What do you do for a living and is it worthwhile?

[donnashuggy]

I teach and sell on eBay, the main reason for this is the flexibility and being able to be here for my family.

It's worthwhile, I never could leave my children, I did work for someone else (great job and boss) with the first one as that wasn't too difficult to manage.

[chameleon54]

---

@vicr3000 wrote:

chameleon

I think you'll find 1000 sheep a bit like ebay.

"defective sheep, sheep going AWOL, regular sheep outages (deaths), constant changes of direction for no reason,

no appeal process works, etc., they don't read the instructions or listen to what you say"

And then of course you have the babies to contend with

The only good thing is, you can eat them !

---

Vicr......You are pretty spot on there. Have you had sheep before ???.

I grew up on a farm and when I left school, I went shearing for around ten years while working on my fathers farm. I  used the money saved from shearing as a deposit on a small farm. Unfortunately things did not work out with the father who handed all of his land and equipment to my younger brother, leaving me with a large debt and no equipment.

It is almost immpossible to get into commercial farming these days without the back-up of a family farming business, as the cost of land and machinery is out of this world. Large farming businesses offset the cost of land, from production of the business as a whole and rely on economies of scale to make the business pay.

With this in mind, I have battled on with my farming, never really getting ahead and relying on other income ( currently ebay ) to pay the bills. Around seven years ago we gave up on the hope of ever running a viable farming business and moved from the rural area of birth to a beautifull seaside holiday town. We sold most of our farming interests and purchased a small hobby farm with big trees, little winter creeks, rolling hills and plenty of spring fed dams. This was just to keep me sane ( farming gets in the blood ) while we live in the town and worked a "real job".  In the financial crisis the neighbor needed to sell his adjoining land quickly and offered it to us for less than half price. Of course we purchased that and things started to grow.

Neighbouring hobby farmers noticed that we knew how to do fencing, clean dams, spray weeds, keep the livestock alive and healthy, had farm dogs and equipment and asked us to run the stock on their properties. This has grown quickly to the point that we have gone from 120 sheep on the hobby farm to 700 sheep on a number of farms in the district. I have just had a large vineyard and two more hobby farmers offer their land to me for grazing in the last couple of months which should give me the feed to reach the goal of one thousand sheep.

With all of this going on I have spent the last week refinancing to buy the extra stock and make the last step to a viable farming business.

Its a rather strange little story of battling away for thirty years trying to reach a lifetime dream, giving up and selling up and then finding the dream, fall into my lap in one of the most unlikely, expensive and beautifull parts of the world.

I,m always amazed at the strange twists and turns life can throw up. Its been a pretty hard life for my wife and I financially, ( Thus my social Labor sympathies with Liberal capitalist views ), but it has never been dull. We have tried many things, met some wonderfull people, had some great experiences and some large tradgedies. I love getting out of bed each morning, wondering what suprises the day will bring. When my number is finally up I hope I will say.... "well that was an interesting ride" .....rather than " What If " ???

[vicr3000]

Cham

No, not my own but I shoot on a fair few properties. All farmers enlist your help if they need it - and we normally offer.

One farmer always got me to help and I enjoyed it anyway, I had my own motorbike, Kelpie and he said I had "stock sense" !

But I have moved sheep from paddock to paddock before and I had to move 1000 sheep by myself across two huge paddocks

so we could squirt whatever in the mouth.

Once I got the "leaders" heading in the right direction, it wasn't too bad but then of course you had the slow one's,

collapses, turn backs, breakers, eaters and god knows what else

Done quite a lof of stuff on farms for short periods. I hate fencing though !!! LOL

Good move on your part to diversify !

[vicr3000]

Cham

"(Thus my social Labor sympathies with Liberal capitalist views )"

Someone who has realised that socilaism just doesn't pay the bills

I wish more would work that out !!!

[***super_nova***]

---

@languidlady49 wrote:

donna I really admire your success on ebay and very well done but what I can never understand about you, you are a poster girl for capitalism but you are a rabid lefty?!

---

Not all business people are far right; some actually  believe that employees should be paid enough to live nice lives, all people should have access to affordable health care, and that paying support to those who are unable to support themselves (unemployed, ill, or disabled) makes society better.  It is also good for the economy; having homeless people & cities surrounded by shanty towns with people who have no income to speak of, is not good for anybody.  To believe in kind and inclusive society is hardly "rabid lefty".

[vicr3000]

What you describe is not rabid lefty either.

[jean2579]

Donna, I just had a look at your shop. You have an eclectic array of goods. Do you think that this format is a more successful model rather than relying on a single type of goods.

[dellynt]

---

donnashuggy wroyet another donnashuggy

n eBay, the main reason for this is the flexibility and being able to be here for my family.

It's worthwhile, I never could leave my children, I did work for someone else (great job and boss) with the first one as that wasn't too difficult to manage.

---

Ooohhhhh lordy yet another look at me thread from the op.... 3 pages of posts almost entirely devoted to the look at me op...

[dellynt]

---

@vicr3000 wrote:

Cham

"(Thus my social Labor sympathies with Liberal capitalist views )"

Someone who has realised that socilaism just doesn't pay the bills

I wish more would work that out !!!

---

the usuals wont work that out on here..... to many think others should pay for their life styles...

[vicr3000]

---

@bcaau_as1hft wrote:

---

the usuals wont work that out on here..... to many think others should pay for their life styles...

---

Agree

Well, in some cases, at least their tertiary education

[softail-joanie]

What do you do for a living and is it worthwhile?

i do nothing now, but i had my moments in factory work, and as a substitute custodian for a school distric. it was somewhat rewarding, but at times a thankless job. I was the one to get it done on the stitcher in the mid 1990s, just because i figured out a little trick to running it where i'd run the box crooked on purpose to get it to come out stright. i showed this trick to others and they came close to or surpassed my numbers.

the janitoral work was easy, I liked moping hallways, seemed everyone else was using that floor machine. I'm out there with a mop and bucket doing a little dance, the figure 8s dance. yall shoulda seen me.