Did Bruce sleep last night?

I was thinking about your crossroads all last night, and what I would do. I milked my own herd of Jerseys from age 18 to 25. When I sold out, some farmers I respected patted me on the back and said Good choice. They all saw too many people struggle in the dairy business. Yes, your situation is different. My parents never farmed and I started from scratch. When I sold out, I moved on to bigger and better things and never lost a friend because I no longer had a dairy. You got a lot of good advice yesterday. Best of luck. Bill

I grew up on a dairy. In 1967 I ran away, not walked. from dairy. I went to college. No regrets. I want to thanks those who make a living milking cows. I also admire anyone whose is self employed, may it a farmer or a person who has his own business.

We all have crossroads. I wanted to sell my rentals before I realized I need some source of aggravation in my life. Something to do.
So I understand where Bruce is coming from.
George

I always sleep well, clear conscience, or no conscience I guess, lol. This is indeed a journey, and like most journeys the road ahead isnt always clear. I do thank everyone for advice/opinions. All taken in context, and each voice has points worthy of merit. My feelings are that we have 3 choices. Dump 2-3 hundred thousand into renovations on existing old dairy. 2 Spend upwards to 1.5 million on totally new facilities, with robot milking equipment and eliminate much of our work load, and set the next generation on a irreversible track. 3 Retirement, and buy my son a house, and tell him to find a job. Fortunately I do have roughly 2 years before my back will be against the wall. And plenty of new dairy set ups around me to explore ideas from. I will no doubt be posting what the out come of this journey will be, once I come out the other side of this . Bruce

If he's like I was when I was facing it, he won't sleep for the next two years. I had anxiety about quitting and anxiety about staying in it. Dad gave me a cow when I was 10. We shipped cans at the time and I had my own can number and got a milk check. When you have it all of your life, the anxiety over loosing it can about kill you.

The whole thing with his son is something that I totally get too, and understand that it probably overrides the whole issue of whether to keep milking or not. Common sense goes out the window when you're looking out for your kids. I know this is kind of an obscure reference, but there was a movie called Batteries Not Included. An old couple owned a building in a city neighborhood that was being leveled by a developer and they wouldn't sell to him. He was doing everything he could do, legal and illegal to get their building. Through it all, there was a handyman who came to work every day, got down on his knees and worked on repairing an intricate pattern in the tile floor in the lobby. No matter what was going on around him, he was in his own little world placing those tiny little tile pieces in their pattern. I felt that way. The whole world was changing around me. There were only two dairies left in the township at the time and I was one of them. (None anymore by the way) I was going to the barn every day, oblivious to the changes in the industry that would make everything I was doing, pointless anyway.

We were having the conversation just a few days ago about the burden of having the old home place. My family has been here for almost 100 years. I was lamenting about how if I'd gone somewhere else and started up on a different place, I'd have the option of selling it now and walking away instead of feeling obligated to pass it along to my kids and how they wanted it one way or another, even if they can't farm right now because they have a life.

Hopefully something will happen to make the decision for Bruce so he doesn't have to. I just hope it's a good thing and not a tragedy.

I think that Bruce slept fine. Bruce has excellent control over his business plus has vision. He also enjoys what he does. Start taking away any or all of those factors then the dairy business is maybe a couple steps above being slave labor. The dairy business actually requires that farmer put a lot of thought into what he does not unlike an engineer or some other white collar professional. Water quality is very important for production. A cow that drinks only enough to survive due to poor taste will never put out maximum milk production. How many farmers went through their entire careers without consideration to that. So much for the notion that farming and in particular dairy farming is for the uneducated or uninformed.


I wonder how many get that Bruce enjoys what he does? That his business is not a burden to him. Everybody's experience is different as to farming. If you grew up in a situation where you were treated as unpaid labor and nothing more then it is understandable that you wanted to leave once you graduated high school. It does not mean that everybody else had the same experience. Some dads wanted to be the undisputed boss and that makes it hard to want to stay around. That he never wants to be told when he is wrong when in fact he is quite wrong about something. At that point it is probably best that the kids find something else in life. Some kids tried to work their way through a bad situation only for it to eat them up so bad that they took their lives. I'd rather go find something else before it got that bad but not everybody sees it that way. There was traditionally a strong guilt factor in the farm community for quitting but thankfully that attitude has faded quite a bit in the last decade or so.

My 2 cents with what you have just said ,turn the page and open the book on the second part of your life ,good luck

When it came to family legacy that was not a factor in what I did in terms of farming. If a clearly superior opportunity had come along when I was young I would have taken it. When I came out of high school we were in the downward slide of agriculture during the 1980's. Opportunities in farming were slim. There was never that just right farm to slide into. Go just a few miles away and I would have been in vegetable crop farming territory. Nothing wrong with that but the cost of buying land was much higher and at that time credit tightened to never return to what it was during the 1970;s. No way I could make any of that ground pencil out even with working off farm to support myself. In more modern times young farmers find an older farmer to team up with to transition the business. It happened with a good friend of mine who got to know an older farmer through the tractor club and show circuit. I'm happy for him. Sometimes the opportunity is there and sometimes it is not.

George, from what I have gleaned from your postings in the past, your upbringing bordered on abuse- no wonder you fled! You once stated you got a beating, and you had no choice but to obey and work. It always sounds like you had no childhood, and were treated like a slave. I hope your later years were much more fun. I grew up on a small dairy, but I have great memories of my childhood. We had to to work and Dad was pretty focused on work, but he never made it an unhappy experience. It's a shame when children do not have happy memories. Mark.

Back then, Farmers Home Administration was loaning money to guys who didn't have any business doing anything on a farm but pitching manure or picking stones for somebody else. I could name names. I had some equity in my cattle and equipment and wouldn't have had a problem getting a loan. I had called some realtors about some places and was even looking in to moving over to Ontario. I liked the idea of their quota system. I ended up buying the home place because it was easy. When I started looking elsewhere, Dad figured out that I was serious I guess, and decided he'd better sell to me while I was still around to buy it. He had already bought out my aunt's and uncle's shares of my grand mother's place in town. My oldest brother was living there. He moved him out, remodeled and added on and moved down there himself.

I didn't care much about keeping the place in the family until I had kids. If I had known then what I know now though, I'd be in Kentucky, Tennessee or Missouri right now. Hindsight's 20/20.

Have your son and wife read the replies to these posts? Their thoughts, ideas and plans might clarify a lot of things for you and lighten your burden. Keep in mind that the responses here come from a variety of backgrounds, but we all mean well. Good luck to the three of you.

Where are all the citiots who want all this stuff? They are so concerned about a cows life liberty and pursuit of happiness yet they dont want to help make it happen

never made it an unhappy experience. To be so lucky.

Mark,
Sad to say, I had to start working at age 8. No choice, no pay, no playing sports, no time off, 24 -7 - 365 for years. If I treated my kids the way I was treated, Child protective services would lock me up and throw the key away. George

Actually, that's the same age I had to start helping my Dad too. His brother had decided to get a regular job and not farm anymore and so Dad needed me, his oldest. I actually did a lot of things that I have never felt safe allowing others that age to do. My brother and I asked Dad one time how he trusted us, and he said I just knew you could do it. And for the most part we did alright. But he always said make sure we did our school work, and I only helped with morning milking when school was out. Dad only knew how to work-his only hobby was rabbit hunting which he quit when I was about 2 or 3. But he always wanted a better life for us kids. Mark.