Author: Simulacrum  <nub>    99.67.112.42 Use this link if you want to link to this message and its entire thread of discussion. Post a Msg
Date: 3/20/2022 8:00:50 AM
Subject: Farm update

I've been quite busy trying to scratch a living out of my wretched dirt farm. I'm not starving, but I'm still a long way from easy street. Nonetheless, I have a long-term plan that I think will make all my suffering worthwhile.

I've been looking at my stats, and it appears that I have owned my farm for eight in-game years. In all that time, I think I've sold a total of maybe two money crops. The rest of my harvests have gone into feed and production chains. For example, all of my barley and wheat crops go to my 1,080 chickens. All the oats and corn go to my cereal factory. I have a grape vineyard, but all of that goes to my grape processing facility, which produces raisins, which also go to the cereal factory. I have several bee hives that generate tons of honey every day, but guess where that goes. Could it be the cereal factory? Why, yes. Yes, it could.

All of my canola and sunflower harvests go to my cooking oil factory. A good portion of my grass gets turned into hay, which my sheep eat so they can produce wool for my spinneries, which send their fabric output to my tailor shop, which makes clothes. The only things I have that don't require crop input are my greenhouses, which produce lettuce in exchange for water that I steal from a nearby pond instead of paying exorbitant prices for municipal water.

Of course, all of this produces end products which net me a lot of money, but a great deal of that money goes right back into the farm in the form of new and used machinery, repairs, and land acquisition. Recently, I bought several huge fields. Only one of them will generate a direct money crop. Actually, it will alternate between two crops every other year -- cotton and soybeans -- and part of the cotton will go to my spinneries.

I mentioned a long-term plan. Two of the huge fields will grow nothing but grass. This is, surprisingly, a huge money-maker. You plant grass once and, as you would expect if you have a lawn, it doesn't need to be replanted, and you mow it regularly in the late spring, summer, and early fall. Imagine several acres of grass that you can turn into hay and the real money generator: silage. I am mostly getting along on the money I make from silage and eggs, with some dependency on lettuce. The other productions bring in huge sums of money, but they're slooow, so I can't rely too much on them. The big plan is to start converting a lot of that hay and silage (along with straw that I collect after harvesting a grain crop like wheat) into total mixed ration for an army of cows I plan to buy. These cows will generate milk, which will pay big dividends in two new production chains: the products I get from a granary, a dairy, and a bakery I plan to buy. These will make a lot of money, which will finally convert me into something like a 21st century gentleman farmer.

All this is still some distance from becoming reality, but I can see it on the horizon. It will happen. All I have to do is continue to work hard and avoid stupid decisions.

I hope I can make it. I'm so tired of being poor. All I have right now is a measly $1.5 million. If I don't break through soon, I may have to start eating those disgusting burritos they keep under heat lamps at the Circle K. Remember me in your thoughts, friends. I need your moral support as I endure these hard times.