The Hobby Farm VS a Real Farm

 If you ask any farmer or homesteader is you place a for profit farm or just a hobby farm your answer will probably be as varied as the people you ask. 

The IRS has one definition.  Your accountant will have another some people readily admit that they are just hobby farmers some are hoping to be profitable and be a REAL farm. 

Like myself, right now if being honest with myself, I probably am just a hobby farmer, but that is not the intent and hopefully we will turn a profit. Right now, our expenses far outweigh the income so the difference comes out of my paycheck from my day job. 

And it not for the lack of trying. If you look back in the history of this blog, you see that I grew up on a ranch in mid-western, Central Oregon, just at the southern tip of the Willamette Valley. We generally had 50 head of Registered Polled Herford Cattle and 30 head of Registered Romney Sheep.

Me, Showing My Steer 1978

In 2016. We tried raising pigs with the hopes of selling free-range port locally but that flopped, no one, well almost no one wanted to pay $ 500.00 for a 350 lb. pig. 

Our, honey sales have done a bit better, than but still not as well as I hoped. But I digress

Was our Farm Profitable  back then? Well, to be honest, I do not know I know for my parents it was more of a lifestyle than dollars and cents. We always had fresh Dairy Products, Milk, cream and sometimes butter.

We always had fresh beef and chicken and occasionally Pork and Rabbit. 

We always had fresh vegetables in the summer and fall. My mother worked countless hours tending the garden and in the fall canning and preserving every extra ounce of vegetables from that garden. 

We also had fruit trees, Apples, pears, plumbs, and Peach, but in our area, the peaches struggled to thrive but we always managed to get a few.

My mother canned all those fruits except the plumbs; my father took those to a local dryer house and traded their services for a few pounds of plumbs. 

My father built a cider press around 1975 and we had either fresh or frozen cider year round.

Also, In the mid 70's my father got several hives of honey Bees and did beekeeping right up to the end of 2011 when he passed.

We never took our farm products to a farmer's Market, Hell, in those day there wasn’t even farmers market to take it too. 

The Point is, sometimes, just having a steady stream of fresh food that you know how it was raised is more important than making a profit. 

My Father worked as a Sheet Metal Mechanic for most of his adult life. Fortunately, he was able to retire when he was 55. Even after that he stayed busy but that is another so=tory for another post. 

 A ariel view of our homestead in Oregon current, 

A closer look.