Re: Hobby Farmers

Posted by showcrop on February 09, 2018 at 14:45:57 from (75.68.37.174):

In Reply to: Hobby Farmers posted by Morgan in ar on February 09, 2018 at 10:38:45:

I have always admitted to being a hobby farmer. Our daughter got us into it because she wanted to have sheep and show them at the fairs. We supported her in that, and put up a little barn, and renovated an adjacent run-out hayfield for pasture. Well, after a couple years of chasing after the quality hay that the sheep needed, we decided to go into a partnership with a neighbor who also had sheep, and was going to take a cutting off half of his pasture in the spring. We went in together on the equipment, starting with old small stuff. After three years we had taken on around 40 acres and were selling our first cut to horse people. We bought bigger equipment and bigger tractors in order to go faster, but even so my partner's wife was jealous of the hay and he had to quit. Now I am doing it with the wife and kids for help and it was going along pretty good, so I kept picking up more ground. The flock kept growing too, and my real business was growing, so we moved to a place with room to put up a building for my business and to have a lot more pasture. By this time I was up to around 95 acres of hay ground, a pretty complete line of good equipment and three working tractors. I had also been renovating and seeding down some ground. I needed to be able to cover the ground faster, and take some load off from the wife, so I got a bigger tractor and a discbine, and then a baler with a thrower and three wagons with sides. This was still a hobby but now I referred to it as a hobby out of control. I was now doing it all by myself. I did most of my mowing in the evenings, then tedding and then raking and baling during the day. When the weather was good I might get my employees going on their days, then go tedd a field or two, then hop to a different tractor and rake what was to be baled that day, go do some office work, then get wagons moved to where I was baling, then hook up the baler go bale and maybe deliver a couple loads. I might then go and mow some more. Long days, too many seats and not enough azzes. This went along OK until the weather just got wacky. I would get behind in the spring due to poor forecasts, and once you are behind you have to make hay whenever the sun shines. After a few more years I got tired of the hay running my life and turned half of my ground over to other guys. I was fortunate to be able to just back off and not worry about debt service or income.

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