How do we build a farm dream?
One step at a time. There you have it. That’s how we’re doing it. Rocket science, isn’t it? You’re now sitting in the midst of your ‘ah-ha’ moment! Like, ‘That’s it! She just said exactly what I’ve been missing.’
No?
I know that my saying we’ve been doing this thing one step at a time is nothing too inspirational. But, it’s realty and I think embracing it will launch you into building your business protocol wisely.
The Comparison Trap
In trying to figure out this whole farm biz thing, I studied and reflected on the stories of farms that were or are “making it”. They have a comparable model of operation as us but somehow they seem to be killing it in the finance and business sense. They preach the farming gospel that they make a comfortable living off their farm and “here’s how”.
When comparing yourself to other farms or farmers it’s easy to get trapped in a snare that makes you believe you’re somehow doing it wrong. That you’re doing it the worst way possible.
This is likely not true. Let me explain…
What we have learned to do over the years is to: Study many but glean few.
What I mean is that we study many, many farms. But, we’ve only taken components of each and created a formula that works best for us, our goals, and our practices.
This is important because what I was seeing in these farms that were “making it” was that there are components of those farms that are very specific and unique to them.
One such instance is that we are first generation farmers literally building from the ground up with money earned authentically from our own hands at day jobs. No inherited land. No inherited funds. No silent partners. No rich uncle… at least not one that’s surfaced… Ha!
We started out a broke, young, newlywed couple working on a farm dream. Today, we’re not broke but I’m not going to lie… there are days where we ask ourselves, “Where’s our rich uncle?” Or “Where are our grandparents who were farmers themselves and want the land to stay in the family??”
Our unique situation can’t be resolved by adopting a practice from a farm who inherited their land and/or wealth. It’s not apples to apples.
Another example…
I studied a few farms whose budget is partially substantiated through speaking and writing. Front-loading the farm with income from speaking engagements isn’t the sustainability we are looking for.
Being an aspiring author myself, I’ve seen but a glimpse of what it takes to become published. As I understand it, the very first step to this endeavor is to build a following…
ThorneBrook Farms reality number 1387… we definitely aren’t in the running for celebrity farmer status which is something ya kinda need in order for your published or spoken word to amount to any kind of money.
So, mimicking a farm whose budget consists of 20-40% education/writing/speaking income wasn’t the right answer for us either.
Heading in the Right Direction
So, what’s a small farm to do???
I’ve finally grasped the reality that we aren’t doing it wrong. What IS reality is that farming is hard. It doesn’t yield tons of money. And it takes intentional, slow growth to amount to anything wholesome. We’ve spent the last several years trying various ways to manage cash-flow and finances here on the farm. We weeded out, or in cow talk… culled…, the techniques that didn’t work for us. We’ve tried seasonal income flows and more regular ones. We’ve tried focusing on a single niche product and also created various streams of income. We’ve financed the farm dream through loans and also tried paying cash for as much as possible.
Through this process we hand selected what worked best for our farm. This will probably continue for the rest of the farm’s life as we enter into different seasons and are faced with varying needs. I will talk more about those specifics soon. But, what I wanted to nip in the bud ASAP was the comparison trap.
Ridding the mindset to compare ourselves to anyone else was the very best act of freedom we could do for ourselves. It’s not about becoming exactly like another farm. It’s about studying and gleaning what will work for us and us only. Stop comparing yourself to someone else or some-farm else.
The bottom-line is no two farms / farmers are exactly alike. We can be mostly aligned in our operations but very customized in our administration.
It’s time to stop the attempts to find some hidden answer in someone else’s farm and look at what’s right in front of you. We have all that we need. All the wisdom. All the tools. It’s time to do.
Time to build our farm dream one step at a time using practices we’ve determined to be the most fiscally responsible for our unique situation.
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