I'm sure a lot of you guys are like me and my family and are fairly self sufficient. How do you find the time to operate a buisness, garden, take care of livestock and all the freezing/canning etc? My wife and I have 3 kids under 7, we both work for the buisness and have a large garden and a barn full of meat on the hoof. We also heat solely with wood and do all of our own home improvement/repair work etc. Keeping it all running smooth doesn't always happen, we try to put our kids and our clients at the top of the heap but I'm looking for pointers from the rest of you for keeping it smooth sailing. We just use the work like a mule from the time you wake up till bed time plan but would like to hear how you guys do it.

Do what you know best to make money,and hire out some work to others.No use doing stuff that cuts into your money making if you can pay someone else to do it.This will give you more family time,you can also include the family in some activities like putting up wood for the winter,or other chores.If you try to do everything yourself it will come to a bad end.

Stay Young. Don,t grow old.

Constantly think how best to organize your time to be the most efficient , as well as your facility and equipment.

I guess my advice would be just the opposite of Kirk's. Grow old quickly. Let the kids and the grandkids do the work. I've had fun my

whole life and I certainly haven't stopped just because I've slowed down a bit. We've worked hard just like you guys, Travis. But

tending a garden, chopping wood, and raising cattle and kids, goes above and beyond anything we've ever done. You guys need to take a

break! ( After the gardening is over, the wood is all chopped, and you get someone to feed the cattle )

A lot of us have had times in life like this.

Travis, you're lucky. Most of what you do is by choice. Enjoy it!

If it gets to the point where you're not enjoying it any more, cut back.

Life is too short to do otherwise.

I choose my battles, I buy my firewood from a guy down the road, He charges me 100.00 for a cord of wood, it would take me half a day to cut and stack and the other half of the day to lay on the couch to recover, so therefore I choose to go and get a bat out of a house which takes 10 min and pay him..I buy my wood during busy season so I never know its gone. I too have meat on the hoof, I have a young neighbor that puts his cows in with mine in the winter, in exchange for the pasture he feeds. works out good...

I have been operating a full time Wildlife Pest Control and Scent Co. for 37 years 7 days a week for me 12-14 hrs a day. When fur season comes in add that to the list of things to do. I do have employees now to help with the work load but I still do all the paper work, accounting, website work etc.

I have gone to buying split wood every fall now as there is no time for that anymore.So you have to make some compromises at times.

The wife hasnt been well for years now so I cook, drive Miss Daisy, run the sweeper and do property maintenance. So you think you are busy, I think any of us that is self employed long enough develops a good work ethic because we have to, to make ends meet.

You are normal like alot of us......... Do what you can today then start over again tomorrow like you did the day before.

Welcome to life in the fast lane.

Prioritize. I wish that I could get back I to the livestock-farming type life. But, given a choice...the business won. Hoping to cut out tman and make room for other things.

Plan your work and work your plan, Do the things that are importuned to you and pay to have the rest done. You can't do it all. Family first! We all have the same amount to time. How we use it is up to us.

Think of the hours days and weeks in the year saved Dave! Lol!

I could likely buy a second home!

Ok, sounds like I just do as usual....work more sleep less. Lol. My kids help plenty even though they are small, my 4yr old son can work circles around most folks and if you need a bunch of rabbits or chickens caught he is world class! We don't raise any more than we eat really maybe an extra beef or a few hogs for family but that's it. Its worth the extra work to know we are feeding our kids the absolute best we can provide. That's also why my wife stays home, she is an RN but she only has to patch me and Eli up now and believe you me we keep her busy. We figure our kids should be raised by us not a day care. I guess I should break down and buy a wood splitting machine and retire my maul but my biggest question is why do I still weigh 315lbs? Lol Thanks for the input guys, and hey I did cut back I sold the milk cow....my wife doesn't miss it at all lol

Might as well quit, I hear the government gives away lots of free money

Travis, from where I'm standing your post was one of the best from this year! I couldn't remember exactly how big you were, but I

know from other posts that you weren't a guy who gets pushed around a lot. Watching an RN milking a cow would be priceless to me. My

dad was a cattle buyer, not a dairy farmer. Consequently, I never milked a cow in my life. And I'm probably the only one in my class

that didn't. ( Including the girls ) I still remember my rather large father, sitting on that little three legged milking stool,

squirting milk into the wide open mouths of his favorite cats. Didn't mean much back than but you've sure drug up the memories now!

There's nothing like fresh raw milk Paul. I get it from Amish guys now, once you've had the real thing that stuff at the store just don't cut it. Same thing with fresh bacon.....maybe why I don't loose weight. But maybe its mostly muscle I did win the hay bale toss at the county fair lol. Honest I did, I didn't want to do it but this big loudmouth heckled me for nearly an hour and I didn't want to look bad in front of my son. I will have to tell you the uncenscerd version of that story sometime, may just have to go to the WCT for that.

I'm a 3rd reader doing this to cut back on my labor/helper expense.
A dump truck load of split hardwood is $200 and my girls help stack it, even though it takes a few days nibbling away at it.
He even sets the cutter to 22" so wood fits in my firebox.
I also hire a kid to mow Moms yard so I don't have to.

I really hate to put a damper (door) on this whole firewood thing, but: I had a house that had a fireplace with a fan in our open

basement. I could heat the entire house just by keeping it going. Every time I opened the sliding door to get more wood, the house

would cool down. Cutting wood sucked! ( Did any of you notice that cutting wood interferes with both hunting and trapping? ) Then I

found out that you can heat your home with natural gas. And guess what else? The squirrels and raccoons that live in those dead trees

that I used to cut for firewood, were now causing enough trouble, that trapping them for a couple days would now pay for an entire

winter of natural gas. ( And squirrels and raccoons don't weigh near as much as firewood ) We do miss the smell of smoke; cough cough

Natural Gas would be wonderful, do you think you could talk NIPSCO into running a special line out here? I'm obviously kidding, unfortunately I live in the middle of nowhere so LP is my only choice. My house also is nearly 120yrs old so its a little drafty at times. Wood is my cheapest option right now, and I actually like cutting and splitting wood. Yes its hard work but so is life so I don't mind. Now 20yrs from now LP will most likely sound pretty good! But until then I reckon I just keep chopping.

Snow helps make time....

I pay for firewood,,,,it buys me quite a bit of free time.......

I pay for natural gas,,,,that buys even more free time.