Will it ever happen?

We've been talking about "retiring", selling the farm and blowing all our money on vacations, boats and fancy furniture.....just kidding, but we have been talking about down sizing.

Our original plan was to sell the pasture and some of the hay land, keep the 2 home quarters and only run about 30 cows. Just enough to keep our hand in the farming business and free up some time so we can maybe do a little traveling or even fishing.

We bought another quarter of land this spring (couldn't resist it as it fit in so well with what we have and it was a good investment) turns out this quarter has an old, old building site on it. None of the neighbours can remember anyone living there, but there is an old rock foundation - probably from a log cabin with a lilac tree growing beside it (first picture). There are lots of really old maple trees and I'm guessing from the size of them they must have been there at least a 100 years (third picture). If we moved there and kept the quarter of hay land beside it we would have the same amount of land as the keeping the home 2 quarters but we'd be off this *&^%$* highway and away from the noisy compressor plant to the south of us that runs day and night.

This is the whole site, it's about 10 acres in total.One of the old maple trees.
Where the house would sit, just to the left of the mule in the 2nd picture.
There is a power line running beside the site, so power could be brought in fairly easily. There is a natural gas line running about a mile and a half away and because we belong to a co-op the cost of bringing that in is relatively cheap compared to what others have told us they would pay in other areas ($5000.00 as compared to $25,000.00!!!). We would have to drill a well (that could be costly) and *gasp* I would have to be able to get high speed internet!

Then there is that little thing called a house, I suppose we would need one of those and Dennis wants his "dream" shop, a few corrals and shelters for the cows and we'd be all set. The really big question is can we sell the other land? We do have a couple who have expressed an interest in the pasture and hay land and maybe even the home 2 quarters...... but, do they have the money and are they serious?

So many questions, so much planning, I wish I had a crystal ball.

The End of Summer

Summer is fast disappearing! The flowers in my planters are getting leggy, most of the perennials are done except for the roses and a couple of long blooming ones. But, larder is beginning to look filled.

The first two are the shelves in the cold room with canned tomatoes, strawberries, cherries, raspberries and some venison from last fall (hopefully I'll have some more this fall).Dill pickles and sweet mixed pickles by the wall, raspberry jam up by the bottle of wine and the case of beer (cold rooms are great for more than storing food)!
The potato bin, not as full as last year, but this summer I tossed out pails of wrinkled sprouted potatoes left over from last year so I didn't plant as many. There is more than enough for the two of us till next year....I hope!
Beet pickles cooling on the counter and I still have enough beets to give away to a lady who didn't have any.
Some of the tomatoes from the greenhouse, I still have a ton on the vines. Think I'll pick them so they ripen at the same time so I can bottle them too.

And finally the bale yard. There is only about 400 bales in there right now, we still have close to 900 to haul home from the fields.

Not only will we eat well this winter, so will the cows.