Part-Time Farmer

Recently, someone close to me asked if we were really farmers, since farming isn’t our main job.

“You guys are vets, and you just farm for fun. So, you’re not really farmers, are you?”

Farmer Doc and I are veterinarians, by choice and by training. (And I do mean a lot of training!) That is how we make our living. Our busy practice is also the reason that I can stay home with Baby Doc, blog full time (or what amounts to full time while being a work-at-home mom to a 5 month old), and only practice veterinary medicine on cases that I choose.

But we are more than “just” veterinarians. We are involved with the Indiana Veterinary Medical Association and with the Indiana Farm Bureau. We are parents. We are actors. Farmer Doc is a fair board member. I am a knitter. I am a writer and a blogger. We are farmers.

Yes, we farm “for fun.” It is not our main source of income. We have a pretty small beef herd – it fluctuates between 20-40 cows (depending on whether we’re buying or selling cows that year). Our cattle farm is profitable enough that it can support itself and it grows a little bit every year, but this is not the reason I’m able to stay home with our new son. But just because we farm for fun, it doesn’t mean we aren’t “real” farmers.

Our farm is just the perfect size for us. It is small enough that Farmer Doc and his dad can work together in the veterinary practice all day long, and still have enough time and energy at the end of the day to take care of our cows. It is small enough that we don’t need to hire additional help on a regular basis. (Although we do depend on some help from close friends during hay season. We help them right back when they need it – that’s the way farmers work!)

It’s big enough that it can support itself. We grow enough hay to feed all of our cows through the winter months, and we sell enough calves in the fall to pay for grain and other supplies the farm needs. Some years we even make a little profit, and we use that to buy more cows. The calves we sell are raised by someone else to become the beef that you buy in your grocery store.

So, yes. We farm part-time, and we farm for fun. And we are “real” farmers.

Other posts in this series:

• Part-Time Farmer
• How Did I Find Farm Life?
• Why is Farm Life for Me?

{I received a promotional item from Indiana’s Family of Farmers for this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.}