Stepping off the brink

March 18 was a long time ago...

After digesting a lot of information which may or may not predict the up coming year I am not impressed. This whole concept of pulling oneself up by your own bootstraps is the bunk.

However, I have been doing my exercises and I feel better. Yesterday I had my wife help me come up with a process to get into the tractor and back out again. We practiced climbing onto the grain drill. She helped me climb onto the fertilizer bin which will carry the seed to the field. I need to be able to load it which means I need to climb up the side, remove a tarp, and then untie the bottom of a 1200lb bag which is being held over the bin by a forklift. I think I can do it.

Today is essentially my first day of farming.

I am scared. I talked to a fellow at Church Sunday who is paying $250 an acre rent and who has had to take out his one year old Fescue grass seed crop. He is subleasing his farm to someone else. He thought he was done farming for five years.

I want to plant oats today and barley tomorrow. I really don't see those as big money makers. I know too many farmers who don't get paid and crops that are too low priced. For crying out loud, wheat is the same price it was in 1972. It was a good price then, but a new combine was $20,000 then, not $350,000.

So I kind of feel like I am stepping off a cliff. I probably will have to go to work at a Golf Course in the end. 

Perhaps I will feel better when I actually get to work.