Well I guess it's time to start adding to this blog and seeing what I can do with it!

As long as it's just me and there are no followers I'll let my words fall where they may.

I started this as a way to document our moving to a new farm, which still hasn't happened and may not, but I refuse to give up hope.

Last year my friend told me that the farm he had been planning on buying for several years was for sale as he had decided with the downturn in the economy that he wasn't going to purchase it.

His reasons for buying the farm were different than mine as his primary interest is in a spot to go hunting and mine is for a farm for a farms sake. I also think that he may have had some other reasons that I can't speculate on even in my private thoughts, nothing evil, wrong, or anything like that, I just think that there were some other personal reasons he had for his decision.

When I first considered this farm, my first thoughts were, that's it's too big for me to take care of, but after thinking about it for a little bit i decided that it just might be the perfect size for us.

The farm is 135 acres situated along the lake plain of central NY about 10 miles south of the shore of Lake Ontario. It is bisected almost perfectly as far as acre count goes by a road running east to west.

Here's a little picture of it from high up in space!

The ground is not particularly well suited to fruit farming, which is why it's probably not been sold to one of the neighboring farms.

There is a neighboring dairy farmer who is working the open fields for primarily corn production and some hay, who I'm hoping I'll be able to work with when we get the farm bought. And with the dairy industry in such tough shape here in NY it's unlikely that he'll be interested in buying it anytime soon as dairymen are strugguling with the price of milk being about $3 under the cost of production right now. But I do think he has talked to the owners in the past about the possibility of purchasing the farm.

Now we have another issue to face, which is the owner of the farm recently passed away and we had been dealing with her son in the past as her agent, but now he has become the coowner of the farm with his sister, so we will see what that brings.

The really big issue for us right now is the economy, with the downturn my income has dropped this past year. We had a prequalification in place with a bank when this got started, but I am not sure that they will still be interested in financing us as we had a little trouble keeping up with all of the bills this fall, but we paid them all though a little late with a couple and we are still catching up, but we do pay all of our creditors!

So our next plan is to meet with the seller and hopefully dicuss the possibility of him and his sister holding the mortgage for us, of course we still have to sell our present house which doesn't seem to be happening very fast!

But back to what I started to write about today which are my reasons for wanting to buy a farm at 52, (I'll be 53 in a month) years old.

First this is a dream I never thought I could attain, owning my own farm.

Now I can visualize the possibility of owning my own farm, where I can keep my horses in the manner I'd like to, keep a little herd of nice beef cows, and work towards being more self sufficent as far as our food and home energy is concerned.

It will also provide us with a place for our kids to go to where we can provide for them if they need us too.

The farm will also be a place where I can share with my grandsons the love I have for the land and animals that have always been a part of my life.

It will also allow me, I hope, to be able to help my son and daughter in law provide a home for their children, as it is a tough thing to raise a family today.

In a spirit of honesty, I also look to this farm as a spot where I can survive and provide for my family if things in this country go really bad. I don't consider my self as an alarmist or "fringe" right winger as some folks who think anyone who considers that things could go bad and prepares for tough time to be. I think of myself as a realist and I am trying to prepare for a situation that I don't believe in my heart will ever happen, but I realize in mind it could happen.

I am confident in my abilities that I can feed and house all of my family if the need arrises, but I don't have the resources where I am now to do that, so it's time to move, if we can.

I am also willing to put my decision in God's hand. If this is supposed to happen and I do everything I can to make it happen God will help us attain it. But God knows best and if it's not supposed to be, it won't happen and I won't regret the outcome. This is easier said than done, but I vow that I will work, and pray hard for the maturity to live with God's decision.

Well that's enough for this first time posting, but I am hoping, praying and working towards my "Back 40 rambleings" being about my real back fourty acres - which would be to the left of the photo above!