One of the many blessings about this internship is that it allows me to be geographically closer to my family. My parents live about 45 minutes away, so that gives me the chance to be able to see them 1 or 2 times a week in between work obligations. During one of those visits, my mom brought up the topic of being able to lease a piece of land from family friends, and it made me realize I didn't have even a rudimentary business plan. Sure, it's nice to be able to spend my days working the land, and hanging out with animals, but if I really want to do that long term, and make money doing that, I have to map ALL of my expenses.
There are some things, for instance, that I will only have to buy once, or at worst, every 5 years. Things on this list are electric fencing, some sort of tractor, or very good walk behind tiller, parts for a chicken tractor or three, feeding troughs for goats and chickens and pigs, coolers for storing meat, and many others.
Then there are yearly costs. several tons of locally sourced grain and supplements for the animals. 1-200 cornish cross hen chicks, hay, seeds, some fertilizer, packaging for my produce, market fees, pigs (if I don't breed my own), and lots of other stuff I have written down frenetically and late at night.
It's a very sobering, but fun process, to be able to imagine and create something from scratch in an imaginary reality, and it's very funny how problems pop up in daydreams like they do in life. I can be neck deep in a daydream where I've been enjoying a pastoral life with all of its perks when all the sudden, a potato blight pops up, or my sheep get eaten by coyotes. Maybe that's a compensatory measure our brains take for us, to prepare us for adverse times ahead.
Either way, it will be fun in the next several months to decide whether I want to pursue other internship opportunities, or just jump in neck deep to see what happens when a greenhorn goes into the business of being green.
