posted
Don't listen to them, Uber. I'm actually quite envious of you going and getting a degree in Organic Agriculture. If I had it to do all over again, I'd probably do something similar.
My family has belonged to a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm for three years now. It's a small (roughly 40 acres) organic farm about 15 miles from our home. We purchase a "share" of the farm each year, and in exchange for that fee, we get a weekly share of the produce from June through November. Last year they built a root cellar so we actually got root vegetables and squashes on a monthly basis from December through March! We're welcome to help out on the farm whenever we like. My kids particularly love harvesting pumpkins in the fall.
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Thank you ralph. Your set-up sounds pretty cool.
I will be 38 by the time I graduate from farm school, therefore barry's concern over my lack of cockage won't be an issue. Everyone knows you don't get cock over the age of 35...
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If you're serious about the farming, good luck!
If things work out the way I plan in the next few years, I intend to be doing something vaguely similar myself.
I love the whole `growing things' thing. Our garden, when we moved in was concreted over completely. We spent three days smashing it and carting the rocks to skips we had hired. Now we grow and eat rhubarb and raspberries. We have weird and wonderful herbs growing, some that we eat - lovage, feverfew, garden mint, calamint, wild strawberries, comfrey, lavender, muskmallow, etc.
I get an absurd amount of pleasure from working in the garden.
I want a small holding with fruit and veg growing, dye plants for the R*man thing just to experiment with, a few rare breed sheep and a paddock and small stable block for the pony. Oh - and a workshop so I can conduct my bronze-casting experiments without having to wait for the weather.
Seriously though - go for it. It's something that will feel worth the time and effort you put into it.
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I have found this thread incredibly depressing, and dare I say it rather typical of this place in recent weeks. I might have thought my gradual withdrawal might have reduced the nastiness factor - but ach, alas, no.
FWIW Uber I am going to be in Hereford in the next couple of weeks and might take a detour to check out this place, if I have the time. If it all seems above board I'll probably donate something - after all, as an old Nazi who believes in Blut und Boden, it is the right thing to do.
I think you're being a little over-sensitive about this to be honest. Lots of people have discussed career-changing decisions on here, with other posters generally being supportive and encouraging whilst maintaining their comic stance. Obviously Stefanos has come in for plenty of ribbing over his Roman obsession, but I'm sure there were a fair few piss-takers who wished they had the guts to strike out and try and make a living out of their hobby. When I've told people about one of my future options being this MSc course in Equine Science, the usual response is a pause and then, "what, horse wanking? Ha ha ha!" and, you know, farming and farmers are inherently funny and ripe for comic abuse.
I'm interested to hear what your actual experience of farming is, and what attracts you to it (other than enjoying growing plants, which could be satisfied by horticultural/botanical studies). I don't want to be horribly patronising, but I'm a bit concerned that your image of farming is tainted by memories of "The Children of Cherry Tree Farm" by Enid Blyton, where the cows all had names, high tea was served on checked tablecloths and a kindly farm hand let the townie kids bottlefeed the lambkins. My personal experience of farm life is based on teenage summers at a sheep farm on Exmoor. I would summarise modern farm life as mainly consisting of:
- gates dragging on their hinges. - everything held up with baler twine. - unidentifiable abandoned bits of machinery rusting in filds. - mud. Lots of mud. - shit. Lots of shit. - sheep with prolapsed uteruses. - once a week bus service. - poor tv and radio reception. - reliance on understocked and overpriced village shop located 5 miles away. - lack of cash flow. - once a month night out in the Goat & Scrotum (4 miles the other side of the moors).
I'm not sure a "city farm" (a farm where you can see another building- lol) is perhaps representative of these realities.
Best of luck with whatever you decide, and I hope the OU course is going well.
-------------------- What I object to is the colour of some of these wheelie bins and where they are left, in some areas outside all week in the front garden. Posts: 4941
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quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: I would summarise modern farm life as mainly consisting of:
- gates dragging on their hinges. - everything held up with baler twine. - unidentifiable abandoned bits of machinery rusting in filds. - mud. Lots of mud. - shit. Lots of shit. - sheep with prolapsed uteruses. - once a week bus service. - poor tv and radio reception. - reliance on understocked and overpriced village shop located 5 miles away. - lack of cash flow. - once a month night out in the Goat & Scrotum (4 miles the other side of the moors).
quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: Hi Uber, I think you're being a little over-sensitive about this to be honest. Lots of people have discussed career-changing decisions on here, with other posters generally being supportive and encouraging whilst maintaining their comic stance.
Hi VP, I think that perhaps people think that I'm being over-sensitive when in fact if I use a word like 'h8ters' then I'm actually being more faux-bolshy than genuine-upset. Also, it's not my future career move that I was discussing, as the thread wasn't about 'help me become a farmer' it was to spread the word about Fordhall Farm that needs some help. (As an aside, if you do go Rick then let me know your thoughts.)
What did slightly annoy me was more what seemed to be an assumption that 'silly little Uber didn't know what she was doing, spending £50 on her birthday money on buying a share to try and save a farm'. What also seems to be implied is that I haven't actually thought seriously about any of this.
To answer the rest of your post, I do have very little hands on experience of farming but that is why I'm doing the degree, to learn and find out about it. If I don't like it / am crap at it then I'll give it up, it's not like just cos I want to give it a try I'm committed forever! I want to do arable farming rather than animal husbandry so thankfully prolapsed sheeps uteruses are not something I'll be dealing with!
I'm considering working on a City Farm when I've done my degree rather than going very rural, which was never part of my plan anyway, so I don't think it's unrealistic to be looking to do voluntary work on one. I've still got a couple of years before I go so if I decide that it's not for me after spending the next year and a bit getting experience then no harm done, at least I tried. That's the way I look at it anyway.
My OU course is going well thanks, I'm doing my last timed assessment for this year tomorrow and then I'm free until October. Hurrah!
quote:Originally posted by Uber Trick: What did slightly annoy me was more what seemed to be an assumption that 'silly little Uber didn't know what she was doing, spending £50 on her birthday money on buying a share to try and save a farm'. What also seems to be implied is that I haven't actually thought seriously about any of this.
I think that maybe more an insecurity coming through there - there's nothing in the three or four posts before your h8ers comment that really conveys that message. The closest is Louche's "Nah, not keen on that idea" comment which doesn't really convey a sense of negativity towards you, so much as being a half-hearted "not for me" comment. Sabian made a joke about the price of fruit, Black Mask joked about the unlikelihood of giving up his patch for charity, and that was it. It does seem a bit like you were waiting for TMO to say those things about your idea, and then exploded at the merest hint of the possiblity that someone may have thought them.
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posted
Eh? I hardly exploded, I think perhaps I'm being read wrongly. Although I guess if it reads wrongly it must have been written wrongly by me in the first place.
I'm not insecure about my future plans and I'm not concerned about people on here judging my decisions. There is however a pervading atmosphere of negativity and being 'down' on things on here which grates after a while. I don't want that to negate the good, positive, supportive stuff that has also come from the boards either, it's just that the recent trend has tipped towards negativity. But even typing those words makes me feel tired and bored. Let's not harp on about it, let's just work on making it better.
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Thanks for posting this, H1ppychick, and giving this story closure. I'm not ashamed to admit that, due to being in a very fragile emotional state brought on by sleep deprivation, this story brought a tear to my eye.
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