Young Business Owners
We are very fortunate to be able to work for ourselves. We know that not many young couples can claim the same thing. Even though we have the opportunity to be business owners we also are faced with a unique set of challenges because our business is a farm.
Closing Time
Everyone waits for feed in the morning no matter what.
We never close. Not on birthdays, special events, or holidays. The cattle do not care if it is Christmas or we stayed out late the night before. The expect fresh feed to be in the bunks by 7 a.m. every single day. Owning animals means you are responsible for the need of those animals. Owning 700 cattle mean we have a lot of extra responsibility to keep our cattle fed, watered and healthy. No matter if it is 90+ degrees out or we have 3 feet of snow.
Days Off
Cleaning out barns is just one item on our never ending to-do list.
It's pretty much a written rule that we don't really get days off. We get days where we can get away with doing the minimal amount of work. Or days where we can take it easy because we've done extra work all week. But the elusive "day off" just simply cannot exist for us. There is always something that needs to be done, and that's even excluding chores. Walking pens, bedding pens, cleaning barns, fixing broken boards, the list literally goes on forever for the farm. We do thankfully have some amazing friends and family that help out when we manage to take our annual vacation for a few days, otherwise, we would probably go insane!
We're Perpetually Late
If vaccinating cattle took longer than anticipated, we'll surely be late to an event we were planning on being on time for.
We both absolutely hate being late, it is probably our number one pet peeve. Unfortunately, we often show up later than we would wish because there is always one last chore that has to be done before we leave. If we have a morning event chores have to be done before we leave, with no exception. If the event starts at 9 a.m. and chores end at 9 a.m. we will definitely be the last to arrive. If we have something to do in the afternoon we have to plan around afternoon chores. The cattle do not appreciate it if we do not make time to push their feed of up the evening so we're usually pulling out of the drive 15 minutes later than we had hoped.
We've come to accept that there are things we cannot change because of the occupation we have chosen. We also think that a handful of negatives are a very small price to pay for such an amazing lifestyle. We do get to decide what we do each day and work together most days. Though we have to make sure the animals are taken care of, we largely get to set our own schedule which means we can take it easy on a Wednesday as easily as a Saturday. Running our own business is hard, stressful, and very time-consuming but we love every single day we get to wake up and work for ourselves.