What do you do for Vacation?

I enjoy spending time improving my land...that is my "pressure relief valve". I run several companies in addition to our ranch. Moving my cows and pigs every day is my only glimpse of sanity in my life.

However, my wife and kids like to get away. We go on a big vacation to a foreign country about every other year...it's a good experience for my kids to see other cultures. It drives home the point why, even with our shortcomings and slow slide into stateism, we are blessed to have our freedoms and opportunities here. It's also a great opportunity to see the beauty of different climates and the diversity of flora and fauna around the world.

To prepare for our absence I leave large paddocks for the animals, build redundancy into all safety nets and make it easy to check on the animals. One example is I float a ball in all water troughs to make an easy visual cue of water height that can be seen from the road. I arrange for an extended family member to do chores and check up on things with two layers of backup people just in case.

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'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.

Friedrich August von Hayek

Abe, u say, ( A slave to your sted). Heck, Iffn I wasn't doing what I do here, Id pay for the chance to do it. I don't like going anywhere. I hate going to see the kids, 60+ miles away. That's why Im moving up there.

I hate being around groups of people too, for any short length of time. Heck, when I go to the auction I go to once a month, except this month, so far, I don't stand in the groups of people around the auctioneer. I see what I want to bid on then stay away till the group is near the item then I mix into the group just long enough to bid on it then get out.
Setting at livestock auctions makes me nervous, cause I like to sit up next to the ring so I can see any defects in any animals I might be interested in. I HATE having people in behind me.

We went on TWO vacations this past month. They were 4.5 and 2 days, respectively. For the longer one, I got a 17-yo from our homeschooling group to come feed everyone. I wrote out instructions for each critter, and talked him through it before we left. We had no issues. I paid him $100 and all the eggs he could collect. The second time, my sister (who works with zoo animals) crashed at my place and took care of everyone.

Of course, this past month our cow was dry. Not sure how we'd manage during milking season.....

I haven't had a real vacation in years, but we used to have my regular help work longer hours. He was a very hard worker and extremely reliable. When we lost him we couldn't find anyone we could trust for long enough to take much time from home.

Mary

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We go camping for 2 weeks every year plus a few other short trips into the wilderness.

The goats are overfed, as are the chickens, donkeys. The water is checked every so often by my neighbor who also collects the eggs for herself.

The horses sometimes goes over to my friend who watches over them.

We don't go off much, but have a few times. When our farm was in CO, we had neighbors in a similar situation. We simply exchanged. They'd care for our farm if we needed to leave. We'd reciprocate so they could get off somewhere. Our difficulty is that you can hire any reasonable human to feed and water, but milking by hand is a skill they have to possess or you lose your milk while away. In one case, we were planning our longest trip (2 weeks) and we had a wonderful family who was dying to try their hand at farming. So, we trained them on how to care for things, with help from the neighbor who knew how to milk. They moved into our house, ran the show, played farmer, and learned a ton. We had a great trip, they scratched their farming itch, and all was well. That isn't always the case though. We did that again when DH retired from the AF, and we had to travel as a family back to his last base for the official ceremony. We were only gone 5 days. We didn't know anyone really well in our new area, but had become well-acquainted with a homeschool family who was interested is something similar. They lived close, dad was a pastor, so how bad could it be? They came over several times to learn to milk, and since it was winter anyway and we had babies due on the ground within a month, it wasn't huge deal if some of the milk dried off. Well, that turned out to be a mistake! We returned to hear gates had been left opened, LGD's released into the woods, rabbit hutches left open and rabbits got loose, cattle almost escaped, and so on. Thankfully, we didn't lose any animals, as they recovered all before our return. Milk only depleted minimally. Then, a few weeks later, we were out in town, and some stranger walked over and exclaimed, "Oh, I LOVE your farm!! Your house is beautiful, your animals amazing, blah, blah, blah!" DH said, "uh, when did you come out?" Oh, my friends are so-and-so and when they were taking care of your place, they let us come out with them and gave us a tour of everything!" This included the INSIDE of our home!!! I was livid, and you can bet they will NEVER be asked to do anything for us again!!

So, suffice it to say, I do think you can get away on rare occasion. Be careful who you choose to care for your farm though!

I have been married 28 years and have never went anywhere for vacation. To us vacation means repairing fences and barns and caring for the livestock.

Actually right now we are trying to go to see our 3rd grerat-grandchild almost born this month. with the animals, pets and no central heat in the mountains of PA. We do have friends that will come once a day to care for the goats, horses. chickens and cats and dogs go to kennel..$$$ But, mostly the cold weather and leaving the house is our problem in this weather. By the time we pay for the kennel, air fare or gas in car we have no money left. ..Haven't been away together in over 2 years for a wedding..but this is the life we have chosen and enjoy it.

U got it TL.

After working away from home for so many years, we take our vacation here at home. We get up late and have breakfast and lunch together and then run into town for a bit or just laze around the house till the urge to do something hits us. We used our work as truck drivers to do our traveling so no need to go do that now. Just trying to enjoy old age and time together.

My mom comes and does the critters! Gives her a break from the city life and helps us out tremendously!

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Beat me too it...

Well no such thing as Vacations here, we do take a day trip now and then though.

Being in Michigan there is much to do within a few hours travel time.

My next door neighbor and I have been best friends since pre-school (40+ years). He has a dairy farm. I milk for them when they go away and he milks for me when I go away. I never have one single minute of worry about the animals while I'm gone. That said, I love being at home. Every couple of years we take a longer trip (never more than three weeks - I can't stand being gone that long!) but usually it's just long weekends to visit family, etc. My wife and the kids go to the west coast to visit her family pretty regularly but I usually stay home - best vacation ever!

I would take a week of vacation from my day job a few times a year, but I alway was glad to go back, I needed the rest. Vacation was so I could get things done around the place, since I only had a week I would have to work very hard to get as much done as I could, going back to work was a rest by the time my week was up.

When I was younger we would go away, but it was more trouble than it was worth, trying to find some one to take care of the animals and such. It is easier to just stay home, and there is no other place I'd rather be than home.

We do an old engine show each 3rd week August.
But the show is only 32 miles from here so one of us comes home each evening.
It is like a vacation but it is still a lot of work.
Our 24' travel trailer is getting to be in very rough shape so I made a decision at the show this year. For the 2015 show we all will come home each evening and for the 2016 show that trailer will all be torn apart and rebuilt. It will turn into something more like a 20' little house with a 4' X 8' shed on the rear end.
I will strip it down to the frame next summer then start building but I do not believe it will be finished in time for the August show.

From the other side of this question today I got a text message from a friend that has two horses. He was asking if I can take care of them for the weekend after Thanksgiving. I wrote back and told him I will be there for the horses. They pay me $15 for every trip I make over there. I hear every time how much they really appreciate the care I give for my horse buddies.

I do remember four years ago when I started doing this for them he told me they had not been able to get away for several years because the guy they had doing this moved away and two other folks that they tried out did not do it good at all.

Because of the age of our human children it's usually just overnights somewhere close. However, next year we are going to drive to Yellowstone. I've lived here all my life but have never been. How sad is that. If that goes well we are planning a trip to Iceland the next year!

We take a lot of small vacations and usually can find one of our children, nephews, or friends to house and farm sit. If not, we board the dog and ask a neighbor to feed the livestock and let the chickens in/out while we're gone.

Thankfully, we're in a farming area where we all know each other and help each other out. We have 4H'ers on our street that need their livestock fed when they're off showing, there's the retired couple that are often at their house in Florida and need their goats fed, etc so it seems like someone is always feeding for someone else.

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We can leave whenever we feel like it, just arrange to have a good neighbor take care of everything while we are gone. While we moved early this year to a new area, we have already made a very good friend.

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Christie Acres
www.SequimForLife.com
http://www.irealtyvirtualbrokers.com...lori-christie/
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Sadly vacations are gone. Use to do yearly beach trips. Now never stay overnight anywhere. But wouldn't trade it for the world. The farm gets priority.