TBF 005 :: Making Major Farm Purchases, Rain is Coming, and What Not To Buy

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Making major purchases on your farm is always a necessary part of beginning a farm and expanding your farm in the future. But, they are not always easy decisions to make! Before you go out and drop your hard earned cash on that next great piece of equipment or structure you need to examine whether or not you even need this “next great thing” and where you are going to purchase this item. Just because you have a need for something doesn’t mean that you need it. It may mean that you need to borrow one, rent one, or hire someone to do the job for you. There are times though when a purchase just needs to be made to move the farm along or make your work more efficient. If that is the case then you need to consider where you are going to make that purchase.

What Do I Really Need?

• It will vary from farm to farm, but ask yourself what you need to get started and what can wait for a little while.
• Are there other ways that you can use something that you feel like you need? Borrow, rent, trade work, hire, etc.
• Ask yourself if you are better off spending some time and sweat instead of your cash?

Where Do I Get What I Really Need?

• New is an option, but not really the best option most of the time.
• Check the farm auctions out if you have time to spare, but make sure you don’t get caught up in the “fun” of an auction.
• Craigslist is a pretty good choice and I know most farmers already check it often, but don’t forget about posting “wanted to buy” ads. You’d be amazed at how many farmers have what you want sitting in the back of their shed.

Remember, the bottom line is that it doesn’t need to look perfect … it just needs to work perfectly (or close enough to perfect)!

Lately things have been very active on the farm and a bit of rain in the forecast made things ramp up this week as we tried to get things ready for what I hope is a bit of spring mud. That meant finishing up some projects to get ready for our next back of chicks and doing as much tractor work as I can so I don’t have to use the tractor when it’s muddy. And, as always I take some time this week to share one of my hard lessons learned … this one was a little costly and I hope you don’t have to learn this lesson the hard way.

Some stuff mentioned in this episode …

• The Beginning Farmer Show Episode 003 (What happened to the first tractor?)
• Craigslist App for Android (I’m sure there is an iOS counterpart somewhere)

• Crooked Gap Farm
• Crooked Gap Farm on Facebook
• Crooked Gap Farm on Twitter

(if you are interested in the music in this episode check out my brother’s record label, Historic Records)