Can you make it on the farm

Spinner , my children have no children, no grand children and neither have ever married and never will. Wife has no children her nephews and nieces are not interested.
Susie M Farm suicides not around here. If I am found dead check the wife she propaly did it.
6e, Money really does not mean that much to us, we are not rich but as long as I live we are ok, upon my death the wifes income drops about $18,000 a year but she still has my retirement and I set it up so she draws the same for life as we both do. We made some investments in property and that so far is ok We would enjoy more heck who would not but we aint starving.
Farmer Manda We live in North Alabama right on the Tenn line.
We have went through the finding a youner couple that would buy, some how with owner fianancing, perhaps doing part of the value in taking care of our needs as we get older but with out working a full time job no one could still afford it because even if we sold it for just what we paid for it over the years the money is just not there working on the farm.
I know it will bother me to just watch it grow over iin bushes and all the work we put in dissapper.
We have a couple that are friends that are thinking about buying fifty acres of it. If they don't The options are divide up that part into farmettes, or plant all the open parts down in pines except around the house that is about 20 acres, If I was younger I would probably build cabins along the cliff line over looking the creek. These I would rent out long term so I would not have to clean and change beds all the time and have different people in and out. Just a cabin that people could rent by the year, we would cut the grass keep firewood on the porch and if you called we would have the place warmed up ready for the people to enjoy when they got there . We own a half mile of the cliff and creek and could have several cabins that could not see each other. O well just thinking.

I like that thought... It's a good idea!

How young do you have to be to build cabins, I wonder... That really sounds so nice...

Pony!

How about hiring somebody to build them in exchange for living in one and taking care of them? Then all you have to do is collect the money. I might be your first renter. LOL! (Well, I can dream, can't I?)

Cindyc.

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Mom to 5 cool kids and wife to 1 great guy. Life is good!

How young well younger than I at 65, and some health problems, I still buiild stuff, tommorrow I build a set of double doors to close the third bay off in the storage we built two years ago. Just finished a pier in the pond last week, have the foundation poured for two wood sheds.. They are for fire wood for next year. We will see if I get this all done by fall I may do a cabin this fall after the heat drops down. We have several thousand pines that could be used for a log cabin and have always wanted to try that. Could probably find people that would like to learn how and would swap labor for use of a cabin.

I dunno why everyone is so sad about your decision to subdivide. It sounds like a great way to recruit families to countryside living and small-time farming, which is what most people on here do or want to do.

You said 3-5 acre "Farmlets", so I assume that there are not going to be deed restrictions against livestock and gardening. Sounds like you're planning a RURAL development that will take un-used farmland and put it into use.

You should get some good neighbors with some common interests. Some will probably help you on your 50 acres too for a portion of the produce.

If I moved in, I'd ask if you wanted to fence it and get some angus beef. You buy the fence, I'll put it up and do all the work. You buy the breeding stock and we'll split the spring calves.

I know, some will say, "WAAAAAHHHH...the end of another family farm!!!"

I say, the family farm was ended by the family, and maybe a fresh small-timer will get inspired on his "Farmlet" and start buying up ground to expand...then...Voila! A new Family farm!

MAybe not the same size or shape or property lines, but hey! Life changes! Nothing stays the same! Keep enough control on writing the rules that you can draw the kind of folks who are looking for an opportunity to start out.

Do it right and my guess is that you'll not have to raise OR buy your produce. Your good neighbors will be giving it to you for free!

Sounds like a great plan to provide for your golden years as well...after all, isn't that what you worked the farm all those years for? Let it provide for your retirement. Do it without guilt or hesitation. You've earned it.

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"The most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being." - Sir Isaac Newton
(A REAL scientist)

I really like Boleyz's idea, too. A lot. In fact, I could buy into something like that with very little hesitation!

So, cabins or start-ups for those who want to have the dream and are willing to work cooperatively. Both seem very sound.

I like the coopertive best, though.

So far, anyway!

Pony!

I am still the Daddy of opposition to "Planned Communities" or "Communal Living"...I just want to make clear that I was not suggesting such a thing. Independent "Farmlets" who may or may not cooperate with each other is what I meant.

I'm a stickler for Independence...especially on your own place...

I was just suggesting that with careful deed preparation, he can attract people who will be enthusiastic and good neighbors...People who WANT to farm and raise stock.

Most of the time, such neighbors help each other anyway...so there probably would be quite a bit of willing cooperation. I'm all for that. I'm just not in favor of "Enforced" cooperation...Russia tried that...it was disastrous...

Perhaps I'm over-reacting, but I just want to be clear on my suggestions...

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"The most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being." - Sir Isaac Newton
(A REAL scientist)

One family farm near us has reacted to the difficult challenge of making the farm pay by changing its focus. Now it focuses less on actual production and more on tourism and recreation! Part of the farm was turned into a paintball arena, and I understand it is THE place to go for area teens. They run a very popular corn maze in fall, and all year they have school groups, scout troops, and adult retreats.

Of course, it really helps that they're the lone holdout in an area booming with affluent housing developments. Location is vital.

The land is restricted against pig parlors, feeding lots, fighting chickens. You can have live stock, chickens, homes have to be site built. the state has some codes, you have to have a spetic system, you have to meet National Electical code. Just stuff that keeps you from polluting the neighbors well, or burning the house down on your self.
The neighbors are all long time residents, most of them their familys have lived here for generations, all farm but have jobs to be able to afford farming. I think the smallest block of land a house sets on right around here is 8 acres.
That brings up the reason for the thread, you can not make it just doing the homesteading thing. There is just not enough income from it unless you can come up with something unusual and are willing to work 7/24 forever and even if you love it that gets old.
I just sold a mile of barb wire and the post to put it up with I bought is several years ago and it was high then but with the price of steel today I got three time the price I paid for it. You would not belive the cost of fencing. We have a couple of tractors and most all the equiment that goes with them. But diesel fuel has gone from less than a dollar for off road to last week
$2.47 a gallen. That means instead of bushhogging twice a year you may do it once a year. Point you have to have a job. It takes $15 just to cut the grass around the house and barns where it needs to be cut every week.

Duly noted. I suppose I should have been more clear.

With this I agree. Sorry that my post sounded more like Comrade Pony than Neighbor Pony. ("Neeeeigh-bor Pony"?)

Pony!

Community Supported Agriculture. We belong to one. Neighboring farmers supply vegetables to families for the whole growing season. The family in turn pays a weekly or monthly fee. We have six farm families providing our veggies, so if one farmer has a rough season, others pick up the slack. It works out very nicely.

YEP. Most of our food comes from either a CSA, or some other type of co-op. We buy meat, milk, eggs, honey, veggies, and bulk dry goods... all from local farms. (Of course the farm where the bulk dry goods is just a drop point for a food buying club that is larger, but it helps them out financially, and I get things I want less expensively too.) Pretty much, all I buy from a "store" is pet foods and other pet needs, and any paper goods I use, or cleaning supplies. I might buy Catsup or Coffee or something like that from time to time.
Sorry, I didn't see the question.

Cindyc.

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Mom to 5 cool kids and wife to 1 great guy. Life is good!

It seems folks sometimes tend to get hung up on living the "ideal" homesteading/farming life, even if it kills them getting to that "ideal". We have lost sight of the fact that life is supposed to be about the quality of the journey, not just getting to the end destination.

Last time I checked, TIME is one of the few things we cannot make more of, and we only get one crack at this thing called life. When it comes down to it what do you want to have accomplished when you are laying on your death bed? Finally reaching the "perfect" farming lifestyle after killing yourself and your family getting there, or spending quality time with your loved ones in maybe a much scaled back version of the perfect farming lifestyle?

Sell off the property

Buy your food at the store if you want

Aggressively scale back your activities and expectations of the perfect farm

Focus on what is important in life, and that is family and friends. The "farm" or the "homestead" will sort itself out on its own, but never let it become the priority over spending time with your family.

Do whatever it takes to regain time back in your life. Time to spend with your wife, time to spend with children, time to spend with your friends, and time to spend with yourself.

Wayne

It is probably a first but I do also, If I was in his position I would put my land in a program to make sure it had to be used agriculturally and make sure that I sold it to future farming/homesteader type folks if my own kids were not interested, even if I sold it for $500 or 1k per acre instead of 5k.That is amazing how many raised beds he has I hope to have that many someday.

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marching to the beat of a different drummer

Wayne has a good point make sure you slow down a little and take some time off just to relax it sounds like you have definitely earned it and have worked long hours for way to long IMO.

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marching to the beat of a different drummer

Ok, let's flip that around...

100 years ago children were considered little more than economic assets or unpaid help. If the family didn't need them they were bonded over to someone else to learn a trade and their income paid back to the family, making them little more than indentured servants. It wasn't unusual for a man to run through three wives, with each wife in turn dying in childbirth or simply wearing out from the work load.

Things have changed. From the mechanization of household chores, to better medical care, to the revolution in personal technology, never has keeping a household or putting food on the table taken less time out of the average family's day. With that increased leisure time more Americans than ever before are attending college, among other things, giving young people choices in careers only available 100 years ago to the very wealthiest children.

Meanwhile, instead of being slaves to the previous generation's ambitions, today's children are free to explore their future on their own terms. This puts the onus of responsibility for elder care back on the elder, a situation which we've yet to come to terms with. However, increasingly older Americans are taking control of their golden years... moving to new areas of the country, exploring new careers, going back to school... older Americans have taken organizations which were starving for lack of labor and revitalized them, the Peace Corps is a good example.

This is a new way of expressing responsibility from one generation to the next. From "my job is to care for my aging parents" to "my job is to keep from obstructing my children's future."

I've lived both. I gave up my career, basically tossed a good degree in the trash, because I was expected to go home and care for my grandmother and what is left of our family farm. It was an absolute I never really questioned... there wasn't anyone else, it was expected, good girls do...

And it cost me. It cost me the ability to have children of my own. It cost me the ability to do what I do best (because such jobs aren't available here). But my grandmother got to finish out her life living her dreams. There is nothing fair, good, equitable, or moral, about that. I'm not bitter about it, but I am rational.

Now I've got my father in front of me... and what a difference the expectations of a new generation makes. My father not only has no expectations of his daughter taking care of him in his old age, he's done everything in his power to make good and sure she can't! That old man isn't fooling around. His life, his retirement, he'll manage it himself, thank you very much... go live your own life kid and leave mine alone!

Loved my grandmother, and don't really regret any of those years taking care of her. Love my father... and won't miss having to take care of him as he ages.

The past is not "better." It was just made up of different options and different choices. Some of which benefited one generation at the expense of another. Ask any second son in 1800 what the system offered him and the answer would have been "not too darn much." Ask any daughter what it offered her... the answer was to be a slavey in her father's house, or married off in an arranged marriage to be a baby factory in another.

Poo. Take the rose colored glasses off and enjoy where you are.

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Icelandic Sheep and German Angora Rabbits

One of the best posts on this site I've seen in a long time. Should be printed, framed, and hung in every homesteading household.

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Icelandic Sheep and German Angora Rabbits

Sorry to hear that none of the kids want the farm. We do understand, since both the wife and I were born and raised in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and have seen alot of the farm land sold for developments. It's always ashame to see good farm land paved over

Got to disagree with you. 3-5 acrea plots are in no way "rural" or "Farmlets." That is just enough land to put a McMansion and $50,000 in landscaping.

It is just enough land for someone justify (to themselves) to buy a four wheeler for their kid(s) but not enough land to actually use one (and thus terrorizing neighboring farmers/ranchers with tresspassing).

Those are the same types of houses whose owners think that 3-5 acres will support multiple horses and that it justifies a $100,000 horse barn. The couple acres that they have fenced off is a sea of mud because it just isn't enough room.

If you can't pee in the backyard without looking into your neigbors picture window then it isn't rural.

Sorry, just ranting about the types of changes that I see occuring back home.

I just want to make sure that my above post is not read wrong. It is not necessarily applicable to Shadow's situation or business.

It was more of general rant and frustrations of seeing landprices sky rocket and the rapid expansion of the burbs (even around small to medium sized cities). I come from rural missouri and my grandparents were (grandmother still is) row crop farmers. However, land prices have gotten rediculous thanks to duck hunters, deer hunters, turkey hunters, and the governments willingness to expand the money supply (print dollars) to make up for their policies of allowing jobs to move overseas or to Mexico.

I'd better shut up now because I'm ranting again.

Sorry about the thtead drift