First Rule of Farming

It never seems to fail.  You have planned it all out, you know what you will be doing for the next few days, week, month, season, or even year.  Then it happens....  What is it that happens?  Anything and everything.  Here are a few examples:

For the next two days you will be grinding grain so that there is ample feed for the week while you do other projects.  However, two hours into the first day of grinding you turn around to see the cattle coming for you.  They pushed the fence down and have made a break for it.  So, now you have to spend most of today getting all the cattle back in and fixing fences.  Only throws you off a day, but still, it happens.

Seeing as how building projects are done in the winter cause the summer you are too busy farming to build anything, this winter you will do an addition to your house to make room for the new addition.  Then a month before winter hits, you are approached and told that all new improvements must me stopped and the house will be appraised or moved because they are widening the road and your house is in the new set back.  So, now you have to wait a year to do any building on or build a new house.  Well, moving the house or building a new one on that scale can only be done after the ground thaws to put in new footings.  That means you are not just pushed back one winter, but one winter, one summer, and into the next winter!  Oh yes, that also means that you will be so busy trying to move everything, the house, the farmyard, the fencing, that you will miss a year of crops cause there just isnt time for both when you have a 90 day growing season.  It happens (and is happening right now to us)!

You plan to breed your new pair of chickens cause they are from really good lines and look awesome.  They are both young and you have them in a breeding pen just waiting on the first egg.  Only for the hen to be taken by an owl right before she is due to start laying!  It happens.

So, what is the first rule of farming?  Flexibility!  Anyone can make plans and stick to them, but as a farmer, when you have livestock, weather, rainfall, and customers to deal with, you have to be flexible!