So.. It's in the middle of winter, and we have little to do but tending animals. We've tried to simplify caring for our chicks and cows. We've sold all our grains apart from ~75.000 liters of barley we keep for chicken food. We're selling milk when we have full loads for our 8.000 liter trailer and milk price is decent. I guess we could wait for a great demand, but we have limited trailer capacity, and I think the milk taste better fresh, so we're selling some where and there instead of hoarding it. We'll do the same with eggs, but an egg pallet takes a good amount of time to fill up, so there will be less egg deliveries.
Our fields are cultivated/plowed/limed with 1 of 3 fertilization stages done. We're awaiting to sow until temperature and soil moisture is just right to see if we will be able to avoid germination failures, droughts and freeze damage.
We'll likely be taking a lot of vacation for winter, and when the spring comes, we just need to tend to own fields, as everyone else's field is already ready apart from two possible fertilize contracts.
Priorities going forwards
So before taking that vacation time. We should lay some plans for fiscal year #4 of our farm. We currently have $64.915 in the bank, and no specific target for what we want to do. Some questions to answer:
- Do we still want to do a ton of contracting as we've done up to now?
- What's the next investments we want to do.
We do have enough income at this point to be self sufficient, earning money of our fields, cows and chickens enough to live a decent life, and with some additions to invest further into farm. However, if we do cut back to zero contracting at this time, it will drastically decrease time of expansion. I think we will try to do contracts at least another year, at least the ones that are little hassle and provides good income, and then re-evaluate. We do have a strong tractor now though, so we will invest in good gear so we can do cultivate/seed missions a lot faster than before. I expected plowing contracts this year, but haven't seen any, so I guess they will be coming next autumn.
That gives us first priority. Bigger tools for contracting. We then want to upgrade the Vario to 517 hp for $38.000 and possibly get wide or dual tires on it. And then tool options:
Cultivate contracts
For cultivate contracts we cannot use a seeder/planter with cultivate options. We have to use a cultivator or disc harrow.
The Lemken Gigant 12 S 1600 disc harrow looks interesting, with a 16.0m working width and 400 hp requirement for $121.000.
But when going really big, it seems disc harrows might not be cheaper per working width than cultivators. The Bednar Swifter SM 18000 is comparable priced at $120.000 and have 18.2.0 meter working width and 500 hp requirement. Cultivator working speed is 15 kph though, compared to 17 kph for disc harrows, so if we convert Lemken working width to what the equivalent is based on speed, it has 18.13m working width, which is comparable to the Bednar. If we can afford the Flexicoil ST820 at $186.000 it has a massive 24 meter working width without boosting hp requirement past 500 hp though.
We haven't field tested them, and I'm not sure how field sizes in Ravenport will fit this big gear, but if they all behave equally, we will prefer the Lemken with bigger speed, less hp requirement and less working width over the wider Bednar. However, if we can afford it, the Flexicoil sounds best.
Seed contracts
For seeding our own fields, a seeder that also cultivates is a time saver. However, this adds no extra for a seed contract, and we don't really need big gear for our few fields as of now, so priority is to have a good seeder.
The Hatzenbichler Terminator TH18 is the best option our tractor can run, but with a separate seed cart the cost is a massive $310.000 for that 18m working width and 14720 liter seed storage.
The Lemken Solitair 12 is a simple seeder only that does not cultivate, with 5800 liter seed storage built in for "only" $107.000 which will double our working width to 12m.
Alternatively, the Amazone Condor 15001 is priced in the middle at $224.000 and gives us 15m working width and 8000 liter seed capacity, and has a working speed of 18 kph instead of 15. The Amazone also cultivates and may also fertilize which may be good options if we want to use it on our own fields. (As will the terminator setup) We will see what our cashflow is when we get these missions, but we hope to afford at least the Amazone.
Plowing contracts
Plowing contracts can't be fulfilled with a subsoiler, so we need a plow. The Gregoire Besson SPSL 9 priced at $130.000 with a 10.5m working width looks great. It has a 550 hp power requirement, so we won't be able to pull it at max speed, at least not uphill, but I think we will pull it at almost max speed for most of the time on the fields around here. A tempting option indeed.
Otherwise, we'll go for the cheaper Salford 8312 for $77.000 with 6.2m working width.
Fertilize contracts
Here we already have a sweet setup we can continue to use. 30m working width is awesome, and our fertilize wagon holds quite a bit of fertilizer so that isn't much of a drag either, and even if we wanted to buy a bigger one, the difference isn't massive.
Harvesting contracts
Our Rostelmash RSM 161 harvester is still awesome. There are better alternatives here, but they cost a whole lot. I'll definitively rather prioritize buying more fields ahead of upgrading this one. We now also have a large trailer and a tractor that can pull it at decent speed, so we're all set to go here.
Baling missions
Here we also have a decent setup. We might want to get the Kuhn Merge Maxx 902 at some point, but we're not doing a lot of these contracts, and we got decent gear for them, so no worries. These contracts involve quite a bit of work, but we do use the leftover silage for cow food. When we get a decent sized grass field of our own, we might stop doing these contracts as they are quite a bit of work.
Transport contracts
We'll ignore these. Let someone else handle them.
Next priorities
Another high priority will be to buy land. The big question there is what land? If we're to stop doing contracts soon, it would be nice to just save up and go for the big fields already ready to be worked. If leaving contracting as an option, it would be more beneficial to buy up the small fields that are tedious to do contracts for, as there's so much overhead to get gear to and from the fields compared to the profit. That sounds good. We could then either go for field 14-17 first, which require little work to combine if we want bigger fields. Or we could go for expanding in the valley. That also sounds like a great option, but might make us end up doing some more logging and landscaping to make the land fit our farm. We'll reconsider a bit later when we have cash to buy the next field, but I'm expecting to either go for 14-17 next or 20-23.
A truck with milk trailer would also be good to reduce milk runs with 75%.
We'd also like to test out and learn more about animal husbandry. Sheep, pigs and horses are all interesting alternatives. I don't expect to have time to train horses, but if I can get some girls in the valley wanting to come take care of the horses, so I only need to provide food and shelter then it sounds like a plan. Maybe we should run a test to see if it still may be profitable, even if we need to pay people to train the horses.
Pigs also sounds interesting, so we're self sufficient to create bread with egg and bacon ;D.. But I hear there's quite a lot of work to get food for the hungry pigs, and that they require feed that needs equipment we do not have to grow. When we have more land and more fields, I expect we will look into equipment to grow corn and sunflower and the like, and then we can reexamine whether we want to test out pigs.
I saw people use mods to simplify this, but the one I saw demonstrated looked like pure cheating, where you actually made a profit of just buying the food and selling it back. Could be interesting if I found some mod that mixed food, so I could mix larger quantities and not filling 3 different types of food into pen every day, but it had to be a bit realistic and still require the various food input.
Expecting we'll skip on sheep, leaving them for mountain farmers with large grazing areas. Gotta draw the line somewhere. We produce food, not cloth ;D
Not sure if it fell where it will fall in once the others are gone or not. I'm guessing not but will update this post when I figure it out. I guess it might be possible to get more in if one manage to stack them side by side with short end down, as the trailer is a bit longer than a single bale, but for later, I'll just be adding 3 or maybe 4. If I drop the bales straight down, the 3rd one is just beneath the sides so it is unlikely to fall of. 4 didn't seem to be an issue though. Will definitively save me some work.
and John Deere 
I basically thought the in game lizard cars looked a bit boring and came over the superduty, and from the few trips I've made to California nothing seemed more american than a Ford F-150. Also I liked all the customization options, and figured I might be able to pull a truckish trailer with this one if I found the correct hitching options in there. 
I’m assuming you’re from Europe?