Speaking as the child of the only farmer's child who didn't become a farmer herself or marry into the farming family...

Farmers are wonderful, amazing people. They're hardworking and deliberate, and you're right, there is a certain spark that my family has, but it's sometimes from limited success. The crops pay for the loans on the big machinery sometimes and that's it. My cousin ditched the milking and dairy herds, thinking he could make it, only to start boarding others' herds because farming just didn't cut it.

The gas prices are going up. My son did a survey for his high school on drilling in the ANWR. My aunt is a little fired up about this, as you can see:

Think about it. What do we use oil for? You go to the store to get food. Right? How does that food get to the store? How did you get to the store?

Someone in Florida or California, Michigan or Utah, just to name a few, used oil to plant, cultivate and maybe even water the lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries, etc that is on the shelf. How did it get to the store? Again oil, truck fuel or train fuel or maybe even plane fuel.

How about corn chips? We need fuel to grow the corn to make the corn chips and maybe soybean oil to cook them in. Oil to heat the fire to cook them and a truck to bring them to the store! Ice Cream and Milk! Same deal. The cows have to eat and they like corn and soybean meal, and hay. Need fuel to grow corn, beans and hay. Need fuel to cut the hay, bale the hay and haul it to the barn. We need fuel to cool the milk and haul it to market. Get the picture!

This country runs on oil, but the enviromentalists must think every thing grows on shelves in a store! They have lots of money and don't care if we have to pay four dollars for fuel. It doesn't concern them. They think that the store will always be full. But the farmers are wondering about using the high priced fuel to grow cheap food that they are not going to make any money on for their labor, or even loose money while growing food for people who do not appreciate it. Maybe we should eat the caribu! Oh, I forgot we can't eat them either.

I forgot about fertilizer! the price of anhydrous which we use to make corn grow has gone from $200 a ton to near $700 in the past two years because of the fuel crisis. (Same for other fertilizer)

We can import food from other countries and let their farmers make money, but we still have to get it here!

Having said that, as far as an investment, it's probably not a good time to start your own farm. However, these farmers are as prone to ill health/bodily injury more so than the rest of us, and them getting laid up is hard, unless you've got kids in the biz, too.

If you need to till the earth, I can tell you there's nothing quite plowing a field, or (my favorite) raking hay in the sunshine and smelling that...you can't explain it unless you've done it. I raked the hay backwards once, though, and my cousin let me have it. Put an ad in the small weekly paper down in farm country and see what kind of response you get to offering to cover for vacation or surgery with some training. And remember, never pull away from an attachment without unhooking the hydraulics. Or malposition the chute. ::clearing throat::

This isn't politicizing ANWR drilling; it's just to share the crunch that farmers are feeling from the oil crisis.

Bless your heart, I hope thinks work out for you. If you've got a burden, get together with an electrical engineering buddy and try to find ways to make a combine solar powered...