Farm Upgrades; Past, Present, Future

We bought this land because it was 43 acres of peace, tranquility and space. We absolutely fell in love with its potential. But we knew we had to put in the work to get it to reach its potential. Its a forever goal, because with land and a farm comes with constant work.

So how did we end up in Columbus, Mississippi?

We are a military family. I am a veteran and the hubby is currently active duty. So we've moved a lot. Everywhere we moved, we tried out a different living style. In Florida, we lived the beach life. In Michigan, we bought a five acre property and wanted to see how close to self sustaining we could get. Disclaimer, it was not very close due to the short growing season and the overwhelming amount of freezing temps and snow. Then we moved to Alabama, we tried the suburban life and lived on base. When the hubby got orders to Kentucky in the beginning of 2023, we went and looked at any house that was large enough to fit our family size. Everything was at max budget and needed a ton of work to make it resellable at the end of that tour. We could make due but then a realtor told us that the exact city hubby was going to be working in, was known as the meth capitol of Kentucky. As a homeschool family, that was a hard pass. So we expanded our search and had the same results with home prices, size, and condition. Hubby and I talked for weeks about what we were going to do. And we came to the conclusion that the teens are done moving. Finding friends is hard, switching schools suck, and they were almost at college age, and I didn't want the last time living with us to be in a home that wasn't our forever home. So we widened our search even more. The home had to need no work and at minimum four bedrooms. My parents are at the age where they may need full time care any day, so I wanted a MIL suite or house on the property. With our goals of homesteading and hunting, we wanted a minimum of 30 acres. So we looked in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. There was two houses in the whole five state radius that fit our needs and was somewhat near our budget. ONLY TWO!! We went to see them both and fell in love with this Mississippi property. But another option fell into our lap, we could stay on base in the house we were in. The drive from Kentucky to the base in Alabama was 6 hours. The drive from Kentucky to the Mississippi house was six hours. So the question was do we buy or do we stay. Hubby and I decided to put in an offer under asking and see what happens.

Are you ready for this roller coaster? So I go see the property, fall in love, moved to tears with what this could mean to our family, we put in the offer under asking price and write a heart felt letter appealing to the sellers. They say no and counter just under asking. We counter and go up just a little, because let me remind you that this whole property needed work. And the asking price of this house was over budget. They come back and say they can't move down any further in price and our prices were too far apart to work together. So we see a financial consultant and try to see if their counter offer could work in the budget. It could, but just barely. I'm emotionally invested in this property and willing to do anything to make it work. So we offer them their counter offer price but kindly ask them to throw in the tractor (if you never ask, then you'll never know. It was worth a shot). They say no on the tractor but that everything else looks agreeable. So we immediately resubmit the same offer just without the tractor. That night another offer comes to the sellers, for the full asking price! The sellers immediately accept it and agree to sign our offer as a back up offer. I'm literally in tears! The entire negotiating period took over a month because the sellers took their time in responding. But they just accept this brand new offer in less that 6 hours. So now we wait. I don't wish ill will on anyone, but I was hoping that the other parties offer would fall through. They had a USDA loan. And if you know anything about USDA loans, you probably can come to realize that there's no way 43 acres with a home, a MIL home, a barn, and an outbuilding could fit into the USDA loan restrictions. After about six weeks, their funding fell through! And our offer was accepted. That was the longest waiting game of my life! So in June 2023, we officially closed on this home!

So what have we done since then?

Step one was clearing out the junk. A 40 foot dumpster later and the majority of it was gone, to include an entire engine block! Then, we immediately started flipping the MIL house. It was a tedious process of ripping out old flooring, concrete leveling, laying new flooring, painting, appliances, and listing it for rent. Part of fitting this home in the budget was ensuring that the MIL home was rented out (until my parents needed it, of course).

We then moved on to the barn, the chicken coop, and the green house. Oh, and I failed to mention that all of the grass was armpit high, and we had to immediately purchase a riding mower and get to work. That was a perpetual never ending job. Because as soon as we finished mowing one spot, then the next, then the next, the first spot was already knee high. And this poor, used, riding mower was complaining constantly that it was not cut out for this type of hard labor. I was illegally harboring 30 tiny raptors in my base home's garage, so the chicken coop was top priority. It had to be properly secured with fencing, cleaned out, roosts and nesting boxes installed, and food and water stuff ready to go. Next was the barn. Every square inch was covered in the most elaborately knitted webbing. It was like a scene out of a horror movie. So we bought a power washer and got to work. And we were doing all this on weekends, because we hadn't moved in quite yet. Traveling three hours, each way, to spruce everything up. With all this excitement, of course the cows arrived just weeks after we moved in and rushed to get the barn clean. Then not to long after came the two goats, and the two pigs. While all this was happening we were multitasking and getting my plants that I had been nurturing for years, planted in the ground. We were trying to rid the 30'x80' greenhouse cleared of invasive fennel (wall to wall, tightly packed, 7' tall fennel, that when you pulled it out, it rained seeds and fluff all over your head, and not to mention this was in the dead of summer so it was 100°F). Finally the weather cooled off the tiniest bit, it is Mississippi, and the grass slowed in its never ending growth, and we were able to get caught up. The greenhouse finally got cleared, a tarp was laid to prevent further growth. The barn was popping with life, and not of the spider kind. The MIL house was being loved and lived in. We borrowed a friends tractor and a brush hog, and the land was finally cleared and manageable. Now that we were no longer drowning came all the small projects. Fixing the walk in fridge in the barn, creating a rain barrel system that linked to an automatic waterer for the chickens, fixing the barns plumbing, pruning the orchard, filling in holes in the yard, building a playground, cleaning out and burning all the dead brush, and of course planning how were going to thrive in 2024.

So this catches you up to today. Our current endeavors are installing a second rain barrel, cleaning out the barn stalls, seeding the animal's pastures, farm beautification, planning this years garden, signing up to participate as a vender in the local farmer's market, advertising for shares in our produce, making all of our health and wellness products, blogging, buying seeds and rooted plants, and planning what the future of this farm will look like.

In the future there will be so many projects to get this farm to its full potential. Some of those projects are to double the size of the orchard, get a bull for our family milk cows, get a male for our mama piggies, get a male for our momma goat, expand the chicken collection, expand their coop, growing mushrooms, expanding the playground, and expanding our reach in the community to be able to feed more of our community healthy, no spray produce. We want to be a one stop shop for all of you meat, dairy, bread, and produce needs. We are so eager to bring our vision to life and there is no stopping the motivation we have to make this an experience that you can enjoy as well.