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At least these days. I sadly don’t think much of this advice is usable in terms of finding someone to take you in, give you feed and room and board and money.

At least these days. I sadly don’t think much of this advice is usable in terms of finding someone to take you in, give you feed and room and board and money. Most farmers where I grew up—even smaller farms hired temporary workers and gave them bunkhouses. At the end of the season they went off and brought the money back to their families—money not worth much here but worth a lot back home. The advice about seeing value in redefining objects for their other potentials is great though. One I grew up with. Maybe something quite valuable to the high (read: even higher) consuming culture of the present. Interesting read.

prawn 7y ago
Can you clarify that bunkhouse point? Isn't getting a bunkhouse and pay similar enough to what the author had suggested? Or do you mean that you'd not be competitive with salary demands if you were to stay on-site year round and deal with local costs?
- Danieru 7y ago
  The author is talking about farms where there exists an original farm house that has since been super seceded by a nicer house. Thus there is in effect room for a while second household. A bunkhouse will have little more than a bed. In effect the author is talking about a by gone era when a single family would do or could do all the work on a farm. Since then average farm sizes have gone up. Wages have gone down, and work is done by either by machines, chemicals, or low skilled hired hands. Also new in the past five years has been extreme appreciation on the value of farm land. Farm land is now getting treated like forest land was a decade or so ago where a bunch of university funds and PE speculated. Now is not a good time to try low scale farming.
  - prawn 7y ago
    Right. I'd figured that a single person could deal with a bunkhouse and basic food while they were starting out, but that wouldn't always give you room to stockpile stock over the years.
    - 52-6F-62 7y ago
      Yeah what I meant by bunkhouse is more or less a converted trailer with a row of bunks like a low-rent dorm but cheaper and all of the workers share the same room (or were split between trailers) with shared facilities. These could take forms other than trailers but often they were built cheap and only suitable for growing and harvest season habitation. The impression I got from the author was more of a single family dwelling.

prawn 7y ago

Can you clarify that bunkhouse point? Isn't getting a bunkhouse and pay similar enough to what the author had suggested? Or do you mean that you'd not be competitive with salary demands if you were to stay on-site year round and deal with local costs?

Danieru 7y ago
The author is talking about farms where there exists an original farm house that has since been super seceded by a nicer house. Thus there is in effect room for a while second household. A bunkhouse will have little more than a bed. In effect the author is talking about a by gone era when a single family would do or could do all the work on a farm. Since then average farm sizes have gone up. Wages have gone down, and work is done by either by machines, chemicals, or low skilled hired hands. Also new in the past five years has been extreme appreciation on the value of farm land. Farm land is now getting treated like forest land was a decade or so ago where a bunch of university funds and PE speculated. Now is not a good time to try low scale farming.
- prawn 7y ago
  Right. I'd figured that a single person could deal with a bunkhouse and basic food while they were starting out, but that wouldn't always give you room to stockpile stock over the years.
  - 52-6F-62 7y ago
    Yeah what I meant by bunkhouse is more or less a converted trailer with a row of bunks like a low-rent dorm but cheaper and all of the workers share the same room (or were split between trailers) with shared facilities. These could take forms other than trailers but often they were built cheap and only suitable for growing and harvest season habitation. The impression I got from the author was more of a single family dwelling.