Twenty acres with rolling hills, babbling brook and a pond.

Township Road Farm as it looks today!

In the very early 2000’s we found ourselves relocating to Billings, Montana. We knew we didn’t want to trade one big city for another big city. While Billings isn’t that big compared to where we were coming from, it is the largest city in Montana. With the move approaching, Larry and I sat down for a discussion of where we wanted to live and how we wanted to live.  

My hopes and dreams were pretty simple. A house with rooms so our two elementary-age girls wouldn’t have to share a bedroom. Maybe a little property to spread out on. A commute not longer than 30 minutes long. And a mortgage payment no more than we were paying in the big city.  

But Larry on the other hand had dreams, big dreams. At least twenty acres. Rolling hills. A babbling brook. A pond. And a mortgage payment no more than we were paying in the big city.  

We drew a circle on the map to indicate where we were willing to look, and I began looking. Larry stayed back in the city so the girls could finish out the school year.  This will be easy, I thought, it’s Montana.  

Water.

Who knew water—good, plentiful water—is not everywhere. There are some parts of the surrounding area of Billings where people have to haul water because their wells don’t produce enough water, their wells don’t produce good water, or to dig a well to get to water is cost-prohibitive.  Throw a water tank in the back of your truck, go to the water station every few days as needed, and transfer the water from your tank to your cistern. 

Hauling water is easy and something a lot of people do in the area but it was not something we wanted to do. We wanted a garden and flowers and not to worry about water. 20-acre parcels were pretty plentiful to the north of Billings, but the water was not. So I crossed out the north section of the circle on the map.  

Isn’t there some saying about “Go west, young man?”

So I looked west. It’s beautiful. Water? Check. 20 acres? Check. Mortgage? Choke!

Yikes, more money than we wanted to spend, especially since we knew we would be a one-income family for a little bit. I crossed out the west section of the circle on the map. 

Looking south.

I set my sites on the area south of Billings. I looked and looked and I found the perfect acreage. 80 acres of beautiful rolling hills, a little creek, a pond, and a house…that was what is commonly called a “scrap off.” 

It was advertised as a farmhouse with a “walk out” basement. It looked so beautiful in my mind but when I got there, it was a different picture.  To get to the basement, you had to walk out the front (and only) door, over to the gate, through the cow pasture, and down the hill to the sliding basement door that revealed a room with a dirt floor. 

To get to those two bedrooms for the girls, you had to climb a staircase so steep that it should have been a ladder. Not the dream house I envisioned. I ended up crossing out the south section of the circle on the map.  

I went in the only direction that was left.

I gazed to the east hoping that all our dreams would be fulfilled. To the east is a fertile place called Huntley Project by the locals. Its full name is Huntley Irrigation Project, and it was created in the 1910s by the Bureau of Reclamation to bring homesteaders to the area.  It’s home to acres and acres of sugar beets, barley, alfalfa, and hay. And there was a house with enough rooms and good water within 30 minutes of Billings. 

The choir of angels sang as I pulled up to look at it. It was everything I wanted…on a measly five acres.  

Now to convince Larry that this property was THE property.

Rolling hills will just block our view of the beautiful landscape. We don’t need a babbling brook; we have an irrigation ditch. Pond? Highly overrated! It’s Montana—you can go fishing whenever, wherever you want.  It’s 5 whole acres with water and you can have a garden and trees and whatever your little heart wants, I told him.  

Well, he agreed. We bought the place. On our first night there, we stood on the deck dreaming of all the potential of our 5-acre former alfalfa field. Larry looked at me and said, “I’m going to fill it up.” And that’s what he did.