An update from Doc Buxin

[Spaced Out 2]

The good thing is you have a lot of options and directions you can go with it, that's awesome.

 

[Doc Buxin]

Yes pretty aquainted with hard work especially from a young age on 15k+ acre farm + livestock. Wasn't a so called normal childhood running around playing and being a kid. It was about work and I just thought that's the way life was.

Yes! You understand! I too grew up on a large farm/ranch. Herding Herefords, picking olives, shaking prunes & shaking almonds. And I too had a work ethic driven into me that won't quit.
Legend has it that my first word, before even mama or papa, was "tractor" & I began operating them at age 8. Actually got run over by one that I was operating at age 11 & ended up living & being a "miracle", but that's another story completely.

So is that part of your income, whatever you get from the land?

Right now, it is a very small part of our income as we just started to settle in this past October. However the plan is within 2-3 years having it be generating all of our income from as many different businesses as possible. From olive oil to eggs to table flowers, veggies, fruits, & medicinal herbs, we're going to have a bit of everything to sell directly to people via farmers' markets (there are many around our valley here within an hours drive radius).

Where do you get your power from?

Presently we run the house (incuding the heaters & fridge), along with the washer & dryer in the barn, with 2 Honda inverter gas generators. The plan for the near future is to invest in a large battery bank, or perhaps a Tesla Power Wall battery & integrate solar & wind power into the mix while still utilizing the generators for back-up & emergency power.

My son is on his own and my daughter will be going off to college in a couple years, if all works out. Then it will be time to look really hard at all the options at downsizing considerably and becoming more self sefficient to not worry about much later in life. Especially the way things are going.

This sounds like a very similar situation that my wife & I were in & a very similar viewpoint.

In your case I wish you and your wife the best, it may seem like work now but I bet in time it will get easier :thumb_up:

Thank you so much for the kind words Spaced Out 2! I really appreciate it!

Peace

 

[Doc Buxin]

The good thing is you have a lot of options and directions you can go with it, that's awesome.

Precisely!!!

You know, one of my favorite teachers in high school always said this & even back then I thought that it was a very wise thing to say... He said, "keep as many options open as possible at all times. The more options you have, the more free you are. Options are essentially freedom".

I've never forgotten that even after all the crazy decades I've been through since then.

 

[Spaced Out 2]

He's absolutely right, kinda like the farm I grew up on. They had an area that wasn't really being used for anything or any livestock. They picked ostriches of all things to roam around there, lol. But hey when you have options, why not. By the way ostriches love them some hemp.

I love olives,...hint..hint :lol:

Well at least you're getting a plan together and it'll work out no matter what direction it goes.

 

[Koornut]

Looks perfect doc
Have you had the chance to think about what you will cultivate?

Thank you Sphorange.

I have been contemplating that very question for a long, long time!

First off, the land came with the olive orchard we put the tiny home in. There are about 130 trees that are between 55 & 60 years old. They are Sevillano variety, which are primarily harvested for making table olives. They have a low oil yield, however the oil derived from Sevillano olives is the most expensive olive oil in the world presently. Thus, the wife & I plan to have a small, commercial olive oil press by next harvest season (Oct.- Dec. in the Northern Hemisphere) & press about one third of the harvest. Another third we plan to brine & turn into tasty table olives. The final third we will sell to a commercial outfit to be further processed into table olives also. At least that's our plan for the first season (we were actually moving in during this past 2015 olive harvest season & had no way of dealing with the labor-intesiveness at the time).

My wife is, among many other creative, cool things, a floral designer, so she's planting a ton of bouquet flowers as we speak since February here so far has been fairly mild, warm & sunny.

I plan to experiment with different Chinese medicinal herbs since that's been one of my main vocations in my life. I've already grown quite a few at different rentals over the last decade & I am very familiar with which ones will grow well here. What I'm waiting for is one of those "ah-ha" moments where I get that feeling that "I really like this plant species; it grows well here; this is what I'm going to focus on".

I've presently got about 40 bonsai trees that I have been training for anywhere from 3-15 years. One of my dearest dreams is to have a bonsai tree nursery, but I'm pretty sure that that is such a small, niche market we're going to need much more than that to make ends meet.

Next, I'd really like to eventually get a heated, lighted greenhouse set up going & grow tomatoes year round here. They are very easy to grow in the summer & fall here, but I have never seen locally grown tomatoes around these parts in say December, January, February or March. That'll be quite the investment & experiment!

Then there's this 1-2 acre patch of dry, desert-like land directly to the Northwest of our olive orchard. Barely any water gets there, so I'm considering creating a desert plant section laden with San Pedro cactus, Incense Cedar & White Sage, perhaps some other cactus species thrown in there for good measure also. We'll see.

These are just a few of the many ideas we've got. There are many more.

We also have 3 old Acacias on the property that shed the coolest-looking red-purple seed pods each fall. I'll be looking into what the species is & what, if any, part may be psychoactive. Heck, thay've got to be at lest 40 or 50 years old. I am trying to find the file on my computer where I put the downloaded pics of those. Stay tuned.

Ohhhh Sevillanos are my favourite!!! so creamy. My family had been pressing oil in Australia for 30+ years before my nonno and nonna passed away.

I'd recommend looking into native Australian bush medicine and food, I smell a niche and most of the plants are hardy if the conditions are right.

http://www.bri.net.au/medicine.html

 

[Doc Buxin]

I'd recommend looking into native Australian bush medicine and food, I smell a niche and most of the plants are hardy if the conditions are right.

http://www.bri.net.au/medicine.html

Thank you for the advice & the link Sphorange!!! :thumb_up:

 

[Doc Buxin]

Well at least you're getting a plan together and it'll work out no matter what direction it goes.

Yes indeed, it will work out one way or another!

Blessings!