red river valley se of fargo | I'm often amazed at how inefficient some are with their time. I worked full time plus significant overtime at a welding shop for several years before my dad retired. Now I pretty much farm 2000 acres of corn and beans + a little custom work by myself with my father maybe getting 200 hours a year. I run mostly older equipment (newest tractor is 20 years old). I'm usually ahead of the average as far as completion dates.
I don't miss kids events, heck, I don't even need the work lights most days. By and large I probably average 60-70 hrs a week in the growing season and maybe 30 in the off season. I think I could easily double my acres with 1 full time employee. I have kids that are quickly approaching useful ages so I'm just hoping my father still wants to contribute for a few years. If he decides he doesn't I might need a tiny bit of help in the fall otherwise my life is pretty darn easy.
Given a choice between my welding gig which was actually really fun (I was a tooling/special projects fabricator) and farming, it's farming every time. 14-16 hrs for a few days in a tractor cab is a cake walk compared 10 hrs pushing steel on a concrete floor. |
Farmers about how hard they work
