I am descended from farmers on both sides. When I was young dad made me raise some livestock to really impress on me how bad a job it was. I got up before sunrise to feed them before school and so on. When I went to sell them dad sat me down at a spreadsheet and had me enter all the expenses and the net profit was something like 10 dollars for months of work. Most farmers I know have a second job just to stay afloat, or do it only because they know the quality they can get is so much better than store bought stuff.
Neofetch developer archives all his repositories: "Have taken up farming"
241–250 of 309 posts
Re: Neofetch developer archives all his repositories: "Have taken up farming"
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They are not farmers. This seems like an unnecessary distinction with no purpose other than to gatekeep. A bartender is still a bartender if they only work weekends. An artist is still an artist if it's not their dayjob. A barber is still a barber if they have to work another job to make ends meet. No, you shouldn't delude yourself into thinking that farming an acre or two is going to replace the income of most 9 t…
ok, fair enough - I agree that the definition of a job shouldn't be tied to the income generated from it. However the main argument presented above was that people shouldn't assume farming is easy and relaxing - and working on a 1 acre farm with no expectation of income is not the same as "being a farmer to make a living" which is 100x harder.
It's not easy, but it is relaxing. When I'm with my bees I have no other cares in the world. The buzzing alone makes sure of that. If I slipped up, they could kill me, so there's also that. But mainly it's just so darned fun and interesting, and not killing bees is a challenge (which is why we've converted our Langstroth hives to top-bar hives, so it's actually feasible to not kill any bees, but it still requires care and attention). When we eventually take up larger animals, I expect much of the same.
Re: Neofetch developer archives all his repositories: "Have taken up farming"
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I personally couldn’t do it… I prefer loud noises and bright lights How old are you? You don’t have to answer, but I’m guessing you’re probably not past 45. At some point, you start to prefer quiet. I haven’t lived in a really large city, but have been around noise enough that I’m hoping our next move will distance us from neighbors and highway noise. And yes, maybe we’ll have a farm animal or two.
Same here. I lived in some of the world's largest cities most of my life, and loved the "big city" atmosphere. But in my late 40s it changed and started to crave being out in the countryside, away from people, noise, etc. I now live on the outskirts of a medium size city (in 5 minutes I'm out among orchards and vineyards), but would prefer to be even further out, have an orchard or small farm (though I have no illusi…
One uncounted point is frequency of novelty.
Generalizing, I'd say younger people (18-35) are more default-comfortable in novel situations. As we age, people's tolerance for that seems to decrease.
And, on the whole, I'd say that rural life provides less novelty than city life. Or at least novelty within tighter bounds.
Re: Neofetch developer archives all his repositories: "Have taken up farming"
#244Every time this topic comes up I say the same thing. If you've never worked on a farm and have some kind of romantic idea about it then you shouldn't do this. Farming is hard work. Modern farmers have college degrees, millions in equipment, and a vast amount of knowledge and experience you do not have. If you're thinking of doing this and do not have experience go work on a farm for a year before you buy in.
Corn or dairy cattle, absolutely. Oranges for concentrate, sure. Even cabbages for transport, right. But there are other things there's demand for, or demand can even be created for, that do not have such vast efficient scales. Hand-reared escargot, or spinach grown within resonance of a woodpecker pecking at dawn, just two examples.
Hand-reared escargot sounds fun. I bet you don't need much to do that. They're yummy, and any surplus can be sold at a farmer's market.
Re: Neofetch developer archives all his repositories: "Have taken up farming"
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the UK with arable you can potentially make money (although probably not), and it isn't a crazy amount of work. You plant crops in the autumn, spray them a couple of times, then it's too wet to get into the field and do anything during the winter even if something goes wrong. Only really busy time is a couple of weeks in the summer for harvest. On the other hand, livestock farming is incredibly hard work (cows nee…
Cows are easy if you raise them for meat.
True, but you can't really just go on holiday for a week if you have any kind of animals, whereas with arable there are times of the year when you can
Re: Neofetch developer archives all his repositories: "Have taken up farming"
#24620 years ago I read a few Wendell Berry essays on agriculture and it changed my life. I immediately believed two things: 1) if it wasn’t for computers I’d be an agrarian and 2) I finally had a better idea of conservatism in the sense that nature selects for conservative agrarians. These ideas challenged my ideas of “turning it off and on again” and overall system design. I needed to prove to myself that I was more th…
> is the grass greener on the other side of the fence? Was it?
For about 6 months out of the year!
Re: Neofetch developer archives all his repositories: "Have taken up farming"
#247Re: Neofetch developer archives all his repositories: "Have taken up farming"
#248This is the creator of Kiss Linux, a meta-distribution for x86_64 focusing on simplicity. Also, the tagline of that distro is "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."[1] - I call foreshadowing. [1]: https://kisslinux.github.io
This looks excellent. Is it worth it?
Try it and let us know!
Re: Neofetch developer archives all his repositories: "Have taken up farming"
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's also the old joke about the farmer who wins the lottery. "I'm going to keep farming. And when the money runs out I'll find another way to keep farming."
I almost experienced this for real, when I was a kid I was working picking grapes in a vineyard and it was a terribly maintained one, you had to bend over and kneel etc. At the time the highest jackpot in history came up in my country, something like €50M At some point the owner told us "I'm sorry guys, we'll fix this field. If I win the lottery, I'm gonna fix all of this, and I'm gonna hire a bunch of hot brazilian…
One lesson from farming and waterwork that I've tried to inculcate in myself is continual incremental improvement because nothing stays perfect.
In farming, something is always broken or less than it should be. But there is literally not enough time in the day (or money) to fix and maintain everything perfectly. So you do the best you can.
Similarly, in waterwork, the ocean beats the hell out of everything. Docks, boats, houses, machinery, etc. And so why fix that solid but beat-up dock, if there's a chance this year brings the hurricane that rips it away? Functionality is more important than form.
Re: Neofetch developer archives all his repositories: "Have taken up farming"
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the UK with arable you can potentially make money (although probably not), and it isn't a crazy amount of work. You plant crops in the autumn, spray them a couple of times, then it's too wet to get into the field and do anything during the winter even if something goes wrong. Only really busy time is a couple of weeks in the summer for harvest. On the other hand, livestock farming is incredibly hard work (cows nee…
There are no slugs nor stink bugs in the UK? These are main topic of discussion in any gardening community in Europe throughout growing season. You can't just spray them away.
I'm not actually a farmer I just grew up in the countryside, so I'm not sure, but I think with row crops slugs are less of an issue than vegetables, and they do use slug pellets if necessary.
Pests, bad weather etc. are definitely issues even with modern farming techniques, so in a good year you make a bit of money but in a bad year you can lose most of the crop