- Care for your land, husband your charges, cultivate your gardens.
- Feed yourself from your farm.
- Share the bounty with your family and friends.
- Be methodical in your habits, leave room for joy, work with someone you love.
- Be a good neighbor by building and maintaining good fences.
- Farm thoughtfully, lightly, repair and heal your mistakes.
- Cover your costs.
- Buy as little off the farm as possible. Sell or give away what is unneeded.
- Be free with your advice to those who are starting out. But listen attentively to those with more experience.
- Make a profit. Yet make this the least of the other nine commandments.
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Nice list. And I’ll agree with #10 on both directives… but I wonder about the accounting.
There are obvious expenses – but what about the less apparent? Do you pay yourself a living wage for time spent working the farm? Given the benefits of living on the farm the calculus of determining what IS a living wage gets muddled. There are so many personal angles – and I’m not asking you to divulge your own personal accounting.
Just as some costs are less obvious, how should one account some of the less apparent benefits. Entertainment, peace and solitude, and the satisfaction of reaping what you sow, and eating what you reap??
I tend toward the simplest means of evaluating whether I’ve made a profit. If the balance in my checkbook tends to increase over time… and whether I’m enjoying myself more than I’m sore for the effort. Even when supper doesn’t earn several Michelin stars… it is very much worth the effort; a profit for the ledger.
Indeed, what is ‘real’ farm accounting? And I’ve always been fuzzy on what a living wage means? Enough to buy beans and rice and pay the rent? Maintain an active subscription to the various streaming platforms? Best not to go down that rabbit hole. However, as far as what constitutes profits? I’ll define it as an absence of debt, make of that as you will. 🙂
“An absence of debt” is indeed a valuable state of attainment. Then there is the wealth of satisfaction that comes from learning to use our hands and heads. A farmer must learn to employ a wide range of skills, making things with our own hands, and finding an approach to fix what is broken. IMO these are skills that are impossible to measure and they bring a us a keen sense of fulfillment, much more than working at a job for a paycheck.
I would also include in ‘immeasurable’ the deep spiritual connection we feel for life that is formed with the soil, the landscape, the animals, and the plants we “farm”. There is little room for arrogance, only a deep; abiding humbleness and awe at once in being a witness to all the beauty of the world in which we live.
Jody,
Both you and Clem are eloquent about the factors that we struggle to convey about the “why”, when it comes to farming. Thanks,
Good advice! and you & Cindy are both SO VERY TRUE to each & every one of those commandments!!