Retirement is as unique and varied as the individual retiree. Some people want to travel the globe as we are doing. Others want to play golf or fish. And others just want to break away from the corporate world to live the good life on a farm of their own
For a time, we considered a brief stint on a farm. Already growing some of our own vegetables and greens on a small public patch of land in Seattle, we wondered what it would be like to raise a few chickens and maybe a pig
As food lovers with a great interest in grass-fed cows, free range chickens, artisan cheeses and cured meats, we loved the idea of moving our table one step closer to the farm
After reading Holy Cows and Hog Heaven: The Food Buyer’s Guide to Farm Friendly Food by Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms, we decided to give farming a trial run
We found a small farm a few hours outside Washington DC that was offering internships in their production of grass fed cattle and sheep, pasture raised chickens and ducks and eggs, and forest raised pigs, all in the Polyface Farm style. With a small stipend and room and board as part of the deal, this would have been a great transition from the working world. Not only would we be learning about raising great food, we would be spending next to nothing
One nice thing about the rising interest in sustainable farming and natural practices is that internships are available. One not so nice thing is that there is high demand for those internships. And interviews. So one fine weekend in January we flew to DC for a 3-day trial
With flights, hotel, and rental car, this wasn’t the cheapest interview ever, but we took advantage of the time and explored DC and the Shenandoah Valley
Our first day we woke up at the butt crack of dawn on a fine frigid January morning to head out to the farm.
The temperature was still below freezing at this hour, so some physical activity was welcome. Walking the farm took a couple hours. We saw the greenhouse where the chickens and ducks were still harboring the winter, visited the pigs in a nearby grove of trees, and the cows grazing in a nearby field.
Then we collected that mornings eggs and headed in for breakfast. Being at the epicenter of world class food we were excited. Fresh duck eggs, apple wood smoked bacon, and home made bread with hand picked berry preserves and fresh churned butter perhaps?
Nope. It turns out that whatever was on sale at Wal-mart was on the menu today (and every day.) Cost is king
This was the first of many disappointments from the weekend. It turns out that (at least in this case) forest raised pigs get most of their calories from corn and soybeans. And pasture raised chickens and ducks enjoy the same. The #1 cost of running the farm was feed
Grass fed cows and sheep do have an all grass diet, and they are pretty cute. As are baby pigs. But in order to be certified organic, antibiotics are forbidden, which kind of sucks when the herd gets pinkeye
We also learned how eggs are graded. What ever is the difference between A and AA eggs? Just size it turns out. AA eggs are often impossible to separate from the A eggs without a fine scale
Over the course of the following days we collected eggs, round up chickens, chopped wood, hauled wood, moved electric fencing around pastures and woody knolls, talked farming, and ate for the sake of calories
It became clear that interests weren’t aligned and we went our separate ways. Our farming days were over
$12 for 6 duck eggs at the farmer’s market doesn’t seem so bad after all
If you have an interest in where your food comes from and the operation of a small farm, I do recommend reading what Joel Salatin has to offer. He is eloquent and as opinionated as they come
We have a tiny garden. It’s a lot of work! And when we occasionally rely on expensive city water for irrigation, it can get expensive.
I think I might keep dabbling in growing something edible occasionally, but so far haven’t been bit with the chicken coop bug that many in my neighborhood have. It seems to be a lot of work, and full of heartbreaking stories of foxes and other predators making the hens disappear occasionally. :)
Last summer in Seattle the neighbors raised chickens, and every morning we would take the fruit and vegetable pulp from making juice over to feed them. They ate well, and we got fresh eggs for $0.50 a dozen. That is my kind of farming
Nice! Upcycling your food scraps into (discounted) eggs.
We use the air conditioning condensate to water our plants. Perhaps not surprisingly, our AC removes 15-20 gallons of humidity daily from our house in the middle of summer here in NC. And we have free woodchips that we use as ground cover for our planting beds to keep weeds out organically (and free and easy). We do occasionally use Sevin dust if insects go crazy but I don’t think we used it this year.
Have you heard of renting goats? That’s apparently a thing now for weed control and clearing undergrowth. A neighbor rented a herd of goats for the day and our neighborhood email list went crazy with “that’s awesome”‘s and “no, I don’t think goats are allowed under city code”. They’re allowed for brush clearing apparently. Seemed expensive at $100/day I think.
$100/day? Now that’s a business to check out (on the goat owning side, of course).
I think I would rent goats just to annoy the city code fanatic in the neighborhood
I bet goats could clean undergrowth a lot faster and easier than I could. My hourly rate is pretty high. If it took me more than about 3 or 4 hours to do the equivalent job I’d get the goats. But then again, this is why I rent
Pretty much everyone else in the ‘hood politely said “STFU, they are only there for the day to clean up” (as politely as you can say STFU),
They are certainly quieter than gas powered weed eaters!
I always wondered how much of the weekend interview process for a farm internship was to vet the potential interns and how much of it was really for the potential interns to vet farming. Cool that you guys checked it out for yourselves! One of the things we’ve missed most of all about our former home (before traveling) was our monthly pick-ups of the most amazing meats – all from Polyface. Love that place!
We used to get most of our meat and eggs from the farmers market, all grass fed and free range raised just a couple hours outside Seattle. Most of our veg came from a nearby biodynamic farm. Every dollar spent was a vote for a healthier (and more delicious) food raising system
One thing we are looking at doing after GCCjr is born is traveling around all the US National Parks. It looks like you are having a great time!
Awesome plan! There are so many great places to explore – from the big, famous parks to the out-of-the-way but often just as awesome parks. And while doing it with a toddler limits us in some ways, it makes us see things from a new and different (and better) perspective. And frankly, you can really do just about anything with a kid that you could pre-kid (except get lots of sleep).
When we were doing our 100 mile hike around Mt. Rainier on The Wonderland Trail, we heard this awful sound in the distance. “Is that a mountain lion?!”
But no, it was a 6 month old baby screaming its head off, a little less happy to be hiking the trail than Mom or Dad. Although they looked pretty tired (probably due to lack of sleep)
Could have been my kid. :) Sometimes we have “difficulties”. But watching the 2 year old explore and discover things I don’t notice is pretty cool.
My ultimate retirement dreams are raising chickens, growing fruits and vegetables, managing our investments. If I still have a time, I will make a wet wine with black or blue berry. What a lofty retirement dreams, right? I don’t mind owning a few cows on a small farm, but it requires more labor, on top of that my husband is not into it.
Sounds like some fantastic goals!
Maybe we can be neighbors :)
We decided to work on our chosen CSA farm this year in exchange for our share of food and it is no picnic. At orientation, they mentioned that a lot of people see farming as romantic and that this would be a wake up call. Yup it is! There is *so* much that goes into Organic farming that if you aren’t a part of the process, it’s hard to picture what else goes on besides the chickens laying eggs and selling them at market, or planting a seed and harvesting a few months later. It opened our eyes up, as we were thinking we wanted to give farming a try. We’ve got a couple months left to go, and then we’ll have to reassess what we think. But we are much more aware of what farming actually encompasses now.
http://www.rentaruminant.com/