Farm Dreams

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Farms have Christmas Lists Too

The Aspiring Farmer Blog

Merry day after Christmas everyone!

After living in NYC for seven years and then spending a few weekends out in the middle of nowhere we quickly came to realize that we may have a lot of stuff at home, but it’s not really useful stuff. The more time we’ve spent out on our farm and on other’s farms the more we’ve realized that there’s a pretty long list of stuff that we NEED. The word “need” gets thrown around lightly and in all honesty I’m not saying saying “need” in the true sense of the word, it’s more just stuff that will make our lives much, much easier. I won’t die without a headlamp, but spending 10 hours under the house stapling insulation to the floorboards will be a lot more difficult without it!

From little stuff to big stuff our farm's xmas list was pretty long

What was on our farm’s Christmas list?

Light. All kinds of light. From headlamps to spotlights and flashlights. We need light for everything from walking around in the pitch black or inching along in the crawl space. We need lights like we’ve never needed them before. Lets face it, in NYC there’s basically never a time where you can’t see where you’re going. Even on the highways there’s street lamps! I once got pulled over for not having my headlights on at 5am. Well, to be honest, I didn’t have any trouble seeing where I was going or seeing all the other cars. Not the case on the farm. When the sun goes down it gets black, real black.

Tools. My father was a woodworker and his father was an airplane mechanic so we were always stocked to the hilt with tools. Me on the other hand, I haven’t worked a non-office job since high-school. Renting an apartment doesn’t require me to perform the maintenance either. Needless to say, a cordless drill, a wrench and a hammer and I’m more than covered. No reason to have a circular saw, staple gun, or shop-vac. Now I understand why Lowe's stores are so freaking huge.

Vehicles. Oh, you’re probably laughing at this one, but it’s true! We don’t even have a car, let alone a truck or a tractor! Vehicles might be too big to fit on Santa’s sleigh, but they’ll be among the first purchases we make.

I won’t even get into fencing, water/feed troughs, guns, ladders, and all that other good stuff.

What was on your xmas list? Did you get it?

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Tags: Christmas, Scrapple

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Comment by Karen Paro on December 26, 2011 at 4:41pm: My Christmas list was a truck but it's going to be a long time before we can afford the payments on one so I just make do with my little Focus - but ya know it's impressive what you can fit in one of those if you really put your mind to it

The first year I put tools on my list hubby thought I was joking but he got me what I wanted and was very surprised at how excited I got over getting my battery powered drill/driver, skil saw, and sawzall. There have been times he even comes to me looking for something because my tool box has a few things he doesn't own and he has 2 Huge rolling boxes.

I have learned though on some of my hand gardening tools I buy duplicates & triplicates because they often sprout legs and disappear - the downfall to having teenage boys

Comment by Pat Barr on December 26, 2011 at 9:35pm: Tools and lights while they are important... and both do provide help... but I like things that also reproduce. I got 3 Sebastopol for eye candy, and to help keep the pond down by the entrance clean

White Sebastopol Goose

and 3 Tufted Toulouse geese that I hope to train to my orchard. (they should keep the grass down as well as all the fertilizer)

A tufted Toulouse

I hope to sell the Sebastopol goslings, but the Tufted Toulouse gosling will be for eating.

Pat

Comment by Happy on December 26, 2011 at 11:08pm: I can not let my hubby see this! We have a pack that for each major project he gets a new tool. (last major project was 1200 sq ft of flooring) We are still in the burbs and he received a full game processing set, bone saw and rib spreader included, from the girls.

Comment by All Hallows Farm on December 27, 2011 at 8:52pm: I got my first pair of overalls, pink muck boots, a machete, pocket knives, some tools in the color purple so my hubby will stop stealing and losing my tools and then claiming they are mine and best of all today I got a Ram for my Ewe so we can have baby sheepies! Hubby's farm christmas list included insulated coveralls and work gloves, everyone in the house age 6 and up got pocket knives and everyone down to age 18 months got overalls, galoshes and/or snow boots. Everything we got was useful for the farm. Hubby got a bunch of tools (big ones like table saws and stuff too). I think we are probably more happy this year with our farm lists than any year we had previously gotten 10 movies and several video games.

Comment by Little Seed Farm on December 29, 2011 at 9:33am: Well, sounds like everyone had a great Christmas!

I think we've enjoyed this year's gift-buying and gift-giving much more as well. Most of the gifts we gave were homemade, which made it more special for us and the recipient. The gifts we received were almost all farm-related. I can't say I was quite as excited as I was when I was 10 and got a Sega Genesis, but I was still pretty darn excited!

Comment by Rich Hamilton on January 5, 2012 at 6:27pm: A vehicle that I can't farm without - a Kawasaki Mule (or similar). It is a life savor, goes pretty much anywhere, and saves my back and leggs from much hauling...the first big purchase I made...followed closely by a tactor, but if one had to wait it would have been the tractor...