So you want to buy a farm?

Eating your own produce means being a producer in the economy. It's not a hobby if it feeds you.

Here are some of the problems I encountered: 1.) Deer - we are overrun with white tail deer. If I don't surround anything I grow with 6ft welded wire fence, it doesn't last a week. I have set up electric fence wired in many different configurations, but the deer seem to figure it out. Usually just as I think I found something that works. 2.) soil - we don't have quality top soil and amending the soil take time and money 3.) rodents - initially we had great success with raised beds (4ft x 8ft) but after several years they eat the roots (really bad in terms of carrots and potatoes) and pretty bad for aquash and beans. We have cats, but they can't kill the rodents fast enough. 4.) time - working full time and trying to pull everything together is really hard. When a crop is ready it needs picked and doesn't care that you are trying to meet a deadline at work. Especially for crops like peas where it seems you have a three day window to pick them at their peak. 5.) time2 - I have equipment so that I can use diesel fuel instead of muscle power. This allows me to get a lot more done, but there are two type of equipment, broken and about to break. I find it impossible to have the time to fix everthing. My back hoe has a broken hydraulic line for over a year now. 6.) selling produce - nothing in more annoying than the customer at the farmers market that comes at the end of the day and tried to buy whatever you have left at a huge discount. Also, there is a fine line between collusion and competitiveness when it comes to pricing at a farmers market. There seems to always be a guy that buys a stall once because he has too many tomatoes and sells them at a price I would lose money at if I had to match it. 7.) seasonal animals are easier than crops because you have more control. We lost all of the produce this year because of drought, but did well on eggs and free range chicken. I'm thinking about a small number of pigs or lamb next year. We don't keep anything but egg layers over winter.

One thing to mind is that I work damn hard at physical labor. My parents are in good health in their eighties, but I don't see me getting there. The toll on my body is very evident to me. I really hope I don't live that long as it won't be pleasant.

I do love growing things though. we have a beautiful orchard of pears, apples, plums, and cherries. Rasberries and blueberries that I can pick at any time. Probably the highest quality chicken and eggs you can find. Great parties when the sweet corn comes in.

It's the same with van life. It sounds great in practice, but simple things like showering, defecating and preserving food become very difficult.

I suspect that with farming or homesteading, you forego things like financial safety and the ability to take vacations. I value those things a lot.

In my opinion, the best way out is a lifestyle business, or spaced out consulting gigs. Work all winter, play all summer. Alternatively, spend a few hours a week on your project, and the rest of your time doing what interests you.

This is what I do, and it made me realise a few things:

- I really like programming when it's not for someone else. It's what I end up doing the most with my free time.

- The biggest benefit is having so much free time to fill with things you enjoy. This probably isn't the case if you try to live off what you grow.

- I don't spend nearly as much time in the garage as I thought. Woodworking or motorcycle repair are hard, and the initial setbacks are extremely demotivating. You won't hit the ground running, so you better prepare for disappointment.

My initial dream was to work on motorcycles all day, but I can barely find the courage to work on my daily ride, let alone the 40 year old Honda gumption trap that's spread all over the shelves. It's hard to jump from something you're proficient at to something that you completely suck at. I'm just glad that my life doesn't depend on it.

If they use less herbicides it is because they are not counting diesel fuel to run their tractor as herbicide. Sure they don't apply roundup, but they spend a lot more money and emit a lot more CO2 pulling steel through the ground to destroy weeds because they are not allowed to use a good herbicide.

Also beware of less inputs in other ways: you can mine the land for nutrients by not putting fertilizer on it as well. Fertilizer isn't only about more crops, it is also about the fact that everything you take off the land includes a certain amount of various nutrients that are forever taken off too. This isn't a problem for pure subsistence farming (subsistence farmers carefully save their poop), but as soon as anything leaves the farm you need to replace what is lost.