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SW Indiana | I started in 2009 with nothing, other than my parents giving me a chance to rent their 71 acres. Grew up with dad farming all my life and that is all I ever wanted to do. He went through bad times and sold out in the late 90's, I was in high school at the time, the homeplace is what he was able to keep. I luckily had a 40 hp small tractor and bought a 7000 4 row planter. Hired local coop to do spraying, hired neighbor to combine. I owned a semi and that was the day job, so I was able to haul grain away. Slowly rented a little more ground each year, mostly 15 acre patches nobody else wanted, that had been in hay. Lived off the trucking income and reinvested every dime the farm made. In the spring of 2012 bought a really nice 9400 combine, not knowing the drought was coming. Have continued renting small pieces of ground, up around 400 acres now. This past winter/spring bought a 12 row 7200 that needed a lot of attention, but was cheap and had a good foundation. Also bought a nice 4560 cab tractor, big upgrade from the open tractor 4 row. Continuing to reinvest all profits and live off trucking income. Now my 7 year old son is really taking a licking to farming and I couldn't be happier. Yes its lots of hours, but most days really don't even seem like work to me since it is all I've ever wanted to do. There really are 2 reasons that keep me going, 1 is this is all I've ever wanted to do, and 2 I want to be able to give my son a chance at it if he continues to be interested in it. I was never encouraged to farm growing up, but no one ever told me that I couldn't, and it was the only job I ever had through high school. So yes it can be done if done slowly, one thing that I haven't figured out is how to ever purchase a piece of ground. Someone that needs equipment to farm can't have both, and the way ground is priced I don't know if I will ever see the day that I will be able to purchase something to call my own.
 (Planting with layne 2014-2.JPG)
 (Planting with layne 2014-5.JPG)
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 Planting with layne 2014-2.JPG (87KB - 219 downloads)
Planting with layne 2014-5.JPG (63KB - 212 downloads)
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Any body out their start farming from scratch.
