Zumbrota, Minnesota.
Hey that rhymes! +1 point on the awesome meter.
The Pros:
- Decent size: 100 acres, with only 10-15 in woods/timber.
- Right (1/2 mile) outside a pretty cool town of 3500 people.
- Big craftsman farmhouse, barn and lots of outbuildings.
- Pond in the center of the farm.
- Pastures just came out of CRP, and they look pretty nice.
The Cons:
- The house needs some updating and serious energy-efficiency improvements.
- Barn and outbuildings need various degrees of cleaning-up or tearing-down.
- Closest neighbors are a subdivision that borders the property to the North.
- Closest business is McDonalds.
So unlike most of the properties so far, this one has a house on it. It’s 1890’s construction and while pretty awesome looking, isn’t the most efficient thing around. It could also use some serious updating on the inside.
It seems to be a common trait among houses in Minnesota that the bathrooms all feature some crazy 1950’s Fiesta-ware-colored fixtures.
The barn looks to be an old dairy barn, like most in the area. It’s structurally sound, but needs a good cleanup, some paint, windows, doors, etc.
There are several other outbuildings on the place, but none really worth mentioning except for this newer metal building directly behind the barn. All the rest are in pretty sorry shape; Bad roofs and rotting wood abound.
We walked down to the pond that sits roughly in the middle of the farm. It’s in the middle of the pasture which just came out of CRP. On the far side of the pond is a cornfield. The owner is renting out 47 acres to be row-cropped.
The pond was in nice condition with lots of birdsfoot trefoil in bloom all around.
View from the dam looking North.
The former CRP pastures were full of Timothy and Birdsfoot Trefoil. I also saw a bit of clover and alfalfa poking up here and there.
Sure, there are some weeds in there, but nothing that can’t be brought under control with a bit of managed grazing.
Looks great, but without prices it is hard to gauge. Do you look at the soils or are they all pretty much the same for each farm?
The other question is farm size and what business you intend to run. If you are running cows then these farms seem a little on the small side. Apologies if I’ve missed an older post where you go through this.
Brent: yeah, I guess I sorta skipped over describing what we’re actually looking for. I’ll write that up here pretty soon.
This one gets my vote so far. Looks awesome. No utilities on the others has prevented me from voting.
Thanks for the kind email regarding the farm. Our request is that you can cool things with a soaking rain!
This is definitely the best so far!!! What character it has…..love the old barn! I like the house also, might not be energy efficient but surely you could do something to help that?
[…] been thinking of an on-farm store for a while now, and that’s part of the reason we chose this farm in Zumbrota. It’s close to town, and right off the highway, making it convenient for our […]
[…] got a lease signed on the Zumbrota farm for the next year. My parents, are currently under contract to buy the farm. They just went up […]