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Embarrass WI | I started in 1986, age 29, all I had to my name was a 1979 Chevy K-10 pickup. Rented a dairy barn with a house and land, This was during the Dairy Herd Buyout years, looked at one herd that ended up being slaughtered for that program. Bought a herd of scrub dairy cows with horns from a guy whose health was failing. First spring I traded with my Dad, I did all his fieldwork in exchange for using his stuff to plant mine. Every 'old guy' I talked to tried to discourage me-"A young guy can't get started today!!" I was too bull-headed to listen. My wife thought I was crazy, but went along with it. She ended up working harder than me, we both busted our tails. 1988 was a drought and my Dad was diagnosed with lung cancer, March 1989 he passed away.
We ended up buying the farm I was raised on from my siblings, by then my Mom had stripped out the barn and sold off most of the land. We put a double 8 milking parlor in the old barn and tried to get along with cows outside the first winter, next year built a freestall barn. In those years it was easy to rent land, I had people stopping me on the street wanting to rent me land(it's different now!).
We worked our tails off, didn't buy anything we didn't actually need, paid extra at the bank every month no matter what. We are planning to retire from milking in 2016, after 30 years I hope to be able to just row crop at 59. | |
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Any body out their start farming from scratch.
