So, 17th season has come to an end.
Days are running by with all the tasks on the farm, from time to time a bit of a routine. In the morning its cleaning up at the diaryfarm, checking if any of the animal pens would need food during the day or if it could wait for the day after. Registering how much (at 08:00) milk produced the last day, and drive off to the diary, normally once or twice each day, depending on the amount of milk in the tank. If there is enough for two trips, I also consider the price, if its over or under $800/1000L.
Grass is being cut twice each season, earlier I did one harvest for bales and one for silage but this year I filled all into the bunker, saving a bit of work with baling and stuff. A total of just above 1mill liter of grass. This is a quite busy season since there is a harvest in spring, sow all the fields after liming, planting sunflower and soybeans, and after harvest in autumn a new sowing of canola for the winter. 1st day of spring I take five trips to the Cattleshop and bring 40 Limosines to the metalshed. During summer I also transfer males from the diaryfarm into the metalshed. The sheep-pen is at its limits so contantly wathcing wether to drive sheep to the butcher. My cows and beefcattle are now producing so much that it almost is enough to fert everything two out of three fertstages.
Grain harvest were almost destroyed by rain. Twice! It costed me alot in overtime payment, yup, I pay my CPs 100%. Last harvest where finished 01:00 in the middle of the night. And then again the rain came in. I thought this was a dry county.
What were the conclusion on the investment? Despite a lot of good advice after my last post
I made a decision. And the bank was quite a help regarding that. The bank denied to lend me what I needed. And since the clerk didnt were able to calculate on a higher level of loan after buying one lot, I almost lost it at him. So then I bought the smallest, field 28, for 630 000, aprox 5,5ha of arable field. Thought I could wait with the rest. After, doing a lot of work with my old gear, I bought the JD 7330R for almost $288 000,-. Anyone seeing the irony? After that money was thigt! So I had to start logging the threes in the end of the new field. U know this threes with 400 branches on each. Autoload doesnt work with those so I really had a good time there. Somehow there are invisible branches thats almost impossible to find and they get hooked into everything on the way to the sawmill. Despite the godd times I had doing this I made about $30 000,-. That, and a great demand for sunflower, helped me paying all the costs until I could sell all the harvest on the day before mortgage fell on the first day of season 18. The loan before the payment in the beginning of season 18 is $1 505 000,-, and the yearly costs in Season 17 is $405 000,-, and $445 000 for season 18.
This is almost all my equipment. Forgot to line up the two animal transports, one from Fliegl with capacity of 5cattle, and the Cattleman which I use with the pickup truck. And a strawblower. And a brew. And two conveyorbelts. And a milkwagon(8000L). And an autoload timber transport. I think.
So with all the money in my hand I bought a new cowshed with room for 200 cows and moved all my diarycows into it. So now all the young animals are in the former cowshed, and the milking cows are in the new. This I did on the last day of season. I also bought a new open shed for tractors, and a garage for my pickup with an available spot for an ordinary car. Cant drive around in the city in a truck forever. I want to show my success u know. After this I only had money for the mortgage the next day ($255 000,-). So much for planning. Now I dont have any money to buy beefcattle, normally this is $100 000,-. And no, no more cutting down threes at the end of field 28 for a while.
Im close to 500 hours on this save now. And Im planning to play this save until I at least own one of the huge fields, own two of the JD combines, not desided on the size yet, capasity of 10000L og 14400, and a JD 8x. Could keep me busy until a playable version of FS2x is ready with seasons.
Production:
35sheep, 7300L wool
40 beefcattle
160 000L soybeans
45 000L oat
260 000L wheat
70 000L sunflower
250 000L milk from 34 cows 3Y+
30 cows
10 cut down trees
1 070 000L silage
A number of strawbales that I dont recall