Farm
 |
There will be domes, even green houses! As soon as possible we’ll start writing our grant requests to places like the USDA for funding to install greenhouses for year-round food production, chicken coops, fencing to keep the llamas in, maybe a pig or two each year for pork chops & ham! Not quite sure of one or two llamas will be very profitable, but I think it’d be fun. I think getting a few fun animals will help create the kind of relaxing, salubrious environment I want. Taking care of the farm may even become an almost full-time job, one of the rare paid positions. There will be as much intensive gardening as we can manage, have you seen how much a tomato costs? Wow! Artists Farm Inc will be a not-for-profit C-corp. Resident artists will pay rent & utilities to the C-corp for their workshop spaces, and each individual will pay the C-corp something in rent. Much of this will be done in order to establish the kinds of paper trails & income levels we all want to maintain. There will be a grocery budget, and everyone will get as many of their favorite things as possible out of the general fund. Each set of private quarters will have a dorm-sized refrigerator for private beer & wine reserves. |
| While hops are not the easiest cash crop to get started in, I already am the proud owner of 125 rhizomes (the roots) which will stay in an organic farm outside of New Glarus until Artists Farm actually has some land. Hops takes a few years to mature, but once an acre is going, it can bring in over $10,000 every year until you get bored with it. The right strains can bring in $15,000/year/acre. A couple acres can easily become the primary financing mechanism to keep the mortgage paid.Of course since we have our own hops supply we will brew as much of our own lager & ale requirements as possible. I’ve also made wine and hope to again. |  |
This is the farm where my fledgling hop yard is, south of Monticello WI