Suggestions and or Ideas

I forgot to add this to my last post. Have you thought about using your horses with a pull behind combine (old Allis Chalmers, Massey Ferguson, and International) rather than a thresher and binder setup. I’ve not used them (binder/thresher) but they appear to require a lot of man power (not just horses). That can be a limitation. Here, folks can’t even find help to haul in hay. They’d rather work at McDonalds. Sad.:(

Heck, they’re getting paid and won’t do it. The most reliable crew was a guy about 70 yrs old w/ more horses than hay so he hauled hay for shares and his helper was his 10 yr old 90# grandson. As you know, it’s hot dirty physical work. No takers. Food, fun, beer, money. Maybe with the crappy economy. Hell, Bernard Madeoff and his ilk should be required to come do some real work to see what EARNED INCOME is all about.:D

Hi Mike, I am a SMALL scale hillside farmer/logger/homesteader so my input into your query may be misplaced, but I think you are on the right track.

I have serious questions about the value of holding onto internal combustion power units very far into the future. This is obviously a personal call, but it seems clear you are weighing the options. If you hold onto this value to use them to your advantage, you may well hold onto them until they have no value to anyone else, as in resale value. But there is also the difficulty in transitioning completely to animal power. I think this is the BIG question we are all facing. I would just throw out that as you make the transition, you also, as has been suggested, keep in mind how to downsize to more appropriately match the animal power. (If things continue as they are, though, there may be folks lining the road looking to work for their food.:eek:)

About the value added for using horses, I wonder how effective that will be in the size of the market you have, but we have found it to work at our scale, especially as we coin it “Post Peak Oil Produce”, rather than wistfully pushing the pastoral view of horse in harness. (Our garlic and potatoes come out of ground cultivated for over 20 years with horse and hand only)
The real value in the future to using horses, I think you already understand, it’s just finding the right balance of income and expenses so that you are prepared for that future when it gets here.

Congratulations on having a son who wants to work with you. That is by far one of your greatest assets, but I can tell you know that.

I can’t tell you whether you can do it or not, but I can tell you not to listen to those who tell you that you can’t.

Good luck, and keep us up-to-date.

Carl

Mike:

Seems like part of your question in your original post involves the possibility of making a living off of your farm. Many of the questions regarding the trade-offs between horses and machinery are moot if you operate at a loss or break even (that is if you want to make a living off the farm). Even if you cut your costs with horses, you may be cutting your gross income as well (maybe not).

My wife and I make our living off of milking 40-50 goats and processing that milk into cheese. One of the ways I was able to leave my job and go full time was doing a “gross margin analysis” on our different farming ventures at the time which – in addition to goats – included lamb and beef. This was a powerful tool that enabled us to determine what aspects of our farm were truly generating income and what enterprises were losing $. We ended up getting rid of the lamb and beef and concentrating on the goats as well as raising a dozen hogs or so off the whey from the cheese operation. This move enabled us to concentrate our limited labor resources to our most profitable venture which improved to goat cheese aspect of our farm b/c we were dedicating more resources toward it.

Gross margin analysis in a nutshell looks at the income and costs from each farm enterprise (your labor is a cost), putting aside overhead (mortgage, taxes, etc.) After you pay your labor and cash costs for each enterprise (in our case goats, sheep, cattle), you need to cover depreciation, opportunity cost, and inflation. If there is $ at the end, you made a profit.

It is certainly a little more complicated and there is lots of information out there, but it is a very useful process if you want move toward a more profitable business. There is a good article on gross-margin analysis in The Stockman Grass Farmer this month (good magazine).

Of course, this is not all about profit and money or I would still be teaching high school.

Good luck with your farming venture.

George

P.S. How about packaging some of your grains into a hot cereal mix?

Y 4,

I think you can do it, you are already doing it to a degree and every loaded step your animals take instead of another revolution of an I.C. engine is a plus for your independence and the planets survival. Everyone on this board probably has some fossil fuel dependency, I know we do. It seems almost impossible under current conditions to operate without it, although many believe it is not impossible and live toward the end of complete fossil fuel energy independence. It seems appropriate that we be weaned from the
addiction to oil and not shut off instantly and working toward the freedom of
self sufficiency would naturally be a gradual process.

One big problem is that we don’t have large families nowadays that are centered on the land for our livings. That anthropological culture is the key to continuity on the farm. In the absence of that biological family often through careful selection and trial periods some apprentices could become
part of the labor needed to do things with less oil and more human effort along with animal power. That is an extended family approach and is not easy, but could be a path to expanding the work force and sharing the experience of what could truly be a “good life”. It will be a tired life, with calloused hands, sore backs and weathered complexions on the folks that do the work. Most of the wrinkles will reflect deep smile lines.

Getting older and less physically capable is definitely something we all deal with, some sooner than later. So passing the knowledge and inspiration of how and why to do this type of work can start now. Since the labor saving machines and fossil fuel is not going to disappear overnight using leased or rented equipment from within the community is a nice transition phase and is what most of us do, that are actually making a living with the animals as a key component to survival economically.

Differentiation of source methods is a growing niche in our modern world.

Organics are now closer to mainstream than ever and in this country we believe that the market will fix everything so educating and demonstrating to the public that alternative methods of addressing human needs is important, even if only on a percentage basis at the moment.

Defining yourself and your work and products as being different is important.
Any other definition may reduce and marginalize your work beneath what it actually is. Ignore those that detract from your efforts to be different and work within the inspiration of your own sense of doing the best you can.

Green is the new cool and maybe will eventually become a common value in society and market, so that could be the code to cracking the combination of the lock the dominant paradigm has on the world economy. In the current economic conditions all businesses are looking for ways to sell their services and goods and this “green” approach is being spun by everyone from Wal-Mart to Mom and Pop grocery stores. It is promising that “green” is less threatening than it was a decade ago, so we should stick together to work with others of similar mindset, principles and purpose.

Keep up your good work. I suspect you represent many in similar situations so don’t feel alone or isolated in this quest.

Be prepared for dismissal by some. Remember the old saying about how to tell who the real leaders are: they are the ones with arrows or bullet holes in them from all directions….

*A note is that on the page/post about the “Cultural Missionary Work” there are hot links to media about that project and not one person has commented on it, so I suspect it hasn’t been seen among all the good information and exchanges on this site. It is an example of how we may be paid well for our services with animal power. I think most DAP members will enjoy it.