There’s no hiding the big news anymore — we have officially MOVED!

It’s been an unexpected whirlwind - but I’ll save that story for another post. Today, I thought I’d give you a little tour of the new property and some of our plans/motivation for moving from our beloved 5 acre historic homestead.

A big bonus to this property is that it is pretty much turn-key — meaning it comes with all the fencing, gates, buildings, waterlines, gardens, orchards, and any other major elements that we spent the past 5 years basically building from scratch at our previous property.

This was honestly a requirement for us with even considering to move. Though I love the idea of laying out a piece of raw land from scratch and being able to customize it to be exactly what we need — the reality is, in our current season of life, we needed something ready for us to move right into. Not only do we have animals that can’t wait for infrastructure, but we also have businesses that need to continue to run too. Setting up a farm takes a LOT of time and money which we don’t have much of to spare right now!

Of course, there will still be plenty of hard work customizing things to fit our specific needs - as well as some maintenance and clean up. But that’s manageable.

Anyways - let’s start the tour!

Basic Property Details

Just to give a general overview of the property:

It’s a total of 10 acres
There is about 3/4 acre of woods as well as some orchards/tree lines but otherwise the remainder is open/grass
Currently, 6 acres are fenced in as pasture
There are FIVE major outbuildings plus a few smaller buildings (I’ll share each one!)

*FARM TOUR: Overhead view of the current property layout*

This property has an interesting history. From what I can find — it was originally an older dairy farm. However, the original farmhouse is no longer there and the current home and most of the outbuildings were built by Amish in the mid-90’s.

The property was passed back and forth over the last 30 years between Amish and English owners but it’s currently fully plumbed/on the grid (which I appreciate it!) although it is missing a few things (like a spot to put a fridge or a stove in the kitchen…)

Attached to the house is a two stall garage that was converted by one of the Amish family’s to be a store and secondary kitchen!

The kitchen side will be our new HOMESTEAD SCULLERY where I can process our milking equipment, garden produce, do my canning, etc.

The storefront side I’m planning to convert to a classroom for our on farm events/workshops!

Welcome to the NEW scullery! Yes - that is a wood cookstove (and water heater). I plan to swap the utility sink here for my larger stainless sink, and also add our commercial dishwasher, a fridge and deep freezers.

The “store” or classroom side of the garage. Currently this room is filled with any extra furniture/outdoor items we didn’t know where to put after the move.. I’m going to have a lot of work to do next year to get this space useable!

To help this guided tour, here’s a labeled map of the property layout…

The Shop

Outbuilding #1 near the house is The Shop! This building is approx. 30x50 and will be split into half woodworking shop/half on farm butcher shop. There is a LOT of build out to happen here next year but we actually already processed our first two pigs last month in here!

Attached to the south side of the shop is a small greenhouse. Though a really fun addition - our plan is actually to convert it into a store/pick up room. (It’s just not a great location for a greenhouse considering the grow area is on the opposite side of the house… but we’ll either move our current greenhouse or get a new one for other there!)

*A little peak inside the greenhouse! I know - you think I’m crazy for giving this up, haha.*

The Main Barn

*It’s hard to truly capture the size of this barn… it’s nearly 5,000 square feet and SO tall. I still am not sure what we are going to do with all the space it offers!*

Of course the star of the entire property is the iconic, original barn. It’s truly breathtaking and honestly I probably need a whole post just dedicated to touring it! If you want more of a look at the inside now - I did make a reel on Instagram you can check out here.

The Coop/Pig Barn

Next to the main barn is another large barn that was used for chickens and farrowing pigs. One half has two separate coops (that feed into the run) and the other half has multiple stalls for sows/piglets and an outer paddock for them.

In between to these two barns there is a smaller three sided building that the previous owners mainly used for wood storage. We will likely use it for storing all our “mechanical” type things we don’t want in the garage or woodshop- lawn mower, gas cans, etc.)

That covers most of the main/east portion of the property. You can see on the labeled map above the various orchards, pig pasture, winter paddocks, etc. too. Let’s look at the west half of the property now!

The Garden

*View of the house from the new garden grow area - I love how close it is!*

After starting BOTH garden plots at our last property from scratch (lawn)… I am very thankful to have an establish grow area here to work with! I was able to come in shortly after closing early November and get my garlic planted even right away.

The entire fenced area is about 50x150 which is honestly about perfect. There are some raspberries and asparagus already established here as well.

The West Barn

The last major outbuilding is the far/west barn which was built as a pig grow out barn. Like the other two main barns - this is a full two story building! Approx 40x40. The upstairs seems to have been used to hay storage and the main level is all concrete stalls. We don’t plan to have animals out here for do have a few fun ideas for how we’d use the space!

View back towards the house from the south pasture where we will rotationally graze the cows. The pasture west of the west barn we will likely use first for chicken tractors. Behind me is our small patch of woods (with a small pond!) that the kids are loving exploring in!

Alright, I think that’s about everything for this tour.
We are so grateful and excited about all the potential and opportunity this new property has to offer our homestead.

Thanks for following along!

Tour Our New 10 Acre Family Homestead in Michigan