Wow, it is hard to keep up with a blog. It’s not as if things aren’t happening, or I don’t have things I want to say, but sometimes everything is just moving so quickly it feels like there isn’t time to reflect on anything.
Jeremy and I are in the throes of farm-hunting. Throes is an appropriate word here because it has definitely been somewhat painful and incredibly exhausting. Property in Massachusetts, especially commuting distance to the Greater Boston Area is incredibly expensive. Our current criteria is 3+ acres, with most of it cleared or able to be cleared (this is trickier than it sounds), with a house that is either liveable, or cheap enough that we have the cash to do the required work relatively quickly (ex: putting in a new septic).
So far it has been a bit of a bust. The biggest disappointment was when we saw Wilder Farms for sale, but we didn’t have a realtor we liked at the time and as a result, we couldn’t do/didn’t think to do an early showing. We woke up the morning of the open house so excited, ready to put in an offer, only to see a text from the realtor that they had already accepted an offer. That property would have been perfect, and we haven’t really come across anything that fit within our price range since.
We also looked at a beautiful larger property in Groton, but it was just out of our price range and we knew that if we stretched, we just wouldn’t have the money to do any of the things we wanted to do with the property, so it wasn’t worth it.
We’ve also seen a bunch of properties pop up with things you don’t want like cell towers being on top of your house, toxic waste seeping from a defunct plant next door, and large powerlines with who knows what sorts of herbicides cutting right through.
We may be at the point where I’m going to become one of those stories you hear where the person cold calls everyone in the town to see if they’ll sell their property. I’m not there yet, but maybe by winter.
There have also been challenges due to lots of restrictions here. Wetlands are everywhere in Massachusetts, and they are protected. You are not allowed to disturb them within 100 feet, and you’re not allowed to disturb streams and pools within 225 feet. It may not seem like it, but 225 feet is a lot of buffer. An acre is ~208 sq ft, so when you’re looking at a 3 acre property, and there is a tiny stream that flows through, you’re basically out of luck (if you’re trying to make room for pasture, like us).
Another thing that hasn’t been very clear to us is whether or not sheep can graze on top of a septic’s leach field. So many of these properties use up the entire backyard to put their leach field and I find that insane. It basically means you can’t grow anything besides grass back there! I don’t know a lot about septic systems and the rules, but if I was putting one in, I would try to have it in the least “useable” part of my land, not the prime real estate. Anyway, we’ve heard that sheep can graze on it, but of course there’s always a chance that something is leaking up and they get sick. And if you’re raising them for meat (we’re not planning on it), that would be an extra concern since you don’t want to get sick yourself. However, it’s unclear if that is a real risk or more remote. I’ve also seen it depends on how deep the infrastructure of the leach field is, and that is not something that is usually noted on the Title V (septic inspection) so we’ve been operating on “no grazing,” but again that has added a big limitation to a lot of land.
Separate from the farm search, I have been going through a lot of medical experiences this year. I was recently diagnosed with adenomyosis and endometriosis. The positive is that this potentially explains a lot of the symptoms I’ve been having, the negative is that I’m still having some symptoms and I know it will be a bit of a try and see with what helps. I also had mammograms done, a lipoma (fatty blob) removed from my shoulder (it was like I was growing a second shoulder), and a colposcopy (I don’t know if the IUD insertion or this was worse, but both are awful). Luckily, all these things came back normal but there has been a lot of “scanxiety” as my boss (and cancer survivor) calls it and I am definitely ready to try to put this year behind me and start the next phase of life on my farm. Each medical scare or issue is a reminder of how I want to be in a different place both physically and emotionally in my life, and moving to a home where I can start to do that can’t come soon enough.
SO, that all being said, if you know anyone in the Nashoba Valley region, particularly Harvard and Bolton, that would love to sell their property to a pair of aspiring sheep and flower farmers, PLEASE let me know (:
Hopefully some crafting updates coming soon.