Why Have a Hobby Farm?

While mowing the cover crop in the garden today, the separation of "life" and "work" became more prevalent, as I was trying to figure out why I do what I do. 

I was thinking about past friends in agriculture and current professionals in the field- and how they may be working the the agriculture field, their home lives do not reflect agriculture at all. Like professors in Raleigh that live in neighborhoods, or college friends that are enjoying the apartment life away from the family farm, while majoring in agriculture. 

This concept has baffled me prior to today and was quite frankly frustrating because I did not understand this division of work and life, until today with: 

A post shared by Olivia Horning (@practice_farm) on Mar 6, 2017 at 5:40pm PST

"First, determine how you are going to work. 

Then, determine how you are going to live."

For example, lately I have been experiencing a pull toward focusing on my future job as an Agriculture teacher and less on unproductive portions of the farm, such as the pygmy goats I have determined to sell. 

I have established that I am done hobby-ing with livestock and the next time I have any sort of previously owned species (goats, sheep) it will be on a larger productive scale, paired with cattle, because I have a more established knowledge base surrounding managing them now. Haven taken small ruminant management in the fall and currently enrolled in beef cattle management this spring, I shall hobby now with horticulture. 

Thus I have established that animal science is the focus of my Ag teaching career and horticulture is my "hobby" of sorts.

With this concept I have established why I have the hobby farm, it is "living" for me. It is not "work",  as it does not produce monetary income and would be cheeper to buy produce in the grocery store imported from outside of the United States.

But rather, the hard physical labor is good for my body and teaches me discipline. The farm builds character and it is how I want to raise my children. Not necessarily to perpetuate agriculture as I have, expecting them to all be farmers, but rather to teach necessary life skills and equip them to decide:

how they will work and how they will live.

Best Regards,