Posted by JD Seller on August 25, 2016 at 17:10:55 from (208.126.198.123):
In Reply to: I was wondering. posted by mb58 on August 25, 2016 at 10:06:13:
I can not remember the first time I was on a tractor. I was more than likely a small baby. I can remember following my Grand father to milk the cows when the milk bucket was waist high on me. I knew from a young age that farming was what I wanted to do. I also am practical enough to know that you have to make a living for your family too. So just farming in the mid 1980s was not enough to provide for my family. I took a town job. I worked at dealerships for the next 25 years and still farmed as much as most full time farmers did. Sleep was a luxury to me for years. Many nights I would come in and shower. Put my work cloths on and drive to work. Sleep in my car until the shop foreman would wake me up when he opened the store. That nap was many times an hour or two. I did not want to wake my wife by coming to bed at 4-5 AM. We made it work. You have to have the fire in your belly to never give up.
As for the kids and Grand Kids. They all have an interest in farming. I think what helped is we never treated the kids as hired hands. They had chores but working extra during harvest or planting earned them money. Now that might have been a "credit" on feed for animals they personally owned but they still got some thing that they could call their own. I think that is the key. You would hate any job you did if you never got anything to call your own. Many farm kids are ruined by their parents because the kids are treated as slave labor. We try an "help" the younger kids/grand kids to thing that are their own and related to farming. Grand Daughters are now selling shelled corn and sweet corn. Younger Grand sons sold sweet corn this too. My youngest son is taking care of two hog finishing barns that the family built. He gets a steady pay check by doing all of the daily chores required by the hogs. My older sons are involved more with the farming as I have stepped back. They are growing a custom farming business. My oldest is still working a HIGH paying town job but farms his wife's families farms that they bought 15 years ago. I did not see how those two could ever pay off the debt they had by buying those farms but they have made it work.
To those that are thinking for farming. IF you think your going to try making a living off farming then you had better be well prepared to working double the hours you ever would in town. Making less per hour than the kids at McDonalds do. Your wife/husband had better like the life style too or your done before you start. The rewards will not be money the majority of the time. It will be raising a family in a wholesome environment and the joy of working with the land/animals.
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Today's Featured Article - Harvestin Hay: The Early Years (Part 2) - by Pat Browning. The summer of 1950 was the start of a new era in farming for our family. I was thirteen, and Kathy (my oldest sister) was seven. At this age, I believed tractor farming was the only way, hot stuff -- and given a chance I probably would have used the tractor, Dad's first, a 1936 Model "A" John Deere, to go bring in the cows! And I think Dad was ready for some automation too. And so it was that we acquired a good, used J. I. Case, wire tie hay baler. In addition to a person to drive th
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