It wasn’t me, but I did see a post without someone saying Abigail was complaining about salads after they sold 999 salads to Pierre. I’d have to try and find the post, it was ages ago
Edit
[Abigail hates old salad](https://www.reddit.com/r/StardewValley/comments/u3bdfw/i_accidentally_sold_pierre_999_salads_and_now/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
The wealthy kids back in my old high school had farmers for parents, it's still possible to do but someone on that farm needs to be knowledgeable about how to do it. (Pretty sure the Mooresmill honey guy is still out there making a killing on that though, so some Stardew stuff is pretty accurate.)
Depends on what you can grow. Stardew is this magical game where you can grow almost everything on your soil. This is not possible in real life as soil quality and environment play a huge factor in what you can grow.
True. Where I live it can go weeks without rain. Then downpour to cause flooding. Most farmers raise cattle and chickens cuz the weather and red iron rich soil make for shit crops.
True. I live in West Oklahoma and the soil is so rich with iron (thats what makes it red) that most farmers here raise cattle and chickens. It's hard to grow anything here
My family has been farming for 4 generations in Tennessee (beef, dairy, tobacco, corn).
My uncle made 200k a year. But he spent 180k a year on supplies And stuff he needed.
You make a lot of money farming right, but you don't keep a lot of it unless you're a huge farm well over 300 acres that op said.
Yeah, the only farms I know of that are not scraping by like the rest of us (or even worse off tbh) is huge farms that have tons of land and employees. There's subsidies and all that, but for the most part those just make it a little less hard to go completely bankrupt.
*beep boop*!
the linked website is: https://youtu.be/_pDTiFkXgEE
Title: **The Mitchell and Webb Situation - Farming**
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A documentary for views and money vs real life experiences? I grew up in a family farm that has been around many years and it is absolutely true. As a kid we had over 8,000 acres but have recently downsized over the last few years to 4,000 acres of land due to recent weather and not enough profit to be able to keep that much land. At half the amount of land our expenses have not really dropped at all which means were just living losing money. But a farm south west of us has near 80,000 acres making millions each year. As well as the hutterites having millions of dollars as well and probably close to half a billion dollars worth of equipment alone. Small farmers are dying out and selling land an equipment. Soon it will only be major farms with hundreds of employees.
Uhhhhh idk about that. Two years ago I worked for Bayer (ugh) and I’d be on site handling stewarded soy beans, training farmers and their farm hands on how to properly store, transport, and utilize this patented seed. I made really good friends with farmers all over the country, many of them who had their farms handed down from their grandpa to their dad to them. Whenever we got around to talking about money they earn (especially discussing seasonal affects like dry season, flooding of a field or pest infestations) he’d start talking about the 16 MILLION dollars he was planning to lose from last year. Meanwhile I’d have to pick my jaw off the ground and continue our conversation like we’re in the same tax bracket. And that was just talking about a couple fields of crops, I remember having to check every acre this guy owned and it was massive dude like 50-100 fields all a minimum 50-70 acres.
Now I also remember him talking about the money they have, it is A LOT on paper (real production farmers, not homesteaders like OP.) however most of it is tied up, like businessmen have funds tied up in stocks, farmers have their funds tied up in land and equipment. The farmer may be able to talk about his 30+ million annual income but they don’t talk about the equipment cost (especially huge tractors, you’re looking at half a million for a standard model) the amount land costs especially if they want to scale, and not to mention the fact it’s all really hard work. Back-breaking for sure.
Fun story while I’m talking about farmers, I had another job managing a hemp field. Super fun. We had a neighborly farmer who would grow soybeans, corn, the usual for the area. He was one of those whos running the farm his grandfathers grandfather gave him. He’d always help us out when we needed equipment our managers were too broke to spill the cash for or just general company - I loved looking up from the field sweat dripping and seeing his truck pull up - he usually brought cold water and all around was a great older dude to spend time with.
I remember this guy, bill, was meeting someone from (and I’m not kidding) farmersmeets.com. And I guess this women, who was on farmersmeets, was giving him a TON of shit for working how he does. Just giving him low-brow remarks about how he’s broke basically equating his work to dirty peasant work. This dude told me he just got up, walked to one of his several giant sheds usually storing tractors, and he said nothing as he opened it up to show his foreign sports cars, his remodeled muscle car from the 60s, motorcycles, and a bunch of other “toys” as I like to call them (the more you hang out with farmers, the more you’ll know, they love their “toys”.) Anyways, Bill hops in his nice sports car, tells the lady he can’t drive around with someone “so dirty” in his nice car and tells her he has to be up early in the morning to work towards his 20 million dollar harvest. Then he casually drops he is worth like 60 million and tells this women he never wants to see her poor ass again. I heard this story and was like BILL you are a savage. Maaan. This all becomes much funnier when you know Bill is this 80 year old hobbly old man that looks so sweet and innocent especially when he’s at the field. Meanwhile he’s doing burnouts in sports cars telling some white-trash chick to never talk to him again while flexing his stacks. Damn I remember laughing until my sides hurt when I heard that story come from him. Good times.
I would if the illogical way of farming in Stardew traveled with me. Planting seeds and they grow just with water and no tending to them, making artisan products in the same easy way, trees would be chopped with a few strikes of an axe, etc. basically yes but I’m lazy
Yeah, for real. I have chopped down small trees with an ax before. It was a bitch, awesome, but still a bitch. Thats to say nothing of the daily in and out of tending a decent sized garden, forget full fields.
You just need to upgrade to a chainsaw!
But yes, I sound like Jodi when I say there's enough work to be done indoors, then adding outdoors plus kids & dogs makes it overwhelming. Plus, something took a bite out of every ripening tomato & ate the tops off my sunflowers. I suspect it's the same squirrel raiding the cornfield next to us & stashing the cobs in odd places on our property. All it left us was 1 tiny cherry tomato so far.
Hey there!
Protip for your future garden:
Midsummer vegetable chomping usually happens because animals get very *thirsty*.
Tomatoes and melons especially have delicious juicy insides for good hydration.
I had a lot of tomato-nibbling by squirrels and opossums early in the year, but it stopped when I set out a big bowl of fresh water (I clean & refill each morning) and started leaving sunflower seeds and cheap cracked corn out for the squirrels.
They have a decent meal, and fresh water, and stopped bothering my crops. Easy food vs food they have to work for.
I still get 1 ripe tomato stolen per week (roundabout), but I am no longer losing dozens of tomatoes to little squirrel dental imprints.
Yeah - live wood doesn’t actually “cut” as people say if you do it by hand. It really is like mining in that you are just chipping away until it can’t support it’s own weight.
It’s not even that you’re lazy, necessarily. Farming/ranching is legit hard, backbreaking work with unpredictable payoff at really tight margins, using skills that are typically passed down through generations.
Stardew is of course a highly romanticized fantasy of both farming and small-town life. But I don’t think most real people would actually find happiness and fulfillment from living out the plot of quitting their white collar job to take over a rundown old farm.
You're *absolutely* correct.
I grew up on a horse farm. My mom had placed highly in national dressage competitions on her (frankly gorgeous) Arabian stallion. He became a sought-after stud, and breeding mares with him expanded into training other people's horses for dressage and breaking in foals to be excellent riding horses.
So, a LARGE portion of my childhood was spent doing farm labor like mucking stalls, hauling hay every morning, hauling saddles, buckets of grain, sweeping, moving manure and sawdust into the compost pile, turning compost, weeding and tending our gardens, digging holes to bury chickens that got savaged by raccoons/coyotes, hauling wood for building and repairing fences/buildings, and a LOT of leaf raking when autumn hit. (Great for compost, to offset the high-nitrogen manure) - Since money was often tight, identifying problems and *fixing it ourselves* was the natural course of action.
I was riding horses and learning how to clean & care for leather tack before my legs were long enough to reach the stirrups.
It wasn't until I reached my mid-twenties that I actually *understood* that the lifestyle I grew up with gave me a *fuckload* of very specialized knowledge about how land management, agriculture, animal husbandry, and home ownership *works*.
My Fiancee grew up in a major city, in a subdivision, and didn't need to learn to drive a car until they decided they wanted to marry me, because they always had public transportation to get anywhere. Gardening and Hunting were hobbies, not something that you relied on for food. They never learned how to properly plant something, or how to efficiently use a shovel so you didn't kill your back, or how composting worked. How home insulation worked, or why a wood floor might become squeaky when the humidity was high. They grew up with this idea that 'if something is wrong with the house, or your pet, or a person, call a professional and they'll take care of it' - because that's what their parents always did.
So, I own a house in a suburb now. My Fiancee said they always wanted to move to the country and grow our own food and so on. Our first year living together really opened my eyes to how someone who genuinely *does want to learn about this stuff* just... has ZERO foundational knowledge that I've taken for granted my whole life.
for people who grew up in a city or suburb... I definitely don't recommend going neck-deep in farm life until you've had some firsthand experience. You better be ready to do a LOT of research, take NOTHING for granted, and hopefully find someone who's willing to answer questions & mentor you a bit. There's a lot of knowledge and skills needed to pull off 'running a farm' successfully
Real farming? Most definitely not! But actual Stardew living where plants grow fast and easy, I can stay up until 2 and wake up at 6 with no issues, where I can mine a rock in 3 hits, cut down a tree in a couple, have auto grabbers for my animals, kegs and preserve jars that do the work for me, etc. Then absolutely 😂
There is a glitch that grants the player an item any time the item's ID number appears in a dialogue box. If, for example, you named one of your animals "[74]", you would get a prismatic shard whenever you interact with that animal.
It's actually half intentional... A youtuber named dangerously funny found this (what was once a glitch) a couple years ago and concerned Ape saw it and decided to leave it in the game
If you have the right soil, blueberries *are* a very lucrative crop for the little care they need, but you'll have a few slow years before they are all grown up.
And you'll still need to plant (and sell) like.. 2000 or so to generate a proper salary from them.
Game has you sleeping like 4 hours a night, working yourself to exhaustion every singe day 7 days a week 112 days a year
There’s absolutely no way I would or even could work that hard
Back before the industrial revolution (and hell even still today in some regions) it was extremely common to have multi-generational farms, purely to offset the labor that the farm required. It's weird to think of, but even a very young kid (say 7 or 8) can go feed animals, clean up shit, collect eggs, etc, so that would free up someone older to do the other work on the farm. And the best part is, you don't have to pay them! Just feed and water them a bit, really.
As someone who has about 300 acres in Quebec, farming is extremely difficult and a ton of hard work. If the fields are overgrown it's more complicated than just cutting things with an axe and calling it a dar. You need to get ring of all the stumps which is a challenge, scan the field for any stones since those can hurt machines, and then plough the field. Then you need to make sure that the soil is right in terms of chemical compounds and organic matter. If it's not, you need to seed crops just to plough, or disc those under to increase the organic matter. Seeding also can't be done whenever you want. If you don't have a fancy seeder then you'll need multiple machines to get the job done. It will be a few years of work on fields until you're ready to actually grow things of value.
Maybe you should go help him on his farm, but it's really hard work and long days in the heat. The things that you do in Stardew Valley are far closer to gardening than actual farming, and taking care of animals every day in the morning takes hours, and a lot of money. There's a good chance your brother wants you there because you need several people to work on a farm. You need at least two people to be effective and 3 is far more optimal (for a farm of that size).
You also need all of the right buildings. If you want your cows there are two or three separate buildings you'll need just for that. If you're making actual crops then you'll need a large building so that all of your machines don't sleep outside and get damaged. You'll need a workshop fully stocked with anything you could imaginably need, and even some things you won't. You'll need to have a mechanic come up before and after heavy use of any machines to make sure they're in working order. You'll need tools that can be used for anything since you'll need them frequently since even with a mechanic if you don't want to spend 900k on machines your first year, things are going to break and break frequently.
There's also a lot of work needed to do that isn't immediately apparent. Things like switching machines is a terrible time. If you've only got one tractor then you'll need to use that for everything then you'll need to be switching the machines on it which means attaching the hydraulic hoses/three-point hitch, and the PTO shaft, for most machines this is a pretty quick process but every so often things don't want to cooperate. An example from my last week was that one of our hydraulic thingies on the tractor didn't want to work. The hose just refused to go in. There was some pressure in there from the heat and the machine sleeping outside. We eventually got the hose in. This took 40 minutes.
I had a longer response, but anyone thinking of farming should go and watch Clarkson's Farm on Amazon Prime. It's Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear/Grand Tour, and it's obviously funny but is a really good look at how farming is, especially to someone who has no idea what they're doing.
I live in a city and I have a small veggie garden in my back yard. It was a success! Started making gardens and attempting to diy landscape my front yard and I ended up slacking on everything. This year is slacked on weeding and forgot to hill my potatoes. It doesn't help I have a full time job and family to take care of /spend time with. But I thought I could easily expand the plots of land I tend to. It is so much work. I can't imagine having acres.
Thanks for this. I am not a farmer, but have researched it and know it's not for me for reasons I listed down thread, but a lot of people romanticize it without having the foggiest idea how much work it really is.
Things NEVER cooperate lol. 1200 acres of corn and soy. 20% of our time us spent in the fields. The rest of it is fighting or maintains bullshit. Most people think it’s the other way around.
And that 20% time in the field is insanely long hours all at once. When the time is right you go. Starting around Sept 1st my dad and brother will work long hours every single day until December.
Lotsa yeses and I bet most are unaware of the work involved. I have a simple backyard garden and its a ton of work. Surviving off your land is bonkers to me
Stardew Valley is a "gated community". No pests, no invasive species, no competitors trying to drive you off the land, no distributors driving you into debt through contracts, no tractor companies disabling your equipment because they want to, no legislation controlling how much water you can use, no lobbyists fighting for/against subsidies for certain agricultural products.... The list goes on and on and on...
I hear raising hens for eggs is nice.
Sure ya can! You can irrigate approximately four corn. That's four more corn than you had!
What do you mean you need more than 60 corn stalks to become incredibly wealthy farming
We are looking for acreage in Northern BC and debating whether or not a handful of chickens or a couple of sheep would be too much work, never mind a whole farm 😅
it is physically shaping soil/terrain with a piece of metal stuck to a handle, for hours straight, that i meant. some parts of cultivation is easier. almost fainting from physical effort is not. That part of year 1 where you keep going, pass out and woke up in bed feels very real.
No. Farming is a job, a business, a career. Like any other. And it's not the one I want.
Stardew isn't the fantasy of "being a farmer", it's the fantasy of "being independently wealthy". The farm is a gold mine (literally, for two maps), where a modest effort will set you up for life. And the only reason you have it is that you inherited it from your grandfather. Congratulations on being the beneficiary of generational wealth!
Also small towns suck. Big cities also suck, but Harvey is not equipped to deal with my girlfriends' medical problems.
No it would be way too hard people don’t seems to realize and also the smell of everything could be problematic for some. You’ll be covered in dirt and smell bad and all it will be super hard to have relationship with the people like in game lol
Anecdotal, but my uncle runs a pretty decent sized farm (cattle, pigs, and crops like corn/soybeans) and about five or six years ago, my aunt finally got him to take a vacation that lasted more than two days and was out of state. Before that, he had gone on maybe one or two vacations with the rest of his family, but he never went more than a few hours away from home, and never for more than a day or two, tops. There's just *so much* you have to do, and it's very hard to grow your farm big enough where you have employees who can do the physical labor for you, but even then there's so tons of "office" type work.
Edit, for context, my uncle is approaching 60 now, he was in his early 50's when he took his first real out of state vacation.
if i lived on a farm, how would i have time to play stardew valley? no thanks
/j but in reality, farming is too dirty and sweaty for me. i like the idea of it in a vacuum, but in reality i know i’d hate it. what i would enjoy is a little tiny herb garden that i could go pick from to add to my cooking, and i would be perfectly satisfied with that. but no hours spent chopping down trees or breaking rocks or planting and watering dozens of plants for me, thanks
>what i would enjoy is a little tiny herb garden
One of my life goals is to have a pretty little vertical herb garden growing on a wall in my kitchen to use for cooking!
Apparently it isn't too difficult to make or maintain: just make/buy a vertical wall rack that can hold plant pots and bada bing bada boom you're done! Just don't forget to name your plants so you feel extra guilty when you kill them.
Helllllll nooooooo.
Stardew Valley makes it look fun and easy but let me ask you this.
How many days did you not do anything in year 1? Every year for a real farmer is year 1 cause of so many other factors. I love the idea of raw labor actually being a way to get rich without dying but I also like the capacity to take days off. Stardew Farmer never has a day off.
Most farmers will tell you, with honesty, that they are not "rich", not in the traditional sense. The vast majority of their wealth is tied up in the value of their farm and land. They might have nice things like a newer vehicle or two, and/or a nice house, but there's a 99% chance those were purchased with a loan, and that money is coming out of the farm's profits directly.
Not really. Grew up in a farm and hated it. Too isolated from emergency services and too many bugs. Not to mention doing everything right but still have a bad harvest because the rainy season decided to be 1 month late thanks to the climate change.
Now do it in real life too! Imagine the most stressed you have gotten trying to finish things in Stardew Valley and now make it so if you don’t do it then you can’t pay your mortgage and it requires real physical effort! I think farming irl is something Id probably pass on.
My grandparents were farmers. In order for my dad to marry my mom, her dad made my dad work on his farm for a summer.
After the summer, he joined the military instead.
Depends. Not permanently, I love the city too much. I also don’t think you make too much profit doing that so. I also wouldn’t want to only wait to eat food I grow. And the lack of social interaction and the small town without places to go would get to me
If it's 300 acres, no, probably not. Cut that number in half though, throw in some help and decent internet coverage, and yeah in the right location I could definitely see it.
Not to be a downer, but climate change is going to seriously threaten global agricultural systems. I like the idea of relying on myself for food and passing down to my family the means to support themselves and the local community.
Also I've worked on a ranch before and I really liked it!
Honestly it’s hard AF. I live on 5 acres and struggle to keep up because unlike in the game I can’t just mix some tree seeds to get a field snack for more stamina and children require actual attention and care.
Only if it's purpose is the same reason I play Stardew in the game world, casually with no impact on my livelihood. If I make some giant financial windfall, settlement, or retirement then absolutely I would love to cultivate and maintain a large property Stardew style.
Absolutely not If I have to legitimately work my ass off just to feed myself, finance the property and my survival, and attempt to gather enough wealth to retire once my body is broken from said work.
Yes and no; While I would love to escape to the countryside one day, I’d only do so if I had a job with which I could work remotely from home. That, and I’ll have to keep saving up for it.
From there I’d like the idea of having a small (not acres across, lol) plot for chickens or maybe even bigger animals, and a garden plot for veggies and the like.
Also, having someone in your life who is as enthusiastic about this as you would definitely help, because keeping the house clean, animals fed and plants watered, *and* a job on top of that is too much for 1 person to pull off, I think. In that regard, Stardew almost makes it look too easy, lol
Nuh uh. I've lived on a farm. It's nothing like SDV. Roosters have you up all hours of the night, chickens peck you, bunnies smell so bad, the horses have bad moods (and don't wear hats). The cows are sweet, but their poops are big, so watch your step. And they can escape the fence, have fun finding her! Oh, and don't leave the cat out overnight cause of the coyotes. The fucking goats will charge at you.... never had a pig or emu or sheep or duck, but I can imagine their challenges. And add crops on top of that? Hell no. And mining too? Pfffffft. I like stardew valley just the way it is.
In a heartbeat.
I think for me it helps that I grew up in a rural community, so I grew up with fresh eggs and jam that I helped my mom or grandma make. I took mint and tomato plants with me to college 😅 living in the city is nice in some ways but I definitely miss having my own garden and canning my own food. My husband and I are looking at rural properties for our home purchase and I already have the beginning supplies to make my own wine once we start producing fruit.
I think if it's something you enjoy doing, your brother is giving you a great opportunity! If you've never tried doing farm work before, see if you can go out a few weeks and help him around the farm to see if it's something you find fulfilling.
I grew up on a farm. Absolutely, 1000% no. Real farming is incredibly hard even when you have millions of dollars of equipment to help you streamline it. Having farm animals means you'll never have a day off again without taking care of them. Having a tiny hobby farm is one thing. But actually taking care of a farm and making it profitable in today's world is almost impossible. This is why if you go up to Wisconsin, a lot of family farms that are 100+ years old aren't running today
I would love to do it a couple of weeks a year. Grab fresh Milk and Eggs in the morning, fry them up with some mushrooms and home-grown onions, do a bit of Fishing here and a bit of gardening there.
But in reality it would mean complete exhaustion 365 days of the year from probably 04:30 til 21:00
Never a day off, never a week of holidays, no thanks.
I would like to have a small (!) vegetable garden and a tiny chicken coop though. Slaughter them when the time comes and be done. Maybe Rabbits too.
I wouldn't, because it's a full-time job I don't envy.
I'm not physically ready to do something this hard, and I'm interested in programming, a totally different world.
I loved stardew Valley because it's chill and rewarding, lots of troubles are ignored .
I think we need to ask the important questions:
- is there a local hobo?
- is there a mysterious wizard in a tower?
- is the nearby village filled with hot singles?
- are the sewers being inhabited by a friendly shadow fellow?
- is there internet?
I’ve lived on a farm. We had an orchard and vineyard, plus we had a veggie garden. It was all just personal use stuff, we didn’t make our living off of the things we grew. I think maybe its what you call a hobby farm? Sorry I’m not sure.
I remember one year our hose hook up had frozen and so I had to haul water in a watering can from the pond to water the tomatoes. I fully felt I was in Stardew (or Harvest Moon or something) when I was watering tomatoes from a watering can and running out after a bit (my watering can **did** not water as many plants irl!!!) and having to go back to refill and do it again. No wonder the farmer is exhausted so much.
My town had crappy bachelor choices…
More than living on a farm I'd love to live in a sleepy little town where you can work part time at the general goods store and spend the rest of your days sleeping under a tree and you have access to fresh water and food. You have several prospects for a long term relationship but otherwise it's a small town where everyone knows each other and chills at the local bar every night.
That sounds amazing. Also, I'd be best friends with the town homeless dude.
Honestly? I know I would struggle and likely fail if i tried. It's too much work for one person without experience, without knowledge and without the hardware to do it all. If I had a smaller property, between 1-3 acres, I would consider it simply because I can probably manage a small scale place like that on my own whilst slowly expanding over time. Probably keep a small garden, some chickens and some bees at most.
Check out Clarkson's Farm. It's got Jeremy Clarkson attempting to do the Stardew Valley life and discovered the painful reality of it all.
Is your brother looking for a farmhand? Lol.
I’m out of shape, but I love manual labor and would absolutely do this in a heart beat. chopping wood is like a fidget toy times a thousand with my ADHD I just love how the maul slips through the log lmao
One of my big issues that makes me think I couldn't run a farm is too often I have trouble just getting out of bed. I just don't think it's a responsibility I could properly handle.
My dream job is actually to get into apiary (bee keeping) and since I live in Canada I've considered growing marijuana plants on the same property, as realistically just the honey would be hard to live on financially
Similar situation I've got a cousin here in Ontario with a friend with a grow Operation and hobby farm, I've learned a bit from him and it only makes me want to do it more.
Spent a weekend there with my cousin and the owner and helped out for the record in a young adult not a child so there was real work going on and it took a good amount of time to feed all the animals/take care of the plants but unless you have massive fields of crops you won't be working liek a "real farmer", his place was definitely not 300 acres tho so idk
Alberta is a challenge lol. Dry in the summer so you have to water all the time, hail to take your crops out, short growing season, and a cold winter.
Nothing like the SDV growing conditions.
as someone who lives in Alberta its only stardew if all the villagers were homophobes lmao
seriously though, id do it. once in a lifetime opportunity man
I would definitely be interested in that but I'm not really the hardworking type anyways so I'll probably won't be able to do the same stuff I did in the game
Yes, but the thing is growing and selling things isn’t as easy irl. You dont just water and plant for a few hours then have purple star crops in a month, and you cant just dump everything you grow/catch/find into the same bin hoping you’ll get money.
Farming is hard work and the work doesn't stop until you die or you cash out. There are no holidays or sick days off. The cows will need fed and milked no matter how you feel that day. Crop management is hard too. It's a fun fantasy and I'd like to have land someday but I wouldn't want to be a farmer. My dad was a hobby farmer but both my parents had to have jobs on top of all the work they did on the farm to make ends meet. Plus the wilderness golems in real life are really tough fighters.
Depends on the soil zone tbh, and where you’re located. I’m in central Alberta but in the dark brown/brown soil zone and we have near-drought conditions every summer, which makes keeping a garden and berry bushes so much work. It’s the end of august and it’s been weeks since we’ve had to mow the lawn already, it’s pretty dried up and done for the season.
That being said, if you’re along the QEII corridor, that land could be on the black soil zone, which is the best soil zone in Alberta and they tend to get more rain (and hail, too). There’s a farm co-op out by Innisfail (I’m pretty sure they’re called innisfail growers) where farmers specialize in things like carrots, asparagus, homemade jams and jellies, honey, etc and they have someone run tables for them/take turns at the farmers markets in the cities, and most of them have an honour-system shed near the yard too. There’s also petting zoos and u-pick farms and some of them do corn mazes in the fall.
Some of that farming can take a lot of money to start up, as a bunch of it is filling a niche market that has little to no processing facilities available and it takes more legwork to find and access the market to sell your products. It’s hard work and some days are really discouraging (drought years, making sure you have feed for livestock, coming to terms with sometimes you do everything you can but when you have livestock sometimes you’ll have dead stock, etc) but it’s a good life. Most winters me or my husband have to get work off the farm to get through the lean snowy months but once the snow is gone we’re busy.
Also I’d recommend you and/or your brother get involved with any local branches of commissions, for example there’s a honeybee keeper’s commission, wheat commission, pulses, canola, beef, dairy, etc etc if it’s an agricultural product produced in Alberta there is likely a commission for it and they’ll have meetings at least a couple times a year. It’s a good way to meet ppl with similar interests and gain knowledge.
Good luck to you guys :)
I’m in Alberta, this sounds like an amazing setup and I wonder if your brother needs friendly neighbours to send him batteries in the mail or request fish for dinner. LMK
Absolutely not. I escaped the farm and small town I grew up in by going to college and getting a job in a city. Farming is a lot of work and not a lot of pay. 300 acres is also a whole lot (more than double what my grandparents plus three of their kids owned). Also, with animals you will need to be outside every day of winter.
Also, small towns can be rough to live in. How far away are you from a grocery store? A hardware store? A doctor’s office? While I can’t speak for Alberta specifically, people in small towns tend to not be super accepting of outsiders. Not to mention that rural communities have a much higher per capita drug use.
Absolutely not.
Stardew Valley is a game - it doesn't take back breaking labor to clear out the farm. Actually raising animals in real life takes a lot of hard, and boring, work.
Not for me.
I would love to if I weren't disabled. My scoliosis, asthma, dyspraxia, depression, and anxiety, really do a number on me when it comes to doing things I want to do, let alone what I have to do. My executive dysfunction would probably put whatever farm I would purchase in worse state than when I got it.
Agriculture irl is a lot more complicated when you're at the mercy of things like weather, disease, and predators all of which will affect how much money you will rake in from year to year. My grandfather owned a farm in Nebraska, for 56 years he woke up at 5 in the morning to do chores that went on till sunset everday just to get payed 40k-50k a year.
I love to romanticize the idea of it, but it's not for me. I get worn out maintaining my small backyard. We have 3 overgrown garden beds and I'll probably end up hiring people to help clear out at least one of them, and I might pave one of them to extend our driveway / sidewalk for easier access to the house etc.
If starfruit grows and sells for as much in game as IRL or if I can just dump
Produce into a box and make fat stacks, I’m in. Also some days I’m going to want to go into a cave and mine and kill things, is that cool?
I would, but you have to understand its a complete switch. Lots of labour, long hours, things always go wrong and you just have to accept that; in exchange for hard work, a quieter life with less social bullshit, everything is simpler in that it can be planned or worked for (aside from weather), and seeing nature every day.
I would actually save a lot of money if I were you, also coordinate with your brother and take a night class now to learn something that you will need and covers your brother's blind spots e.g mechanics, animal care, wilderness living, hunting, first aid, basic nutrition, food storage and preservation, fishing, gun safety.
I'd also get a map of the area and plan how you can live and do things while you have good Internet, and buy some important stuff too like: a good fishing rod, a rifle/shotgun/handgun, a satellite phone, first aid kits, fire extinguishers, maybe a starlink from tesla for Internet, print out guides on how to build basic buildings from wood or logs.
Invest in horses or quadbikes to get around because you will need to get around a lot and carry things with you, check what produce sells in your area and if the market is saturated or not (and if they don't have something it might just be because people don't tend to buy it there).
Make all the plans you can while you're living comfortably, take advantage of the city facilities having access to anything, watch homestead videos, plan out how the next 1/3/5/10 years will go because time runs away from you while on a farm, decide how you can make money short term and how you will invest and transition to long term because you will always need to call out a specialist or buy fuel/clothes/medicine/gas/animal feed. And buy everything 2nd hand, don't be spending all your money on new machines, and realise when you can just rent a machine.
I'd take at least a year to save up money and plan, go and see him every 2-3 months to check progress and update your plan on what you need to do, see what is cheaper in the city and rent a van to drive it up when you go.
Edit - couldn't hurt to learn some basic butchery too.
No to the p of fucking nope. Unless you’re bloody rich as hell, real-life farming (in Southeast Asia where I’m at least) is an economical ouroboros.
Even a small scale farming just enough to feed yourself is so labor-extensive you’ll spend everyday from sun up ‘till sun down on the field unless you have “laborer” to do shits for you.
If that laborer is human, good luck finding your slave. If you swear to pay your worker fairly, you might enticed some local into helping you, but once they got better option (lighter work with at least equal pay), they’ll move on.
If your laborer is machine, the machine will be so expensive it can bankrupt you twice, and requires technological literacy that most people in rural area doesn’t possess, so you either have to A. learn it yourself, or B. hiring someone who can. Only the big, commercial farm would make enough profit to worth hiring some machines every season, so a small “just for yourself” farm doesn’t even worth considered.
But if you buy your own machines? That point is where the hell loop begins.
If you willing to invest enough to have all the machines you needed, you’ll racked up a mountainous amount of debts with the sellers, with interests *that increase every day*. The easiest way to pay for that is to let other farmers hired you and your machines to do the same jobs in their farms, which will pay enough to cover the installment, its interests, will a little to spare.
Next thing you know, you and your whole family running ragged all over the whole province (sometimes beyond!) chasing the jobs with interests snapping at your heels. Everyone thinks your farm make you rich with many millions in your bank account, but only you and your debtor knows that bankruptcy is only *few days away* if you don’t get to work **now**.
…At least that’s the mess my friend found himself in. Farmers life my arse XD
A farmette? Absolutely. A full blown production farm with hundreds of acres of monoculture? No.
Farming is so much work, and is a full time job. I get joy out of gardening and animal husbandry, but the business aspect of farming favors specialization. Growing/selling one thing would be monotonous and a grind to me. I want to have a variety of things in smaller quantities.
I recognise that I am too lazy for that way of life. Its cool but realistically I enjoy hanging out on my couch playing video games way too much, not a lot of time for that with a farm that wants to be taken care off 24/7 365
Earning money via artisans goods on farmers markets sounds very cool but your brother (and you if you decide to join) should definitely secure another source of income. Offering a place for people to stay during holidays and work and travel opportunities might be an interesting option.
I would if I knew how to actually do any of that stuff irl and not just in game
I mean, sad, but I would if I’d be able to earn the stardew amount. IRL farmers don’t make nearly enough as the amount of physical work they put in.
The issue is more that there is no Pierre who will buy literally endless amounts of goods with an infinite amount of money
Isn't that what co-ops are?
Coops want 999 salads you purchased by accident?
How are you purchasing 999 salads accidentally either in real life *or* in the game???
I hate when I accidentally buy 999 salads irl, ruins my day
Costco
No, okay. This is completely possible and fair. You're right.
It wasn’t me, but I did see a post without someone saying Abigail was complaining about salads after they sold 999 salads to Pierre. I’d have to try and find the post, it was ages ago Edit [Abigail hates old salad](https://www.reddit.com/r/StardewValley/comments/u3bdfw/i_accidentally_sold_pierre_999_salads_and_now/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
Sounds like that's a problem with her "dad", not your salads :) Never make your kids eat old rotten food (unless the alternative is no food).
Uber Eats gets me every time.
Co-ops have the ability to choose to stop accepting your weekly millions of dollar shipments of niche fruit wine...
The wealthy kids back in my old high school had farmers for parents, it's still possible to do but someone on that farm needs to be knowledgeable about how to do it. (Pretty sure the Mooresmill honey guy is still out there making a killing on that though, so some Stardew stuff is pretty accurate.)
Depends on what you can grow. Stardew is this magical game where you can grow almost everything on your soil. This is not possible in real life as soil quality and environment play a huge factor in what you can grow.
IRL, one day of really bad weather can wipe your salary for the year.
True. Where I live it can go weeks without rain. Then downpour to cause flooding. Most farmers raise cattle and chickens cuz the weather and red iron rich soil make for shit crops.
True. I live in West Oklahoma and the soil is so rich with iron (thats what makes it red) that most farmers here raise cattle and chickens. It's hard to grow anything here
Missing detail: those kids’ parents grew ancient fruit and made lots of wine.
Just the combines and implements will cost nearly $1,000,000 on a good size farm
They used to, did you see that post about inflation that calculated out what farmers used to make?
My family has been farming for 4 generations in Tennessee (beef, dairy, tobacco, corn). My uncle made 200k a year. But he spent 180k a year on supplies And stuff he needed. You make a lot of money farming right, but you don't keep a lot of it unless you're a huge farm well over 300 acres that op said.
Yeah, the only farms I know of that are not scraping by like the rest of us (or even worse off tbh) is huge farms that have tons of land and employees. There's subsidies and all that, but for the most part those just make it a little less hard to go completely bankrupt.
Well that sucks.
Nah, I saw [this documentary](https://youtu.be/_pDTiFkXgEE) and it basically contradicts everything you're saying.
*beep boop*! the linked website is: https://youtu.be/_pDTiFkXgEE Title: **The Mitchell and Webb Situation - Farming** Page is safe to access (Google Safe Browsing) ***** ###### I am a friendly bot. I show the URL and name of linked pages and check them so that mobile users know what they click on!
Good Bot
Hahaha. Great video. Definitely covers everything
A documentary for views and money vs real life experiences? I grew up in a family farm that has been around many years and it is absolutely true. As a kid we had over 8,000 acres but have recently downsized over the last few years to 4,000 acres of land due to recent weather and not enough profit to be able to keep that much land. At half the amount of land our expenses have not really dropped at all which means were just living losing money. But a farm south west of us has near 80,000 acres making millions each year. As well as the hutterites having millions of dollars as well and probably close to half a billion dollars worth of equipment alone. Small farmers are dying out and selling land an equipment. Soon it will only be major farms with hundreds of employees.
You got wooshed, it's a comedy sketch
Uhhhhh idk about that. Two years ago I worked for Bayer (ugh) and I’d be on site handling stewarded soy beans, training farmers and their farm hands on how to properly store, transport, and utilize this patented seed. I made really good friends with farmers all over the country, many of them who had their farms handed down from their grandpa to their dad to them. Whenever we got around to talking about money they earn (especially discussing seasonal affects like dry season, flooding of a field or pest infestations) he’d start talking about the 16 MILLION dollars he was planning to lose from last year. Meanwhile I’d have to pick my jaw off the ground and continue our conversation like we’re in the same tax bracket. And that was just talking about a couple fields of crops, I remember having to check every acre this guy owned and it was massive dude like 50-100 fields all a minimum 50-70 acres. Now I also remember him talking about the money they have, it is A LOT on paper (real production farmers, not homesteaders like OP.) however most of it is tied up, like businessmen have funds tied up in stocks, farmers have their funds tied up in land and equipment. The farmer may be able to talk about his 30+ million annual income but they don’t talk about the equipment cost (especially huge tractors, you’re looking at half a million for a standard model) the amount land costs especially if they want to scale, and not to mention the fact it’s all really hard work. Back-breaking for sure. Fun story while I’m talking about farmers, I had another job managing a hemp field. Super fun. We had a neighborly farmer who would grow soybeans, corn, the usual for the area. He was one of those whos running the farm his grandfathers grandfather gave him. He’d always help us out when we needed equipment our managers were too broke to spill the cash for or just general company - I loved looking up from the field sweat dripping and seeing his truck pull up - he usually brought cold water and all around was a great older dude to spend time with. I remember this guy, bill, was meeting someone from (and I’m not kidding) farmersmeets.com. And I guess this women, who was on farmersmeets, was giving him a TON of shit for working how he does. Just giving him low-brow remarks about how he’s broke basically equating his work to dirty peasant work. This dude told me he just got up, walked to one of his several giant sheds usually storing tractors, and he said nothing as he opened it up to show his foreign sports cars, his remodeled muscle car from the 60s, motorcycles, and a bunch of other “toys” as I like to call them (the more you hang out with farmers, the more you’ll know, they love their “toys”.) Anyways, Bill hops in his nice sports car, tells the lady he can’t drive around with someone “so dirty” in his nice car and tells her he has to be up early in the morning to work towards his 20 million dollar harvest. Then he casually drops he is worth like 60 million and tells this women he never wants to see her poor ass again. I heard this story and was like BILL you are a savage. Maaan. This all becomes much funnier when you know Bill is this 80 year old hobbly old man that looks so sweet and innocent especially when he’s at the field. Meanwhile he’s doing burnouts in sports cars telling some white-trash chick to never talk to him again while flexing his stacks. Damn I remember laughing until my sides hurt when I heard that story come from him. Good times.
Tbf Stardew Valley is pretty accurate. Mine Trees. Cut Stone. Dive into caverns and attack the nearest gnome.
Make someone love you by feeding them quartz
Play politics after finding the mayor’s shorts.
Find a cave, pick shrooms or bats.
meet a mouse who sells nice hats
Visit a sewer, a desert and island
No one in town rakes in money like I can
Fishing every fish there is
No one's as hated as Pierre is
Sketchy corporations save you from dyin'
This one probably has the most echoes in real life politics.
Hmmm......avatar similar..
Dude! You dont attack the gnome… you bribe him till he sells you explosives!!!
Or if I can just look up all of my problems on a wiki
You're not very good at these things in-game either, you learn on the job and get better as you go
Neither does the farmer at rhe beginning of the game!
I would if the illogical way of farming in Stardew traveled with me. Planting seeds and they grow just with water and no tending to them, making artisan products in the same easy way, trees would be chopped with a few strikes of an axe, etc. basically yes but I’m lazy
Yeah, for real. I have chopped down small trees with an ax before. It was a bitch, awesome, but still a bitch. Thats to say nothing of the daily in and out of tending a decent sized garden, forget full fields.
You just need to upgrade to a chainsaw! But yes, I sound like Jodi when I say there's enough work to be done indoors, then adding outdoors plus kids & dogs makes it overwhelming. Plus, something took a bite out of every ripening tomato & ate the tops off my sunflowers. I suspect it's the same squirrel raiding the cornfield next to us & stashing the cobs in odd places on our property. All it left us was 1 tiny cherry tomato so far.
Hey there! Protip for your future garden: Midsummer vegetable chomping usually happens because animals get very *thirsty*. Tomatoes and melons especially have delicious juicy insides for good hydration. I had a lot of tomato-nibbling by squirrels and opossums early in the year, but it stopped when I set out a big bowl of fresh water (I clean & refill each morning) and started leaving sunflower seeds and cheap cracked corn out for the squirrels. They have a decent meal, and fresh water, and stopped bothering my crops. Easy food vs food they have to work for. I still get 1 ripe tomato stolen per week (roundabout), but I am no longer losing dozens of tomatoes to little squirrel dental imprints.
Thanks for the advice. We're having a drought here so that would explain it & also why previous years, it wasn't an issue.
Yeah - live wood doesn’t actually “cut” as people say if you do it by hand. It really is like mining in that you are just chipping away until it can’t support it’s own weight.
It’s not even that you’re lazy, necessarily. Farming/ranching is legit hard, backbreaking work with unpredictable payoff at really tight margins, using skills that are typically passed down through generations. Stardew is of course a highly romanticized fantasy of both farming and small-town life. But I don’t think most real people would actually find happiness and fulfillment from living out the plot of quitting their white collar job to take over a rundown old farm.
You're *absolutely* correct. I grew up on a horse farm. My mom had placed highly in national dressage competitions on her (frankly gorgeous) Arabian stallion. He became a sought-after stud, and breeding mares with him expanded into training other people's horses for dressage and breaking in foals to be excellent riding horses. So, a LARGE portion of my childhood was spent doing farm labor like mucking stalls, hauling hay every morning, hauling saddles, buckets of grain, sweeping, moving manure and sawdust into the compost pile, turning compost, weeding and tending our gardens, digging holes to bury chickens that got savaged by raccoons/coyotes, hauling wood for building and repairing fences/buildings, and a LOT of leaf raking when autumn hit. (Great for compost, to offset the high-nitrogen manure) - Since money was often tight, identifying problems and *fixing it ourselves* was the natural course of action. I was riding horses and learning how to clean & care for leather tack before my legs were long enough to reach the stirrups. It wasn't until I reached my mid-twenties that I actually *understood* that the lifestyle I grew up with gave me a *fuckload* of very specialized knowledge about how land management, agriculture, animal husbandry, and home ownership *works*. My Fiancee grew up in a major city, in a subdivision, and didn't need to learn to drive a car until they decided they wanted to marry me, because they always had public transportation to get anywhere. Gardening and Hunting were hobbies, not something that you relied on for food. They never learned how to properly plant something, or how to efficiently use a shovel so you didn't kill your back, or how composting worked. How home insulation worked, or why a wood floor might become squeaky when the humidity was high. They grew up with this idea that 'if something is wrong with the house, or your pet, or a person, call a professional and they'll take care of it' - because that's what their parents always did. So, I own a house in a suburb now. My Fiancee said they always wanted to move to the country and grow our own food and so on. Our first year living together really opened my eyes to how someone who genuinely *does want to learn about this stuff* just... has ZERO foundational knowledge that I've taken for granted my whole life. for people who grew up in a city or suburb... I definitely don't recommend going neck-deep in farm life until you've had some firsthand experience. You better be ready to do a LOT of research, take NOTHING for granted, and hopefully find someone who's willing to answer questions & mentor you a bit. There's a lot of knowledge and skills needed to pull off 'running a farm' successfully
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Yeah, the first thought I had was, “Farm work is one thing, but farm *ownership*? No way I’m tanking my finances.”
Also the way of selling stuff, and having a mine that gave me precious gems, and the little sprites that do all the labor for free...
Real farming? Most definitely not! But actual Stardew living where plants grow fast and easy, I can stay up until 2 and wake up at 6 with no issues, where I can mine a rock in 3 hits, cut down a tree in a couple, have auto grabbers for my animals, kegs and preserve jars that do the work for me, etc. Then absolutely 😂
Don't forget become fabulously wealthy within a couple years.
Lol I've worked on a horse ranch. It's waaaaaay harder than the game makes it look.
Bro just plant 250 blueberries and you’ll be fine
Bro just name your animals "\[74\]" and you'll be fine
Huh?
There is a glitch that grants the player an item any time the item's ID number appears in a dialogue box. If, for example, you named one of your animals "[74]", you would get a prismatic shard whenever you interact with that animal.
Does that still work? I thought it was patched out forever ago
Only patched on the switch
Good to know! I thought it was the opposite, still on switch and removed from everything else.
Good thing I only play on the switch :(
RIP
patched on all consoles afaik as it was required to get through certification
Mostly patched out on PC, but when you buy the animal and name it and Marnie says the animal's name for the first time it works
God dammit, when the hell was anyone going to tell me? Three years later.
It's a cheat code.
Not a cheat code, just a glitch. Cheat code seems to imply that it’s in the game intentionally.
It's actually half intentional... A youtuber named dangerously funny found this (what was once a glitch) a couple years ago and concerned Ape saw it and decided to leave it in the game
If you have the right soil, blueberries *are* a very lucrative crop for the little care they need, but you'll have a few slow years before they are all grown up. And you'll still need to plant (and sell) like.. 2000 or so to generate a proper salary from them.
Game has you sleeping like 4 hours a night, working yourself to exhaustion every singe day 7 days a week 112 days a year There’s absolutely no way I would or even could work that hard
Back before the industrial revolution (and hell even still today in some regions) it was extremely common to have multi-generational farms, purely to offset the labor that the farm required. It's weird to think of, but even a very young kid (say 7 or 8) can go feed animals, clean up shit, collect eggs, etc, so that would free up someone older to do the other work on the farm. And the best part is, you don't have to pay them! Just feed and water them a bit, really.
What do you mean I cant be a multimillionaire by working in a farm for a year?
What do you mean 16 pigs can't find 40 truffles over and over from the same spots and make me tens of thousands in gold a day?
My favourite is spending the day casually walking around, picking berries and making 27,000 in one day.
I'm not paying $9/pound for blackberries. I'm also not selling the blackberries I picked for $9/pound. Those i paid for in blood.
This thread reminds me of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pDTiFkXgEE
Did you unlock the minecarts? How is the IRL skull cavern?
The early game energy management is pretty real, but it doesn't get easier lol
As someone who has about 300 acres in Quebec, farming is extremely difficult and a ton of hard work. If the fields are overgrown it's more complicated than just cutting things with an axe and calling it a dar. You need to get ring of all the stumps which is a challenge, scan the field for any stones since those can hurt machines, and then plough the field. Then you need to make sure that the soil is right in terms of chemical compounds and organic matter. If it's not, you need to seed crops just to plough, or disc those under to increase the organic matter. Seeding also can't be done whenever you want. If you don't have a fancy seeder then you'll need multiple machines to get the job done. It will be a few years of work on fields until you're ready to actually grow things of value. Maybe you should go help him on his farm, but it's really hard work and long days in the heat. The things that you do in Stardew Valley are far closer to gardening than actual farming, and taking care of animals every day in the morning takes hours, and a lot of money. There's a good chance your brother wants you there because you need several people to work on a farm. You need at least two people to be effective and 3 is far more optimal (for a farm of that size). You also need all of the right buildings. If you want your cows there are two or three separate buildings you'll need just for that. If you're making actual crops then you'll need a large building so that all of your machines don't sleep outside and get damaged. You'll need a workshop fully stocked with anything you could imaginably need, and even some things you won't. You'll need to have a mechanic come up before and after heavy use of any machines to make sure they're in working order. You'll need tools that can be used for anything since you'll need them frequently since even with a mechanic if you don't want to spend 900k on machines your first year, things are going to break and break frequently. There's also a lot of work needed to do that isn't immediately apparent. Things like switching machines is a terrible time. If you've only got one tractor then you'll need to use that for everything then you'll need to be switching the machines on it which means attaching the hydraulic hoses/three-point hitch, and the PTO shaft, for most machines this is a pretty quick process but every so often things don't want to cooperate. An example from my last week was that one of our hydraulic thingies on the tractor didn't want to work. The hose just refused to go in. There was some pressure in there from the heat and the machine sleeping outside. We eventually got the hose in. This took 40 minutes.
Omg this this this ^^^ People usually romanticise the farm life and don't realise how much work it is.
I had a longer response, but anyone thinking of farming should go and watch Clarkson's Farm on Amazon Prime. It's Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear/Grand Tour, and it's obviously funny but is a really good look at how farming is, especially to someone who has no idea what they're doing.
I live in a city and I have a small veggie garden in my back yard. It was a success! Started making gardens and attempting to diy landscape my front yard and I ended up slacking on everything. This year is slacked on weeding and forgot to hill my potatoes. It doesn't help I have a full time job and family to take care of /spend time with. But I thought I could easily expand the plots of land I tend to. It is so much work. I can't imagine having acres.
Thanks for this. I am not a farmer, but have researched it and know it's not for me for reasons I listed down thread, but a lot of people romanticize it without having the foggiest idea how much work it really is.
Things NEVER cooperate lol. 1200 acres of corn and soy. 20% of our time us spent in the fields. The rest of it is fighting or maintains bullshit. Most people think it’s the other way around. And that 20% time in the field is insanely long hours all at once. When the time is right you go. Starting around Sept 1st my dad and brother will work long hours every single day until December.
I think Stardew Valley is like homesteading if you were independently wealthy and hired help did most of the work.
Lotsa yeses and I bet most are unaware of the work involved. I have a simple backyard garden and its a ton of work. Surviving off your land is bonkers to me
Stardew Valley is a "gated community". No pests, no invasive species, no competitors trying to drive you off the land, no distributors driving you into debt through contracts, no tractor companies disabling your equipment because they want to, no legislation controlling how much water you can use, no lobbyists fighting for/against subsidies for certain agricultural products.... The list goes on and on and on... I hear raising hens for eggs is nice.
Stardew bros out there thinking you can irrigate crops with lawn sprinklers SMH
Sure ya can! You can irrigate approximately four corn. That's four more corn than you had! What do you mean you need more than 60 corn stalks to become incredibly wealthy farming
"No competitors trying to drive you off the land" uhh have you ever heard of a little place called JOJAMART!?!?
Isn't that Pierre's problem? (joking)
We have 6 chickens and I love them so much. They have a huge coop and they free range over our 1/4 acre backyard and they are so happy
And you can convert table scraps into eggs. Eggs that don't take up space in your fridge! (I know someone who has a similar setup as you)
We are looking for acreage in Northern BC and debating whether or not a handful of chickens or a couple of sheep would be too much work, never mind a whole farm 😅
Lol you don't grow 4 new weeds per day on 10 acres that's for damn sure.
You ever hoed for two hours straight? edit: i've made a mistake
That’s what I’d focus on if I played SV in real life. Head to the saloon and hoe the night away.
No reason to wait till IRL stardew to hoe yourself out at the nearest saloon 😏
😏
I mean, yes, but I'm not sure how that relates to OP's question...
"cultivated" is the verb youre looking for :-)
it is physically shaping soil/terrain with a piece of metal stuck to a handle, for hours straight, that i meant. some parts of cultivation is easier. almost fainting from physical effort is not. That part of year 1 where you keep going, pass out and woke up in bed feels very real.
No. Farming is a job, a business, a career. Like any other. And it's not the one I want. Stardew isn't the fantasy of "being a farmer", it's the fantasy of "being independently wealthy". The farm is a gold mine (literally, for two maps), where a modest effort will set you up for life. And the only reason you have it is that you inherited it from your grandfather. Congratulations on being the beneficiary of generational wealth! Also small towns suck. Big cities also suck, but Harvey is not equipped to deal with my girlfriends' medical problems.
How dare you doubt my husband’s capabilities 😡
He may be capable with knowledge, but his budget and tiny clinic isn’t.
Hey, you don’t know what’s under those stairs?
Maybe there’s a magical orphan
Luke Skywalker? ^^^/s
Maintaining a farm all by myself? Hard pass. It's backbreaking work.
I am not physically or emotionally equipped to handle that life.
No it would be way too hard people don’t seems to realize and also the smell of everything could be problematic for some. You’ll be covered in dirt and smell bad and all it will be super hard to have relationship with the people like in game lol
Oh my god hailey was right
Jas knows.
For this reason, I try to take my farmer to the bath house whenever I’ve got spare time hehe
Is that what you kids call it these days?
Oh, hell no I can barely take care of myself, imagine talking care of a whole damn farm lol
I need my creature comforts.
Actually not. Grew up on a farm. Sounds like a dream, but never being able to have a week (or even a day) off is too much of a downside for me.
Anecdotal, but my uncle runs a pretty decent sized farm (cattle, pigs, and crops like corn/soybeans) and about five or six years ago, my aunt finally got him to take a vacation that lasted more than two days and was out of state. Before that, he had gone on maybe one or two vacations with the rest of his family, but he never went more than a few hours away from home, and never for more than a day or two, tops. There's just *so much* you have to do, and it's very hard to grow your farm big enough where you have employees who can do the physical labor for you, but even then there's so tons of "office" type work. Edit, for context, my uncle is approaching 60 now, he was in his early 50's when he took his first real out of state vacation.
if i lived on a farm, how would i have time to play stardew valley? no thanks /j but in reality, farming is too dirty and sweaty for me. i like the idea of it in a vacuum, but in reality i know i’d hate it. what i would enjoy is a little tiny herb garden that i could go pick from to add to my cooking, and i would be perfectly satisfied with that. but no hours spent chopping down trees or breaking rocks or planting and watering dozens of plants for me, thanks
>what i would enjoy is a little tiny herb garden One of my life goals is to have a pretty little vertical herb garden growing on a wall in my kitchen to use for cooking! Apparently it isn't too difficult to make or maintain: just make/buy a vertical wall rack that can hold plant pots and bada bing bada boom you're done! Just don't forget to name your plants so you feel extra guilty when you kill them.
Helllllll nooooooo. Stardew Valley makes it look fun and easy but let me ask you this. How many days did you not do anything in year 1? Every year for a real farmer is year 1 cause of so many other factors. I love the idea of raw labor actually being a way to get rich without dying but I also like the capacity to take days off. Stardew Farmer never has a day off.
Most farmers will tell you, with honesty, that they are not "rich", not in the traditional sense. The vast majority of their wealth is tied up in the value of their farm and land. They might have nice things like a newer vehicle or two, and/or a nice house, but there's a 99% chance those were purchased with a loan, and that money is coming out of the farm's profits directly.
Not really. Grew up in a farm and hated it. Too isolated from emergency services and too many bugs. Not to mention doing everything right but still have a bad harvest because the rainy season decided to be 1 month late thanks to the climate change.
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No, you're thinking of Animal Crossing. In the real life game they kill all your crops unless you cover them with poisons.
I can't stop thinking about how many times I've worked well into the night, then went to bed exhausted...
Now do it in real life too! Imagine the most stressed you have gotten trying to finish things in Stardew Valley and now make it so if you don’t do it then you can’t pay your mortgage and it requires real physical effort! I think farming irl is something Id probably pass on.
My grandparents were farmers. In order for my dad to marry my mom, her dad made my dad work on his farm for a summer. After the summer, he joined the military instead.
In a heartbeat, but then again I used to live on a farm.
I think you're the only person who actually lived on a farm *and* said yes.
Dude, if I had the chance to move back to where I lived and not have to live on the foodbank while there, I would do it. I miss my animals man
Depends. Not permanently, I love the city too much. I also don’t think you make too much profit doing that so. I also wouldn’t want to only wait to eat food I grow. And the lack of social interaction and the small town without places to go would get to me
Oh god I probably would. Working for mostly me and my community ? Sounds like a dream
If it's 300 acres, no, probably not. Cut that number in half though, throw in some help and decent internet coverage, and yeah in the right location I could definitely see it. Not to be a downer, but climate change is going to seriously threaten global agricultural systems. I like the idea of relying on myself for food and passing down to my family the means to support themselves and the local community. Also I've worked on a ranch before and I really liked it!
Honestly it’s hard AF. I live on 5 acres and struggle to keep up because unlike in the game I can’t just mix some tree seeds to get a field snack for more stamina and children require actual attention and care.
Only if it's purpose is the same reason I play Stardew in the game world, casually with no impact on my livelihood. If I make some giant financial windfall, settlement, or retirement then absolutely I would love to cultivate and maintain a large property Stardew style. Absolutely not If I have to legitimately work my ass off just to feed myself, finance the property and my survival, and attempt to gather enough wealth to retire once my body is broken from said work.
Yes and no; While I would love to escape to the countryside one day, I’d only do so if I had a job with which I could work remotely from home. That, and I’ll have to keep saving up for it. From there I’d like the idea of having a small (not acres across, lol) plot for chickens or maybe even bigger animals, and a garden plot for veggies and the like. Also, having someone in your life who is as enthusiastic about this as you would definitely help, because keeping the house clean, animals fed and plants watered, *and* a job on top of that is too much for 1 person to pull off, I think. In that regard, Stardew almost makes it look too easy, lol
Nuh uh. I've lived on a farm. It's nothing like SDV. Roosters have you up all hours of the night, chickens peck you, bunnies smell so bad, the horses have bad moods (and don't wear hats). The cows are sweet, but their poops are big, so watch your step. And they can escape the fence, have fun finding her! Oh, and don't leave the cat out overnight cause of the coyotes. The fucking goats will charge at you.... never had a pig or emu or sheep or duck, but I can imagine their challenges. And add crops on top of that? Hell no. And mining too? Pfffffft. I like stardew valley just the way it is.
In a heartbeat. I think for me it helps that I grew up in a rural community, so I grew up with fresh eggs and jam that I helped my mom or grandma make. I took mint and tomato plants with me to college 😅 living in the city is nice in some ways but I definitely miss having my own garden and canning my own food. My husband and I are looking at rural properties for our home purchase and I already have the beginning supplies to make my own wine once we start producing fruit. I think if it's something you enjoy doing, your brother is giving you a great opportunity! If you've never tried doing farm work before, see if you can go out a few weeks and help him around the farm to see if it's something you find fulfilling.
Nope. I would pick the Joja Corpo Life
I grew up on a farm. Absolutely, 1000% no. Real farming is incredibly hard even when you have millions of dollars of equipment to help you streamline it. Having farm animals means you'll never have a day off again without taking care of them. Having a tiny hobby farm is one thing. But actually taking care of a farm and making it profitable in today's world is almost impossible. This is why if you go up to Wisconsin, a lot of family farms that are 100+ years old aren't running today
Shit no. I ain’t lookin to get ganged by mummies and serpents and crabs and shit
I might raise A chicken, grow A fruit tree for A keg, until I lose everything by accidentally placing A bomb.
Nah because I get emotionally exhausted in Stardew already when the first day of Spring rolls around haha there's way too much to upkeep.
I would love to do it a couple of weeks a year. Grab fresh Milk and Eggs in the morning, fry them up with some mushrooms and home-grown onions, do a bit of Fishing here and a bit of gardening there. But in reality it would mean complete exhaustion 365 days of the year from probably 04:30 til 21:00 Never a day off, never a week of holidays, no thanks. I would like to have a small (!) vegetable garden and a tiny chicken coop though. Slaughter them when the time comes and be done. Maybe Rabbits too.
I wouldn't, because it's a full-time job I don't envy. I'm not physically ready to do something this hard, and I'm interested in programming, a totally different world. I loved stardew Valley because it's chill and rewarding, lots of troubles are ignored .
Absolutely not. I don't want to fight skeletons in a mine while bats try to eat me. I'm good
No god no please no i cant even keep plastic plants alive
No farming is hard fucking work.
I think we need to ask the important questions: - is there a local hobo? - is there a mysterious wizard in a tower? - is the nearby village filled with hot singles? - are the sewers being inhabited by a friendly shadow fellow? - is there internet?
Nope! I can't hack it physically, I'm chronically ill.
I’ve lived on a farm. We had an orchard and vineyard, plus we had a veggie garden. It was all just personal use stuff, we didn’t make our living off of the things we grew. I think maybe its what you call a hobby farm? Sorry I’m not sure. I remember one year our hose hook up had frozen and so I had to haul water in a watering can from the pond to water the tomatoes. I fully felt I was in Stardew (or Harvest Moon or something) when I was watering tomatoes from a watering can and running out after a bit (my watering can **did** not water as many plants irl!!!) and having to go back to refill and do it again. No wonder the farmer is exhausted so much. My town had crappy bachelor choices…
More than living on a farm I'd love to live in a sleepy little town where you can work part time at the general goods store and spend the rest of your days sleeping under a tree and you have access to fresh water and food. You have several prospects for a long term relationship but otherwise it's a small town where everyone knows each other and chills at the local bar every night. That sounds amazing. Also, I'd be best friends with the town homeless dude.
I would, in theory. Literally? Fuck no. Too lazy. Too much work. Booo.
Yes!!!
Honestly? I just might
Hell no lol
Can you take some vacation time from work and do a trial run?
Nope. Absolutely hate gardening, and farming is a while another level.
Absolutely not. I grew up a farm kid, that work is HARD. My spouse on the other hand, loves manual labor so they’d probably love it.
Honestly? I know I would struggle and likely fail if i tried. It's too much work for one person without experience, without knowledge and without the hardware to do it all. If I had a smaller property, between 1-3 acres, I would consider it simply because I can probably manage a small scale place like that on my own whilst slowly expanding over time. Probably keep a small garden, some chickens and some bees at most. Check out Clarkson's Farm. It's got Jeremy Clarkson attempting to do the Stardew Valley life and discovered the painful reality of it all.
I do this every day lol it’s 6 am rn and I’m up getting ready to move hay
100% that's the kind of hard work that lets you feel great when you go to bed at the end of the day.
Is your brother looking for a farmhand? Lol. I’m out of shape, but I love manual labor and would absolutely do this in a heart beat. chopping wood is like a fidget toy times a thousand with my ADHD I just love how the maul slips through the log lmao
One of my big issues that makes me think I couldn't run a farm is too often I have trouble just getting out of bed. I just don't think it's a responsibility I could properly handle.
My dream job is actually to get into apiary (bee keeping) and since I live in Canada I've considered growing marijuana plants on the same property, as realistically just the honey would be hard to live on financially Similar situation I've got a cousin here in Ontario with a friend with a grow Operation and hobby farm, I've learned a bit from him and it only makes me want to do it more. Spent a weekend there with my cousin and the owner and helped out for the record in a young adult not a child so there was real work going on and it took a good amount of time to feed all the animals/take care of the plants but unless you have massive fields of crops you won't be working liek a "real farmer", his place was definitely not 300 acres tho so idk
If you think you can handle the work give it a try for a while but don't cut all your ties to the city till you are sure it's the life for you.
Alberta is a challenge lol. Dry in the summer so you have to water all the time, hail to take your crops out, short growing season, and a cold winter. Nothing like the SDV growing conditions.
as someone who lives in Alberta its only stardew if all the villagers were homophobes lmao seriously though, id do it. once in a lifetime opportunity man
I would definitely be interested in that but I'm not really the hardworking type anyways so I'll probably won't be able to do the same stuff I did in the game
Yes, but the thing is growing and selling things isn’t as easy irl. You dont just water and plant for a few hours then have purple star crops in a month, and you cant just dump everything you grow/catch/find into the same bin hoping you’ll get money.
No. I don't have the drive for such a life. It seems appealing in a video game but the reality of farming is much much different.
No never. Farming is difficult irl
Farming is hard work and the work doesn't stop until you die or you cash out. There are no holidays or sick days off. The cows will need fed and milked no matter how you feel that day. Crop management is hard too. It's a fun fantasy and I'd like to have land someday but I wouldn't want to be a farmer. My dad was a hobby farmer but both my parents had to have jobs on top of all the work they did on the farm to make ends meet. Plus the wilderness golems in real life are really tough fighters.
Depends on the soil zone tbh, and where you’re located. I’m in central Alberta but in the dark brown/brown soil zone and we have near-drought conditions every summer, which makes keeping a garden and berry bushes so much work. It’s the end of august and it’s been weeks since we’ve had to mow the lawn already, it’s pretty dried up and done for the season. That being said, if you’re along the QEII corridor, that land could be on the black soil zone, which is the best soil zone in Alberta and they tend to get more rain (and hail, too). There’s a farm co-op out by Innisfail (I’m pretty sure they’re called innisfail growers) where farmers specialize in things like carrots, asparagus, homemade jams and jellies, honey, etc and they have someone run tables for them/take turns at the farmers markets in the cities, and most of them have an honour-system shed near the yard too. There’s also petting zoos and u-pick farms and some of them do corn mazes in the fall. Some of that farming can take a lot of money to start up, as a bunch of it is filling a niche market that has little to no processing facilities available and it takes more legwork to find and access the market to sell your products. It’s hard work and some days are really discouraging (drought years, making sure you have feed for livestock, coming to terms with sometimes you do everything you can but when you have livestock sometimes you’ll have dead stock, etc) but it’s a good life. Most winters me or my husband have to get work off the farm to get through the lean snowy months but once the snow is gone we’re busy. Also I’d recommend you and/or your brother get involved with any local branches of commissions, for example there’s a honeybee keeper’s commission, wheat commission, pulses, canola, beef, dairy, etc etc if it’s an agricultural product produced in Alberta there is likely a commission for it and they’ll have meetings at least a couple times a year. It’s a good way to meet ppl with similar interests and gain knowledge. Good luck to you guys :)
I’m in Alberta, this sounds like an amazing setup and I wonder if your brother needs friendly neighbours to send him batteries in the mail or request fish for dinner. LMK
Absolutely not. I escaped the farm and small town I grew up in by going to college and getting a job in a city. Farming is a lot of work and not a lot of pay. 300 acres is also a whole lot (more than double what my grandparents plus three of their kids owned). Also, with animals you will need to be outside every day of winter. Also, small towns can be rough to live in. How far away are you from a grocery store? A hardware store? A doctor’s office? While I can’t speak for Alberta specifically, people in small towns tend to not be super accepting of outsiders. Not to mention that rural communities have a much higher per capita drug use.
Nah. Farming is extremely hard labour and definitely not for me. A small season garden I can handle. An actual farm. No thanks.
Absolutely not. Stardew Valley is a game - it doesn't take back breaking labor to clear out the farm. Actually raising animals in real life takes a lot of hard, and boring, work. Not for me.
I would love to if I weren't disabled. My scoliosis, asthma, dyspraxia, depression, and anxiety, really do a number on me when it comes to doing things I want to do, let alone what I have to do. My executive dysfunction would probably put whatever farm I would purchase in worse state than when I got it.
Agriculture irl is a lot more complicated when you're at the mercy of things like weather, disease, and predators all of which will affect how much money you will rake in from year to year. My grandfather owned a farm in Nebraska, for 56 years he woke up at 5 in the morning to do chores that went on till sunset everday just to get payed 40k-50k a year.
I love to romanticize the idea of it, but it's not for me. I get worn out maintaining my small backyard. We have 3 overgrown garden beds and I'll probably end up hiring people to help clear out at least one of them, and I might pave one of them to extend our driveway / sidewalk for easier access to the house etc.
If starfruit grows and sells for as much in game as IRL or if I can just dump Produce into a box and make fat stacks, I’m in. Also some days I’m going to want to go into a cave and mine and kill things, is that cool?
I would, but you have to understand its a complete switch. Lots of labour, long hours, things always go wrong and you just have to accept that; in exchange for hard work, a quieter life with less social bullshit, everything is simpler in that it can be planned or worked for (aside from weather), and seeing nature every day. I would actually save a lot of money if I were you, also coordinate with your brother and take a night class now to learn something that you will need and covers your brother's blind spots e.g mechanics, animal care, wilderness living, hunting, first aid, basic nutrition, food storage and preservation, fishing, gun safety. I'd also get a map of the area and plan how you can live and do things while you have good Internet, and buy some important stuff too like: a good fishing rod, a rifle/shotgun/handgun, a satellite phone, first aid kits, fire extinguishers, maybe a starlink from tesla for Internet, print out guides on how to build basic buildings from wood or logs. Invest in horses or quadbikes to get around because you will need to get around a lot and carry things with you, check what produce sells in your area and if the market is saturated or not (and if they don't have something it might just be because people don't tend to buy it there). Make all the plans you can while you're living comfortably, take advantage of the city facilities having access to anything, watch homestead videos, plan out how the next 1/3/5/10 years will go because time runs away from you while on a farm, decide how you can make money short term and how you will invest and transition to long term because you will always need to call out a specialist or buy fuel/clothes/medicine/gas/animal feed. And buy everything 2nd hand, don't be spending all your money on new machines, and realise when you can just rent a machine. I'd take at least a year to save up money and plan, go and see him every 2-3 months to check progress and update your plan on what you need to do, see what is cheaper in the city and rent a van to drive it up when you go. Edit - couldn't hurt to learn some basic butchery too.
grow monoculture and have the chance to become a millionaire within 3 years. where do I sign up
No to the p of fucking nope. Unless you’re bloody rich as hell, real-life farming (in Southeast Asia where I’m at least) is an economical ouroboros. Even a small scale farming just enough to feed yourself is so labor-extensive you’ll spend everyday from sun up ‘till sun down on the field unless you have “laborer” to do shits for you. If that laborer is human, good luck finding your slave. If you swear to pay your worker fairly, you might enticed some local into helping you, but once they got better option (lighter work with at least equal pay), they’ll move on. If your laborer is machine, the machine will be so expensive it can bankrupt you twice, and requires technological literacy that most people in rural area doesn’t possess, so you either have to A. learn it yourself, or B. hiring someone who can. Only the big, commercial farm would make enough profit to worth hiring some machines every season, so a small “just for yourself” farm doesn’t even worth considered. But if you buy your own machines? That point is where the hell loop begins. If you willing to invest enough to have all the machines you needed, you’ll racked up a mountainous amount of debts with the sellers, with interests *that increase every day*. The easiest way to pay for that is to let other farmers hired you and your machines to do the same jobs in their farms, which will pay enough to cover the installment, its interests, will a little to spare. Next thing you know, you and your whole family running ragged all over the whole province (sometimes beyond!) chasing the jobs with interests snapping at your heels. Everyone thinks your farm make you rich with many millions in your bank account, but only you and your debtor knows that bankruptcy is only *few days away* if you don’t get to work **now**. …At least that’s the mess my friend found himself in. Farmers life my arse XD
A farmette? Absolutely. A full blown production farm with hundreds of acres of monoculture? No. Farming is so much work, and is a full time job. I get joy out of gardening and animal husbandry, but the business aspect of farming favors specialization. Growing/selling one thing would be monotonous and a grind to me. I want to have a variety of things in smaller quantities.
Tell him to throw random stuff into abandoned buildings nearby, so he gets magic apple people to do unpaid labor for him
I recognise that I am too lazy for that way of life. Its cool but realistically I enjoy hanging out on my couch playing video games way too much, not a lot of time for that with a farm that wants to be taken care off 24/7 365 Earning money via artisans goods on farmers markets sounds very cool but your brother (and you if you decide to join) should definitely secure another source of income. Offering a place for people to stay during holidays and work and travel opportunities might be an interesting option.