Farming

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It has occurred to me that farming might be a good occupation for someone on the spectrum. Particularly grain farming, because...

1. It's cyclic and so fairly predictable.
2. A lot of the work can be done alone, or is busy, outdoor work, for example, riding a tractor all day in the middle of nowhere.
3. You are not trapped within the confines of an office environment in close proximity to others.

I know from happy experience farming is an excellent career for us! I’m a small-scale organic homesteader instead of a grain producer, but I also enjoy all the benefits you describe and more.

Is there anyone else out there living the grower lifestyle?

Because of brexit alot of the foreign seasonal farmers are leaving to their own country, in this mindset i'd thought that it might make it easier to find a job. But I dont think i'll be able to work in farming for reasons such as:

- can't drive to or from location, let alone driving machinery
- nearest farms are probably 100 miles away which i'm not willing to relocate
- it being seasonal and the country as a whole can't grow in winter
- lack level of fitness required for most of it if can't operate machinery

it also usually involves wrangling with heavy, loud machinery.

probably goes against some aspies' sensory issues. but all your points are still valid.

Hell yes it's good! I have a dea with my landlady to take care of her animals (mostly horses and sheep) in exchange for free rent. Not only is it a nice way of not having to get a "real" job. It makes me follow my routine and keep the same sleeping rhythm, and I get lots of exercise - all three are things that I tend to ignore unless I have something to keep me at it.
I get to hang around animals a lot, which has a therapeutic effect on pretty much everyone.
I don't need to deal with any human interaction at all.
The animals require as much of a routine as I do, so everything happens the same way, in the same order, every day - and I am the one who gets to decide that order. And since I'm good at finding systems and effective solutions, I get through the tasks way faster than anyone else who's worked here (while being more thorough than anyone else) so I'm a highly valued employee here.

At some point, I want to get my own house and start farming vegetables for real. I'm always in a very good mood when my days consists of plant-caring. For now, all I have room for is some tomatoes on the roof and herbs in the window.

I’m glad people are thinking about this! I guess when people picture ‘farm’, they think of the industrial food industry. The majority of people starting their own farms today run things differently. They grow on ten acres or less using basic tools and sell their products at farmers markets or directly from the farm. Personally, I’m a homesteader, which means what I produce on my two acres mostly goes to providing for my family, then I sell any leftovers. Instead of working a job with NTs for money to buy what we need, I make it my dang self and enjoy my freedom.

I’d hate the loud machinery, too, but I don’t use anything with an engine in the garden. I have shovels, hoes, and a pitchfork, and those easily supply of all my outdoor technical needs. Most of the time, the only sounds I hear are my chickens or the local songbirds. (the woodpecker gets a little irritating sometimes!) Most of what I grow has to be preserved for later consumption, so inside I use two kinds of canners, a dehydrator and a freezer. If you’re very noise-sentitive, dehydrators make a low hum, so I’d suggest keeping that in a far corner of the house.

I work in my kitchen or the backyard, so the commute is pretty easy. It is seasonal work, but if you do it right during the growing season, you’ll have enough stocked to get through those slow months and you can enjoy the break. Most of us aim for year-round production, and people are flipping ingenious on how to do that. I’ve seen people in Alaska use indoor growing stations, cold frames, and greenhouses to grow fresh produce in January.

The biggest obstacles for new farmers I see are you have to:

-be willing to put in hours of physical labor in sometimes not pleasant conditions. (side note: I’m a little old lady, and I love those wide-eyed looks I get at the store when I carry around fifty-pound bags of chicken feed!)
-be willing to get extremely dirty and smelly and find yourself in close contact with a variety of insect life.
-possess good organizational and planning skills.
-recover from setbacks. Mold happens, freezes happen, and hurricanes happen... sometimes within months of each other.
-be able to work alone, teach yourself skills and stay self-motivated.

If anyone has questions or is interested in learning more details about the lifestyle, you’re welcome to PM me, or check out motherearthnews.com.

This was the starting idea for Roses for Autism in Connecticut. Then they realized that it would be better to see if those on the spectrum could handle other jobs too, so the business they created has all sorts of jobs, and not just farming roses. Flower arranging, telemarketing, driving the delivery truck, IT/maintaining the web site, processing the roses are some of the jobs I recall.

I never did well with plants because they don't respond and I don't find them very attention-getting. But I raised goats and made cheese for eight years. It was hard work, but I loved it. I don't talk to people easily, but when I was selling cheese at the farmers markets I got to talk about something I cared about-- cheese, and specifically my own cheese!

Pitching bales of hay and carrying feed bags is great exercise, and so is fixing fences, which is good because I don't mind hard work but I have never been able to do exercise at a gym-- it always seemed unproductive and pointless. And for those who like mechanical toys, I had a tractor and a bobcat to help with the big chores. And goats have great personalities and don't care how you talk to them so long as there's food involved.

There can be some sensory issues. The tractors are noisy, but I wore ear protection. They also vibrate a lot, but I put up with that because I enjoyed running them. A cheese that doesn't come out right can be an olfactory nightmare. So is a barn that hasn't been cleaned in a while. Some people might be grossed out by birthing and sewing up wounds on goats (they always seem to find something to cut themselves on), but I loved it. I wasn't so good at the regular cleaning of the cheese operation, of which there was a lot, but others might be. (In my case, I relied on my wife for that.)

The basic routine is very predictable, but as someone else mentioned, there are unpredictable things about it-- like when our whole herd got sick and the vet couldn't figure out why. Or when I had to stay up all night nursing a sick goat. Or when we had rains during haying season and the hay farmers lost a whole crop and we couldn't buy any locally. Or when eight goats all went into labor at the same time! But that just adds a little excitement and keeps it from getting boring.

I'm too much a city boy LOL

But I'm not as bad as Oliver on "Green Acres."

I feel farmers in the US don't get their due. I wish it were better for farmers; it's only fair.