I grew up ranching and completely surrounded by dairies/farms. It's even more physically demanding than they say and long hours, but in many ways I would prefer

I grew up ranching and completely surrounded by dairies/farms. It's even more physically demanding than they say and long hours, but in many ways I would prefer that type of work and miss it and it might allow me to enjoy coding/math for fun in my spare time again. If you HAVE to depend on it for your income it's usually another story though. Farming at a small scale usually leads to a meagre income that can fluctuate wildly with the markets and you have no safety nets from company health insurance and other benefits(if you get sick, no PTO or medical leave and your farm starts failing while you recover). Farms are massively consolidating and you're competing with corporate megafarms that can be much more efficient due to scale. Your suppliers like John Deere and Monsanto are becoming notorious for their abusive relationships with farmers and price gouging. Your fellow small scale competitors aren't paying a fair wage to hired help like you would aspire to, but mostly relying on illegal immigrant labor with below poverty pay, and you can't compete if you don't do the same or work triple time to compensate. When crop prices cratered or there were crop failures due to drought, other weather, and/or insects and plant diseases - and it's common for something like that in a given year - you would hear about a couple of the farmers in our community committing suicide. Be careful before you leap into it full time, although it can be rewarding on the side or after you've accumulated enough wealth to not fully depend on it.