Carwood Blog Posts

January 1, 2018 was my first official day as a full time farmer.  I went into the year with a plan, both for the farm and personally in terms of how I would sustain my family.  I had enough money in my personal savings along with my wife's income as a school teacher to sustain us for the year.  So, my farm plan was to reinvest 100% of the income generated from the farm back into creating a foundation for years to come.  That's exactly what I did. I expanded the herd, purchased equipment I would need, and I redesigned...

Six months after being laid off from my career job I started working for what is now, Keller Williams of Central PA, The Dave Hooke Team.  You may ask, "Why real estate?  Why didn't you start farming at that point?"  I was not stable enough yet to take the leap into full time farming and building a business.  My confidence was low and I still wasn't sure of my identity.  Had I tried then, I would most surely have failed.  At the time, The Dave Hooke Team was a small supportive group of people that were willing to be patient...

I know Blog #6 strayed a bit from talking about he farm and much of this post might, as well.  But the experiences I'm describing and my perspective on it were pivotal in creating an unbreakable foundation for me to stand on to persevere into a life of farming.  Even though farming was my dream, I was so firmly planted in the mindset of the responsibility I had as a man to take care of my family, I don't believe I would ever have taken the risk to leave my career job and all the things it gave me to...

So, continuing from Blog #5, I worked a job in social services and farmed part-time for almost 20 years.  During that timeframe, my wife and I had 3 wonderful children, each 7 years apart from each other (not planned that way!).  This went well for the first 16 years. During the final 4 or so years, things became difficult, particularly with my job.  Several people around me were laid off and many of their responsibilities were added to mine.  Our social service programs were struggling financially so my salary was cut by 6%, pension contributions were eliminated and 401K contributions...

So, my first stab at raising cattle on a rotational grazing system did not produce the quality of beef I was looking for, but one of my big questions was answered affirmatively.  Both of the initial animals grew well on grass.  I was told cattle won't gain weight on grass only.  That idea, I found, was totally false.  This was one of my first life lessons to not always rely on the views of others, because these views may be shadowed by limiting thinking or some other mentality that doesn't allow for growth and exploration.   Anyway, the long story short...