Little Heathens Ranch

Hello Homesteaders!

We are back! I know we left you all hanging in mid-2021. What a crazy couple of years it has been!

Let’s start with the fact that we were able to finish up Kathy’s (Heather’s mother) house. She was able to move into it and enjoy her first holiday season with family in her new house. We are thankful to have it done, just a couple small finishing things here and there to go yet, but nothing major. A contractor is coming in to finish the roof on her porch this spring. She is thoroughly enjoying the newfound freedoms of having a solid structure to live in, the ability to work from home, new appliances and furniture, and for the first time in a very, very long time… central heat and air conditioning. We’ll do a video walk through of the house in another post, but it’s a vast upgrade from what she was living in. While it’s not a mansion, we really do hope that this house will serve her needs for the forseeable future.

What has happened to our ranch? I’m sure that is a question on many minds. The ranch has been closed; all the livestock and equipment were liquidated with a few things left to be moved out yet. Why? Well, we did register the ranch as a business in Texas and went after a USDA loan for a sheep operation. We had all the business documents in line, including a business license, articles of formation, tax identifiers, proof of agriculture background education, various agricultural  and professional association registrations, and a functional 30-page business plan. We learned quickly that this is not an easy process, even if you feel prepared.

They want to see all the ducks lining up across the board, not just your ducks but their ducks too. The USDA is much more particular about the actual underlying property information than we expected. Things you need to know are what type of soil is there, what is the water quality and depth, what was the previous usage, what chemicals have been used on the property recently, what is the grasstype and grazing rate along with expected grass growth just to name a few. If you are running livestock, throw your business plan out the window; they are going to use national or state averages for your region regarding stocking rate, expenses, costs, and needs for your desired livestock. Any special considerations or plans aren’t exactly considered or at least not that we experienced. When we are discussing growing crops, if you can’t show a college education for horticulture or working partnership / mentorship with a bigger grower, then know that will have to be addressed before the USDA will consider your project. Once you have the education lined out, then you want to know everything, and I mean everything, about the long-term production, soil conditions, water conditions, and weather conditions for the land you want to purchase. Additionally, for crops, they will want to know what your intentions are for harvesting, storage, transport, marketing, usage, and demand. Small at home food services or bakeries can be considered along with farm to market roadside stands are viable avenues for revenue. However, there are special permits needed depending on what you want to produce. Securing a contract or expected product market with viable product placement for the first three to five years is critical in getting the loan considered. Looking at the year-end reports for livestock or crop sale reports, in addition to averaging all your local auctions or vendor outcomes per quarter, could help give some light to the current and recent trends while allowing you to predict expected trends for the future.

We searched for over a year for a suitable property for this small, 50-head operation we wanted to run. The issue that kept repeating itself was that many homes we looked at were being held on contingency for out of state buyers, who came in offering $20,000 or more over asking price, that were waiting to sell their own homes to move to Texas. It was a bit of a nightmare, especially since we couldn’t use one realtor to search all of Texas for these types of properties with agriculture potential. We resorted to finding realtors to cover smaller sectors and send us new leads as they could locate them. This is not a situation many realtors will even try to assist with if you haven’t narrowed down to a single area.

We found a place mid-year in 2021 deep in east Texas that was small, back in the woods, and quiet that we attempted for first. The property had nice pastures covering 35 acres with about 10 acres still in natural woodlands and a small pond. A small log cabin was tucked into the back against the treeline, nothing fancy, just basic amenities. After putting in our application, we waited for a month to get confirmation that the application was complete. After that, we did soil testing and water testing as the area was known for oil production at USDA request. We went through three months of back and forth with the USDA office about the application details, them checking multiple times to ask if we really meant to put sheep on the forms instead of cattle, and of course paying all the fees and inspections they asked us for… we find that the property is not eligible for a USDA loan. No reasoning was given other than the property wasn’t eligible. Thanks, have a nice day, better luck next time. We were frustrated but took it as a learning experience and drove onward.

Next, late in 2021, we found a large estate sale parcel in northwest Texas. While this land was dryer, it wasn’t unusable by any means. It was 160 acres of prairie grassland, a large farmhouse with an underground bunker for tornadoes, several outbuildings for storage, two barns, plus it was fully fenced with three ponds and two deep wells. We again went through the process of modifying our business plan for this particular environment and resubmitting the USDA loan to the local regional office. While this USDA officer was much more helpful and knowledgeable than the previous one in regard to sheep, this ended up being a bust as well. We learned a lot from this attempt; Nick at the San Angelo USDA office was brilliantly helpful in understanding the loan process and what they are actually looking at. He explained that no matter what you put in the business plan, they go off national averages for sales prices and feed requirements; local markets are completely irrelevant. Despite the differences between ours and the USDA’s numbers, this property qualified for our loan. The hitch here was with the estate. There was a family dispute about the old homestead, and they put the sale on hold until it could be resolved. We waited for several months, hoping to see the family come back ready to move forward. Sadly, we ended up moving on from this after seven months of holding onto that hope when we found the next really viable property.

We found a coastal bend property, mid-year in 2022, that was very different from our past attempts but had lots of potential. This was a smaller parcel, only 50 acres, but the grazing rate was much better in this area due to grass growth and weather patterns. The big interest here was 25 acres of the property was planted in mature, production blueberry bushes. Growing crops is a much different beast than raising livestock, however blueberry markets were at nice high and the markets seemed viable. We set down to rework the plan to include the blueberry crop and adding honeybees into the mix as well for benefit of the plan overall. For this attempt, we reduced the number of sheep we expected to carry as the added revenue from the berries and bees meant we could move some priorities around. We had this in the bag, or so we thought. Made the application, started through the testing and surveying, thinking we are golden. The soil tests came back acidic, which was expected as blueberries prefer a high acid soil, but we also found there was a wetland encroaching on the property via a small stream or creek that drained through the middle of the land. We fully expected to use that drainage as a natural watering source, adding runs down the berry rows to direct the water flow, fully utilizing the property’s natural features. This was a no-go, and we then found out that any modification to the land purchased under a USDA loan has to be approved by them. Simple things like adding a compost area or putting in a new driveway had to go through their checks first. In addition to that statement the USDA office also informs us that once a wetland is encroaching, we are not allowed to use that land anymore for agriculture nor can we do anything to divert or stop the sublimation. Essentially, the USDA owns your land, and they get to say how and what you do on it. We couldn’t rectify the wetland issue and ultimately had to leave this property behind.

By this time, it’s going into fall with the trees changing colors, but we still had no real path forward. We were frustrated and had spent a bit of capitol trying to find a proper place for us to settle down in Texas. That is when our focus shifted, we started looking at an old adventure we had discussed years ago… What about Alaska?? The wheels started turning, it would be a big change and the logistics of getting there would be a nightmare, but… once we are there, the possibilities would be wide open. We spent the last part of 2022 looking at property in Alaska, I’ll detail that search in another post later on. We did locate and purchase property, eventually, in the Kenai Peninsula and out at Lake Louise in south central Alaska. Our departure from Texas is set for mid-May 2024. We are so excited that we can’t sleep as we inch closer to the day of the big move north!!

Come back next month for more adventures and stories about our journey to the freedoms Alaska offers those who can make the trek! Until then, be blessed and safe in your endeavors’ homesteaders!!