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Looking at Farms

T

Traditional Farmer

Well-known Member
Location
Virginia
Been looking at farms mostly from the computer but the thing that stands out is ones with houses there are no gardens,no fruit trees,no grape vines,no small chicken house,etc.The house and yard on most farms could be a lot in the city.What's the point of living in the country if you live like city folks?
 
Would bet you things have been "cleaned" up. Have seen that where realtors demand it or the heirs got sick of any clutter and "hosed" the property. Stupid bil took a nice old barn down because it needed some roof repair. JUST some repair. Don't get me started.
 
I think it is called freedom. You own it you do what you want with it. I think that most people on this site can appreciate that.
 
Well it's not my property I sure hate seeing the "good" old buildings taken down. Some of the really deteriorated ones I understand, but seeing nice good buildings tore down for no reason sucks. Someone I know just had to have their 100+ year old barn built by there great grandfather due to structural decay.
 
Been on this hill 34 years, smallest building I guess is about 2,500 sq feet. No chickens, coyote would get them, no garden deer would eat it, but been doing pretty good farming. Don,t have to have all that stuff to enjoy country life and farming.
 
Don't know about your area , but in these parts , many farm homes are just extra houses , and rented out to off farm folks that can pay the rent. Most of these types don't care a hoot about country living, fresh vegetables or most of the rest of the trappings of farm/country life we hold near and dear.
 
have you been observant of city living? cheek to cheek houses, only thing separating the houses is a hvac unit, back yards enclosed with warped wooden fences with a yapping dog inside, garages crammed full of junk, driveway overflowing with cars, boats, campers and such. every house is similar in design and color. get a lousy neighbor and life is miserable. We built our home in the middle of 10 acres, only animals is 2 cats, have a stocked pond and large garden with which to use the tractor.
Green Acres is the place for me.
 
Fruit trees, gardens, chickens all take time. In today's world where husband and wife both need to contribute to the household income, unless one of them really enjoys it, why bother?
 
Obsolete unused buildings still require property taxes to be paid, maintenance, insurance, paint to keep them looking respectable, replacing a roof can cost $5,000 on a small barn if several layers of old shingled need to be removed and sheeting repaired on a two story barn. If an old building is no longer needed, costs too much to convert to new uses or is in a poor location, it's often no longer worth keeping it.

Renting out old farm houses is a loosing proposition. Vacant farm houses are an invitation for trouble. If an old farmstead is on a gravel road it is tough to sell as an acreage. They are often leveled because the tillable acres are worth much more than the farmstead.

Chemical herbicide drift can damage gardens, vines and fruit trees. Applicators don't stop spaying for 20 MPH winds anymore.
 
Because we can buy food so cheap in town so why grow it? And gardening is dirty, we might get dirt on our hands for Pete’s sake!

We have a fairly large garden, an apple tree that puts out great canning apples, we pick rhubarb and have an asparagus patch. We used to have chickens but feeding them cost more than buying eggs. I question if we really save money from using our garden but to us there is something about home grown fruits and veggies that feels good and, of course we know where our food came from.
 
Dang, don't look at my house on the puter! Might look messy with piles of materials, tractor equipment, and clutter! I do a garden every year as taught by my grandfather & dad. Wouldn't have any other way. Couple dogs roam the area, chickens soon to be. Had many as a child... my child wants some. Country living is all I know, woods adjacent for bow season too. ;-)
 
Here's one for you, been thinking of taking a picture of this sign for awhile, did today. 10 miles S of Baudette MN. No, it's not mine!
a264213.jpg
 
T.F. I certainly can't see living in the country and not have a garden? oh well I guess to each his own :lol: to me growing a big garden that I can eat from most of the year is worth the work and time. knowing where my food comes from and knowing it hasn't been sprayed with chemicals or pesticides is more important than the convience of walking down the store isles. one thing I have noticed in our area there are city people moving out here that just want to mow the grass and go back in the house, and we have had young couples move out here that want to get outside, grow a garden, build a chicken coop, get the kids outside and let them get dirty and have fun.
 
Traditional Farmer: I have not had a garden in over twenty years. The last few we planted grew more Japanese beetles than food. The massive amounts of insecticide to fight these pests made me leery of the stuff in the garden.

YOU can buy produce cheaper than you can raise it. I am not just talking about in a store either. Locally grown produce can be bought very reasonable around here. So If I want to can green beans I can buy a few bushels for about what the seed and fertilizer cost without the time/labor in raising them. I can pickup locally raise eggs for $3-4 a dozen. A few dozen last us a month. So for less than $120 a year I can buy all the eggs we want. Fruit trees are bug havens around here anymore. 75% of the fruit not worth eating or even picking up.

Then lets look at the time/labor involved in raising a garden. I flat have not had that time since my first wife died. I can go out and earn the money to buy good quality food in way less time than it takes to raise the same amount at home. Beef and pork are exceptions to that rule for us but we grow/raise both in larger numbers for income.

So a few rows of sweet corn on the outside of a close corn field. Plus some tomatoes in the flower beds is the extent of my gardening.
 
Can you grow corn and soybeans that far north (close to the Canadian border?) or are the crops mostly small grains?
 
Here taxes are high and extra buildings cost. Deer eat everything so our garden is mostly grown in flower pots on the deck and keep the gate closed or the deer will be on the deck. We are also very careful of compost or any garbage that smells of food or the bears will stay around looking for food.
 
The garden comes 1st with my wife and me every Spring and Summer,have to say she does a majority of the work with canning and freezing.I can say what we raise and put up is far better than
what's in any grocery store.Also the Blackberries are a big hit the type we have are very large,bear for about 2 months with no briars on them.Can't beat that home made ice cream from the just picked berries.We're also working with a young man that knows honeybees as he has extremely good 'luck' with them and my wife is finally able to have a couple of good healthy hives plus he has about 10 hives here too.
 
Think my tractors and equipment would be a little overwhelmed there,plus it looks pretty cold to me.If anything I'd prefer something just a little more South.Plus
I'm staying under a Million$ which will get a pretty nice place in parts of Virginia and West Virginia.
 
Yeah,
Why would anyone want to live in the city anyway?
On the other hand...
There are 4 Home Depots and 3 Menards within 10 miles from me. Plus 2 real lumberyards.
There are 3 bearing houses, 3 hydraulic shops, 3 steel supply yards, 2 big plumbing supply outfits in that distance.
There are 5 auto parts stores within 2 miles from me plus 3 good bakeries, 4 supermarkets, 10 churches. A couple dozen resturaunts not counting fast food joints, lots of gas stations, a couple good small engine shops, big electrical supply places, 5 universities and two votechs, dozens of body shops, auto dealers and transmission repair houses a couple of clutch and ujoint places, heavy truck and trailer dealers, two Fleet Farms and a tractor supply within 12 miles, a huge framers market and a couple of small ones and lots and lots of bars if that's your thing.
Theres at least 10 movie theaters, 4 live theaters, 4 sports stadiums, numerous malls, specialty paint stores, lots of welding shops and machine shops, sand blasters sporting goods, a harbor freight and a couple of Northern Tools stores close by, motorcycle, boat and rv dealers and specialty parts joints nearby and ALL of this within 15 miles of me. If I expand the distance to 30 miles it's more than double that amount of stuff.
Living in the country is great but I grew up there and wouldn't trade the city for anything.
 
Lot's of soybeans now, very little corn. Last year there was a field of sunflowers a couple of miles N of this place, haven't seen that for years. If they have a wet spring so they don't get normal crops in they plant rye grass, that is good when housing is booming. A lot of this farm is tiled, and it payed off for them the first year, they got a crop in when other fields were too wet. as you can see, it's pretty flat.
 
I really do not get where you are coming from on this.

Farming has changed from a lifestyle to occupation in the last 40 years, very few farmers around here have any livestock, fruit or gardens.
 
Just an observation,most of these are livestock farms BTW maybe some grain being grown, not big farms 100 to 300 acres which is about average for the area.Used to be
in my area you hardly ever saw a farm that didn't have a garden,some fruit tress etc etc and most farmers/country people wanted to be as self sufficient as possible.Many of these places are in really rural areas too.Funny thing is suburbia has moved in on me over the years and many of these people have gardens,fruit trees etc.They live more like country people used to live than most farmers live now.
 
I think farmers are just too busy with the farm production to mess with the smaller stuff. We have all the items you mentioned including a chicken house, but I'm not a big time farmer.
 

For some going to the store to buy vegetables is convenient.

For me walking out to the garden to find, pick and eat a ripe tomato is priceless.

To each their own I guess.
 
Back in the day of gardens, etc, it was usually the wife who took care of the home place, chickens, garden and often hogs. In exchange she got to keep any income from them. As the farm wife started to teach school, sales clerk, keep books, and have off farm jobs the home place activity ceased.
 
I'm with you on that. I have everything including a first class cancer center that cured my Limphoma back in 2013 within a 25 mile drive. Urbania has really moved in on me the past few years as the DFW metroplex keeps sprawling out in all directions. Buttt that's ok. Customers for my hay and good folks. Enjoy helping the "newbies" to farming, make the right decisions.
 
Agreed. As the sign says on my brother's shop door "Behind every successful farmer is a wife that works in town".


Couple that with the fact 50 years ago a farmer would easily have 5-8 kids that doubled as field labor and they also did a lot of the gardening. Now a "big family" is one that has more than 2 kids.
 
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