Going to auction on October 29th on this place. Fingers crossed. It is pretty much in the middle of Nowhere, PA in fact - if I didn't know better, I might be convinced that this house is right off of the road Robert Frost was referring to.
I've been reading and re-reading all of my books by Joel Salatin. I'm working on getting all the financing put together to make sure that IF (I hope I hope I hope I hope) we get this place that all the financing will run smoothly. No apple trees, or grapes, which is a bit of a bummer. But it does have rhubarb that is about five feet tall, 100 year old peonies and six blueberry bushes that look to be about 20 years old. There's a peach tree in the back yard. There is quite a bit of acreage, more than we were looking for initially - but that means PO-TEN-TIAL to do all sorts of pastured farming down the road. I'm thinking pastured beef followed by pastured poultry & eggs. Maybe a little.... well - that will come in time I guess.
It is REALLY hard not to get excited. We've been out to the farm about three times and finally saw the inside of the house today. It is everything you'd expect from a 100 year old farmhouse...perks and quirks galore. Two weeks until the auction. If we don't get it - I'm sure something else will come along so I'm not going to sit in the corner and hurumph my way through the winter. ...Well, actually I will.
Found out something really interesting today though - The USDA has a loan service called USDA Loan Service and it (according to the website) provides loans for Rural Development that don't require any money down, in fact - they will even roll the closing costs into the loan! USDA...Loan... Department of Agriculture... Rural Development Loan. One would think that this is a loan for Small Farmers, right? For agricultural land development of a small farm? I was shocked to find that is not the case at all. The USDA Loan is for people to get when they are specifically NOT going to generate any revenue from agriculture. According to the man on the phone, the loan is actually to pay people NOT to farm!! You would use this loan if you want to buy land and build more houses on it... NOT be a farmer. Even the guy on the phone was laughing about this...until I asked who I should talk to about agricultural mortgages. That was when he transferred me into a general mailbox where I couldn't even leave a message at the sound of the tone. Pretty sad if you ask me. I kept saying, "But you're the Department of Agriculture." He would say, "I know".
