larger town. The surrounding area is a mix of sheep, beef, dairy and arable farms; further out it changes to moorland, lochs and mountains

While I'd like to be more rural, my work keeps me in this area, at least for now. Given a choice, I'd prefer to be further north and west to where my family were when i was young; it's a far more remote area.

My mum's side of the family were gardeners and seedsmen going back to the late 1800s and they had acres producing plants, cut flowers veg and seeds for the area and a national seed company. 

The garden around my house was created by them when the house belonged to my great aunt. I'd love it to be bigger but it's on the limit of what i can manage.

It's a horsey area, with schools, livery yards and my friends' yards. It's a shame that I won't be able to use the near-by fields for a horse but I've plenty of choice for the future. Or, I could use extra land as an incentive to move...


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## QtrBel (May 31, 2012)

I take it then it is being tilled under and another crop follows?

Alfalfa does extremely well as a crop in Canada. There are political issues with the introduction of GM alfalfa but I find if odd it would not be considered a good crop as it is a major hay producer in your area.


@Caledonian I would so love to visit your part of the world. 

The last of our family farm except the dairy passed from my family's hands when my great grandmother passed. The family land here is scattered so management can be an issue. Not to mention family politics. 

Where the house is it is a mix of hardwoods we have thinned and pasture. I had an extensive rose garden at one point and will someday recreate it. The house garden needs work and expansion but that will have to wait for now. The boys are growing gourmet mushrooms with success. Will see where that takes them.


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## Caledonian (Nov 27, 2016)

@QtrBel -you'd be very welcome


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## AbbySmith (Nov 15, 2020)

@Caledonian, it sounds like you have such a wonderful place! That's so cool that your property has so many memories!

@QtrBel, yes it was tilled in last fall, and we may plant the same mix again seeing as it did so well. We may also just plant it in a grass mix and graze the sheep on it and let them do their thing and turn the field around. Or we may plant it in Alfalfa, we haven't decided yet. 
And yes, alfalfa can grow in canada. It's just harder in northern bc. A friend used to live in ab and he got 3 cuts if Alfalfa every year. We will be lucky to get one cut of alfalfa seeing as it's much colder here than ab, so it will take longer to grow. Last year we would have been able to get two cuts if the timothy field the sheep have been on the last couple years. So we might try cutting that field twice this year and see how it does.


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## boots (Jan 16, 2012)

I lease private ground for horses and cattle. My name is on the corporation papers of a ranch but I can't really count that. 

My leases are good. One has 1500 acres, one has 640 a., and the summer lease is with 6 other outfits and 20,000+. That sounds like a lot, but water is scarce and vegetation is sparse so it takes a bunch of ground. 

I bought a small house, basically an apartment with a yard, in town and plan on retiring there. For now I'm renting it to a family member.

The only downside to all this is the miles. But I like to drive, so it's okay.


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## Avna (Jul 11, 2015)

I live on 25 acres of which more than half has gone back to forest. Just moved here in 2018. It was, in the 1700's, a mixed farm of more than hundred acres but that's long gone, along with the barn -- the barn burned in the 1950's, the best pasture land was restored to its original condition, which is a giant beaver pond, and over time pieces were sold off. The land was long neglected but they sort of kept five acres of pasture open, which is all my horses need. A very nice small stable was built for the previous owners, and my husband has built, moved, and restored other outbuildings. We could have used a big old barn! We are working on restoring the fertility of the pasture and clearing out the trees and brush encroaching on it. We cut enough firewood every year for ourselves -- probably 6 to 8 cords -- and some to sell. I keep laying hens and have a couple of goats. I may breed the doe next fall as I could use the milk, but having had dairy goats before I know how much work it is, so I'm on the fence about that. I have planted a flower garden and some heirloom apples, but I have no intention of farming, just horse keeping and hobby farming. No longer have the energy it takes.


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## AbbySmith (Nov 15, 2020)

So I realized that I forgot about the building we have! 
We got...
The main house that we live in
A tinier house next to ours that we are renting out to friends, but they are moving back to town the end of the month
We have the chicken coop, with a 20x20x8ft fenced run that they have 24/7 access to
A little shed the same size as the chicken coop that we call the turkey shed, cause we were gonna raise turkeys in it, but we never got around to it, and now it's just full of junk (an overflow of the garage lol)
Two hoop houses. One for the pigs in winter, and the other for the sheep.
One pretty small barn that we don't actually use very often now that I think about it. We use it for when we sell piglets in the spring, and we have 3 farrowing crates in there that I get to clean (yay), that we put sows in when they are about to farrow, but there aren't any sows in there right now. We do have one barrow in there though cause he was sick and got beat up.
We also have a bigger barn, shed, thing. Half of it is the shop. The back of the shop is full of grain cause we make our own pig/sheep/cow food, so we have all the grain stored back there, as well as the chopper, that is just always hooked up to the tractor, The Princess, then in the front is where The Princess parks with the chopper, and on the other side the other tractor parks, Little John, and all the tools and crap are over there too. The dog's food is also in the shop cause if it's outside the ravens eat it all.
In the other half of the barn, shed, thing, used to be hay storage, but we took it all out and tarped it so we could turn that area into pig pens. So we made new pig pens in there just over the winter this year, so we haven't moved any pigs into them yet. They're pretty fancy though, all metal so they won't break, and there are 3 different pens, with a ate in the middle of each that can swing shut, to creat 6 smaller pens for them. So I'm super excited to see how all that does, cause we put automatic feeders in each of them, so it'll be super easy. Especially since we dug a new water line and put water in each pen! It is going to be easy!! Lol!
We also have the skeleton of a shed set up over the sheep squeeze/chute, but we haven't actually put the roof on yet (its been 3 years and its still not on, so the odds of one ever going on are pretty slim lol). Since there is no roof, it doesn't actually do much, but we do use the scale/squeeze/chute quite often. 
There is also a run-in shed in the cows pen but I don't think that counts as a building lol! 
Dad also wants to build a pig barn this year, but who knows if that's gonna happen. He wants to do it right, and he's still figuring things out, so we'll see if that happens this year. It was supposed to happen last year, but there was no way we could afford it cause haying just went on and on, and we broke everything cause it was waaaay too wet. But the loggers are coming in sometime next week and they're gonna take all the trees down with em, so dad's planning on using that money to build his barn! I can't wait!!

I also didn't really describe our fields very well. So, you drive up the road to get to out house, and there is a field on your right when you turn onto the driveway, that is our field. That is just planted in Timothy, sometimes the sheep get brought down there. It isn't fenced or anything, but we have transportable electric fence that keeps em in. 
Then if you were to keep driving up the road, there is another field on the right, that is also our field. We tried planting it in peas last year and they came up really really good, but it was just so wet that we couldn't get the combine on to harvest them. The combine literally just sank right down. We tried at least 3 different times, so that just get tilled under, and I dunno if we're gonna try again this year. I wanted to plant it in potatoes, but it's like a 120acre field, so that's not gonna happen lol!
Then when you drive up the driveway, there are fields on either side. The one on the right is the sheep pasture. We don't hay that, the sheep live there most of the summer, pigs are there all summer, and fall.
The field on the left is called "the field below the house", and that one is planted in Timothy, and the sheep are occasionally on that field if we need more pasture.
Then there is the field beside the field below the house, and that one is called the "horse field" cause when we bought the place, the owner had a bunch of horses on that field. That is also planted in Timothy, and we made the mistake of actually fertilizing it this year, as well as putting the sheep on it, so that field was so thick!! Like, insanely thick, we could have cut it twice! In bc!! That's impressive. 
Then there's the field behind the horse field and that one is the "swap field" super small little field maybe 10 acres, its also planted in Timothy. At the end of the swamp field is my little potato patch. It's like 8x30ft or something (btw, i SUCK at guesstimating distance, time, and measure, and all of that, so most of my guesses of the size of things are probably waaay off)
Then there's the "top field" this is the one dad put fence posts around, this is where my horse will live. For now it was also planted in Timothy and hayed. 
Then there is the top half of the top field, and that is the field that was planted in the beet oat carrot pea wheat kale radish whatever else I said, mix. That was haylaged this year, then tilled under. 
Then there is the field that the sheep live in 24/7. It's like 5 acres or something. They always live there. The rams/cows/donkeys/unbred ewes are living there right now.

Okay, well I think that's all that I forgot...yeah right! Lol! I totally forgot more, but _for now_, that's all lol!

@boots, holy crap that's a lot of land!! Have you ever thought of doing an ag-lease?

@Avna, goats! I love goats! I love that you cut your own firewood! We totally don't 🤣🤣My dad refuses to do it himself, so he just swaps wood for piglets with a guy we know lol!!


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## boots (Jan 16, 2012)

@AbbySmith - I lease. I had acreage years ago. Sold it to a group and that's how I got into the corporation. I'm hardly involved.


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## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

@AbbySmith what do you do with all the manure? I've been meaning to ask...

When we get our new place, we plan on composting all horse manure and using it in the garden. With three horses, we may have to expand the garden, though.


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## AbbySmith (Nov 15, 2020)

Umm...well usually they're on the pasture over the spring/summer/fall so we actually don't do anything with their poo cause they pack it into the field and we don't have to deal with that stuff. 

Over the winter though, since they're locked up, we do have to deal with that poo. We do a deep clean of the barn after they are kicked out. We just bring in the tractor, back blade it all out and just put it in a mound on the edge of one field. It decomposes over time.
We do want to get a manure spreader though, cause then we would spread it out on the fields. But yeah,it just goes into a heap of poop.


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## RMH (Jul 26, 2016)

We live on a 200 acre grain farm which along with farming several other farms is how I make my living. I also raise freezer beef and finish a few hogs. My kids have laying hens to sell eggs, and my son raises market goats as a 4-H project. Our 4 horses live in a stall in the corner of my equipment shed which is across the fence from the cattle. What is unusual about my setup is my horse pasture is irrigated by a center pivot sprinkler. While the irrigation is scheduled for the grain crops surrounding the pasture it helps to keep the pasture green and the horses don't seem to mind. My pig pen on the other side of the barn lot is also irrigated which provides the pigs an endless supply of mud to wallow in. I grow some alfalfa and grass hay to feed the horses and cattle and sell the excess. When we got our first horse I asked the vet what they could eat and named off all the grains that I grew all the while he was shaking his head no. I make all the feed for our other animals on the farm but have to buy in expensive grain byproducts to feed my horses.


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## AbbySmith (Nov 15, 2020)

@RMH that's just the way it goes isn't it lol! Sounds like you have a great place!! What grains do you grow? 
The only reason we got into sheep was cause they eat the hay we make lol! And we have the fencing for them so...🤷🏼‍♀️
What breed are your pigs?


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## RMH (Jul 26, 2016)

Corn, soybean, wheat, barley, and sometimes grain sorghum. The cattle are kind of like your sheep in that they eat the hay that isn't good enough for my horses or to sell to my horse owning customers. Pigs are what ever I can buy as feeder pigs. Same way with cattle as I buy feeders. I used to breed Berkshire pigs but that was a pain. It was discouraging when a sow would lay on an crush a pig.


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## Nubs (Jul 25, 2019)

We have 10 acres, all cleared right now. On it we have a house, barn, two larger pastures and one smaller one.

Just two horses here at the moment, but we will be adding chickens in the spring!


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## JCnGrace (Apr 28, 2013)

@AbbySmith , it's just a small creek that dries up easily. 










That's hubby's rifle range you are seeing on the other side. LOL


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## AbbySmith (Nov 15, 2020)

@RMH, nice! We find it easier to pull the piglets out if the pen as they come out and then give them back to the sow after she is done. Less die that way. 

@Nubs, so cool! What breed? Are they for laying or meat?

@JCnGrace, that looks pretty much like ours except for that ours runs through a bunch of trees. Love the shooting range lol!


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## Part-Boarder (Aug 17, 2019)

AbbySmith said:


> We've actually never really had a problem with animals eating our crops. Probably cause it's mostly just hay not grains of any sort. That is interesting though, we planted that stuff but for nutrients in the soil cause the field hadn't been worked in at least 13 years.
> 
> @PinkPrancer and @Part-Boarder, hopefully you guys can get your dream farm one day!!!
> 
> ...


 And I hope you get your horse very soon! @AbbySmith


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## AbbySmith (Nov 15, 2020)

Part-Boarder said:


> And I hope you get your horse very soon! @AbbySmith


Thank you!! Hopefully this summer!!


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