Welcome Everyone to the first blog post of our new acreage! We are excited to share our (thus far) crazy adventures and all the excitement of having a small farm! But before we get to far ahead, we wanted to tell you a bit about how this crazy idea got started and where we are at currently!
Last year, Ben and I got engaged in August 30th, 2018 and are planning our wedding for May 20th, 2020. All of which we’re pretty stoked about. We did things a bit less traditional and already bought our rings, already wear them and now own a house together. But we’re still planning on doing a fun get together with all our family and friends!
In the meantime, we needed more space than our Luther house could handle. We both have a huge hobby addiction and needed more space than our Luther house allowed for. Ben is super into radios and has an amateur radio (ham) license. So he wanted space for eventual radio towers and an assortment of radio antennas.
For those of you who know me, I *may* have a super crazy amount of dog supplies (including a full agility course, with multiple jumps, teeters, etc), and trying to set that up in our “small” backyard was difficult. Plus our garage had turned into an agility equipment storage facility instead of like, an actual garage. “I’m sorry dear, you can’t put the grill in here, that’s where my A-frame goes” <3 YOU!
So we started the quest for an epic new house with more space and more room. We had a few major requirements – internet being the major one, and having a 30 minute or less commute to work. We looked all over the area for months. We thought we’d found our place near Jewell, even got so far as to having our offer accepted and putting down our earnest money. But at the very last minute it fell through, and it was given to the first buyer who someone managed to come up with the funds in time. We were very disappointed in that, as it seemed like the perfect place and it took us a while to bounce back.
We, being the nerds we are, had a huge complex spreadsheet to track our incomes, expense requirements and upfront costs of buying a house. We try to do the best we can with the money we make, and we wanted to make sure we didn’t find something amazing that would add stress later if money became tighter or while we were trying to sell the Luther house. We ran each house through the process and at the end, it gave us an idea of our “flex” spend each month for unforeseen expenses or “fun” money. If our flex spend was less than our Luther place, we’d know we’d have to more tight on budgets and spending, if it was more we’d know we could party hard and run wild through the street (aka support a new 3D printer habit #nerds). It really helped to put things into perspective and approach the purchase of a new home logically instead of just going with what “feels” right, because there were plenty of those houses that were definitely outside our price range!
Then on a whim, while my mom was visiting, a house just outside of Jefferson came on the market. It was a for-sale-by-owner (which for those of you who have bought a house know can bring some challenges), so we were trying to remain objective. The price was right, it had 8.5 acres of land, in the country, had a barn and a shed, a beautiful wrap around porch and, most importantly – fiber internet. We saw it once, ran the numbers, and found we’d be in 3D-printer party land. So we chatted with the bank who had approved us and they had an awesome renovation loan program which we both qualified for, which would allow us to add on or update the few things the house was missing (namely a garage and dishwasher!) so we applied for that as well and got the ball rolling.
Creek 
Pasture 
Wooded area near creek 
Pasture 
House 
Working Well!
I know it was hard for the previous owners to sell. It was the wife’s family farm and she grew up in the house alongside her parents who had owned the place for years. Her dad had put on many of the additions and gotten the property up to where it was now, before he passed away. She took it on with her husband and they were raising their kids there. But they needed to be closer to her mom and to town so the decision to move was made and they put the place on the market.
We’re very glad they did, and promised their kids we’d name our future male llama Carl because “they always wanted a llama named Carl” and we have obligations as well to a friend and his obsession with a certain “Llama’s with Hats” video 😉
Overall we’re getting settled and moved in and putting the old place in Luther on the market by March. Hopefully that will sell quickly and we’ll be on our way to having alpacas and some guard llamas soon!
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