Tim Young over at natures harmony caught my eye a few years ago when I saw a video he made of turkey processing, which I thought was pretty well done. At the time he was writing a farm blog and he seemed to be pretty involved with farming.
In fact, very involved. He seemed to have no end of money, branched out into all sorts of animals all at once; laying hens and hogs and turkeys and sheep and cattle... and after a while I started reading what he was writing closely, and over time found that his views on animal husbandry didn't match mine, and in fact, when people tried to talk to him about it, he'd basically boot them -- and I got booted, too. I wrote an entry about this and he didn't like it at all.
He'd talk about his flock of sheep, and how they were all having parasite problems, and then when people pointed out that he could just worm them and they'd be fine, he really didn't take that well. He came up with the idea that feeding his flock of laying hens 50% of what they needed would promote foraging and was surprised when his egg production dropped off, and then more surprised when hundreds of the hens died.
He talked about his terrible losses in his book, accidental farmers -- and if you'd like to see what other farmers thought of his practices, Take a look at these reviews by experienced farmers.
After a while, he apparently got tired of actually doing the farm work, and put an ad out looking for farm help. But he called them "interns" and apparently wanted to pay them around $4/hour, which I wrote about here.
So now, after years of promoting his decision to "turn his back on corporate life" and proclaiming his joy at homesteading... he's selling the farm. Guess a few years of life on the farm isn't really your dream anymore, Tim?
It's an interesting exit strategy. he's spent, by my reckoning, more than a million bucks on this farm, and while he claims to be open, it's not clear why he's selling it. He's listed it at 1.5 million and claims that it generates $10k a month in free cash flow. I'd be curious to see his books.
What's odd about this is that he just did a kickstarter project begging for money to build a cheese cave for this farm. If you're making $10k a month, do you really need to crowdsource money? just save your pennies for a few months.
first listing with pictures here
Second listing here
Update 4-15-2014: More listings!
http://www.cheese-farm-business-for-sale.com/
http://www.landflip.com/land.asp?listing_id=71920
I'm not sorry to see him get out of farming. Kinda happy about it, actually. If you'd like to get booted off his facebook page, ask him why he's selling his farm. Or better yet, what does he do with the bull calves that his dairy herd generates. This is the guy who wrote a blog entry decrying the hatchery practice of killing male chicks. "a life not wasted"...
So long, Tim.
5 weeks ago
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10 comments:
Amazing to see all that infrastructure on a small farm. Good luck getting value back out of it.
I don't mind folk trying stuff out but when they start to tell other people how to farm it gets a bit silly.
hm. Now why didn't my great-grandfather think of having people donate to his farm venture? Just place a huge "donate" sign outside the farmhouse. voila! Problem solved.
Yea i asked on their FB page re: selling, only to have it deleted. Oh well. That's one of the first questions I ask anyone about property....
I read some of the comments made, that the real estate listings were "an april fools joke" by Tim Gaddis and Tim Young's statement to one of his cheese retailers
(and I quote: " Sorry Kathleen. Even though I don't know these low lifes, Alayne, her husband Steve and their cohort, Bruce, are going to every page on our "like" list and trying to damage us by announcing this. You know our situation and I'm sorry these New Englanders have nothing more to do than this."
I don't know what situation is prompting Tim to sell his farm, but real estate listings are public records. If anything, wider knowledge that his farm is for sale will help its eventual sale.
I read some of the comments made, that the real estate listings were "an april fools joke" by Tim Gaddis and Tim Young's statement to one of his cheese retailers
(and I quote: " Sorry Kathleen. Even though I don't know these low lifes, Alayne, her husband Steve and their cohort, Bruce, are going to every page on our "like" list and trying to damage us by announcing this. You know our situation and I'm sorry these New Englanders have nothing more to do than this."
I don't know what situation is prompting Tim to sell his farm, but real estate listings are public records. If anything, wider knowledge that his farm is for sale will help its eventual sale.
so is it really for sale? They just opened that store. I'm confused.
In a way farming is like being a landlord, you try to get enough cash flow to keep above water long enough for the land to appreciate and at the end of the day it's the appreciation of the land that provides the most money (and hopefully enough to fund a retirement!)
Based on the county record of what he paid, if he gets his asking price I would say his farming venture has been a success.
"You know our situation" - ty.
No - because of the abundant transparency that's preached and not practiced nobody knows the situation. All we are left with is a VErY public, please love me, embrase us farm that is suddenly vaporizing. So we "New Englanders" (like his lovely wife) have to speculate. Let's see:
1 - They are getting a divorce. She hates him and after adopting / surrogate baby, she got what she wanted: a child and alimony... so - split the assets and move on
2 - His recent hair plug procedure went awry and his head has swollen to twice the size of his ego and he needs to relocate to Florida... so he can say he's from the south but act like he's from the north
3 - His accountant visited him and explained he's not making any money, he's tired of the hard work, his author career is in the toilet and - his "buddies" have a new company venture for him to be involved in - so he's moving to Colorado to get high, remember the good ole days of farming and fulfill his new life long dream of selling next generation shoe sole material.
4 - The Honest Meat farm people tricked him into investing in their failed business plans, and he's broke, selling everything and living the WOOFER lifestyle for the next 15 years
5 - HIs first wife / marriage found a loophole in the divorce decree and she's taking half and/or his first son is now of age and the trust fund he set up has come due and he's short on cash.
Gosh speculation is fun... if only NHF was transparent. Now, I better return this jar of Artisinal Provisions Honey before the money making store rolls up the sidewalk and disappears forever.
Hi Bruce,
In researching an article for my new blog on how to farm realistically I happily stumbled across your blog. Very refreshing and informative!
Since I wrote a little about Tim Young of former Nature's Harmony fame, I wondered if you'd ever come across his new happy farm internet project? http://www.theselfsufficientlife.com/how-to-create-a-farm-marketing-website-that-converts/
Gag me with a pitchfork.
Anyway, I'm very glad to be following your blog. Keep up the great work!
Best,
Lisa @ Six Pines Farm
Hi,
I'm not a farmer (just somebody who finds it interesting) but there are a couple of things I can't stand, hypocrisy and people taking advantage of others and it looks like both are happening here.
As you already mentioned, his posts and cached copies on google have been deleted. But the internet wouldn't be the internet if they're not stored somewhere and in this case that would be on: http://archive.org/web/
You should be able to find most posts there (I checked and founds some of the disappeared posts): http://web.archive.org/web/20120205004322/http://www.naturesharmonyfarm.com:80/grass-fed-meat-farm-blog/
I wouldn't normally have bothered posting this but as the previous comment mentioned he started a new site you now have another way to backup what you said in case you ever get attacked on it.
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