The Beginning

In November of 2007, after many, many long months of waiting, we closed on our hobby farm north of Park Rapids, Minnesota. It was love at first sight for me, not so much for Francis. I loved the house and all of the out buildings (especially the Poultry shed) and could envision myself sitting on the screened porch spinning as I gazed at a pasture containing sheep, chickens, llamas, and perhaps a pygora or two or three.... Francis could envision hours and hours of work drying up the damp basement, repairing fallen fences, plowing and re-seeding the pasture, burning brush piles left from pulp logging and mucking mounds and mounds and mounds of horse manure.

The previous owners of this lovely piece of property abandoned it two years earlier for greener pastures in Kentucky. According to our neighbors, they fled in the dark of night, without so much as a by your leave, taking themselves and their horses.

Apparently they had more than 20 horses on this 20 acre, mostly wooded, farm. Approximately 6 acres of the farm is pasture. These poor horses were stalled everywhere on the property and of course they left their "apples" everywhere as well. The floor of the barn is literally spongy with them. There will be plenty of mucking to do!

Anyway, after months of negotiating with the previous owners and the bank (this was a short sale meaning the bank would agree to accept less than what was owed on the farm) we settled on a price and now we own this lovely 20 acres!

It has a beautiful, 3 bedroom, 2 bath home….
a garage.... a barn.... a workshop…. a wood burning shed…. and the magical Poultry shed…..We can't wait to live here!!