Buying land is an exciting and scary business. It's thrilling to imagine having a permanent space to build and grow, especially if it's paid for. On the other hand, picking the right parcel and then paying for it can be stressful.
Through the amazing sleuthing efforts of Rachel K. and Tony, we've found many potential Dancing Rabbit sites in the area. Our general criteria include that the site be near Sandhill (within two or three miles), that it have some marginal farmland, that it have decent building sites, and that we can afford it. Amount of woodlot and access to town are two other factors we consider. Finally, we need to make sure that we'll be able to buy more land affordably nearby or adjacent to our original parcel, since the first 100-200 acre piece we can afford now won't contain our envisioned future.
We definitely have some attractive options! Adjacent to Sandhill live a Mennonite family who own 80 acres of cleared field and pasture with a decent house, a good well, a dairy barn and some nice outbuildings. They weren't planning on moving but we've considered offering them enough for it to be worth their while. This site would be as close to Sandhill as we could possibly get without stepping on their toes, and would gain us some nice arable land. On the other hand, it would end up costing us more than we hope to pay in this area. Additionally, expanding from that parcel could be difficult due to the situation with the surrounding landowners.
Slightly farther away, between two and three miles northeast of Sandhill, lie a combined 320 acres of woodlot, pasture, hills, marginal farmland, and bottomland. Forty acres of this has definitely been offered for sale to us, although the price has yet to be determined. The other 280 acres, under separate ownership, are in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). This means the government pays farmers not to farm their land and sends a check every year, making the land a decent investment. The ten year program runs out this year and it's unclear if the CRP contract will be renewed. The owner has expressed some interest in selling his 280 acres and we are eager to talk with him when he is in town next month. This land is very appropriate for DR; it's a mix of cleared field and woods, with hills that make commercial farming uneconomical but that are the perfect varied terrain for our little village. Buying it all at once would require us to take out a mortgage, but we may be able to buy pieces as we can afford them. We're keeping our hopes up about these attractive parcels. As an added bonus, we may rent an inexpensive house right next door.
South of Sandhill, another 320 acres of mostly flat bottomland field and 40 acres of hills with a house and grain bins are coming up for auction on November 20. While this farm looked perfect for the soybeans it was growing when we walked across it last week, we hear it's "wet enough to drown a frog" during flood years. If the price was low enough, we might be willing to work with its faults, but we'd like to avoid building underwater if at all possible.
After talking to the neighboring land owner, a friend of Sandhill's, we found that he might have some interest in selling part of his 280 acre parcel. Much of his land is in woods which he likes to call his "wildlife preserve". He rents 70 acres for row crops and leases out his land for hunting. This land is a little higher and dryer than the auction land next door and part of each might combine nicely for DR.
We're excited for everyone to come visit once we pick a parcel and get established. With good fortune and a careful reading of the plat map, this may be sooner than we ever imagined.
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