The Beginning Farmer Gets a Farm

On Saturday, September 23, 2006 I made my first post on the blog creatively titled, "The Very Beginning". I followed that with some mind-numbing drivel on buying work boots and a seriously lame examination of some livestock market numbers at the time. A few weeks later I wrote another impressive blog post (impressive because it actually received a comment ... from a close friend) titled, "Why FARM". In that inspired post I came to the realization that I had more reasons not to farm than I had to farm, but that I still wanted to farm. Since those first few posts I have now made a total of 223 entries dealing with all the aspects of my quest towards farming. Research, experiences, disappointments, plans, and plenty of hopes.

I began this blog as a journal of sorts or maybe you could call it a research diary. I began the blog because I realized that I learned by writing and processing the things that I had read, researched, heard, and experienced. I began the blog because I had a hard time finding the reflections and journey of a farmer starting from scratch. And, I will even admit that I began the blog in hopes of helping others with the same dream as I had. A dream to farm that has been kicking around inside of me from the time that I was a child disappointed that my mom was going to pave our driveway in town ... because there was no way I could use my pedal tractor on cement! Farmers drove on gravel ... not some fancy pavement.

Now as I sit and type late on Sunday night (sometimes I cheat and write my posts ahead of time) we are on the verge of taking the next step in the journey. It is an exciting step and yet at the same time it is a scary step that is bringing about much personal reflection.

Can we really do this? Can we really make this a business? I can take care of animals, but can I do all of the marketing on a larger scale in order to take everything to the next level? What do I need to do in order to keep this from becoming an expensive hobby? How are we going to get everything done ... can we create this farming out of nothing!?! Lots of questions are running through my head, but mostly I am excited.

So tomorrow, at 11:00 am we are going to sign on the dotted line and then in the afternoon we can go out to OUR farm (which really is just a bare piece of land full of grass and trees). There is so much to do and so much to think about, but right now I am just enjoying thinking about the journey it has been.

I want to say thank you to everyone who has commented with encouragement, instruction, advice, and thoughts. The discussion and information that have come in the form of the comments have added so much to this blog that I even began to feel like people could get something out of reading it ... as long as they were reading the comments left by people other than myself! Thank You!

From the days of driving the pedal tractor in the yard pulling the wooden plow my dad made until now. I think the immortal words of Bear Claw Chris Lapp and Jeremiah Johnson (in the movie Jeremiah Johnson) sum it up best.

Bear Claw - "You've come far pilgrim."
Jeremiah - "Feels like far."
Bear Claw - "Were it worth the trouble?"
Jeremiah - [half-joking] "Ha? What trouble?"