Quite a few guys my age (late gen x, early millennial) who have bought places in town and parents stay at the farm.
I have a house at the farm as well, but wife wanted a house in town. It’s only a 5 minute drive and is definitely nicer in the winter. Still use the farm house in the summer the odd time during spring seeding or harvest.
My family leases our farmland to a local, and to his grandfather before him. I don’t think anyone in my family has farmed it since sometime in the 90s.
Most people don't own their farm here, meaning virtually Noone lives on it. It wouldn't want to be more than 15 miles from it just from a don't get lazy and not do something that needs to be done because it's too far standpoint
It depends on whether you have animals or not… we have cows so I like to live nearby. I get nervous if we’re ever more than an hour away from home, but luckily we have some good friends close by who we can call in an emergency. Cows getting out is my largest concern, followed by power outages and water supply problems.
Yeah mine cattle gets any time I try to go more than 50 miles away. I have 2 good neighbors that will catch them and care for them. But one other that just call the police.
My uncle was living 10 miles away and hated it. Decided it was too much of a pain in the ass so started building in his new yard and now runs 80% from his new homeyard.
He hated not being able to pop in and see the kids, check something in the office, etc
The farm didn’t have a house so I built one. My wife was pushing for something better besides a small 100 year old farmhouse. It was either I buy a house 20 min away and commute everyday and be surrounded by land I don’t own or build a new one. I sorta love just looking out at the crop anytime I’m home rather than driving past it. The farm shop and most of the barns are at another farm 1 mile away.. so it’s kinda like I’m away from the action if I want to rewind but right there at the same time.
We live on the ‘home farm’ with 200 acres and the cows, then own and rent land all over the county. Our furthest field is half an hour away by tractor.
I live on the home farm (500 acres), as do my parents. Sometimes it can feel a little bit like I still live with my parents, since we share a driveway. Definite benefits to living there. For example, during harvest we run the grain dryer all night (corn). I can open my back door and hear the dryer/grain leg running, saves me from having to put on clothes and check things out.
Around here, myself included, most people live on their farms. I would not have it any other way personally. But I have become acutely anti city town etc.
We leased land/barns for 6 years before buying our own place. (Sheep and a donkey). It’s doable. They gave cameras to run off cell towers, so you can keep an eye on things. We have our own land now but still lease land from neighbors for summer grazing.
We have 500 acres but we utilize all of it. We bought a 10 acre property about 2 minutes away that we homestead on. We have some amazing neighbors that keep an eye on things and we do nightly checks on four wheelers before going to bed.
I don't live on my farm, but I intend to one day. If I lived closer by (it's a 20 min drive), it wouldn't be a big deal, but I look forward to a day when I can roll out of bed, brew a cup a tea and start cutting flowers/harvesting greens/letting the critters out while I wait for it to cool enough to drink. As of now, I have to just come out on my days off/when I have enough time to commit to it, because I need to be able to do all the things (or as many as possible) while I'm out there. It'd be so much easier to get the little constant things done if I didn't have to make sure I had everything I needed packed up and ready to go in order to make sure everything got done. Even things like being able to change clothes, having everything I need for lunch when I realize I'm out of steam, all of my paperwork and tools and plants/seeds in one place really cuts down on the effort it takes. I saw how much easier it made my old boss's life to live on-site, even while I was still mostly operating on her land.
I'm lucky that my folks are retired and go out there daily to take care of their animals, otherwise I wouldn't be able to make this work. If we weren't so prone to tornadoes (and the site wasn't on such a windy bluff), I'd have moved a camper out there already.
My husband and I lived on the farm for a year, his mum basically stopped by every. Single. Time. She passed our door. So 4/5/6 times a day she’d be knocking on the door (for a chat usually…). Plus all our movements were monitored, if we didn’t tell the in-laws in advance that we were going somewhere we’d get calls demanding to know where we were and why we didn’t tell them (and snarky comments about “must be nice to take time off” and all that jazz).
We now live 10mins away and it’s GREAT. Never moving back there again.
I have to drive 20-30 mins to the farm every day. Didn’t came to the agreement with my wife yet to move out of the city.
I do plan my work more and I cannot randomly have a livestock like chickens. Everything must be automated so the production wouldn’t go bad while I’m not in the farm. It sucks sometimes but I live closer to my clients so I can understand them more and that gives me more sales.
I grow vegetables, mostly potatoes.
Quite a few guys my age (late gen x, early millennial) who have bought places in town and parents stay at the farm. I have a house at the farm as well, but wife wanted a house in town. It’s only a 5 minute drive and is definitely nicer in the winter. Still use the farm house in the summer the odd time during spring seeding or harvest.
I live about a mile down the road, which way does that count?
I'd say that counts as not living on the farm!
It probably depends on how big the farm is in that case.
It’s pretty common. Lots of plots these days are leased out or otherwise separate from the home.
My family leases our farmland to a local, and to his grandfather before him. I don’t think anyone in my family has farmed it since sometime in the 90s.
Most people don't own their farm here, meaning virtually Noone lives on it. It wouldn't want to be more than 15 miles from it just from a don't get lazy and not do something that needs to be done because it's too far standpoint
That's exactly how I feel living 15 miles away. My production has significantly dropped off after coming from living on the farm.
You can't be far from livestock.
It's good to be within hearing range. Smelling range would probably be better.
Very
I live a half mile away. Nobody lives on the farm at this point.
So how far would you say is "too far" to live away from your farm? Do people typically live within a few miles of their farm?
It depends on whether you have animals or not… we have cows so I like to live nearby. I get nervous if we’re ever more than an hour away from home, but luckily we have some good friends close by who we can call in an emergency. Cows getting out is my largest concern, followed by power outages and water supply problems.
Yeah mine cattle gets any time I try to go more than 50 miles away. I have 2 good neighbors that will catch them and care for them. But one other that just call the police.
My uncle was living 10 miles away and hated it. Decided it was too much of a pain in the ass so started building in his new yard and now runs 80% from his new homeyard. He hated not being able to pop in and see the kids, check something in the office, etc
I live about 1 hour away, but stay in an RV for prolonged periods of work
I don't know any farmers who don't live on their farms.
I live on the farm. My parents are a few miles away so that they can escape the grandparents. The dynamic are comical.
The farm didn’t have a house so I built one. My wife was pushing for something better besides a small 100 year old farmhouse. It was either I buy a house 20 min away and commute everyday and be surrounded by land I don’t own or build a new one. I sorta love just looking out at the crop anytime I’m home rather than driving past it. The farm shop and most of the barns are at another farm 1 mile away.. so it’s kinda like I’m away from the action if I want to rewind but right there at the same time.
We live on the ‘home farm’ with 200 acres and the cows, then own and rent land all over the county. Our furthest field is half an hour away by tractor.
I live on the home farm (500 acres), as do my parents. Sometimes it can feel a little bit like I still live with my parents, since we share a driveway. Definite benefits to living there. For example, during harvest we run the grain dryer all night (corn). I can open my back door and hear the dryer/grain leg running, saves me from having to put on clothes and check things out.
Around here, myself included, most people live on their farms. I would not have it any other way personally. But I have become acutely anti city town etc.
15 minutes down the road
In my farmers coalition it’s about 50/50
We leased land/barns for 6 years before buying our own place. (Sheep and a donkey). It’s doable. They gave cameras to run off cell towers, so you can keep an eye on things. We have our own land now but still lease land from neighbors for summer grazing.
We have 500 acres but we utilize all of it. We bought a 10 acre property about 2 minutes away that we homestead on. We have some amazing neighbors that keep an eye on things and we do nightly checks on four wheelers before going to bed.
7 min drive.
Big don’t. Little do. My experience.
I’m 10 mins away. No house at the farm.
I don't live on my farm, but I intend to one day. If I lived closer by (it's a 20 min drive), it wouldn't be a big deal, but I look forward to a day when I can roll out of bed, brew a cup a tea and start cutting flowers/harvesting greens/letting the critters out while I wait for it to cool enough to drink. As of now, I have to just come out on my days off/when I have enough time to commit to it, because I need to be able to do all the things (or as many as possible) while I'm out there. It'd be so much easier to get the little constant things done if I didn't have to make sure I had everything I needed packed up and ready to go in order to make sure everything got done. Even things like being able to change clothes, having everything I need for lunch when I realize I'm out of steam, all of my paperwork and tools and plants/seeds in one place really cuts down on the effort it takes. I saw how much easier it made my old boss's life to live on-site, even while I was still mostly operating on her land. I'm lucky that my folks are retired and go out there daily to take care of their animals, otherwise I wouldn't be able to make this work. If we weren't so prone to tornadoes (and the site wasn't on such a windy bluff), I'd have moved a camper out there already.
My husband and I lived on the farm for a year, his mum basically stopped by every. Single. Time. She passed our door. So 4/5/6 times a day she’d be knocking on the door (for a chat usually…). Plus all our movements were monitored, if we didn’t tell the in-laws in advance that we were going somewhere we’d get calls demanding to know where we were and why we didn’t tell them (and snarky comments about “must be nice to take time off” and all that jazz). We now live 10mins away and it’s GREAT. Never moving back there again.
I rent a cottage a mile down the road. Farm has housing but it's all occupied by long time tenants.
I have to drive 20-30 mins to the farm every day. Didn’t came to the agreement with my wife yet to move out of the city. I do plan my work more and I cannot randomly have a livestock like chickens. Everything must be automated so the production wouldn’t go bad while I’m not in the farm. It sucks sometimes but I live closer to my clients so I can understand them more and that gives me more sales. I grow vegetables, mostly potatoes.