Home I Blog I Sheep I Poultry I Contact

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the farm.

About 50 acres in north central Florida. It is almost entirely in pasture. The grass is mostly Bahaia with some Bermuda mixed in and is very well established.

If you dig through the turf, it's beach sand clear to China.

As a result, we can only raise row crops in well amended garden plots. Not too much of this has been done so far.

The nearby photo is the front of the main house taken from the road end of the driveway.

Having moved to this small farm in 2004, things are still being set up. The farm was run for quite a number of years as a cow calf operation. The guy we bought it from had 20 mama cows and a bull. It had wonderful fences and was cross fenced into three separate paddocks. Several water tanks were in place. It had a pole barn, a two car size carport type building for equipment storage, and a twelve by twenty four workshop.

My grandfather was a "Real Farmer". He had a large farm in south central Minnesota. By most any standards he was successful. My uncle took over the farm eventually. My cousin still runs it.

My father was a "Gentleman Farmer". He was a teacher by trade, but we had a 392 acre cow calf operation where my brother and I worked. I guess you could say this was pop's hobby. During these years I also worked for the Vet, riding along on farm calls. I basically held down the critters while he did terrible things to them.

The photo at the right is a google earth aerial photo of our small farm. The long thin rectangle in the center is the part of the land we own, just under twenty acres. The two open pastures on the left are something like twelve acres that belongs to my neighbor, with whom I have an agreement that lets me graze it. The odd shaped area on the right is about 15 acres that belongs to a different neighbor. We rent this land.

After something like 30 years in town and having nothing to do with agriculture at all we are trying to start some sort of enterprise.

So far, we tried sheep, cattle, poultry, and a very small amount of gardening.

We call this "Adventures in Amateur Agriculture" because when this all started it was supposed to be a hobby. Since then it has gotten out of control.

It is not too much different that a guy who gets a bass boat so he can relax and do a little fishing. The next thing you know it looks like he's trying to put together his own navy.

Whatever it is called, it still surprises me how much I enjoy this. There are times of course when I wonder why I'm doing this, but this most honest explanation I can come up with is that I just can't help myself.

 

 

© 2006 a3 farm. All Rights Reserved