My plan for the good life

I am a very blessed person, I have a wonderful family. They have always supported me in everything that I have chose to do. When I was in business for myself , even when all I did in my spare time was hunt and fish and trap . My wife has always been supportive from dealing with me working 15 hour days to taxidermy bills and busted bottles of deer scent in the house , night crawlers in the frig , and the torment of me practicing turkey calls in the house. With everything that I have done , I always come back to wanting to farm, we have always had a garden and canned green beans , tomatoes etc, the garden and growing things - farming is what

I always come back to. When Tari and I decided to buy the farm in Bainbridge It became my hunting and fishing retreat. But as the time has gone by my dream as changed to living there full time , After reading You can farm by Joel Salatin . The question that he ask is what are you doing now to achieve that dream , and he was right why wait do it now, do something to start you on the way. And that is what I did I doubled the size of the garden . I asked a friend of mine, he lives's on a place with 10 acre's of ground that was grown up. Kenny Ray and I cleaned up

the ground so we could start raising chickens we started with 13 layer chicks that we put in a brooder in the laundry room , my poor wife . our first year we also raised 100 broiler's in pens like in Salatin's book. I took a bee keeping class and started some hives that I keep at my mothers house and my house in the city. I very understanding neighbor's also. We also learned

to make Maple syrup. I even took a marketing seminar for small farms. We have learned the skills needed for the farm now. I have known several families that just sold everything to go farm but were unable to make a go of it , they lacked the necessary skills of doing it. the learning curve was to difficult . By learning the skills and ahead of time you will make the
learning curve much shorter, there by making it more pleasurable and increase your chances of being successful. It will be much easier if you find out now that canning a 100 qrts of beans and tomatoes is a lot of work and has to be done when they are in and ready not when you are.
Find your piece of ground and work there and get it ready while you are still working full time . Spend weekends vacations as much free time as you can get to know the neighbors . We are planning to move in 3 to 4 years . during this time i have a couple of buildings to build as well as put few cattle together. If I can find the time we want to attend some farmers markets and sell some of our chickens to try and start a customer
base. But I think the main thing is share your dream and talk about often with your family and friends. I can not wait to walk the farm lane with my wife hand in hand . I may not get to enjoy as much now because i have a full time job. But the joy will be so much better when i watch my son raise his family on the farm . With God's will we will make it