Re: Coming to a Cross Road

Posted by MARK ROBKE on March 24, 2021 at 08:27:37 from (69.40.118.203):

In Reply to: Coming to a Cross Road posted by Bruce from Can. on March 24, 2021 at 07:03:08:

Tom, down below, makes a good point about your land value, and moving to an area with cheaper land, perhaps more suitable to farming. It would be a shame to build an expensive facility on land that may be 'doomed' for development in 20 years. My Dad faced a somewhat similar situation in 1971. We had the only farm left in the area. Our farm was located 5 miles south of Cincinnati, Ohio, in northern Kentucky, and the state highway department was going to build a circle freeway, I-275, around the greater Cincinnati area. When they built the road it was going to take the corner of our land where all the farm buildings, and also the farm pond which supplied the dairy barn, were located-about 5 acres. Dad knew about this for about 4 or 5 years and was stressed about it. He was 50. If he rebuilt a dairy barn, it have to be 'modernized' - pipeline milkers, bulk tank, etc.,- we were all 10 gallon milk cans- and so on. He did not believe he could justify the expense for the remaining years, and since the farm was whittled down to 33 acres it was not likely to be passed on, especially since he shared ownership with a brother and sister. Also the state would not compensate the value of the buildings, only the land they sat on, nor fence, and no compensation for loss of income or lively hood. What he ended up doing was- we sold the cows, tore down all the fence, all the buildings, and reused all the materials and built 2 beef cattle barns. He took his June milk check and had a pole barn built to house the farm equipment. To add insult to injury, arsonists burnt down the only barn the state did not take, which was full of hay. He raised beef until he was 69, selling direct to the consumer, and continued doing custom work with the tractors, and Mom ran the little store on the end of our house. Finally he and his brother and sister sold out to a developer in 1989. The land was too valuable not to sell by then.
He too was a lost soul without his cows- he took very good care of his animals-, but he had faced a lot of adversity in his farming career, losing his Dad, and his brother had left him to farm alone. So maybe by then it was a relief, and he stayed busy at his new home.
Good luck with your decisions Bruce, Mark.

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