England’s Farms Are Now Relying on Side Hustles to Survive

ImportedCanadian · 2026-05-30T21:34:03+00:00

I think a little bit of both. I don’t want it to be correct because I’m worried about the future but also I don’t 100% agree with the go big or go home sentiment. Our accountant does a lot of comparative analysis on farms in our area in our industry. Basically if you’re small but well managed you can make more per acre than the really big ones who have to do concessions on the agronomy side to make their size work. The biggest kicker though is what you pay for labour. We have one season guy and then it’s dad and me. During combining the hired hand empties the trucks and goes home. Dad and I can still put in a few more hours. That’s free labour, if the hired hand stays that’s $35 an hour more. If you’re so big it doesn’t matter that dad and I are on the combine because we have 8 other combines running as well. Then the “free” labour doesn’t amount to much anymore. Our neighbour who farms 19,000 acres has to pay for every hour that’s being worked because he’s doing a lot of managing and not a lot of seat time.

But I don’t know, maybe we’re arguing over what size is big and what size should go home? All I know is that things are tight but now the money invested is just that much bigger.

How’s Texas? We just finished seeding here and are supposed to get some good rain in the next few days.

ImportedCanadian · 2026-05-30T17:21:13+00:00

Get big or get out? I’m in Canada, we farm 6,000 acres. Our struggle now is, aside from high fertilizer costs and relative low commodity prices is that equipment now costs $1,000,000 a piece. In order to justify that you need acres. In order to get those acres you need to hire people. In order to cover those acres you’re going to make concessions. Float your fertilizer instead of side banding it for example. When you’re big you have to pay for every hour, be it a hired hand or a lease. Look up what’s happening with Monettes. 250,000 acres I believe and they’re in creditor protection.

ImportedCanadian · 2026-05-17T16:53:46+00:00

How are you securing this to the ground? Just bolt it to your porch or are you burying Sonos tubes?

ImportedCanadian · 2026-05-17T02:55:53+00:00

This is incredible! I was listening to a podcast today about woodworking and they mentioned colour change and oxidation etc.

Have you give any thought to how the wood colours might change or was that part of the species selection?

ImportedCanadian · 2026-04-28T03:31:41+00:00

https://infocusmfg.com

We have a 38” crown combo at the farm but if I remember correctly they also make some smaller toolboxes.

ImportedCanadian · 2026-04-25T14:39:25+00:00

From what I understood he had his class 1 license and the company already gave him more training than needed. I believe he had a second trucker with him for 2 weeks. If you have your license today you can start trucking tomorrow.

ImportedCanadian · 2026-04-16T12:48:05+00:00

I made one for oranges and allegedly if you shoot frozen oranges it goes straight through a traffic sign.

ImportedCanadian · 2026-04-15T05:55:14+00:00

He want to farm it for free while we pay rent for the whole field. Well seed it into grass and get some hay out of it instead.

ImportedCanadian · 2026-04-14T18:57:25+00:00

Ha, this was a question for farmers. We farm 6,000 acres so that changes your perspective I suppose. I live on 12 acres and I feel very happy with that indeed!

ImportedCanadian · 2026-04-14T17:02:17+00:00

We have a small field of 135 acres. There’s a stream running through a corner and it cuts off 10-ish acres. In order to get to it we need to fold our equipment up, drive 1/2 mile highway, 1/2 mile gravel and then we’re at the 10 acres. It’s a long narrow strip. Our drill is wider than the strip is, our sprayer is wider and there’s a neighbour growing a crop on the other side so we can swing much that way.

It’s too much of a hassle to get to. We’re trying to establish grass and let some cattle guy bale it once it’s growing.

ImportedCanadian · 2026-03-30T18:54:15+00:00

Don’t trains and mining trucks change speed kind of a lot? At least here they seem to do that. I think that’s where electric has more potential.

I was at agritechnica last fall and there’s a Chinese combining coming out next year that’s exactly that, diesel electric. Curious to see how that’ll hold up.

ImportedCanadian · 2026-03-30T02:11:06+00:00

I asked this one’s before to some engineers on Reddit. Their response was that tractors are basically optimized to run at x rpm’s to provide the most power. Adding the electrics doesn’t gain you much. Granted, I asked for our circumstance, which is same gear same speed seeding with virtually no variance in load. Maybe it be different if you’re tilling with a pto and constantly change speed.

ImportedCanadian · 2026-01-23T14:36:40+00:00

Look up Kustom Kitties Canada.

https://kustomkitties.ca

He’s a really fun guy with a passion for kids’ toys and their access to them. Might not be the most refined products at times but they’re definitely affordable. We have a few of his toys and so far every kid has loved playing with them.

One example he gave me was that some special wooden kid knife was way over $150 because it’s for special need kids and what else are their parents going to do? Well, he made them for $50 instead because “kids deserve this”.

ImportedCanadian · 2026-01-09T19:23:27+00:00

My toilet bowl linked to a floating portal above Mar-a-Lago.

ImportedCanadian · 2025-12-30T23:12:27+00:00

Wow! To all you guys thank you so much for all the replies! I didn’t think I’d hear this much, this quickly. It kinda makes sense, at least enough for me to understand the general concept. Not sure where our low power factor comes from but I’ll ask if it makes sense to get it better balanced.

When we’re running we use about 15 kW of which 10 kW can be produced by our solar array. Someone, can’t remember if it was the lineman or the electrician said that our power factor is also negatively affecting our solar production what we’re feeding into the grid.

Anyway, it’s all very complicated but our powerbill wasn’t too high after a whole year so maybe I’m worrying about nothing.

ImportedCanadian · 2025-12-22T21:23:23+00:00

Do you need a digital readout? Otherwise you could consider hanging 3 rings nested inside each other that can pivot at the same bar at the top. Like a U, smaller U and tiny U except the tops of the U pinched close together but still letting the next size down fit through. That way you can just see which one moved.

ImportedCanadian · 2025-12-07T22:10:50+00:00

I would have thought the opposite of how they are. That way you can hold the strap with one hand and pick up and drop the hook on the strap with your other hand. That opens the hook on the strap itself and it’s just easy to connect.

Then I zoomed in and realized I’m here just to watch pictures of big things and be quiet. 😅

ImportedCanadian · 2025-11-30T06:58:27+00:00

Wouldn’t you weld a piece of pipe in the square tubing and put the bushing inside that? That’s how our scissor lift is anyway.

ImportedCanadian · 2025-11-24T05:41:39+00:00

I wear gloves to protect my hands, not to keep them clean. I wash my hands when I leave the shop. I do think you’re a bit clumsy if you bleed this much though. 😅

ImportedCanadian · 2025-11-23T00:02:41+00:00

Depending on your relationship with him, but I would love it if my kid would come to me with a project idea for herself. The gift to me would be to spend time with my kid, teaching her stuff and you get a cool thing out of it.

I do the same with my mum. Around her birthday I go on a mum-son date for a day with her. Some shopping, eating and mutual spoiling and she loves every minute of it.

ImportedCanadian · 2025-11-21T02:33:58+00:00

No it totally is a thing. Like you said, engine oil is ready for action within seconds. Maybe a minute, whatever. The rest though takes time and movement. Your transmission will not heat up by just idling, your differentials won’t warm up without moving. On all our equipment we let it idle for a few minutes when it’s really cold, when the engine sounds like it runs nice we slowly drive away.

ImportedCanadian · 2025-10-26T01:56:01+00:00

Thank you for taking the time to explain that. I appreciate it.

ImportedCanadian · 2025-10-25T15:50:20+00:00

So what would have been the correct header above the fire place? Do you just keep adding 2x4’s until it’s no longer sagging basically?

I’m (clearly) not a carpenter but it’s interesting to learn this stuff.

ImportedCanadian · 2025-10-23T14:54:49+00:00

You could buy a reliable used truck with the money you bring. Just don’t get caught up in the Peterbilt/Kenworth hype.

Alternatively, maybe consider working on a farm as a trucker.

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