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Ask HN: Does anybody balance farming activity with software development?

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Re: Ask HN: Does anybody balance farming activity with software development?

#11

Post by joe8756438 »

User23 wrote: post #9
joe8756438 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Noted. At the moment it's mostly mowing grass. I was on the mower the other day thinking I wonder if there's anyone out there who'd like to come along for this ride... It is a weirdly fun problem trying to real-time determine the most efficient path to cover what needs mowing.

An appropriate sized tractor can pull a finishing mower that will get the job done considerably quicker than even a good zero-turn riding mower. The nice thing too is tractors and implements hold their value far better than riding mowers, so the total cost of ownership is actually lower at the price of a larger up front capital investment. And once you have the right tractor, you get to go down the rabbit hole of all…

True. I'm curious how the labor:profit ratio of a tractor compares to grazing animals. The profit of a tractor is essentially zero unless I invest in the equipment for making hay, which would also increase the labor and skill requirements. Animals on the other hand can be raised at the scale necessary for the available land and also be harvested for food.

Re: Ask HN: Does anybody balance farming activity with software development?

#12

Post by joe8756438 »

User23 wrote: post #10
s1artibartfast wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar experience to your farm days. Many of my fathers engineer friends would take a week of "vacation" to come work a 60 hour week in the hot sun on the farm. They enjoyed the hustle, seeing a tangible product from their work, operating heavy machinery, and the comradery. I think doing something different like this offers an opportunity to build community in many ways, and it is important to consider this…

> Maybe you will find problems on your farm that need a programming solution, maybe not. Im not sure that you can force it. Rigging up some kind of drip tape based automatic garden watering system that uses moisture sensors in addition to timers might be interesting and could involve a little programming.

Totally. I could see something like this being useful for seed starting.

I've focused my software development more on things that require bookkeeping. There's a ridiculous amount of things to keep track of: budgeting, expense tracking, reminders, event tracking, general notes, all kind of quantifying of quality, yield etc.

Re: Ask HN: Does anybody balance farming activity with software development?

#13

Post by samstave »

Click Farmers surely do!

(Sorry)

---

[Aside, I love the idea of your app - its wonderful, however my ADHD may preclude me as a successful user)]

However - I have a STRONG desire in this area...

Let me give you a few examples though of "the struggle"

A few of my friends who were very successful in SV (chief of staff at cisco, head of HPE sales, PaloAlto Networks, etc) have bought ranch-farm-like places in foothills of California.

Several have started Goating. (Having herds of goats that they rent-out (farm) to various entities and have the goats weed, etc...)

Build an app for the USES SCHEDULING TRACKING blah blah blah.

Make it a community of farm services rather than "nextdoor"

Build "nextFarm" "nextHomestead" etc.

When you build a relationship with the farmers (on an IRL level) - these folks SHARE a LOT of services, help, knowledge, love, equipment, animals, vets, etc...

Your note app - could have a much more refined workflow specific to such.

They use hunting apps a lot to track paddocks and quote regions to goat.

They are all still highly tech and active - just settling for the more rural..

I'd be happy to chat more... but there are some people you may want to meet.

Re: Ask HN: Does anybody balance farming activity with software development?

#14

Post by joe8756438 »

samstave wrote: post #13

Click Farmers surely do! (Sorry) --- [Aside, I love the idea of your app - its wonderful, however my ADHD may preclude me as a successful user)] However - I have a STRONG desire in this area... Let me give you a few examples though of "the struggle" A few of my friends who were very successful in SV (chief of staff at cisco, head of HPE sales, PaloAlto Networks, etc) have bought ranch-farm-like places in foothills of…

Ha! Sound great, I'd love to talk! My email is in my bio.

Re: Ask HN: Does anybody balance farming activity with software development?

#15

Post by sprocket »

I started a goat dairy about 12 years ago, while software consulting on the side while we built up the farm. We built a cheese processing plant 8 years ago to start adding value to the milk we were producing. Over the years we started processing cow's milk and milking and making sheeps milk cheeses too. We currently have about 125 dairy goats and a much smaller flock of sheep.

As the farm grew it became more and more time consuming, and managing the software consultancy became more difficult as I wasn't near the computer for most of the day. I enjoy the seasonality of farming, though it is very physically demanding, and I can feel the difference that 12 years has made.

In early 2020, I lost my last software client in the early pandemic, and put most of my energies into building the farm up. I currently don't do any external consulting, but have been working on my own tech and development projects. It's fun for me to be able to apply my development skills to on-farm problems. I've been doing minor automation projects using Arduinos and Raspberry Pis over the last four years.

Re: Ask HN: Does anybody balance farming activity with software development?

#16

Post by joe8756438 »

sprocket wrote: post #15

I started a goat dairy about 12 years ago, while software consulting on the side while we built up the farm. We built a cheese processing plant 8 years ago to start adding value to the milk we were producing. Over the years we started processing cow's milk and milking and making sheeps milk cheeses too. We currently have about 125 dairy goats and a much smaller flock of sheep. As the farm grew it became more and more…

That's really cool!

It sounds like you were slowly making the shift to farming over the years and the pandemic sped that along. Do you see yourself shifting back the other direction?

Also, what areas are you developing automation for?

Re: Ask HN: Does anybody balance farming activity with software development?

#17

Post by codingdave »

joe8756438 wrote: post #6
codingdave wrote: post #4

We're more on the side of homesteading than farming. We own a 40 acre property where we raise chickens and collect the natural foods here - berries, grapes, hickory nuts, apples, mushrooms, various edible greens. We'll hunt a deer in the fall and could easily expand that to turkeys and waterfowl. We've started some patches of plants that should grow into sustainable supplies over a few years - lingonberries and elder…

Very cool. Are you planning on developing any of the hobby into a commercial enterprise, or do you already? We have a similar mix of homesteading-type stuff that is all primarily to support the family and have fun. We're also working on a commercial operation that is producing material for artists. We're starting with willow, which was just put in the ground.

Our kids are teenagers now, so if they choose to stay and help out, we'll expand the efforts, yes. But if they don't, this place will be too much for just my wife and I so we'll simplify and go somewhere smaller. Our best shot at commercial success would be maple syrup, as our forest is already starting to transition from oak/hickory to a maple forest. I won't see much of the long-term benefit of that in my lifetime, but kids and grandkids could, so it is up to them to decide if they want it.

Re: Ask HN: Does anybody balance farming activity with software development?

#18

Post by simne »

My friend made drone business startup.

This is not exactly what you ask, but he begin on air photo and geodesy and spent huge amount of money and effort on it, with really big troubles (for example once his driver left machine to go to wc, and thieves stole equipment, which costs near quarter of Million dollars).

Once he found niche of agriculture drones, and in a few months sell large truck of those drones, and now as I know, most of his business is for them.

He still sell industrial drones and provide services connected to them, like computer farm, which reconstruct 3d model of terrain from drone video. But he talk about this less and less.

Re: Ask HN: Does anybody balance farming activity with software development?

#19

Post by tejisant01 »

Working full-time in web development, and a part time farmer after work and weekends. My farmer activity is mainly growing food for the family. Taking care of fruit trees and olives trees. I do my own olive oil. Have a few chickens and pig to have a meat supply. The work never ends that is for sure, but the possibility to drink awesome orange juice for two months at zero cost is just incredible. The down side of it is I cannot eat fruit sold in supermarket, the taste is to different. Farming and development are two things I enjoy a lot, farming at the end of the day is like a decompression from the days work, away from screens, refill vitamin D. Chopping some wood after work with an axe: tremendous to relief stress an keep me fit. Of course my idea is to able to join both activities somehow, maybe trying to have a part time in web Dev, or making a project where both areas are involved. Possibly when I will be tired of working for companies, meetings with managers and bad scrum masters

Re: Ask HN: Does anybody balance farming activity with software development?

#20

Post by simne »

simne wrote: post #18

My friend made drone business startup. This is not exactly what you ask, but he begin on air photo and geodesy and spent huge amount of money and effort on it, with really big troubles (for example once his driver left machine to go to wc, and thieves stole equipment, which costs near quarter of Million dollars). Once he found niche of agriculture drones, and in a few months sell large truck of those drones, and now…

Also he learned beekeeping and made small apiary, just few extra modern hives, not as business, but mostly recreational and possible to found new niches.

And sometimes he joking that now he have self-replicating drones and really big number of workers :) (you may don't know, medium size hive contain more than 30 thousands bees :)

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