AND 7 living units reduces the space. Thank God all my life I have never had to keep a horse that way.
How to afford it? Now I couldn’t do it. Land was bought in late 70’s.
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Oh wow, that is a shame and truly a surprise given all of the things Denny said about encroaching development. It was such a nice property.
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I hate that we have to have “side hustles” to have some extra money for fun in this world.
Signed, someone who worked 7 days a week for a decade to pay for horses… 
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Someone posted something recently, tagging him in it, where all the access trails to the property had been taped off, and heavy equipment was within eye sight - the person said “looks like devlopment has begun” and Denny commented back without refuting it.
They already removed the banks and filled in the ditches.
I don’t blame the guy - he sold to the highest bidder. He deserves to retire with beaucoup bucks. Maybe they’ll turn it into mini farmettes or something. I don’t know what the hunt will do, as they regularly rode through the property following the hounds.
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I don’t think it is TBH. I met the guy who bought it, and I could be wrong, but I think he may just be building a residence back there.
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So that would “just” be the xc fields versus the main farm with barns/arenas/indoor? IIRC it was being sold as three separate parcels. The county’s online property records are a few weeks out of date and not yet showing those sales.
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That would be great news. Strange that he would tape off all the access points though, and Denny mentioned something about the Ginny Moss way of living, with mutually allowed land access, was dead. Also strange that he would rip out the tiny ditch and the bank.
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Not really if that is where he is going to put in a home there. I can even see closing it off while work and digging is on going due to liability.
I never spoke to the new owner about plans, but I think there is a lot of speculation and fear mongering on FB when he could just be doing his due diligence while he starts building a home or something
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Perhaps. Still a shame that it’s getting broken up. I don’t blame Denny in the slightest but still, sad.
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If you don’t give horses turnout, anything is possible!
Over the years Denny has been scathing when people sold out…and lectured anyone who did…so much for his real values…and he was not shy about writing about protecting through conservation.
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The cat is out of the bag on the Facebook thread, so I don’t mind saying…I truly don’t believe it’s going to development. It was purchased by a rescue, all signs point to that, and his long time neighbour’s said it as well.
The owner is perfectly within their rights to restrict access while putting in a house, electrical lines, sewage etc, in fact, liability wise, it’s pretty smart.
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Denny’s dilemma, regardless of how it turns out, is a nationwide systemic problem. We’d need to revolutionize the tax code and wrangle developers to fix it.
Though I’m not sure this remains perfectly accurate, when I studied land use in the 90s, most of the UK and Ireland protected their riding access using a version of the Justinian Doctrine. They counted property taxes on buildings and levied no or nearly no taxes on land. In exchange, landowners allowed its common use as long as there was no damage. Likewise, new development was almost always tied to existing infrastructure, so villages grew slowly. Fairly sure this changed somewhat under the May administration.
Emerson has publicly envied the great riding overseas and mused about why we cannot do it here. More than a decade ago, when I could tolerate FB, I pointed out our near-total lack of will to do something similar and met with crickets. As Molly Ivins said, “Most of us think of government as them. Yet government isn’t Them: It’s us.”
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Isn’t it also quite common in the UK for a property owner to own the buildings, but have a very long term (99 year) lease on the land? And much of the land owned by The Crown, or other government entities?
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Nearly 30 percent of the US is owned by the federal government and states manage other smaller bits. For instance, We the People own nearly half of California’s 100 million-plus acres. Much of it, like the UK, is leased.
Our lease-ers are known as key-holders, however, and it can be impossible for the public to gain access to theoretically public land. The most famous recent example was the lease-holder rebellion known as the Bundy Ranch Stand-off in Oregon. An Oregon Public Radio podcast called Bundyville tells a surprisingly timely story. It’s two seasons. The first can be tricky to stream and it’s totally worth it. Here’s the first episode of season one.
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For the specific problem of horsekeeping in the Boston area: prices drop a lot across the NH line. Where I am (southern NH) board is $600 for 24x7 group turnout with an outdoor, an indoor, some trails with XC jumps on the property, and a local trail system out back. It’s a little rustic but the care is good, and we do local schooling events as a mob. Private lessons (1 hr) are I think $40 on my horse. (I am not totally sure as rates went up in March and I stopped having my own horse in December, sigh. $50 on a school horse.) The local farrier options are $150-200 for a regular set of four. This isn’t a “haha check out my magically cheap barn” post, there are things I’d change if I could and the summer bugs are godawful, but I like where I am because it suits my needs and I think the rate is pretty typical for the NH-111 latitude. My overall budget is around $1000/month, but near as I can tell I could keep my (now hypothetical, but I’m working on it) horse someplace down in Mass and it would cost double that.
A different answer to “how do I afford it” is “I live a half-hour north of work (Cambridge) and 40 minutes south of the barn”. (I’m in that swath of not-so-fancy from Woburn up through Wilmington and Billerica where people still have backyard horses, too, but I really like the setup in NH.) I don’t mind the driving, but it’s not for everyone. (Car has 430k on it!)
A third answer to “how do I afford it” is “no kids”. I’m not sure that’s an either/or (for kids vs horses) but I’m not sure it’s not.
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I think this is a huge factor. Everyone I know who keeps their horses comfortably and happily has no children.
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I third this. The only reason I have the disposable income and time to participate in this sport at the level that I do is that my husband and I are dual-income earners and have no kids (D.I.N.K.s).
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Any horsewoman on the fence about having children who ask this greying rider for her view, I say, If in doubt, don’t.
I wanted a child more than anything and struggled mightily with compromises I made to both mother my son and keep a horse. Definitely took years off my life and dinged my riding trajectory seriously.
Now that he’s 21 and an apprentice to a master farrier, it’s almost like I had a plan. Hah!
(Edited for my own ossified social reflexes: I was not young when I had a child, not married for long afterward.)
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I’ll raise my hand and say I’ve got two kids and show two horses competitively 
Could I do more sans a $2400 daycare bill a month (plus 529s, sports and diapers)? Probably. But Im okay developing my own horses and not wintering in FL. And to be honest, my demanding career wouldn’t support much more time wise.
I guess I’ll also add we are “older” parents (had my first at 35) which isn’t for some but for us it meant we were at a point in our lives and careers where kids did not mean we had to sacrifice much financially.
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