Grandfather says he sometimes thinks back on his life as an odyssey out of the factories of Detroit into the mountains of West Virginia.
About mid-way, he took a little side trip and did a bit of “offbeat” farming. He bought some old farm machinery, along with a piece of land stretching along the Little Fork River in Northern Minnesota, where the climate was right for farming hard red winter wheat.
The tractor plowed the land …
Grandfather on his John Deere R; John Deere’s first diesel model.
And the combine harvested the wheat …
Grandfather on his Massey-Harris; a very early combine, so-named because it combined the harvesting and threshing, which was previously done separately.
Grandfather planted the first year.
The second year he returned, harvested, immediately replanted, and then went back home; all in two weeks’ time.
Grandfather supposes that’s about as “part time” as farming can get …
***
About the Author: RD Blakeslee is a nonagenarian in West Virginia who built his net worth by only investing in that which can be enjoyed during acquisition and throughout life, as opposed to papers in a drawer, like stocks and bonds. You can read more about him here. This article was originally published on 12 October 2017.
Original oil painting by: Grandfather’s wife
Farming is a noble profession and an important life skill. Too bad it is practically a lost art today. Even home gardens have a learning curve.
Right on, Diane.
RD has become practically a missionary for the gospel of smaller, local and independent enterprise, as far as possible.
Not only is it a fundamental form of insurance against bad times caused by the international financio-corporate axis, it is a happy way of life, IMO.
I’ll echo the previous sentiments. How many acres? Did you realize a profit?
About 700 acres; here’s a synopsis re profitability, etc:
https://lenpenzo.com/blog/id22017-how-i-live-on-less-than-40000-annually-ralph-from-west-virginia.html
Carl,
My daughter (Younger, better looking and mentally more nimble) pointed out you were asking about the part time farming, not my whole d*** life!
As best I remember, I planted about 40 acres and got $800 dollars for the wheat. It was not profitable; I spent more than that all told, even after I sold the farming equipment and added that money to the $800.
But it was a step along my transition to rural living and I will never forget the exhilaration I felt, watching golden grain spout from the combine’s chute into the hopper.
Another of God’s gifts …
It was a learning experience, and you really enjoyed yourself. So, not a waste of money.
I miss gardening. One year, the okra got so tall that I’d have to walk it down the row to cut it. When I’d let it go, it’d spring back and fire stink bugs over the fence into the neighbors yard. lol
…And now you know, the rest of the story.
Thanks, Bill.
Farming can be quite individualistic – no two enterprises are alike.
We homestead ‘farm’….mostly to produce food for us, but sell enough surplus when we have it….eggs and produce mainly….to maintain our ag property tax status.
We keep 30 laying hens, and raise 20-25 Cornish cross for meat (8 weeks from chick to freeze). Raise 2 feeder pigs year, just put the last one up this past week. Cure our own bacon/hams. Have 4 steers of various age, will slaughter one in a few weeks for beef. Butchering self-done on the place, I built a 6×6 walk-in cooler run by a window AC unit with a Coolbot controller to hang the meat in a work room off the back of the garage.
Have two green houses to extend garden season to 3 full seasons, plus 2 -1/4ac garden areas for potatoes, corn, etc.
Got peach, pear, apple trees, and couple hundred row feet of raised bed strawberries (20-25 gallons/yr), blue berry bushes.
Finally, two small ponds we raise catfish.
We can, freeze (6 smaller chest freezers), and root cellar our production.
Busy life, but great food we know how it was raised.
Way to go, Andy!
You are much closer to full subsistence farming than I am.
RD,
Read your “Live on 40k” story above….though we’re 15 or so years behind you in age, we share a lot of the same thinking.
Wife (of 45 years) and I bought a lot less land….70acres of rough Northeast TN mountain land, owner financed in 1982, and been working on hacking out a homestead for the last 35 years. Mortgage and debt free for the last 25 years. We also pay cash for cars, mine an ’03 Chevy pickup, her’s a 2011 Subaru Outback.
Instead of selling timber, since I have a lot less than you, I bought a small band type sawmill, and selectively harvested our timber (35 years later, I’m not even keeping up with growth) and used it to build every building on the place, plus 3 rental homes when the Southern Pine beetle hit us in the mid 90’s ( got lemons, make lemonade !) Sold the 3 of them just before the housing crash in ’07, made a bundle.
Also bought an adjoining 27ac next to us in mid 90s for 55k, sold it last year for 165k. Real estate has been very good to us as well.
No public water/sewer here either (gravity spring water), I put up an 11kw solar power system, no bill + they pay us about 30/mo for excess we put back on the grid.
Our internet is off a tower I built and put at the top of our mountain….local wireless company pays us 100/mo for using it + gives us 40MB connection free. DISH TV, 60mo and 16/mo for cell phone (Walmart flip phone) and cell home box (Verizon) @26/mo means our utility income/spending pretty much zero each other out.
Wife has a defined benefit plan from 32 years public school teaching/administrator (got her MS/EDD along the way) + SS. I did a few years teaching vocational school, then went back to self employed construction/logging/sawmilling/building the farm, so my ‘pension’ is a 900/mo SS check….but hers/mine combined is about 50k/yr + we bring in another 5k or so in fun side stuff….she teaches couple classes week at the senior center in line dance, I do some solar installs and odd ball projects as the come along and interest me.
We’re able to easily live on less than income, so savings continues to pile up. Big fans of real money, precious metals.
Life is pretty dang good !
Wow! Very impressive, Andy! There are a lot of very good lessons and ideas for everyone that can be taken away from this.
Thank you for sharing.
Andy,
Seems to me your enterprising way of life is a prime candidate for:
https://lenpenzo.com/blog/id20157-wanted-readers-who-make-ends-meet-on-40000-annually-or-less.html
Agree!
Len,
Tried to email you, bounced back.
andy
My reply email to you bounced as well. Is the extension of your email address really “@mail.com” — or is it, “@gmail.com”?
Yep…just plain “@mail.com”.
Don’t get the problem, but I’m only semi-computer literate.
Tried again…this is what comes back, along with a whole bunch of other info:
Len@LenPenzo.com
no valid MX hosts found
Andy, if you’re willing, please try again in a day or two.
I am getting emails from other folks and I just asked the Honeybee to send me an email from her email account and I received that. So the problem doesn’t seem to be on my end.
Semaphores, homing pigeons, smoke signals anyone?
What I remember of those two summers were the August family vacations visiting family in nearby Littlefork and watching the northern lights and the Perseid meteor showers from the dock on Lake Kabetogama. Ill never forget those trips.