I am a numbers guy and so I keep a very careful eye on production around our little homestead. This year the numbers are a bit skewed, in part because on May 27th I went to full time farming, and in part because from January 1st to May 27th, I was recuperating from major surgery and could do nothing around the farm.
Farm:
Invested 1545 hours of labor, at $12.50 an hour, the average pay scale for Maine, it would amount to $19,318 dollars if we paid ourselves
Sheep spent 2/3 of their time on pasture and only 1/3 of their time in the barn for the winter
Sheep consumed 48,000 pounds of
feed at a value of $1,923 if we had to buy it instead of producing it ourselves
Our flock of ducks/chickens produced 1252 eggs for a value of $463.00 if we were to
sell them (we give them to charity though)
We consumed 347 gallons of diesel fuel for a total cost of $761.00
We consumed 930 KW's for farm use at a cost of $166.00
We produced 600 tons of corn silage
We produced 370 bales of
hay (600 pound round bales)
On the logging side we cut:
26,000 board feet of logs which is
enough to build 7 average sized houses
99 cords of
firewood for other people which is enough to heat 24 average sized homes here in Maine
101 cords of pulpwood to make paper, or about 150,000 pounds of paper
Converting sawlogs and all
wood into cords, we harvested about 252 cords of wood in all (full 4 x 4 x 8 cords) or 1.3 million pounds of wood
We are certainly not a big farm as you can see from the numbers above; average perhaps for Maine, but it is surprising how even small fams can contribute well to the national food chain and economy.
Hopefully 2017 will be better!
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