Last week something really ironic happened here on the farm. I probably should be more stressed and upset than I am, but I’m choosing to believe instead that this is actually going to work out for the best.
For the past year and a half we have been leasing an acre of land adjacent to the farm to run our soccer program on. To be honest this was a pretty awful plot for what we were using it for. Over half of the property sunk into large dip and was more or less unusable. It was also surrounded by cacti to outline the property line, which popped numerous balls. In addition, after even a small amount of rain our coaches and players had to walk through ankle deep mud and muck to get out there, forcing them to play the rest of practice bare foot. We continued using this land because it more or less meet the need for the time being, but we always dreamed of bigger and better.
Our contract to lease this land recently expired and I had asked one of our coaches to set up a meeting with the land owner to renew it. However, before this had happened, he decided to hire a tractor to till up the whole plot. Why? Because he intends to plant corn on it. Corn which he will then sell to us. Oh the irony. He of course had every right to do this; it’s his land and our contract is up. If he can make more money selling us corn than renting us land, he not only could, but should.
However that leave us with out a soccer field and our soccer program temporarily suspended (its still running in the other villages but not ours). As I sat out at the field asking him to stop the tractor so we could discuss it, I felt some sort of weird peace about moving on from this land.
You see for a while now I have been dreaming of building a community center. I’d ideally like to purchase 5-6 acres of land where we can run our soccer program and build a library, computer lab, and classrooms for various programs. I’ve told Nick that this year is the year we are going to purchase the land and fence it in.
So instead of being mad that the owner didn’t come and talk to us about his intentions before he started, I’m choosing to believe that this will help push the community center forward faster. I have funding for the first acre already, and we are hoping that instead of renting a new field we can purchase at least one plot and add on to it as the funds become available. We have started talking to one property owner just down the road a bit. He’s willing to lease, but is still deciding whether or not he wants to sell.
If you’d like to give towards purchasing land, please reach out to me at Nikki@softalliancetech.com! I believe this dream will come to fruition and that it will have a lasting impact on our community!