Introductions???

I just found this new board, so far it looks like what I need. I am employed on a large dairy, taking care of calves now. Used to milk, drive silage truck and what ever else needed to be done. Now that I just mainly do the calves, I have more time and would like to eventually quit my job. We own our own 155 acres, and have gotten organically certified, we are also renting more organic ground close by, our son and daughter both have other fulltime jobs but they help hubby and I a lot, hubby manages the dairy where I work. It is only a quarter of a mile away, sometimes it is too close. Right now we have some angus-a few steers, cows with calves too, I have about 100 laying hens, we usually do turkeys and broilers, but this year only enough broilers for our own use and no turkeys. We had our last beef butchered at a federally inspected plant, so we can resell it by the piece legally. I tried to sell some at the local farmer's mkt but I work every other weekend and then it seems like we had other stuff going on, so I really need to get focused on what I want to do. I sell all the eggs I have-most go to a place near by that do a cow share program. I am thinking about growing more herbs and salad greens for next years farmer's mkt. This is where I am now, I would love to be milking my own cows-20 or 30, organically at home! And make cheese and be able to pasturize milk and bottle to sell. I look forward to getting inspired here. Pam

Hi. My real name is Andrea and I'm a 34 year old homeschooling Mama to a 14yo ds and 11 yo dd. My dh Mike is a truck driver and currently is home every weekend.
We live on 40 acres (multigenerational family farm with uncle and cousins getting dibs on most of the land...lol) but have use of only about an acre and part of an outbuilding which houses our small herd of French Angora rabbits. I am a tactile person and love animals so decided I wanted to try raising fiber rabbits to sell as breeding stock, show animals, pets and to the handspinner market as well as harvesting the fiber to sell. So far this has broken even...sales of fiber haven't really been what I hoped for, but we have sold some bunnies and will put some 'culs' in the freezer.
We raised an organic garden on leased land for our own use and to market this past summer using all draft horse or man powered equipment. The leased place was also pasture for the horses. With fuel prices as they are and DH leaving a higher income job in order to be home more, we gave up the lease and sold the horses.
So...we're looking at raised bed and no/low till gardening methods (we're somewhat familiar) to raise produce for us and to market next year.
Over the winter I will be busy planning next springs garden, getting materials for hoop houses and row covers bought or gleaned and making compost with those fabulous bunny berries...lol. Hopefully I will also learn to spin so that we can add value to the raw fiber. I'll also be setting up an on-line store or blog...likely an ETSY site for the fiber and fiber art.
I look forward to learning here.
Andrea

My dad's family are dairy farmers. Much of my summers and later my teenage years were spent on that farm. After college, I worked as a manager in the textile industry for 20 yrs. My degree is in Management & Marketing. I'm 49.

I took a severance package and started a small business doing web development and selling online in 2000 when the textile industry began to tank. The small business grew large enough to replace DH's home remodeling business by 2004. We sell specialty foods online from one site and fabrics from another. Our website clients include a variety of businesses.

We bought a new 23 ac homestead last April. We're raising cattle, pigs, chickens (eggs and meat) and a market garden.

We spend daytime hours packing/shipping (mostly DH) and managing websites (mostly me). We go to the farmers market on Tuesday afternoons - although it has recently ended for the season.

We really enjoy working for ourselves. After all those yrs in the corporate environment, and most often the only woman in upper level management jobs...well, need I say returning to farm life is a real pleasure?!

Nice learning more about all of you!

Hi I am Natalie ,
I am known on the web and at the farmers market as "The garliclady".
I grew up with my dads home business "land surveying" . After college I taught school coached various sports, ran summer day camps and some summer’s help in my DAD 's business. I got married at 36 and while I continued teaching my DH and I started a small market garden and planted a couple of rows of elephant garlic and "got bitten with the GARLIC bug". Fourteen years later we have a small sustainable farm business where our specialty is garlic. We grow many varieties now and plant about 300 lbs a year. My husband works a full time in a city near by so alot of the farm work is mine. I am also the one who sells at the farmers market, and handles the website and mail order sales, I also deal with all the day to operation of the farm.
On our farm we also grow vegetables, herbs, blackberries and mushrooms for farmers market from April till December. I also make my own garlic powder, mushroom powder chili powder and dried herb blends, rubs and dried dip mixes. I also make herb dog biscuits.
We have 2 children ,4 and 6 which I home school.

Glad to be here
Natalie

I've been self-employed for about 15 years. I learned about the benefits of working at home as an independent consultant to oil companies, but found that I could do better with less work by pursuing more mundane ways to make a living. I've pretty much given up engineering altogether now.

I've done a lot of things over the years. I have to adapt as conditions change.

• I work on and off salvaging precious metals from US Navy warships, as they become available to be scrapped.
• I used to run a local dial-up Internet server (actually three of them) to bring Internet service to the remote Arizona desert. That ended when the phone company started offering local Internet service.
• I operated a nationwide Internet service by promoting connectivity that I purchased from a wholesaler. Business started to drop off as more and more people got DSL, then my wholesaler got into financial trouble.
• I promoted retail products through search engine optimization. That was a good one, but eventually Google get to be smarter than I am so my web pages fell off the radar.
• I turned to eBay marketing for software products that I make myself. That's easier than search engine promotion since it's pretty much paid advertising.

Those are the major points. My latest project is hosting medical practice software for medical clinics. I hope to start that in the next month or so. That will be getting back to subscriber services like the Internet service. Subscriber services is where the money is.

EBay marketing isn't going so well right now. EBay has changed their default search mode from Ending Soonest to Best Match, but Best Match forces a lot of my products off the radar. I'm having serious difficulty promoting my products at eBay right now.

I'm looking forward to getting ideas from others who make & promote products at home.

I posted my "official" business ad on the Info sticky, but here is some background.

My real name is Pam. You'll find out the details if you see my site....

I've been a freelance writer for the past 10 years and have been published in regional parenting mags (all over the country, and in Canada too) and in American Profile, as well as some other smaller publications. For the past 3 years I have been focusing on business writing, also called copywriting (not to be confused with copyrighting). I write materials such as website content, press releases, newsletters, advertising copy, brochures, ghostwritten pieces, catalog copy and retail packaging/tags. My clients are all over the country -- New York, Chicago, Dallas, L.A., Cincinnati, etc. I love what I do, and I'm really good at it, if I do say so myself.

My current projects, just to give you an idea: marketing letters for a concrete foundation company, quarterly newsletter for a well-known national replacement window & home improvement company, fundraising letter for a local family counseling non-profit.

See my portfolio and more info here:

Write At Your Service
http://www.wayswriter.com