What is a farm?

Seems to me, George, that you have a great little farm!

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BIDADISNDAT: Aiming to Live a Good Life of Near Self Sufficiency on a Permaculture Based Organic Home Farm

I guess I am a farm since I do sell eggs and poultry to the public, problem is I don't make anywhere near as much money from selling as I put out for food, fencing, wood and other supplies to take care of the animals.

A farm is a place where farming activities occur. Sounds to me like you are farming, therefore you must have a farm. It's a small farm, but still a farm. If the word farm bothers your friends, then call it a homestead, or a ranch, or give it a name. Then you can say you need to get back to "green acres" or "tara" or whatever name you use.

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I think the word farm or homestead bother a lot of non-farmers/homesteaders because in their minds they conjure up images of uneducated hillbillies drinking moonshine and shooting chewing tabbaco thru their missing teeth at the old dog that's missing one hind leg and has to squat to pee because he'd fall anyway if he lifted his good hind leg.

I am often called a hick, redneck or hillbilly. Even my own daughter calls me these things LOL While it's true that I am a country bumpkin' (according to my own mother) I am trying real hard to become a little more sophisticated; I think if I accomplish that I will then be called metrosexual-hillbilly. Sometimes I feel like I just can't win.

All that on two acres....What do your neighbors think???? If your neighbors try to sell, do you think it will affect their land value?

I have 101 acres. Mine (and yours) is a farm, even though I don't raise crops to sell.
Same thing - I have a 26x15 goat barn (in process of building a larger one). A guy I knew would call up and ask what I was doing. I say "I'm in the barn" (if I was). He would go into his speil about "you don't have a barn". Yeah, whatever, get a life. It's a barn to ME, it's a farm to you. That's all that matters.

Yes all that on two acres. My neighbors don't seem to do too much thinking about anything. My neighbors are renters and from what I have heard they have a very-very long term lease. Yes, it will affect their land value since we have done numerous and very expensive upgrades.

The question is as i work to fix my place up and the neighbors do just the opposite, what do I think, what if I decide to sell and I wonder if their way of life will affect my land value????

a farm raised crops and a ranch raised animals. A mixed farm would have animals and crops both.

But if it looks like a farm, it costs like a farm and it feels like a farm - I would call it a farm.

No. You can use the term ranch if you want but that doesn't make it so. I wish people would stop making that statement without checking the dictionary.

We raise pigs. We're a farm, not a ranch. We are a pig farm. Down the road is a sheep farm. There is a farm down in the valley where we get our winter hay. There is another truck farm down the way too - they don't raise trucks, they raise veggies. We also raise trees and do sustainable forestry - i.e., logging.

Look in the dictionary:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=farm
farm [fahrm] Pronunciation Key
–noun
1. a tract of land, usually with a house, barn, silo, etc., on which crops and often livestock are raised for livelihood.
2. land or water devoted to the raising of animals, fish, plants, etc.: a pig farm; an oyster farm; a tree farm.

Now lookup ranch:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=ranch
ranch [ranch] Pronunciation Key
–noun
1. an establishment maintained for raising livestock under range conditions.
2. Chiefly Western U.S. and Canada. a large farm used primarily to raise one kind of crop or animal: a mink ranch.
3. a dude ranch.

Cheers,

-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
in the mountains of Vermont
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/blog/
http://HollyGraphicArt.com/
http://NoNAIS.org

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

Sounds like your on the route to an excellent biointensive farm. Here a bit more on the topic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biointensive

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"I didn't have time to slay the dragon. It's on my To Do list!"

Shrek, that is exactly what I am working towards. I do not use any chemicals on the property. I use compost only for the gardens and lawn. I pick bugs off plants instead of spray with insecticide. Everything I do here is to keep it as chemical free as possible. I about blew my own cork when the hydraulic line sprung a leak and the fluid flowed on the ground. I had to shovel up the contaminated dirt and put it in sealed buckets then take it to the recyling center to dispose of it.

I grew up in northern Maine where all different sorts of chemicals were spread and sprayed on the potato fields. About ten yeras ago I realized that there seemed to be an above average number of people from my hometown dying from different forms of cancer. I told my father that it was odd so many people I grew up with were either dead or dying from cancer. I said I suspect the chemicals used on the fields had something to do with it and my father said that is what the doctors are saying. I remember the helicopters flying over spraying the fields during the spring and summer and feeling the little droplets of chemicals falling on me and how the air always smelled like chemicals. I decided that I didn't want chemicals I might use going into the ground water (water from around our place goes to the town drinking water), so I stopped using chemicals back about ten years ago.

I now compost the poultry and rabbit manure along with the leaves in fall and my garden soil is now healthy with worms (It used to be it was very rare that I'd find worms). Just Friday I was working an area of soil in the chicken pen and was amazed at the number of worms in the soil. I would guess there was a good 25 worms in the first shovel full of soil.

The synthetic fertilizers and other chemicals don't add anything good to the soil but the compost does.

Thanks for the link.

I was just talking with the friend who said this I didn't live on a farm, I told him it was a farm because I said it was. He asked, "So what you going to call the 50 acres when you buy it? I said I'll let the animals range and call it a ranch LOL

I am not for sure going to buy 50 acres. I have been thinking seriously about it though. I have also had my eye on a 7.5 acre piece of land. I do know that eventually I will move to bigger property. Right now I have bigger plans than I do property.

Never knew a farmer yet that made any extra money,We never did.But isn't it a great way to live?Good luck on your farm.

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Pro Libertate!

Nice thing about agricultural inventory is you can eat your stock. I occasionally prepare stir fried bait worms and vegetables in zesty herbs after graining out the worms for two weeks and cleaning them similar to shrimp before frying.

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"I didn't have time to slay the dragon. It's on my To Do list!"

I guess I am a farm since I do sell eggs and poultry to the public, problem is I don't make anywhere near as much money from selling as I put out for food, fencing, wood and other supplies to take care of the animals.


George ever heard the expression THERES A LOT OF MONEY IN FARMING WE PUT IT ALL THERE. An old man who is no longer with us told me that one . theres alot of money in farmin gkid I put mine all there. I didnt really understand what he meant til I got my own farm, there are yr ours cost us more tha we bring in,, but in my eyes theres more to farming than money the satisfaction of working and watchig things grow, whether animal , plant what ever, at the end of the end when you finally get to bed,, you know you've done a days work..The pure enjoyment we get out of watching ever new liter come into this world, the saddness when one of them leaves, the expression o n my grandchildrens face when they come to grams and get to play with the piglets, and brush the cow. So our farm is so much more than the $ sign it brings in.. its away of life,
Simple farm girl

George, Take your friend and a couple shovels of ripe compost and put them in a covered barrel together and roll it down a hill. I'm sure he'll never argue with you again.

Over 100 animals? It's a farm. Definitely a farm.
Becuase if you weren't a farmer, having over 100 animals would just make you insane.

Hee-haw! We have about 90 (including poultry) and yes, we call it a farm or the homestead- all 2.65 acres!

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Ham and eggs...
A day's work for a chicken, a lifetime commitment for a pig.

Check out our Ebay stuff! http://myworld.ebay.com/writelite/

LOL LOL
(just cracks up laughing)

Oh my...
Way too much info... way too much info...