Reply #17: Thanks! It's a lot of fun and very rewarding!

[TornadoTN]

I'll tell you this - don't expect a lot out of it at first. We built our first house here 5 years ago and ended up buying the farm that sits behind it a year after we moved in, mainly because we didn't want that residential development being built behind us in this beautiful, untouched region of the country. I was going to lease the farm out to other farmers for use of the land but my wife and I thought, what the hell, lets give it a shot. It has just now become profitable (and that's a stretch really if it was my only job) and it was a very, very hard journey to get to this point. Organic farming is heavily dependent on weather conditions, probably more so than regular farming, but we were lucky this year in our crops. Our cows have been the easiest part - another local farmer has come out to our farm and started learning about how to do his herd organically. We haven't had any major health issues and our yield is much higher than his and costs are lower. He said that his antibiotic, hormone, and feed costs are astronomical and he just can't keep his herd healthy and if he does, the meat is low quality.

Beyond that, its great for the environment and the soil has really improved in quality. We threw my sons old pumpkin from Halloween out last year in one of the cow fields, and this year we had an amazing unintended crop of pumpkins that we had to fence it off and just let them grow!

If you've got patience and time - and a whole lot more patience - I say give it a shot! You can start as small as you want, hell, do it in containers in your kitchen or balcony to start with. Every little bit helps and it's as rewarding as most anything you can do.