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I don’t know what your playground days were like, but at Orchard Hill Elementary School we played a lot of kick-ball, basketball, and football during recess. If you were as skilled at those sports as I was you probably have called for a do-over or two or ten in your day! There have been plenty of times in my short farming life that I would have liked to be able call a do-over on. Unfortunately I’m not able to redo some of the mistakes I have made on the farm, but hopefully you can learn from them and not make the same ones I did! Specifically I want to share three things that I would do differently if I would have known then what I know now.
- Where’s the Beef … err … I Mean No Beef Please!
- A Little More Learning Would be Nice.
- Develop a Marketing Mind!
My “Hard Lesson Learned” this week deals with one word … “NO”. That is a word that wasn’t really in my vocabulary when I started the farm and because of that I caused lots of problems for myself and for my family. In my excitement to get up and going to the level of my dreams I tried to do too many things too quickly instead of going slow and saying no when I needed to say no. Saying “no” in the beginning is one of my most offered pieces of advice to other beginning farmers and it is something I wish I would have said a lot more!
If you enjoy the show and are an iTunes user you can always subscribe to The Beginning Farmer Show by following the link. And … if you really enjoy the show I would very much appreciate a rating or comment in the iTunes Store. (FYI … I am working on submitting the show to other podcast services).
I would love to hear your questions, show ideas, or comments about the show. Feel free to shoot me an e-mail! As always you can follow along with The Beginning Farmer and Crooked Gap Farm by checking out these links …
I really enjoyed listening to the podcast while doing chores this morning. So many of your lessons ring true for me as well as I look back on the last 5 years of my life!
I also loved the bumper music in this episode, and the whole thing just came across really well. Congrats!
I’ll go over to I Tunes later today to listen to the latest podcast… keep up the good work!
Hi Ethan. My wife found your wife’s blog last week and sent me a link and now I’m enjoying your blog and pod casts. I really like your do over and hard lessons segments. We are just getting started in farming this year and its great to read blogs of people a few years into the process. Take care and keep up the good work.
I just listened to your podcast and already I can’t wait for the next one.
Hi Ethan, I love your podcast and have been listening to it from the beginning on. You mention that you’d post a booklist that you would recommend for (super) beginning farmers. I’ve already read most of Joel Salatin, and would love other recommendations! Sincerely, Kat in Brisbane, Australia