The fields

This entry is supposed to complement the earlier entries about the barn and the house, in order to give people a sense of what we are dealing with here. The delay in getting this is up is due partly to being busy, and partly to the fact that I couldn't think of much interesting to say about the land except that it is big and beautiful.

We have about 158 acres, of which 45 are open and the rest are wooded.

The forty five open acres break down into about 22 acres of prime vegetable land (flat, good soil profile, good soil fertility, good drainage), and the other 23 are old pasture land (more hilly, wet in spots, starting to get overgrown). The good vegetable land ("the big field") is all in one field, which is on top of a hill behind our barn. The pasture land is spread over two smaller fields (the "second" and "third" fields) which attach to the south side of the big field.

We really bought this place for the 22 vegetable acres. It is absolutely beautiful Dummerston sandy loam.

The wooded land is about one third soft woods, one third hardwoods, and the last third is a cedar stand that surrounds a big beaver pond and meadow area. The beaver pond is about 1/2 acre in size, and about 3 feet deep. But the beavers are there -- you can see their handiwork everywhere.

There is a conservation easement on 156 of the 158 acres. What that means is that the good folks at the Vermont Land Trust hold the development rights to the land. In other words, we cannot subdivide or build on the land, and we cannot clear cut it either. But those are about the only real restrictions. The previous owner donated the development rights to the VLT, as a part of some sort of tax planning I suspect.

Some people aren't big on conservation easements, but it has been great for us. I really think that the conservation easement is the only way we are able to keep this land in agriculture, which, or course, is the point of the easement -- preventing development.

The easement enabled us to buy this property for much less than it would have gone for if all the land was subdivide-able. I also think it made it harder for the previous owner to sell, so it was still available when we finally got up the courage to come look at it. But since we wanted to build a farm and have a home for 30+ years, we were not scared off by the easement. Of course, our property may not appreciate as quickly as other land might, but there is an "estate value" to having such a big parcel. And in any event, it would probably break our hearts to have to sell our farm for development in order to retire, so we are not too worried about the effect of the easement.

So maybe there was something to say about the land after all.