Comment by rickypp

We're in the very early stages, but the short is that we're raising highland cattle and starting to board horses. We started after my wife bought a horse and we realized boarding costs in a HCOL area are pretty close to a rural mortgage in a LCOL area. So we moved and bought a farm property. Then we bought a couple highland heifers because they're very cute and fluffy. We're working towards growing that herd up to have a few calves to sell each year for pasture pets / meat. The property is also well suited for horse boarding with a sand arena and lots of trails accessible from the back woods. These first few years will be pretty scrappy. Mostly getting all the pasture acres fenced properly and rebuilding the forage quality, plus setting up all the other infrastructure to keep things running smoothly longer term. My wife handles the day-to-day on feeding and caring for the animals, she is a trained farrier and a licensed veterinary technician so we have a big advantage there. I step in for the project work and infrastructure planning. And anything that's an excuse to run the MF135 (snow plowing, moving manure and dirt, grading the driveway, post hole digging, dragging, mowing, etc...)