Yup, down and out. Well on crutches. My knee decided that July was the time to act up again this year. I’ve done months of PT and kept up the excercises and stretches. It was doing so well then it isn’t. Intense pain, swelling and it’s not stable to walk on. So crutches and getting in to see the orthopedic. MRI is in my future to see what is going on but hopefully a cortisone shot to calm it down. It’s busy here and me being downI is bad news. I can do things but on crutches on sitting on a stool. Most of what I do is not doable on crutches.
Sigh… so the guys are taking up some of. the slack and the rest is just dropped.
I did a video interview back in June for Breaking New Roots Youtube channel- look it up and like/subscribe. It poured the whole time. Not just rain, it poured. But we did make it to the woods to see the piggies and hang out under the trees. No chance to show off the herd and the grazing management. ah well, I got to talk about how we started and how we handle some of the business parts of the farm.
I mentioned pricing and how farmers need to be better at pricing. We are businesses and too many don’t treat it that way. They have this idea that food should be cheap, and sure it would be nice if good quality local food was cheap but is it really a good thing? We have a mortgage, taxes, insurance, electricity, fuel, parts, maintenance, and every little thing that keeps this place going, then we need income to pay ourselves what we feel we are worth. Too mnay have no value and work multiple jobs so they can keep the farm going. Why do we have to work off the farm to keep the farm going? We shouldn’t.
Food is needed for life, good qulity food is even more important - atleast it is to us.
We sold our old farm and that helped finace this new farm purchase- it gave us a down payment and we were in our 40s! I look at prices on farms in the area and I don’t know how anyone doing farming like we are can afford it.
One is 120 acres if forever farm land, no liveable house, no fence, no infrastructure. $899,000. with $200,000 down it’s $6,500 a month payment. whoa…….. what kind of farming is going to be be at that level at the start or soon after?
So there is a serious crisis going on. with the price of farm land being unattainable to so many. Sure if you work hard and in your 50’s you can afford some land to farm on, but really starting farming in your 50’s is not easy and often not realistic. Heck I’m in my 50’s and working out how to do things, grow things and deal with a bad acting knee.
We need some serious reform to keep farm land as farm land and make it affordable. It has to be restricted to farming by the farmers who own it, not leased out either. The last thing we all need is more tennant farmers farming the land under the wealthy non-farm owners.
How do we do it? I have ideas but I know they are a dream.