Thursday, May 12, 2011

3 Things They Don't Tell You When You Move to the Farm


The mower sitting where it died. It's old and cheap and K doesn't have time to fix it.

1) That it will be expensive. Naively, we thought that raising and preserving our own food, line drying, recycling/composting, etc would mean we would live a more financially efficient lifestyle.

NOT.

Maybe after a few years when we are established . . . but let's take into account all the land that we have to mow. Mowers are expensive (very).

Gas is expensive (very).

Garden seeds are expensive. Open-pollinated varieties will let us save them to plant next year (for free) but up front costs means you don't save any over going to the store.

Livestock is expensive. Sure, they reproduce to replenish and pay for themselves, but up front? Whew.

Driving to town for everything is expensive.

Lesson learned: don't expect to save any money for at least two years. Unfortunately for us, since we are just renting, we're going to have to do this all over again when we buy our own property.

2) How. Much. Time. Everything. Takes. Maybe that's just because we have a two year old and no babysitter? Hmm...

Lesson learned: HAVE A BABYSITTER!

3) That the first year on an old farm will be mostly clean up. We've spent days . . . no, months . . . cleaning up scrap, trash, old wood, and rocks, out of the "mow zone." And the rest of the property. Taking it all to the scrap yard netted us a whole $50. Whoo.

Lesson learned: Relax. We're not going to go gung-ho the first year. It's a learning process, and we've learned a lot already. Enjoy.

Still.

1 comment:

Mum said...

Wow, can I relate! We are in our first year of setting up our little piece of farm. Too true, every single thing you said. Lots of time, money, effort, and you will fall into bed every night tired like you run a marathon and then been up all night with a newborn.