Dear neighbor, farmer, friend, community member,
This letter represents Kathleen Hobert, Steven Hobert, and Lindsay Potter in their search for a place to settle. The three of us are crafting this letter of intent to circulate around our local community and beyond in hopes that through many collective eyes and ears we might find a piece of land to make our home.
Below we detail basic information about what we are looking for. We are open to purchasing land or lease-to-own or other farmer transitioning options. However, all of these points may be flexible as we keep our minds open and eyes on the unexpected. We are also interested in hearing from others who would like to share their stories of searching for land and cooperatively/collectively purchasing land and farming.
A little bit about the three of us before we begin. Kathleen has worked on several farms around Amery, WI and Osceola, WI including market gardens, raising meat animals and an herbal apothecary farm. Steven is a musician based in the Twin Cities for the last ten years, focusing on the piano and playing a wide variety of world music, Jazz, and many other styles and collaborations. Lindsay has been working in market gardens, with animals, draft horses, and small dairy, most recently for three years in coastal Maine. We are all currently living in Amery. We are looking for a piece of land to homestead and farm, focusing on self-sufficiency and sustainability with the hope of building a diverse and healthy enough system that we are able to share some food and medicine with our community. Ideally, the products of this system would help keep the farm alive and thriving, though each of us anticipates working off- season in other roles, with Steven continuing as a full-time musician.
Thank you for taking the time to read and share. If anything crosses your path that seems relevant please contact us via email (listed below).
Happy winter! Wishing you warm fires, crisp snowy walks and hope with the coming of light in the new year.
Land Specs:
Looking for roughly 50-200 acres
In Eastern MN or Western WI within 2 hours of Twin Cities
At or under $300,000
Some mix of tillable acreage/pasture and woods preferred
Prefer to not be surrounded by conventional row crops
No direct threat from large amounts of run-off from polluting neighboring chemical farms, mines, or industrial complexes
Prefer a barn or some structures already on land (a garage/pole barn, possibly a house, though would rather not be paying for a nice house)
Some hills/slope
Some water features (near to lakes or river, some creeks or ponds on property)
Well
Some access to property from main road that is not through an easement
One contiguous piece of land
Noise and light pollution as limited as possible
Does not overlook large industrial or residential complexes (rural or open land surrounding property)
In community near to like-minded or friendly farmers and mentors where we would be able to build ourselves into community
Access to schools/medical care (ideally local homeschool coop)
Some hardwoods and reasonably mature timber for fuel, syruping, and possibly building projects
Kathleen Hobert: khobert25@gmail.com (414) 614-8043
Steven Hobert: steventhobert@gmail.com (414) 690-7273
Lindsay Potter: deeneeshee@outlook.com (715) 529-1110