Nebraska Farm Sale

All of us feel a strong connection to the Ely family farm, so we wanted to update you on some important developments.

After Mom died in 2001, Marge, Karen, Anne and I had a series of extended, honest conversations about what we wanted to do with our farmland in Auburn. These conversations extended over several years. During our talks, we tried to balance our deep feelings for that property with the practical understandings of the farm economy, managing and owning land at a distance and the interests of our kids and their growing families.

During 2006, the four of us came to the decision to sell the land. Central to this decision was the fact that neither the four of us nor any of our children had an aptitude for or an interest in farming as a business. And, as Dad always modeled, farming was a business, one in which he excelled. Succeeding in farming is getting more and more difficult and it just didn’t seem to make sense to keep owning the land, despite the emotional tugs that land has on all of us.

Having made that decision, we set out to figure a way to accomplish this. We own 400 acres of land there. Most of it is now crop ground, which we rent to Joe Moody. We are currently in the middle of a 5 year rental agreement with Joe and we intend to honor that agreement. Indeed, our land is central to Joe’s farming operation of over 1,500 acres.

For those of you who don't know of Joe Moody, he's a guy who I went to school with all through the Auburn school system. Joe's father, Harold Moody, was a lifelong friend of Dad's. In the mid 80s, Dad decided to rent out the crop ground to Harold who, by then, had begun farming in partnership with his son Joe. The business relationship between Dad and the Moodys was based on a handshake, as all men were honorable and knowledgeable. As Joe took over more and more of Harold's work, this all transferred to Dad working with Joe. Since Dad died, we've been working with Joe and he has taken very good care of our land. Thus, we have a long-term relationship with Joe and will honor our agreements with him, just as we have for decades. On a humorous note, Joe's Social Security and mine are only two digits apart. Why?? We both applied for them on the same day in Jim Klien's 7th grade history class. Yeah, Auburn really is a small town.

The crop ground needed to stay with Joe for the time being. But what to do with the noncrop ground? We had a bit of an epiphany last year when we realized we could partition it and look to sell it separately. And so we did.

There are about 27 acres of land on the north side of the road which include the house, the shop and several out buildings, the famous “riding ring” where Dad put all of his grandkids on horseback, and small pastures to the north and west of the house. We currently rent the house to a fellow who has been there since 1991 and rent a couple of the buildings to nearby farmers for implement storage. From a business point of view, these 27 acres were not very productive as the rents really did not offset repairs to the house, taxes and hassles.

Therefore, we had these 27 acres surveyed and legally separated from the rest of the land. During the summer, we listed this parcel with a local realtor. To our surprise, we had a number of people express interest. We received a serious offer, worked through price and terms via our Realtor and agreed. So, on Thursday night, August 30, 2007, we had an agreement to sell the 27 acres. With Marge as our able spokesperson, the four of us agreed fully with the arrangement and it was done.

The buyers are a 29 year-old couple who are from the area, growing up near Peru. They are thrilled to have a house of their own on some acerage. They want to settle down and live there and remain part of the community. This really captures the spirit of the place, in ways we couldn’t have really planned out.

Right now we are working out when the closing will take place. We expect it to happen around the first of October.

Our plan is to sell the rest of the ground at the conclusion of our current contract with Joe Moody. We are not selling this big green barn now. It is on the south side of the road. Along with the land that was formerly the big feedlot, this barn is part of the farm land which we will sell as a unit in the future.

The farm means a lot and those memories will never fade. Marge, Karen, Anne and I have had a wonderful appreciation for the principles of integrity and community that we learned from Mom and Dad. We sense they would be quite pleased with the rationale and manner in which we’ve handled it. Those principles are priceless. And we’re pleased to pass this to the next generation as well.