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Melissa's avatar

I love your outlook. We have a seed stock operation, but I dabble in dairy pets. I find it very difficult to find someone willing to pay what it would cost to raise and train a family milk cow from birth. The training value never equals the time input. Good thing I enjoy the process, because otherwise my time would be "value-less".

Overall, my sheep and cows are my mental health facilitators and physical gifts of wonderful dairy and meat.

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Cattle Culture's avatar

I do not recommend keeping track of the hours invested in an animal especially a dairy cow. 😅 If we did that the perceived value would astronomical. I prefer to look at my time in relation to the product, milk beef etc. 😁💚🐮🐮💚👍🏽

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Melissa's avatar

I agree, had to shift perspectives because it genuinely is my happy place. Kind of like training kids🤣 Human or goat!

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Cathryn Henning's avatar

I want to hear more on this! There’s the reality of needing a financial income to make the farm work. I personally feel frustrated by needing to put in a hustle to get the cash flow.

Is there a point where cashflow isn’t as necessary because there’s a magic formula that allows for a more paced and patient cash flow. Or is there a level of comfort and acceptance in the way things are? How important for you is building a team to support on the cash flow operations to allow for the beauty of the other, perhaps more personally more meaningful pursuits?

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Cattle Culture's avatar

I am going to have to think on this and give you a good response. This could be a whole post to itself. Stay tuned, you’ve got my wheels spinning.

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Barbara Corson's avatar

Great thought provoking essay. It really seems that a lot of people have forgotten that money and economics are only symbols of physical reality. As Indigenous people have been saying for a long time, no one can eat, drink or breathe money, or use it to build a house. No matter how much money there is in the world, it's worthless unless the basic resources ...topsoil and climate...are intact.

Life on earth depends on the topsoil ( which is neither infinite nor indestructible) and moderate rainfall.

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Cattle Culture's avatar

The reality is that the only “income” we get are the photons and H2O that fall on a particular piece of ground. Our goal is to capture as much of that as possible. 😁💚🐮🐮💚☀️🌧️

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