On The Homefront

I'd never dreamed of owning my own farm.  I know as I approach my 10th year of owning a farm that sounds silly.  We'd rented the two years before we bought this place on 5 and 10 acres.  I guess I just never thought I'd be anywhere more than my cheaper than dirt horse at a modest boarding place while I lived in an ok neighborhood doing some schooling shows in eventing.  Unno, my goals were just so modest as was my abilities to do fancy things in the horse world.  Sure I was pretty naturally good at training and riding horses, but I never had the backing nor really ever saw what that looked like, so there was nothing for me to be bitter about or strive for.

So now that we come into Year 2 of my money situation, I've decided to deal with real estate investing.  I found a farm for sale on 30 acres, covered arena, 25 horse stall barn, etc and it was SO WELL PRICED.  All of it was there, in decent repair, and would be a bang up boarding facility that would basically immediately make me my own business owner.  I immediately talked to the bank and then contacted the owner.  Apparently I'm not the only person that saw this great deal and it was swept up by an up and coming local event trainer. Honestly, she'll do way more and enjoy it way more than I would so it wasn't a loss.  But investigating the bank loan and being preapproved I figured I'd consider a move. 

Our home's value has basically doubled in the past 10 years and we have construction on most sides of us at this time.  Our location is wonderfully close to town, but our small farm fringed with loads of pastureland is now.. a small farm fringed with small businesses and real estate developments.  The chance to have more land was tempting and possible better house/amenities than I have now would be amazing so I started hitting Zillow.

There were several horse boarding places, homes with stables, etc a little further out from town and we looked at one place twice but in the end... we're really settled where we are and well, I'd be able to invest my down payment into our property which would push the value even higher and we'd net a much bigger return.  Oh and no mortgage increase that was basically triple... Ugh.

I think in my mind I was going to go for a nice all weather arena and a modest shedrow barn with turnouts and improved fencing but hubby insisted on a covered arena.  I balked hard but he reminded me of that blasted winter that keeps raining all the time that we have had the past several years and I gave in.

I debating business opportunities vs my personal needs and in the end, I went with something modest - a 100 x 60 with an additional 40 foot of outdoor arena area so I'd have a small dressage court.  I have a 70x200 grassy area to ride in still if I want to work on those things but just to be able to ride in a circle during the wet times would be fine.  I added a 16x75 lean to to the building last minute and I'm glad I did although I'm struggling with figuring out how to outfit it.

The fencing started getting torn down and rebuilt on June 1 and then the arena parts arrived June 10.  Here we go  *bites nails