When Luke Gessler and his wife, Elena, were considering buying an acreage near Portland, Maine, one of the first things they noticed was the maple trees.
“The owners had already marked over 40 maple trees throughout the property for sap collection,” Luke says.
The Gessler’s packed a lot of activity into their previous homestead, a small 1.5-acre farm near Naples, Maine, including making maple syrup, raising pigs and beekeeping. But they needed a bigger property for their future plans to raise more animals – especially sheep. The new, larger acreage checked all their boxes.
Once the family – including their children and pets – unpacked their boxes and settled into their new farm, one of Luke’s first priorities was getting a compact tractor to take care of the property.
In addition to equipment for mowing the lawn, he needed a new tractor with a bucket to replace his aging John Deere machine and reduce the manual labor involved with raising animals, creating and maintaining food plots, clearing brush and maintaining woodland. Luke also wanted to flatten the extensive dirt bike trail system the previous owner had created.
Acreage Life is part of the Catalyst Communications Network publication family.