Farm Sale - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

Farm Sale

Fish Report recently published a well-written Sidney Daily News article about first-year West Point cadet Gavin Kemper, son of Dean and Polly Kemper of Fort Loramie, pictured above at this year’s Army-Navy game. Reading about and seeing photos of Gavin’s father Dean brought back memories of the sale of our family farm in 2012 after our parents had passed away. Dad always expressed the desire that the land continue to be farmed rather than turned into a housing development like occurred with the neighboring farms immediately north of our farm as pictured below.

So who better to consult on such matters than Dean, a local developer for Weigandt Real Estate agency. He respected Dad’s desires and suggested that if the 110 acre farm were subdivided, the value could be maximized while still allowing the land to be farmed per Dad’s intent.

The farmer who had been renting 76 acres of land from our family had expressed a desire to buy only the tillable land but had no interest in the farm buildings or the woods and creek bottomland. Dean had a potential buyer for the buildings and 8 surrounding acres to raise horses. He also knew someone interested in hunting land who might buy the 26 acre woods and creek bottomland. Thanks to Dean’s insight and connections, this creative plan was approved by the family and all three parcels were sold, with most importantly the land continuing to be farmed per Dad’s wishes.

For sure Dean’s creativity has rubbed off on son Gavin, as getting into West Point is quite an honor and testament to the character and intelligence of him and his family. Best wishes for Gavin to have an outstanding career in the Army.

Beyond the land continuing to be farmed, my parents would have also been happy that a young family with the horses is putting the farm buildings to good use, while the woods and bottom land are also being preserved for wildlife without the timber being cut. Nothing guarantees the land will be similarly used in perpetuity, but for the last decade that has been the case, with one exception, the horse farmers had the barn dismantled as documented in this past blog.

The plan was to reconstruct the barn in Virginia somewhere, but unfortunately the company who dismantled the barn went backrupt soon thereafter and instead sold the barnwood off in bits and pieces to raise money. Such a sad ending to a proud old barn built in 1882!

Very disappointed in the results of the Michigan and Ohio State playoff games this weekend as I was hoping for a rematch.

~~~~~~~~

Receive a weekly email whenever there is a new blog post. Just click here to send me an email request and your name will be added to the distribution.