Make a Living Off Homesteads

If you decide to sell your timber, hire a forester to help you. Timber companies are notorious for ripping people off. Some states also have state foresters who will help you get educated and give you an idea of the value of your timber. You could very well have quite a bit of money in those trees. Timbering is also good for the woods. It is not just about cutting trees, but managing your forest so it is sustainable and productive for many years to come. The forester can tell you just what you need to do for that.

I have about 10-15 acres of woods that have been timbered and worse, grazed for many years. A forester told me that I had about $40k in timber so it can be substantial amounts of money. I decided not to sell it as it would totally screw up my pastures where I'd have to re-seed....at least enough of them that I'd have to hay feed the cows that year. Maybe someday, but not right now.

Jena

Haggis said:
:haha: And dh complains when we bring the dogs in.


Shepherd, I really do believe it's what you can live without, rather than how you can afford to live with, that is the key to being self sufficient. I grew up on 5 acres, and we did relatively little to create a sustainable life there. A few chickens, for a couple of years Dad raised some pigs, but it just wasn't the goal of my folks to make the land work for them.

DH and I have been on 5 acres for the past 10 years, and last year I finally decided it was time for the land to pay me back. Of course, with real estate prices the way they are here, that would be a lot of payback! Still, a wee bit here and there, and soon you've whittled it down.

You certainly are blessed to have your home paid for. That gives you quite the jump on most folks. The farmer's market can turn into a great year 'round income if you make sure you've got something to offer. Doing a CSA, where folks pay you to garden for them, can bring in several months worth of income, and you can also offer eggs, lamb, beef, or whatever during the off season.

I'm also big into bartering. Take advantage of what your neighbors might have to offer that you yourself can't provide. Think about trading handknit sweaters for beef, or maybe some labor...the bartering possibilities are endless!

Ravenlost, I'd like to see the link but it's a home plan. Can you post the corrected link?

Might want to look into what can be grown in or under the timber. Just got my place and after a lot of what ifs have decided to grow medicinal herbs and mushrooms in the woods. Allready have buyers lined up, and wont have my first crop till next year!

I feel compelled to comment on the issue of farm subsidies. Haggis, the correct thing is to get rid of most of the subsidies rather than search for ways to feed at the trough. There are lots of other expenditures they should get rid of at the same time.

Ravenlost, I take a pass on all farm subsidies even when folks tell my I'm foolish for taking a pass on it. To me it's the principal of the thing. If you think your taxes are too high then you should be questioning how the government spends (and overspends). The only thing I do that might remotely fall under this context is that our farmland is under agricultural use valuation for local taxes (but then 85% or so of the county is CAUV). I've passed on disaster assistance, subsidized loans, CSP and other programs, etc. Life would sure be a lot easier if I took advantage of them. But when I sign on the dotted line, I become beholden to them. I live life on their terms rather than my own.

I'll pay the taxes I'm obliged to pay to the government. I'll not feed at the government trough and try to justify it. I'm not saying you should feel "lowdown sorry worthless trash ". I am saying that we can't begin to change things until we all look at how we participate in the system. By taking that money from the government you agree that it is theirs to give. A much more appropriate course is to ask why they should be taking that money in the first place.

As usual, just my 2 cents.

Mike

wow has this digressed ...

here in missouri you make about 10-15.00 per hundred of black walnuts, not great money , but if youre collecting them for family and pig feed anyhow, why not ...

thinning of mature woodlands is healthy , i promise , a RESPONSIBLE logger is the key, talk to the logger, and make darn sure they understand what they can and cannot cut,
yes you could talk to the state forester too , unfortunately youve lost the best market for walnut timber till next winter, but thats ok , it doesnt sound like you need to cut any ,

i have seen large tracts of land thinned out by loggers at 20-30% and other than a few downed tree tops theres virtually no change in appearance of the woodlands ,
a good logger is just that, make phone calls get references .

lets see....
thanks for the comment on market gardens, i see the farmers market as just that, a chance to market my veggies, and my whole farm!!!
we are CNG , and follow allorganic practices with our veggies and our animals, so we have a niche, and niche marketing is so much more profitable and easy to do ..

this past friday , we sold our last 3 extra bucks for easter, well the family came to the farm for the rabbits, and the children saw the other animals, so what should have been a 10 minute deal heres your bunnies wheres my money, came into an almost 2 hour chat with this man , what did i tell him , oh you betcha , we raise organic chickens , ssee them there up on the hill, thier looking for bugs, heres our goats, want to pet the babies?
heres our pig, yes he stays in that pasture and he loves it, see all the mud up his face, thats a happy pig... yes that pig is fat, look at her tummy see how big it is, shes pregnant, and going to have babies this weekend, isnt that exciting , yes she will have about 12 of them
heres our baby bunnies these arent ready to leavemommy there only 3 weeks old, want to hold one .... etc etc etc .
yeah thats our garden , we will be at the farmers market this year, with our veggies and eggs...
sure heres a flyer , and yes that sign , its our CNG certificate , it explains we have been inspected and are a naturally grown farm....
blah blah blah ,
will i ever sell another thing to that man and his 4 children , perhaps yes, most likely not, but did i make the kids vist to a farm fun , you betcha, and i just bet they willl take a lot better care of those bunnies for it ...

__________________
Good timber does not grow with ease,
the stronger the wind the stronger the trees.

I'm sorry...I am just not all here today. Here's the link (gonna correct it in the original post too if I can remeber how to spell and type): http://www.fsa.usda.gov/pas/

Haggis...my apologies for being so snippy today. From your second post I gather we are on similar pages.

Mike...I DO question how our government spends...and spends...and spends. As I said before, I feel like we are getting back money my husband has paid in for the past 12 years. I'm not feeding at the government trough...and I'm not in any way "beholden" to the government for the subsidies we receive. Putting that 30 acres back into hardwoods is a good thing for the environment. We couldn't have done it without the subsidy. We could have gone with pines and made more money, but pines aren't a beneficial to the environment. We didn't sign up for the cotton subsidies...they were already in place when we bought the property. By taking the money from the government, I'm not agreeing to anything except that they took it from us to begin with and it's ours to take back if we so choose.

I hate politics and I hate talking politics and I'm in an ill mood today so that's all the two cents I'm gonna force on everyone today.

__________________
I'm running so far behind I thought I was first!

http://hickahala.blogspot.com/

You can board horses, but you have a lot of vistors on the week end. If you need info you can P. M. me.

So for CRP that's roughly $50 per acre per year?
And it ties it up for 10-15 years?

(I'll pass.) Thanks for the link though.

Yes, it does limit what you can do with the property. Since we bought a large quantity of property to insure our privacy, we had more than we planned to use, but it's worked out very well for us.

__________________
I'm running so far behind I thought I was first!

http://hickahala.blogspot.com/

Bethlaf, are you talking 10-15 per hundred weight in the hull or hulled? Just wondering because Hammons pays for the hulled weight. I'm planning on buying locally (in Carroll County OH) and I'm trying to figure out what to offer. The nearest Hammon buying station is Mansfield which is far enough away that it isn't worth people driving from by us to over there. I've been thinking about offering

We are only looking at buying 10,000 pounds this year which would net us about a thousand pounds of nut meat. This is in addition to whatever we produce ourselves (which has ranged from almost nothing to 8,000 lbs in the hull depending on the year).

Shepherd, these are the sorts of things you'll need to figure out if you are selling agricultural products.

You might consider leasing hunting rights to make some extra money. If you can find someone responsible that is willing to pay it should cover your property taxes (assuming it is under some sort of agricultural valuation).

I'd also think about those cabins, if placed correctly and rented to the right people you can still have your privacy and make some extra income. Having a place to stay onsite would also make a hunting lease more valuable.

If you have a nice fishing spot on your property, that is another attraction.

Eventually we plan on having a couple of small rental cabins on our place. We don't anticipate on renting them year round, although we do have lots of trails that would be great for cross country skiing.

Mike

When Herself and I were much younger and our 5 kids were still willing to pitch a hand we would gather Black Walnuts in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky. I knew some farmers who would let us do this just to be neighborly. We made a fair income for a few weeks of the year off the walnuts and then it was get ready for winter's trapping season, and when that ended, it was back to repairing antique white oak post and rung chairs and making white oak baskets. Some times I worked off the homestead as a union carpenter out of the Lexington local, and sometimes I bottomed chairs with hickory bark.

Our little farm was too small to make a living and put back something for retirement off what I knew to do, and our farm only had a few hundred pounds of tobacco base; enough for the mortgage and the taxes. When we saw that we were going to end up old on a small place with no retirement, we went to college and got our degrees in teaching, but we did okay while we were young and strong.

Now we have a big place and a retirement, but we still live pretty much like we did when we were younger; minus the grunt work.

__________________
“It is tedious to live, it is tedious to die, it is tedious to c**p in deep snow”
Old Norwegian observation

CRP payments vary considerably depending on the exact ground one is wanting to sign up. You have to check with the local FSA office to get the real low down.

Jena

Before you sell timber to anyone, find out what the finished product is worth. Air dried oak will easily fetch $2.50 a board foot here. Typically you get paid about $.20 a board foot for standing wood. A mill will saw for about $.30 a board foot.

You can usually do a little work cutting and skidding the trees, hire in a portable mill and triple or quadruple your money.

Pete

Ravenlost,


Is there some way to find out if your farm might have been registered into the CRP program without calling attention to yourself and your property by asking the FSA directly?


Also, if it turns out that somebody is collecting a check on my land, is there some way to stop that?

the price for nuts is hulled, they do the hulling for you there,
so all you do is gather the green golfballs , and toss them in the truck
pickup bed full will be , hulled about 600-700 lbs, so , its not much , its more of a spending cash thing ,
youcan check prices on hammons website, all in all itskind of a racket, if you think about it , thanksfully the kids dont, and they do most ofthe picking
you set tarps up under the best trees, and then ta da and voila, nuts
they buy for 10.00 a hundred , then turn around and sell the nutmeats for 8.00 a pound ...
still if a person werewanting to make money off the homestead and had the time, its worthwhile to do it, cause 50-60.00 for a days work is better than nothing , right?

__________________
Good timber does not grow with ease,
the stronger the wind the stronger the trees.

bethlaf, that's what I thought. After seeing what we are investing in equipment to process the nuts, I don't know if I would call what Hammon does a racket. I plan on following their buying structure initially because I don't know clearly what all the issues are and what the amount of end product is (in larger quantities) compared to what you start with (hulled nuts in the shell). We will be air drying (need to watch out for mold as well as for nuts going rancid if the air temperature is too high) and seperating nutmeat from shells by hand.

Ask me next winter whether the business model is a racket.

Mike

Yes, by going into the office and establishing your ownership of the property.

__________________
I'm running so far behind I thought I was first!

http://hickahala.blogspot.com/