Plans For the Coming Year

We have been dealing with record breaking snows and cold temperatures this winter here in the Chicago area.

First off, I want to apologize to all my readers for not blogging lately. Writing really doesn’t come easy for me and with me working on a new assignment at work and working 12 hr days for the last 4 months writing is that much harder. I started working longer hours at work to make as much money as I can before I retire so we can save more to build our farm. I have also been very busy trying to keep on a regular workout schedule to get this old body into shape and to lose lbs. that have been adding up this winter. Even with all the snow shoveling we have done this winter, and the work outs, its still been a losing battle. The older I get the harder it is to lose weight and to stay in shape.  I am trying to stay in some kind of reasonable shape so when I turn 60 and retire in less than two years, I can do the hard physical work of building our pole barn house and farm. Anyway, I plan to do a better job of posting in the future and I do have some new developments that I want to share with you all. First, our old Dodge truck that had 160,000 miles on it started having problems so we decided instead of putting more money into it, it was time to buy a new truck. We bought a 2014 Dodge Ram 1500 with the 5.7 V 8 Hemi engine. It is a 4×4 so it will be a better farm truck than our last one. With all the snow we have had this past winter the 4×4 has really been a blessing and we know we need the 4×4 for the country roads in Iowa. We also won’t be as worried about break downs now with the new truck when we make those (300 mile one way) trips to our farm.

Pole Barn House News

We are planning to break ground on our pole barn house in April of 2015, that is little over a year from now. The time is coming faster than I am ready for. I still have a lot to learn about the whole construction process of building these type of buildings and I am happy to say I now have someone that really knows about pole barns that I can turn to for advise.  Robert Turner of ABP Pole Barns has offered to help and told me if I have any questions I can go to him.  That will be a big help and I am happy to have an expert I can turn to for questions I might have. I am a very handy guy but I have never built a pole barn house before. I have only rehabbed homes and this will be the first new house I do from the ground up. The first thing I have to do is finish up my pole barn house plans and get them over to him so he can look them over and see if there is anything I have overlooked or that can be approved upon.

Plans For The Coming Year

At the end of every year my wife and I sit down and plan out what we want to get accomplished in the coming year and there are a few things we need to accomplish this year.

The first thing on our list is ordering 40 lbs. of pasture seed to seed the area around the pond we expanded last summer. I had the seed sent to my friend Tom’s place and he is going to be Frost Seeding that area for us. The specific contents of this pasture grass seed blend are: • 35% Tall Fescue (endophyte free) • 30% Orchardgrass • 15% Perennial Ryegrass • 10% Alfalfa • 10% White Clover

The area we are going to seed is the roadway that leads to our pond and the top of the embankment to the right of our old truck in this picture.

The second thing we need to do this spring is have a perk test done on our soil where our septic system will be so we know what type of system we have to put in and we can get some estimates on how much it is going to cost us.

Getting the concrete floor poured this coming year and moving our stuff a little at a time will make our move to the farm less daunting.

The final thing we have planned this year is to have a concrete floor poured in our pole barn that we had built in 2012. We would like to get that done so we can start moving things to the farm on every trip we take there between now and when I retire so that when that day finally arrives we have that much less to move.

We still plan to keep up with the mowing around the trees we planted and maybe plant a few more fruit trees (if my wife lets me), but that will be about it. For the first time, I actually feel that the day I retire and start my career as a farmer is getting closer and will be here before I know it.