Well, I'm going to stick my two cents worth in here as one of the younger generation. I don't come from a farm family and I wasn't raised in the country, however I would like to farm.
Now for my take on things. I don't expect to get rich, I hope to get by, and if I'm lucky - comfortably. To my mind I need to fit my lifestyle to what I can earn - I reckon I'm better off saving a buck than earning one (even better, they don't tax you on it). In my mind my farm would have a (relatively) wide variety of produce both to aid in disease resistance and help secure against particular losses. It would feature both livestock and arable. I will use exclusively older (40's-70's) gear that I can repair. I also aim to offer mechanical services/restoration services during the quieter/winter month for some extra income.
How do I intend to do this? At the moment I'm doing an apprenticeship as a heavy duty mechanic. I see this as an insurance policy on which I can fall back if all else fails as well as a useful sideline. I take every opportunity to talk to farmers and learn what I can as well as working on my own projects. I've had a garden the last couple of years from which I've learned a lot and I'm now renting several acres which will take some work to clean up but should provide a useful area with which to experiment and practice. I hope that after this coming year I will try keeping livestock. Hopefully I will have saved enough that in ten years or so I'll be able to buy a place of my own and by that time I'll have learnt enough to make a serious go of it.
Why do I want to do this? Partly because I enjoy working for myself, partly because I really enjoy growing things, partly because I want to know where my food comes from and what's been done from it, partly because I want a different quality of life, and I love the variety.
I'm sure it'll be more difficult than I can imagine and more than once I'll want to pack it in, but all I can do is try.
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Today's Featured Article - Talk of the Town: What's The "Stuckest" You've Ever Been? - by Edited by Kim Pratt. Another great discussion from the Tractor Talk Discussion Forum. The discussion started out with the following post: "I was about 14 (part of the problem) when I got stuck. I was disking with a cab equipped IH 966. The window was dirty and I was driving into the evening sun. It was hard to see and it was my first pass down the field. I got the tractor so stuck that the underside of the tractor was resting on the ground. My uncle wanted
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