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Comment by spiderfarmer | Hacker News Reader

A lot of people are heavily influenced by Youtubers and other influencers who conveniently leave out the earnings they get from their Youtube views, all while selling a romantic, self sufficient dream of living in harmony with nature.

In that regard Jeremy Clarkson paints a much more realistic picture, even though that show is very over the top and mostly scripted.

I grew up on a farm and was on track to take it over. I know how hard it is. And it was not the live I wanted, so I pivoted to online marketing and web development instead.

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I really like Goldshaw Farm[1]. He does yearly breakdowns how is farm performed and the reality is he could not live at all if that was his only income stream. And I think his scale is most realistic what a developer could achieve when he quit and just wanted to try to farm.

YouTube pays his bills mostly, not the farm.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD4VW0lLYjE

Goldshaw is very informative, but I think he is a bit more of a hobby farmer than a real homesteader. If you have a sophisticated system (and are willing to work hard), you can bring in substantial amounts of money on small acreage.

I was the only grandkid interested in the family farm at all and stood to inherit the whole works.

I went to college instead and work a regular job. Grandpa has been on that farm since he was born in 1922. Until he retired in 2006, he took two days off work the entire time.

No. Thank. You.

What happened on those two days? Birth of his children? Probably a broken back or some other injury is more likely tho. :)

Lol he got caught in a piece of machinery, which stripped the skin off of his arm from his elbow to his armpit. One day off for ER one for recovery.

What a trooper. They don't make people like they used to.

There are plenty of people like this. They bust their asses doing thankless work every day so people like us can argue on forums about the decline of society.

Two days off sounds bad but when you’re working for yourself and don’t have to answer some prick manager, suffer on a commute, sit hunched unnaturally at a desk, it could be much better.

I'll take my 5+ weeks off per year (with strict 40 hour maximum weeks and strong work life balance) and you can have your self-employed 2 days per 30 years = 0.06 days off per year. That's 32 minutes of personal time off per year.

When you’re working for yourself, every hour goes towards your personal equity, and you’re the boss. It hits different.

yeah instead its 12 hour days with animals that can and will try to kill you, rain or shine, in the snow, dark, and mud.

i've herded cattle on an aussie ranch as part of a working holiday. fun experience as a young man, but absolutely convinced me that IT was the right choice.

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