Anyone else lives off grid alone?

That one came with all the manuals bought it 5-6 years ago. Figured for the money I couldn't go wrong on it and used to have a DJC Would prefer a CAT over the Onan but I doubt I will find a CAT even as a pile of parts for less than $600.

 

Two years off-grid by myself. Still learning and making major improvements to the simple living arrangements. Without making things complex in the process.

 

Great to hear!
What do you have to protect yourself from uninvited guests like bears, cougars, wolves etc? Do you have dogs? Rifle? Both?

 

Since I was NOT trying to talk bad about this gent or talk above him , We were very respective , but he had 4 old heifers and tractors in flat tires & laying in mud. His fifth wheel horse trailer in the same in the condition .
He is more than welcome to purchase a BA Bull , but he only needed a Sire .

I have old stuff , My oldest is 1967 Lambo tractor , kubotas , new ford , all machine's are looked after as well as I can.
7 + pastures on 6 farms , head 130- but changes , We are a good heart Bunch .. I will go back later & recheck the stud ..
No disrespect , but I don't feel he is looking after himself well . Glad he got the 800# bull not the 2400# one .

Sloth

 

I wear a small prod / zapper . Just the sound , they know im Zeus. Very seldom do I use it.
Mostly hand & eye , On OAT Feed , rubbs are loved ..
I can mimic that sound & they all know , time to move . OATS are a Cat Call !!

Sloth

 

Ouch I never turn my back on any of the bulls or boars no matter how docile they are. Only took 6 broken ribs and a tusk slicing a pinky finger off when I was a kid to learn that lesson. No fun fishing around in pig mud trying to find your finger LOL.

 

Didn't figure you were, but a whole lot do.

 

Thunder5ranch, can you explain how you make money on your farm?
Also what do you do for health insurance?

I'm not trying to pry into your business, I'm just looking for ways to become income independent that will allow me to retire early.

Military Mep generators are great workhorses, I have two 002... Love them

Thanks for your time

 

I live off grid alone. I built my off-grid home two years ago and just moved into it last September.

 

Missed this sorry for taking so long to respond How I make money is rather complex as a whole but fairly simple in its individual aspects. Thunder 5 Ranch | Facebook is my number one way of bringing in business. The Website was #1 but has dropped to #2 for generating business. Thunder 5 Ranch Inc. You have to develop your market niche before you can sell anything and be prepared to bite your tongue a lot because 80% of your business will be SNow Flakes. I break the farm into aspects or divisions, Fruit and Produce, Value Added, Poultry and Eggs, Pork and Crafted goods. Dropped Beef from the line up to expand areas with better profit margins and a lower time investment. I also own 2 soon to be 3 farmers markets that I have started over the last 5 years to better develop my own markets and help others get their products out there.

I would not suggest starting out in the meat business. It is Expensive to get into and takes years to develop a loyal customer base. Just on the hogs my annual overhead for Feed and HACCP processing for 250 hogs is $60,000-$64,000 and Net profit of around $28,000-$32,000. Much better to start with lower risk products that have a lower overhead and won't bankrupt you if the crop fails.

Most states have some version of the Cottage Food Law that allows prepping non hazardous food in home kitchens for direct to end consumer sales. That is a fairly low overhead high, profit margin one. Plus good fresh baked breads, jellies, jams, pies etc... Just stack em high and watch em fly. You have .60 cents into making a loaf of bread that people will gladly pay $3- $5 depending on the market area. A average year pulls $22,000-$25,000 net profit for me.

Produce whether a farmers market, or a roadside stand people will stop and buy produce and if it is good produce they will keep coming back week after week and year after year. Also minimal overhead but a higher time and labor investment. I do between 4 and 12 acres of produce with the top sellers being Green Beans that last year flew off the table at $5 per pound. Tomatoes, New and Baker potatoes, green onions, radishes, lettuces, Nasty ass Kale, Sweet Taters, summer and winter squash, Cherry and Grape Tomatoes and Carrots are my main crops. I net around $4,200 per acres from vegetables. My high tunnel brings in $15,000 every winter like clockwork.

Fruits and Berries are a much larger $$$, land and time investment. From the time you plant the apple tree it is 4-5 years before you are harvesting any worthwhile amounts of apples. Same with all fruit trees and most Berries. There are good sources for cheap bare root trees and bushes if you order in bulk. Personally I like to buy a dozen bigger trees of say Gala Apples and after a couple of years ordering in good but cheap root stock. And as I prune the fruit trees graft the pruned limbs to the root stock and propagate my orchard expansion that way. Bit of a trick to grafting but once you get it down it is as easy as eating pie. 2-3 years you can put the grafted trees up and sell them for $20-$30 per tree

Crafts I am weak on but do build killer Oak picnic tables and benches I charge $75 per linear foot of picnic table and build 8-10 per year over the off season from custom orders. Another higher investment product though. I have a bandmill $13,000 and 10 acres full of red oak, post oak and white oak. As well as do custom milling on the side with 1/3 of the milled lumber as payment. Added benefit, the crowns and slab wood all go into a pile to heat my cabin and greenhouses. I usually do 4-5 6'-10' tables and benches and 2-3 12'-16' ones over the late fall and winter. LOL one of my 16' post oak tables weighs right at 600 pounds and will last two or three lifetimes if maintained. I always tell people when me and the helpers deliver it to make sure we place it where you want it, one does not simply pick up and mover one of these brutes.

Poultry and Eggs are good and bad if you are close to a Moonbat Snow Flake sanctuary you can pull $5-$6 per dozen for farm fresh pasture eqqs. If not you are going to be competing with every rural person giving them away for $1- $1.50 on craigslist. I got wise and got a grading Station license and can buy nest run eggs from those folks adverting them for $1-$1.50 and give them $2.00 per dozen then wash, candle, grade and pack them and deliver them to the Snow Flake/Moonbat havens at $2-$3 per dozen profit. The poultry is good and growing, I set up my own inspection exempt processing facility and operate under the poultry exemption that allows me to process up to 5000 of my own birds per year and sell direct to the end consumer. We are seriously thinking about upgrading to a private inspected facilty and tripling the broiler production (No cattle freed up a whole lot of pasture to potentially be used for cluckers. Upgrading to inspected though has about a $45,000 price tag and require a USDA or IDOA inspector on site on killing days for the pre and post mortem inspections. Poultry and eggs net $68,000-$70,000 per year.

The down side...... For the last 17 years I have been working 110-120 hours per week 52 weeks per year. Trust me that catches up with you at some point. My time came last June and just about died from a simple respitory infection that turned to bacterial pneumonia...... that turned to septic shock and as a bonus it was antibiotic resistant bacteria. Combine that with being ground down and wore out and only getting 8-10 hours of sleep per week during the preceding two months of go like hell planting, picking, markets opening, endless meetings with Mayors and City Councils, and more planting, harvesting and marketing and trying to squeeze 72 hours worth of work into 24 hours. Yeah I broke and broke hard. I spent a month in intensive care running a average 105 temp with peaks at 110. And another two months pretty much in bed at home. Nerve damage, kidney damage, liver damage, lung damage and amazingly very little heart damage. 8 Months later I am at about 50% which some say equals two average guys half my age Sepsis ain't something to play with and something you really never want to experience first hand, and is one of the potential events of pushing your body too hard for too many years. Bright side Liver is healed, kidneys are slowly regenerating, lungs ain't never going to 100% again and the nerves are getting better but still a constant back ground pain up to it hurts so bad I can't move my legs pain. And I have a extremely high pain tolerance.

Insurance I didn't bother with health insurance until I got married in 2010 and adding me to my wife's caddillac plan was free so I figured why not. Which I am glad I did, that hospital bill and everything else from the septic shock came in at $1,300,000 and some change. My out of pocket was $2,700.

Business Insurance I use Erie for the Corporate Insurance for product and general liability and Country for the basic farm liability. That is also where it gets complicated. The T5R Farm Produces everything and sells it wholesale to the T5R Inc. that markets and sells to the end consumer and I get a paycheck cut every 3 months from the Corporation. Basically if the corporation gets sued the farm is as protected as possible if things go South.