Working, Commuting, and hobby farming oh my

[Sweetened]

The frost is hitting tonight in the lovely Saskatchewan prairies, and though I can't say it was unexpected and I didn't know, I didn't manage to pick up any cheap blankets to throw over the tomatoes and squash to protect them. So they got cut. 10lbs of tomatoes, two 5lb zuchinni(sp), 18 spaghetti squash (off one plant!), 8 mini pumpkins and a gallon bucket of gone-to-seed bush beans later, I've left half my tomato crop and all of my carrots to suffer the wrath of tonights freeze without any protection.

So that brought me to thinking about my plans for a hobby farm and the very undertaking of chickens. It's not that I can't do it as, though I respect plants beyond what many people do, animals are not something I neglect. Come rain, wind, hot weather and bitter cold, my dog is walked and my pets are well loved/cared for. However, 8 hours working, 2 hours of commuting every day, and one day (hopefully) children, I wonder how those in this boat do it, especially when the significant other is very likely to do little if no work (though expect to reap the benefits he ).

What are your arrangements like? How do you as an (commuting?) urban slave/being/worker do it without losing your mind?

I look forward to this discussion and thank everyone! for sharing.

[barnyardgal]

No advice~But sometimes things can be overwhelming at times especially during the summer months with gardening etc..etc...

You have to figure out what works for you & your lifestyle...

I am single & go it alone & sometimes get so tired but have cut back some on the garden but still have the animals...I do it all from mucking the barn to canning to mowing/bush hogging & anything else that gets done...

Good luck & you have to figure out what works for YOU when it seems your doing it alone!!!

[PrincessFerf]

We're exactly in your situation and have been doing this since 2005. Its a lot of work and I frequently get comments from people such as "how do you do it all?" and "do you ever rest?"

Hubby and I both have good jobs in the city. We have a 40 minute commute each way. We have 3 daughters. One goes to school in the city near where we work, one goes to school where we live (long story). One is a young adult who works and lives at home (for now).

We have laying hens, a few guineas for bug control, we raise our own meat chickens during the summer months, 3 dogs, 2 "barn" cats and a very large garden. I do all of the work for the chickens (including construction and maintenance of buildings/pens, etc.). I also do all of the garden planning, planting (we start everything by seed in the spring), maintenance, harvesting, canning, etc.

My hubby is supportive with everything and will help when I need it. He does more of the cooking and laundry than I do. He also helps with our youngest (who is 5). Everything else is shared work amongst the rest of the family. My youngest helps a lot with the garden and chickens. The older daughers help some, too.

It can be done, but I highly recommend that you start slowly and build up to a level that you feel comfortable. I know we will never be fully self-sufficient and that's ok. I do a lot of planning around this time of year so that we stagger the harvest and canning of various crops. That helps A LOT.

You'll find your niche and where your specific passions lay. If you love it, you'll find a way to do it. I wouldn't do all that we do if we didn't love it. Having 3 kids at home won't be forever, middle daughter will be going away to college in 2 years. That will change our schedule and at that time I would like to get a couple of goats.

PM me if you'd like to talk more. One thing that I can guarantee is that you'll never be bored!

[farmerbrian]

accept that just cant do as much as you want, as fast as you want. Make good lists so you can use your time productively, but also expect that some of whats on the project list for this fall may not happen till the spring... or even next fall.

Right now I feel like I have three full time Jobs:

1. Raising a family with two (and more to come) small children
2. My full time job an hour+ commute away
3. Turning an old farm back into a productive homestead and a future (long term) source of income.

Just have to prioritize and sometimes the compromises are hard. I want to/have to spend lots of time with my family. I want to be out of debt as soon as possible so the day job gets first dibs on my "work" time. Whats left gets put into Job #3. Some weeks this amounts to 1-2 hours. Other weeks its a lot more.

The other aspect of prioritizing is knowing what can wait and what cant. Harvesting is usually something that cant wait. Mowing the fields and building my leaf/grass/hay sucking mulch machine monster can wait...

What are some things that help balance it all out?

I have a job with lot more freedom to work flexible hours, (nights, weekends, days, whenever) and I can work from home 2-3 days a week. Working from home is obviously a huge benefit as I get back 2+ hours of commuting time each day and I can slip out into the gardens and do a little picking during breaks instead of whatever random time wasting I could come up with at the office.

I have a lot of support from family and my wife and I are mostly on the same page with all of this and our skills and inclinations complement each other.

And most importantly, change is always on the horizon. Change of seasonal work on the farm, change of kids getting older and can now help put potatoes in a basket, long term change of seeing our debt steadily decrease.

I share your reservations about animals because of the time to care for them factor. However we have to start somewhere so we got a small flock of chickens this spring and once they were old enough to go outside, they are almost no work at all. I change the water and fill up the feed hopper every 1-2 days, and open the coop in morning and close it at night. They wander all of the property during the day and go back home at night. They require very little of our time, minutes per day, and appear quite healthy and happy. Just starting getting eggs a few weeks ago!

[Waiting Falcon]

I was a super woman for too many years., I have over 45 years on the farm, going it alone for more reasons than one even when there were others.
You can only do so much.You are already putting 10 hours a day into work and commuting.
Whereas I have no desire to give up the farm I do have mine for sale. I can on longer do what needs to be done.
Even though I did everything ,garden, can, tend to animals , raise a child, home school, events, it suddenly came to an end and very near total collapse.
You know your strength,and health and what you really want .Some people are stronger than others and can handle it mentally and physically .
I would suggest you sit down and put it all on paper the pros and cons and what you really want/like and what you do not.

[ca2devri]

I read farmerbrian's post and I could have almost written it myself.

- I work 1.5hrs away, but can work from home 2-3 days a week
- young kids
- want to get further out of debt

I take on way too much. I've planted 700 trees this year and a 1/4 acre garden. We did maple syrup this last winter and we're working on a fairly major addition to the house. Right now I'm scrambling to get a cold-room finished before fall. Next year I want to: plant more trees, have chickens and turkeys, plant asparagus, strawberries, raspberries, add fencing, get beef cattle,etc. I have a feeling some of the plans will be put on hold, but I dream big.

I wish most days that I was farming full-time, but I have to be patient. When the kids are a bit older and my wife can work more, I think it will happen. I'm not complaining though: I'm fortunate to have been able to buy a farm and that my work is as flexible as it is.

Would make way more sense to have started farming when I'm young and sat in this office when I'm sixty. Oh well, I'll be almost 40 before I start any serious farming, but unless you're born into it, I think that's just the way it is.

Chris

[majik]

I work full-time and have a 1 hour commute each way and winter will come as it always does, so I know what you're talking about. We have 20+ chickens, a couple of pet turkeys, a dog and 2 cats. We sometimes have a couple of pigs. We heat with wood, which means splitting and stacking and hauling it around. I have 2 50 x 50 gardens and preserve as much as possible. So basically, I run like mad in the summer and rest in the winter. Right about now I feel ike the Little Red Hen. I get lots of support from the family, though. Everyone pitches in on house work, and I ask for help with larger tasks outside. I find it difficult to pace myself, and I'm often tired, but most of the time it feels like it's worth it...I sure do love my life.

[Freya]

As I see it it breaks down to these choices:


#1.) Keep going as you are and hope you don't burn out.

#2.) Give up hobby farm and live closer to work and become a backyard urban farmer.

#3.) Find a farm closer to work.

#4.) Find work closer to farm.




And as for your SO not helping, If you have had long deep talks and they just plainly do NOT share your dreams and never will, no matter what... well you have three choices:

#1.) Accept and respect they do not share your interests and learn to deal with those feelings and keep doing it all alone.

#2.) Stop hobby farming.

#3.) Find a new SO that does believe in your dreams and shares your same views.


Figure it out before kids and you will save yourself a TON of heartache!

[oregon woodsmok]

You compensate by having the right equipment.

Fruit trees are very little work if they are set up with drip lines and you have a good quality sprayer and spray on schedule.

If you live in a cold climate, you have cold frames for the veggies. It takes just seconds to close them up to protect from frost.

The right housing and feeding and watering equipment for livestock makes them much less labor intensive.

Don't keep any milk animals if you have a time crunch.

As for spouses who won't help, does that mean that they sit on their fat butt watching TV, or does that mean they bring home a paycheck, or keep the household running smoothly (which is a lot of work) but just don't feel that farming is their thing?

Personally, I do not need to have anyone finding me extra work to do. I've got enough to do and I'm not going to maintain someone else's hobby for them. Don't expect your SO to take over the work of your hobby if they aren't interested. If you take up farming and you have an SO is is really not interested and you take it up anyway, don't complain if you don't get help.

[AuntKitty]

I'm in your same boat with a nearly identical work schedule and commute. I have 8 dairy goats, a dozen chickens, dog, cats, veg garden, fruit trees, etc. I try to streamline my routines with the animals, i.e. an auto waterer for the goats, extra cross fencing so I can put them in separate pastures and don't have to haul so much hay, I leave the kids with their mothers so I only have to milk once a day, a feeder for the chickens that holds a weeks worth of feed, lots of mulch in the veg garden to cut down on weeding (theoretically), etc. Sometimes I never unload the feed from the back of my station wagon because handling the 50lb bags twice is too much for my elbows and shoulders some weeks. I know I pay more in gas hauling it around but you have to pick your battles. I have discovered that the teenaged sons of my friends can be a life saver. You have to find the ones that want to work, not text with their girlfriend and take a break every 15 minutes, though. I have found that I can get a good day's work out of them if I say "you're not going to let a 52 yo woman outwork you now are you?" Every August I swear I am going to sell off everything because it seems like all I do is drive and work and mow, but then the first cool evenings of September come and I need to mow less often and I remember why I do this. I'm trying to get things set up so things can either run on their own or as easily as possible because I know I don't have much longer before working this hard is going to start breaking my body down. It's just something I think about before I go back out for the second time in the middle of a full moon night to cut one of my bucklings out of the fenceline....

We do it because we love it!

Kitty

[PulpFaction]

It is REALLY hard. I couldn't do it with the commute, so for the time being I'm compromising and urban homesteading close to work. That extra 3 hours per day combined with the money saved in gas has made it possible for me to do a little more, and put a little in savings to buy my dream place. I am also working on developing my resume and work connections to the point where I could work remotely from home whenever I DO move back out to the country.

[Sweetened]

Thanks to everyone who replied. All responses have been helpful.

In defense of the SO, it's the only issue we've ever had in these years together, but it's an issue that's always driven me mad. Yes he brings home a cheque, but so do I. If it was something like he understood my want and did some of the housework or care in the home, it wouldn't have been brought up here. It's just not the case.

I look at it as the only bone of contention in our relationship and, if I only have one, I'm in a better boat than most. I suppose I was wondering if anyone else has been in/is in this predicament this way and how they've come to terms with it.

[bluetogreens]

Originally Posted by Sweetened

Thanks to everyone who replied. All responses have been helpful.

In defense of the SO, it's the only issue we've ever had in these years together, but it's an issue that's always driven me mad. Yes he brings home a cheque, but so do I. If it was something like he understood my want and did some of the housework or care in the home, it wouldn't have been brought up here. It's just not the case.

I look at it as the only bone of contention in our relationship and, if I only have one, I'm in a better boat than most. I suppose I was wondering if anyone else has been in/is in this predicament this way and how they've come to terms with it.

Ive come to terms that my wife and I share a dream, and to fullfill that dream we need to be a one income family and live well within our means, which means i sacrifice alot of my other rather one sided hobbies ( paitnball/massive computer gaming rigs/guns/home and mobile theatre equipment etc) I honestly am lazy when it comes to general housework and aorund the "farm" I am really only available for helping to feed/corral and build stuff or heavy lifting projects. So in lieu of me sacrificing and doing housework, I sacrifice luxuries and support my wife emotionally/physically/financially, even if that support is sometimes screamed through the window as she is tangled up by the goats

[Sweetened]

Originally Posted by bluetogreens

... even if that support is sometimes screamed through the window as she is tangled up by the goats

LOL

[HilltopDaisy]

I think if I could do it all over I would not "raise" any animals. I would have a few hens for eggs and 2 dairy goats. I don't eat meat so that's never been part of the equation, but I've always had this idea that the animals should make money, so I've had lots of chickens so I could sell eggs, and raised goats so I could sell kids. If I sat down and crunched the numbers ($ in vs. $ out), and figured out time spent ~ I'd probably cry.

I'm doing this by myself, too. The fulltime job, often 12 hour shifts, the 1 1/2 commute every day, the big garden, horses; sometimes I come here to complain about how hard life is, and sometimes I come here and share how awesome things are going.

I know that I do not want to live closer to the city. The animals are a lot of work, and so is the garden. There is no time for television (no tv, actually), and I don't have much of a social life. But for today, it's really OK. This Spring I am planning on cutting my hours at work, just one day, but it will help.

[Harry Chickpea]

"If I sat down and crunched the numbers ($ in vs. $ out), and figured out time spent ~ I'd probably cry."
Hilltop Daisy, you hit it exactly. I crunched the numbers just on our garden and immediately stopped plans for the same type of gardening in the future. Chickens were a financial mess for us. Few homesteaders have the honesty to admit that agri-business has a HUGE advantage in time and money. The knowledge and skill to raise your own food is an important asset, and it can only be learned through experience, but once that is under your belt you have to make hard decisions. The extra dollars you spend now fooling around and getting overtired and stressed out are dollars you may need in retirement. Unless you are a gentleman farmer, with money to burn, that is NOT a wise decision.

If you enjoy the processes and they double as entertainment, or you are teaching your kids, or you don't trust agri-business food, then you have to factor in those points. Just do not underestimate your need for money later in life, when such activities are physically difficult or impossible. An ex-homesteader on the dole is a contradiction in self-reliance.