Posted by blue924.9 on March 10, 2015 at 12:55:29 from (96.31.30.65):
i posted a similar post on the unofficial allis forum
i have a plan and i would like some second thoughts and opinons on it.
My grandma has a roughly 3 acre pasture that is currently not being used, in prior years she had a horse that would graze on it. i have this available to me with rent at no cost.
in its current condition the pasture needs some work, the ice storm we had a few years ago left a bunch of decent sized branches in the pasture and on the fence. the fence is another problem. as far as i know none of the wire is broken but the wire is sagged and stretched from the tree branches falling on them. the tree branches would need to be cleaned up and the fence re-stretched or at worst the wire replaced, this is no big deal as i have done worse things with my time (like nothing). There used to be a house on the farm which is about 4 acres (the pasture is a little less than 3) until someone decided to burn it for some reason unknown to me. there is one electrical outlet that survived the blaze on the utility pole, but with some simple rewiring there could be electricity to the machine shed that is also on the property.
the fence lane that lead to the shed has been taken down when the pasture wasnt used after the fire as it makes the yard much easier to navigate when we split wood and my grandma would like to keep it that way, so i would have to build a simple 3 sided shed with a sliding door and a few individual pens. i would more than likely build this on a clearing in the middle of the east side grove where there is a small clearing in the trees so that it would be more than less naturally protected from a majority of the winds and all of the elements. there would be nothing fancy or expensive about it and it probably would not have electrical luxuries for the first little bit.
there is a well on the farm deep enough and plentiful enough that it supplied a household of 10 people and multiple animals with water at the same time, even during the dry years. the benefits of this is that i am confident it would supply all of my water needs, and there is no charge for water usage from the utilities company.
my plan is more of a two stage plan. the first stage would be to clear all of the tree branches and a few trees that fell during the ice storm, the next thing would be to fix the fence and inspect the entire pasture after that is done i will be re-seeding the pasture with grass seed as the animals there before tended to overgraze it, and because a majority (i would guess 80 percent) of the grass is regular lawn grass. i would then let it grow for a year before letting anything graze.
the second part of this involves the ffa, in our ffa in order to help on the farm and do chores you have to be a member of the ffa Co-Op. in order to do this you have to buy a share, at 150 dollars a each. i have 4 shares, 3 of which were paid by my grandparents in return for labor at a rate of 8.25 an hour, the other share was paid by myself as it was all i could afford at the time. The perks that made my grandparents agree that it was a good investment (they are heavy investors and try to direct my investments in a good direction as well) is that each share is guaranteed to get 10 percent interest per year or 15 dollars per year so in my case each year i earn 60 dollars JUST in interest. the second and more enticing part of the program is that that profit left over from expenses and a little extra for operating wiggle room is distributed equally to each share, so say we have 100 shares and make 10,000 dollars profit each INDIVIDUAL share would get 10 dollars added to it. the enticing catch is that no money can me taken out of a share if we were to have a bad year and lose money, in the case of losing money the ffa would take money from the school account to stay out of debt and not charge the highschool share holders. i have had shares in there for two years already and will have them in for another year, for 3 years total. in these years we have been having a record high profit number due in part to most of our supplies are donated to us for no cost or at a considerably reduced cost. high cattle prices have also helped up make a larger profit number.
the reason i am telling you this is because as i sit right now i have enough money to buy a few cow calf pairs or about 8 bottle calves after expenses are takin out for maintnence of the pasture, seed, feed, and building the shed. however i understand that there is risk in getting cattle and if one were to die for some reason i would go into debt. this is why i want to wait a year for me to graduate, then i would have the money from my ffa shares and have some extra money to stay floating if a bad situation were to occur, such as a cow or calf dying or getting injured. this also lets the grass that would be seeded this spring to grow and become established a year before having the stress of animals eating off of it.
i understand that there is considerable work ahead of me but i am prepared and believe i have though this out as to reduce as much risk and be as smart about it as i can. in this entire operation i am for taking no loans out from the bank to stay out of debt, and if worse comes to worse would probably take a loan out from the grandparents on the terms of paying it back in money and interest like a bank without the threat of them taking my assests, or working it off at the 8.25 an hour basis again. i will post a thread in the tractor talk section of yesterdays tractors as well.
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