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Because no farmer ever will tell you he had a good year. He should have sold a month earlier than he did, or held on a week longer. Just the way it is, I guess.

In my business I see their books. Good years and bad years. Some things are more volatile - dairy can swing between losses and significant profits. Layers are pretty steady if you are on a contract, as long as you don't get the avian flu. Produce farmers rarely have a loss year, but their high income years are generally not as high as crop farmers, who sometimes do show a significant annual loss. More risk = more reward.

The last few years have been pretty good overall, for my clients.


> In my business I see their books. Good years and bad years. Some

Can you share the typical interest rates for these "family farm" (2000 acres?) ?


2000 acres! That’s only worth $30+ million up here in the corn belt.

> In 2024, there were over 100 sales of excellent productivity farmland in Region 6. The sale price per acre ranged from $11,000 to $22,508, with an average value of $17,210 per acre.

[1] https://extension.illinois.edu/blogs/farm-focus/2025-04-18-2...


> That’s only worth $30+ million up here in the corn belt.

And more like $60 million (USD; $80 million CAD) in the Canadian corn belt, which is not even nearly as productive. It is astonishing how cheap US farmland is.


Reminds me of Emacs for Excel nerds. I like it! Do you plan to open-source it?


Thanks so much! I do plan to open-source it. ...Once it's tightened up. Please email me if you'd like to be on a beta list. mike at bishop dot wtf


On a per individual basis, I think most individuals would prefer to overpay mortgage fees slightly rather than lose the entirety of the money they wire.


Upvoted for Ocaml. They are making progress on using on Windows.


I know accountants who work between 80 and 100 hours a week for 3 months every year. Is it miserable? Yes. Is it impossible to work that number of hours and turn out quality work? I don't think so.


And the Richest Man in Babylon.


Here, desktop for online services, flip phone when traveling, VOIP for most phone usage.


Coiled, coil held with twist tie/s depending on size of coil, in one of several boxes depending on type, boxes on closet shelf above server and network equipment, closet in office behind desk, office in west end of home.


I spend a lot of time in Nitro PDF. The feature set I use is comparable to Adobe. We switched for better price with perpetual license and preferred interface (ribbon vs. whatever Adobe's is called).

https://www.gonitro.com/


Wow. Ribbon and preferred interface in the same sentence.

By the way, NitroPDF is great.


Worked at nitro. Looking like MS office with the ribbon gui sold a lot of licenses. Users don’t want to learn Adobe’s ui.


We spend our days in a Microsoft world, the ribbon is familiar. I'd be happy if it was more keyboard driven but most others would complain.


I never wanted a desk job, but health and economics said otherwise. I did ease into it over several years and have gotten more used to it. It took a few years to get used to less "people time". Going from working on two to five man crews to sitting in an office by myself did weird (and not good weird) things to my head. It didn't help that I tried sales for the first year or so and that was emphatically not a good fit. That's a long ramble, just saying I've been there. Since you have the GI bill it might be worth trying something else. Or perhaps you are like me and want something else once you master the challenge in front of you.

Check out land surveying. Haven't done it but it looks interesting from the outside, good mix of inside research and outside work.

Another reply mentioned engineering. I met a man who had been a site engineer, responsible to make sure construction projects were accomplished according to plan.

When you find the answer we'd love to hear.


Surveying has become increasingly computerized, so your software experience could be very useful. You would need to take a university course to become a registered surveyor. The earnings are good as well.


From second hand experience, software experience is very helpful for automating parts of land surveying. The licensing is a pain though.


The university is part of the reason I have not done more than look in from the outside. With no credits at this point and a life and family to support it isn't a great time for a change.


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