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Inspecting the new farm,

The surveyors have finished their work, and we got the new boundaries certified and registered with the county.  The money was transferred from escrow and today, with Jennifer, our two Formans, my wife and the sellers we did the round of the farmyard, the buildings and how we will manage the space.  Mostly it's building removal.  None of the demolishing will be done by us, rather with the five of us, we can be sure that everything is done according to plan, and that conflicts are resolved.  

The main farm entrance is some distance from our house's grand entrance, on the boundary road which separates the two farms.  The new farm's entrance will be directly opposite our current access road.  It's on a long stretch of road, so it is safe for large lorry turning.  The new farm has two silos, we inspected them and they are fine for sillage (corn feed) but we may need more, right now we use bags, but the disposal of these bags is challenging (they are an environmental mess) but we are looking at least 18 months before additional silos can be built.

There are five buildings and the courtyard that have to be removed.  Last Sunday, after church, the son of a local farmer approached me and indicated an interest in the two wooden barns.  He offered to take them away, and he would remove everything and replant turf.  Earlier this week we sold the three steel buildings, they will be disassembled and removed, and that process should start soon.  About four acres of land around the old farmhouse will be turned into pasture.  

Over the next few weeks, we will be tranching water, electricity and sewage to the new farm yard.  Our team will break ground on the new buildings probably next week.  These are massive structures, and we are hoping to pour the slab before Christmas.  That will be entirely decided by the weather.  Planning approval has already been granted. 

A fun Saturday morning

Note:  I received a very nice comment as to why we don't use silage bunkers.  It's a very good question that we may have to explore.  In the past, silos were more convenient, but with our added cattle it may make more sense, especially if we are increasing our corn acreage to use silo bunkers.  There's still a lot of plastic wastage, but it's not nearly as bad as the bags we used this year.  A very good suggestion, they are not very common in our area, in fact, I have never seen any, still something to contemplate.  The fear is top and side wastage I have read that in some situations it can be an issue...next Thursday is our usual confab of farmers in one of our local.  A very good idea to investigate 


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