# How many people make all there living off there own farm



## Will 400m (Aug 1, 2011)

Just curious how many people make there whole income off their farm and what you raise other than hay? And about how many acres?


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## shortrow (Feb 21, 2012)

Not me. I wish that I could. I have a full time job and work the farm in the evenings and on weekends.


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

Getting closer all the time. 700 acres of corn and beans 150 acres of hay and raise 75,000 turkeys a year.


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## bbos2 (Mar 20, 2015)

We row crop, bale hay and straw, fatten cattle, make wood and push snow in the winter. Stay pretty busy. People often ask what I do all winter. Between hauling hay loading straw , working cattle and push in around snow we put in full weeks even in the "slow" months. And more then make up for it when the the busy seasons get goin


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## SVFHAY (Dec 5, 2008)

About 450 acres hay, rye and oats. If I can't make small bales out of it I don't grow it. 15 total head of cattle. I also buy hay/straw for resale in small,bundle or 3x's but only 40 or so semi loads a year, and that has been on a downward trend for quite a few years.


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## lidaacres (Oct 11, 2014)

We raise Corn, Wheat, Soybeans, and Alfalfa. Milk Registered Holsteins and have 6500 turkeys in egg production. I do a very small amount of custom big square baling as well.


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## OhioHay (Jun 4, 2008)

We have been full time on the farm for a year now. That's both my wife and I. We run 750 acres with 400 of that in hay. The rest is corn, beans, oats, and sometimes wheat or sorghum/Sudan. We also have 25-30 beef cows, 35 ( adding more each year) katahdin ewes, and do some custom work. Finally we are in the process of potentially building some chicken barns. I guess we believe in diversity, but that comes with its own set of challenges.


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## stack em up (Mar 7, 2013)

Not me as of yet. Work full time as a mechanic for insurance. This is the last year I will be there though. We run just at 1000 acres of corn, soybeans, small grains, and 80 acres of alfalfa. Also have a herd of spring calving cows and a herd of fall calvers. Sell seed corn and turn wrenches for neighbors, as well as custom manure pumping and application.


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## Bonfire (Oct 21, 2012)

Full time farm. Sow farm pays the bills. I've got enough cows to feed a good portion of the spray field hay to. The rest of it sold to get rid of it. Everyday I'm an owner, manager and herdsman. Some days I'm also an electrician, a plumber or a welder. 2nd shift for me starts between 2 and 4 pm. I'm in one of these cheap hay markets. I would starve if I depended on hay sales.


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## IHCman (Aug 27, 2011)

I worked off the farm full time for 8 years as I was getting started ranching. I quit working in town in 2007 and bought my land in 2008, rented it one year before I bought it. I own 1320 acres and rent another 600 of rangeland and hayland. Most of my own land is rangeland and native hay. Do have 200 acres tillable that I keep in alfalfa or silage corn/oats hay when it needs breaking up. I sell very little hay (few bales here and there to friends or neighbors) as I need most of it for my own cattle.

My first two years after I bought my land and some equipment were a little tight, but it taught me to be conservative and things are working out pretty good for me. I do work with my parents helping them with their cattle, haying, and farmland so its like I've got another full time job. But I also use their equipment to do my own work and they use some of mine so it works out well.


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## Orchard6 (Apr 30, 2014)

I farm full time. We (dad and I) grow 400 acres of apples and 20 acres of hay.


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Orchard6, from working on a 35 acres semi-dwarf type apple orchard that is being converted to full dwarf high density, you must have a whack of full time and seasonal employees


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## Shetland Sheepdog (Mar 31, 2011)

We're retired and we live off my pension, our SS, and our investments. I farm about 15 acres of mixed grass hay land. Most years we make enough from hay sales to cover all operating costs for the machinery, whether haying or doing other stuff like snow removal & firewood harvest.


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## Josh in WNY (Sep 7, 2010)

I have a full time job as an engineer, but luckily work for a company that is pretty easy on taking days off (as long as there is at least 40 hours in each week, they pretty much are OK with it). Last year we baled just over 44 acres in small squares and I'm looking to add another 5 to 10 acres of rounds to that this year. We have ~20 acres that have corn on them for another local farmer who raises young stock for a dairy farm and my uncle raises Christmas trees on our farm as well (sells about 100 to 150 per year).


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Been full time on the farm for almost 15 years. Dad and I have almost 1300 acres in row crops, I have 160 acres in hay then we have a beef herd of almost 70. Do a little custom mowing/baling if I can work it into my schedule. My wife used to work in town for the insurance, then heart issues forced her into SS disability.

Looking into different sidelines to replace the hay side of it, looking to turn into another 2014 here, rain for the rest of the month if the long term forecasts are even close.


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## Orchard6 (Apr 30, 2014)

slowzuki said:


> Orchard6, from working on a 35 acres semi-dwarf type apple orchard that is being converted to full dwarf high density, you must have a whack of full time and seasonal employees


Including dad and me there are 6 full time guys for outside work. If we need more we'll hire a few migrants for summer work like hand thinning, trimming and trellis work. 20-25 in the packaging facility. During harvest we usually have 45-55 pickers as well.


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## Bishop (Apr 6, 2015)

I work full time. I teach computer science and do tech support at the local Christian high school so I get most of my summer off. My wife is on the farm full time.

We grow flowers, soybeans, wheat, hay, corn, sheep, and goats on 65 ish acres.

The money is in the flowers, and we're planning to put 1/2 acre a year into flowers for the next 10 years and then I'll take early retirement at 55 to come home and farm.

I can't wait.


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## treymo (Dec 29, 2013)

Father as always been a full time farmer. We farm 5-6k acres depending on the year and feed 7-8k head of cattle a year. I did custom baling throughout high school with machinery I saved for. It's kind of turned into a full time gig lately a few months out of the year.

Trey


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## Hugh (Sep 23, 2013)

375,735 acres in silt loam, the finest soil in the country, or possibly the world. We run 367,100 acres in alfalfa, grown for US dairy markets and the rest is exported via western ports. We employ seven agronomists, six entomologists and four full time CPAs. Our sales last year were $974 million, $754 million of that in exports. 473 acres of the property is maintained as a botanical garden that surrounds our house. We employ a full time horticulturist from England to supervise the 115 employees that maintain these grounds.

Recently, we were fortunate to get an introduction via the US State Department to the famed biologist, Dr. William Vermose, a Nobel Prize laureate. We have gladly employed him to supervise our genetics department. In this lab we employ 17 geneticists, 7 of which are Harvard grads and the others from MIT, Oxford, Princeton, and The University of California Davis.

The equipment we use is from several manufactures. John Deere, Caterpillar and Massey Fergusson, and all have all approached us to test their equipment. We employ seventeen full time mechanical engineers to supervise these manufactures. The head of this department is Dr. Samul Wickerstien PhD, the former head of NASA's Mars X7 explorer exposition. He holds multiple PhD's and was the youngest human to ever obtain a doctorate in mechanical engineering from Princeton University at the age of nine. Wait -- hold on a second, I was dreaming.... maybe all of this is BS and why would i tell you my personal shit anyway....?


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## CaseIH84 (Jun 16, 2013)

I work full time off the farm as machine repairman. I also work full time on farm it seems. Also do custom work with IH 1586. Never any shortage of work. Use all my vacation time at work to farm. Hopefully shortly I will leave my full time job to farm. That's the plan anyway. No better place then out on tractor. Just you, the tractor, and the radio.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Full-time tourism in East Tennessee, part-time worker of the soil, full-time husband and father. Hope to put the tourism aside soon....trying to lease our last tourism property out now.....and then be a full-time grower. I love to grow anything.

Way to go Hugh....that was very funny.

Regards, Mike


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## hayray (Feb 23, 2009)

Full time. Farmer since after college in 1990. Hay, direct market beef sales, sweet corn, winter squash, asparagus, some fruit trees, beery production and starting hybrid hazel and chestnut production.


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## Chessiedog (Jul 24, 2009)

Full time hay for 10 years .


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## Lostin55 (Sep 21, 2013)

I just don't know how anyone works full-time at anything. It is easier to never finish projects if you work part-time at everything.
1/2 of the time I farm, the other 1/2 I work, but I work harder at farming.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Reading all the reply so far got me to thinking about an article I read years ago, it claimed with modern no till practices a person could work full time in town and still farm 1200 acres. I suppose if you paid to have all the burndown, other spraying and fertilizer spread maybe, then you'd also have to pay someone to fix tiles and clean ditches. Then of course it would also help to have no rain till you had all the seed in the ground. Harvest would also be interesting as well unless you saved all your vacation time and took it then, then it would be like a neighbor we have, he takes his vacation every spring to either plant or make hay, almost always rains the week he has off.

Me thinks the author of that article was nuts.

Even with Father and I on the farm full time and a corn planter and an air seeder for beans running at the same time was difficult to get anything done this year (just like last year) with rain keeping us out of the fields for up to a week at a time.


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## hayray (Feb 23, 2009)

Seems Ike it would be much harder to have a full-time job and then come home and work on the farm , seems like you never have any time to relax .


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## GNA_farm (Jul 21, 2014)

Family business in stainless steel distribution takes up about 60 hours a week, farm about 100 acres of corn/beans and about 40 acres of hay on nights/weekends. Also run about 100 cows/calves in Montana... stay pretty busy between work, farm, ranch, and 2 babies at home


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## traden86 (May 16, 2013)

Full time farmer/Ag contractor. Took over full time on the family farm about 4 years ago and haven't looked back since. We have 4 broiler barns contracted with Tyson, around 300 momma cows, 200-300 yearlings at any given time. On the Ag contracting side we have 2 spreader trucks spreading chicken litter, and a growing custom hay business that has been really expanding the last several years. . Also dig Graves for a local funeral home.


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## TRAV (Feb 26, 2015)

I was amazed at the number of people that had a spouse working to provide insurance, as I am in that group as well, we operate on about 200 acres where we run about 50 head of momma cows, we hay about 30 acres of the 200. My wife and I both work full time and would love to give up the jobs and farm but due to insurance we have to keep the jobs, as my state does not participate in the Affordable Care Act.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

I wish my state did not participate in the ACA....it has been a disaster in TN.....it has caused Blue Cross to raise rates and lower coverage so much that my insuror has switched companies.....after over 25 years. There is nothing affordable about this uncaring act. Here, it has been nothing more than a liberal bs hand grab.

Regards, Mike


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## hillside hay (Feb 4, 2013)

Tell me about it. 20k before ins picks up anything. Worse than having none at all because if we stay perfectly healthy we are still out 12 k rather than 3


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## hayray (Feb 23, 2009)

I still have my original insurance as my state let me stay on it. I pay about $2200 a year so that is not enough to make me get a off farm job to pay that pales in comparison to the farm and beef product liability and vehicle insurance I have to pay. Total I pay around $7000 .00 a year.


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## IH 1586 (Oct 16, 2014)

Started full time farming when my dad passed away. It was a take it or leave it deal. Milked 60 head. Couldn't quite deal with it young and stupid, leased out cows went and started custom work doing mostly hay. Couldn't make money fast enough to satisfy mom so had a nice auction and said the hell with it. Started factory life and 5 months later started buying equipment again. Spent 8 years in the factory building up my equipment and getting no sleep. Now I do small scale tillage, hay making, and sell my own hay currently at 200 acres and got back the farm and soon all the land.


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

Farm in spring summer, garage/barn construction fall/winter and sell off hay fall/winter, too. 
Each year brings more farming, less construction. Would love to be all farming some day. My hearts just not in construction anymore and I'm pretty good at it love farming, but still making lots of mistakes. Lol


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## hog987 (Apr 5, 2011)

I farm full time with the hay and cattle. My wife does work off the farm. Gives us some extra spending money plus keeps her out of trouble.

A few years ago because I was just renting land I ended up loosing half of my farm land. That made things hard but we survived. At that time I put up about 300 acres of hay. Since than we have bought some land and I keep having different people come to me asking if I want to work there land. This summer iam up to 500 acres of forage.


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## Speedrower220 (Feb 17, 2017)

Farm full time. Wife is a teacher. I farm my own 1000 acres and the. Custom bale 3500 acres.


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## Jay in WA (Mar 21, 2015)

Farm full time with 1 full time employee. I don't know of anyone that farms on the side with a full time off farm job. The few that have tried soon lease the farm out. Fully irrigated with intensive cropping here though so its just not practical.


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## carcajou (Jan 28, 2011)

IH 1586 said:


> Started full time farming when my dad passed away. It was a take it or leave it deal. Milked 60 head. Couldn't quite deal with it young and stupid, leased out cows went and started custom work doing mostly hay. Couldn't make money fast enough to satisfy mom so had a nice auction and said the hell with it. Started factory life and 5 months later started buying equipment again. Spent 8 years in the factory building up my equipment and getting no sleep. Now I do small scale tillage, hay making, and sell my own hay currently at 200 acres and got back the farm and soon all the land.


That had to be a very difficult part of your life, good that you made it through


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

Jay in WA said:


> Farm full time with 1 full time employee. I don't know of anyone that farms on the side with a full time off farm job. The few that have tried soon lease the farm out. Fully irrigated with intensive cropping here though so its just not practical.


Couldn't afford the farm without a good income away from it.

I make all my income off the farm. And spend a good chunk of it on the farm.

Some days maybe I think I started with more dollars than sense.

Nope. Gotta love it. Hoping for my first non hay crop this year. Better than Vegas!


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## Widairy (Jan 1, 2016)

I started out working full time and being a tractor light farmer for 10 years. I crop farmed and raised beef. Seven years ago I bought the farm I'm on now to go farming full time with dairy. currently the dairy industry is rough enough I've been looking for work off of the farm again.


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## MtnHerd (Jul 6, 2011)

I work a full time off the farm job, raise beef cattle and hay in partnership with my dad (who is retired but always raised tobacco, Christmas trees, and beef cattle when he was working full time), raise produce in partnership with one of my brothers (who has a full time off the farm), and raise goats with my wife (she is also involved in my other endeavors and has a full time job). Would love to farm full time, but just not enough money in it right now, and not a lot of farm land that is affordable here (not a lot of farmable land at all), but is a good supplement to my income. Could probably make a living off of farming and doing grading work, but probably not as much as I make now. Just bought another farm with a house on it and currently remodeling it for weekend and weekly rentals, so hopefully that will be another supplemental income and get me closer to the goal!


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## IH 1586 (Oct 16, 2014)

carcajou said:


> That had to be a very difficult part of your life, good that you made it through


 Thank you. To this day still feel like I failed dad by selling the dairy.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

Last summer I talked to a fancy talking hay broker and he made it clear that anyone who doesn't raise hay full time with no other source of income are the only real farmers there are. The rest are just hobby farmers. He told me this after asking if my dad had another job. He did. He was a teacher. I nearly hung up on him as he seemed to have called to find out what Teff was and to brag about his supposed accomplishments in life. I think that was the most annoyed I've been in awhile after a phone call. Having an off farm job doesn't make anyone any less of a farmer or a hobby farmer. Hobby farmer is the guy that is retired or has to much money and raises a few acres of hay or something and then sells it a super low prices.


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## bensbales (Jul 18, 2011)

Full time farming on 250 acres of hay, 90%in small squares and 100 acres of soybeans. Supplement my farm income with some snowplowing and logging in the winter time.


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## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

Teslan said:


> Last summer I talked to a fancy talking hay broker and he made it clear that anyone who doesn't raise hay full time with no other source of income are the only real farmers there are. The rest are just hobby farmers. He told me this after asking if my dad had another job. He did. He was a teacher. I nearly hung up on him as he seemed to have called to find out what Teff was and to brag about his supposed accomplishments in life. I think that was the most annoyed I've been in awhile after a phone call. Having an off farm job doesn't make anyone any less of a farmer or a hobby farmer. Hobby farmer is the guy that is retired or has to much money and raises a few acres of hay or something and then sells it a super low prices.


I remember one time I went to look at a sprayer an older guy had for sale. I asked him "do you farm full time?" His response was "yeah, I farm full time and I work a full time day job down at the plant."

That pretty much sums farming up...


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

In my situation, I feel like farming is an 80 hr/wk job for about a month during first, second and third cuts. In between cuts I drop to like a 50hr work week, delivering hay, fixing broken equipment and cut open space that can't be hayed.
Then over the non growing season, I deliver lesser amounts of hay, try to upgrade a couple pieces, spread mushroom compost and build a barn or a garage for a customer.
I like it. Keeps life interesting. I'd like to add a larger herd of beef.


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## SCtrailrider (May 1, 2016)

I envy you fellas, I have always enjoyed the farm life but will admit I don't know much about what it takes to handle something as large as most of you have...

My hats off to those that make a go of it and succeed at it


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## stack em up (Mar 7, 2013)

Full time farm here, now up to 1,380 acres. 120 in alfalfa this year. Corn, small grain and very little soybeans. 2 herds of beef cattle, and a few ewes. Sell seed corn and do some custom fence building when I'm not doing my own.


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## skyrydr2 (Oct 25, 2015)

No dout, hats off for sure! Farming is not easy and being held at the mercy of mother nature... Not sure I could take much of that. 
Myself,full time 50 hour a week job then grow a small beef herd with minimal hay production and grow a self sustaining garden for canned and fresh veggies. 
This year Im hoping to get in at least 7000 bales for the year? Not sure this will happen but if the weather cooperates It can surely happen. The drought got me hard last year..barely got 3k.
When I retire then maybe Ill ponder a full time gig . The union pension is just too good to give up..


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## IHCman (Aug 27, 2011)

Teslan said:


> Last summer I talked to a fancy talking hay broker and he made it clear that anyone who doesn't raise hay full time with no other source of income are the only real farmers there are. The rest are just hobby farmers. He told me this after asking if my dad had another job. He did. He was a teacher. I nearly hung up on him as he seemed to have called to find out what Teff was and to brag about his supposed accomplishments in life. I think that was the most annoyed I've been in awhile after a phone call. Having an off farm job doesn't make anyone any less of a farmer or a hobby farmer. Hobby farmer is the guy that is retired or has to much money and raises a few acres of hay or something and then sells it a super low prices.


I'm more impressed by the small guys that have a full time off the farm job and put up hay/farm/raise livestock. Shows a real passion for it. Big or small, there are so few of us in agriculture we all matter.


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## woodland (May 23, 2016)

I farm full time here with my amazing wife and brother. Also my folks are slowing down since they're in their 60's. Still put in long days when they're here and not traveling. My BIL is working full time as well as another fella when he's between jobs. Last year we were at 7,000 acres but the coal mine we rent a lot of ground from pulled 800 acres from us at Christmas (after we seeded 650 acres to alfalfa last spring) and also told us we're losing 1200 at the end of this year. Currently have 525 momma cows and about 1,000 acres of grain but that's obviously going to change. I guess we'll see what the good Lord has in store for us. Nice to read about others situations and realize we aren't alone even though it feels like it when the only company I have some days is Max (my cow dog).


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## Josh in WNY (Sep 7, 2010)

Well, things just got a little easier for me.

I have a full time job and had to wait for my parents to come up from Florida in June after my father's job driving semi for a produce farm wrapped up. At least that's what it used to be, just got off the phone with my dad and he finally pulled the trigger and retired (after all, he's only 73 years old). Sounds like he and my mother will be up when things get warm enough for them... maybe sometime in July.


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## MtnHerd (Jul 6, 2011)

Josh in WNY said:


> Well, things just got a little easier for me.
> 
> I have a full time job and had to wait for my parents to come up from Florida in June after my father's job driving semi for a produce farm wrapped up. At least that's what it used to be, just got off the phone with my dad and he finally pulled the trigger and retired (after all, he's only 73 years old). Sounds like he and my mother will be up when things get warm enough for them... maybe sometime in July.


That's great! One of my favorite things about farming is getting to work with my family. The biggest reason I bought a cab tractor is because of my dad's ashma he recently developed. He had to pretty much quit working in dry hay due to it, but this year, with the cab tractor, he has been fine. Before, if he baled, raked or handled dry hay he had to take breathing treatments for the next three days. Going to do everything I can to keep him farming with me for as long as possible!


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