Rising Incomes from Farming

North Dakota residents reporting a million dollars or more on their tax returns went up 18.5% last year. Much of the increase is due to oil company payments to mineral rights owners thereby jumping incomes drastically. However this is not the only reason why increases in incomes have been seen.

Another major factor is the growth in incomes due to farming. Incomes raised about $3,000 statewide and this has meant more money and rising income for a lot of people. The state has seen income rise around 18 billion dollars over the last year. The extra money is drawing people back to the state from all over the country.

There is also new technology that indicates farms will be able to sell much more of their product to ethanol manufacturers. Instead of just selling the corn cob they can soon sell the whole stock with it making farming corn a much more profitable business. Farming is beginning to look better for many people currently in the field and want to move into the field.

There are a number of appealing aspects of farming which include the lifestyle, costs, and occupational type work. However, major growth in farming is not in the high cost and high debt approaches of agricultural mega-business. Most of the growth is in your family size farms from 6 to 80 acres.

People who have chosen to go back to the farm often cite better health, cheaper life, simplicity and romanticism as some of the reasons. More income and lesser expenses are part of the major reasons why such life has become more appealing. As residents of North Dakota have experienced the extra income can be substantial.

Fitness: Weight Training Your Muscles

If you desire to gain muscle and use weights you might consider a strong workout method that generates muscle and helps to reduce overall body fat. Developing muscle and losing fat will give you a more tone and youthful look. The older we get the more our skin and body begin to sag. Engaging in regular exercise will help to reverse this process.

The first aspects of many weight training programs are variety and gradation. The work out should be varied enough so that you receive a full body workout and should continually seek to have improvement in each area. Eventually one will need to adjust their work out (6-months) in order to maintain growth.

Weights can be completed four days a week and cardio can be completed the other three days if you wish. Consider the following schedule:

Monday: Arms and Chest

Tuesday: Back and Shoulders

Wend: Legs and Cardio

Thursday: Arms and Chest

Friday: Back and Shoulders

Saturday: Legs and Cardio

Sunday: Rest

Even though the amount of time can be adjusted it is often beneficial to keep the work outs around one hour in total length. More time will likely make one burnout on exercise if he or she is not a fitness guru. Less time will likely not have the same positive impact on the body. A balance between enough and not too much should be sought.

Beware of Friends and Competition

Your life is going well and you have everything you need. From your new clothes, great job (s), and your active social life everything seems to be on track. You are proud of your accomplishments and feel positive about the future. The problem is that when you are doing well you might run into a few problems with your friends. Your friends are competing with you even though you might not know it.

Friends are not always the life-long supporters of your needs and desires as they are in some previous area movie. Friends can sometimes be your worst enemy because they know a lot about you and know where your weak spots are. Friends can quickly become jealous over your success and seek to damage your prospects.

The first thing we have to understand about friends is that they know a lot about you and are involved in your life. This fact makes your friends very dangerous when affection turns to disdain. It is a very natural action to share stories of your success with your friends who you believe will support you in your endeavors. The problem is that they do not always want you to rise above them.

Most friends will not consciously damage you but they will hold secret resentments, jealousies, and anger at your successes. These unconscious problems lead them to start talking. Story after story will arise that are designed to verbally make you look bad and make them self look good. The goal is to damage you by cutting you mentally down to size.

Of course these are just words. However, words can have a great impact on how you relate to that group of friends. For example, everything that goes wrong with your friends will be blamed on you. You might find yourself being blamed for things you were not even part of. People might associate more negative aspects to you then you might currently have.

Why would a friend talk bad about you? A friend might talk bad about you because of the way he or she thinks about you in relation to yourself. People who spread rumors often have very low self-esteem. They feel threatened by your successes and want to lower your position so there will not be a huge contrast between how successful you are and where they currently are.

Let me give you an example of a friend of mine. He portrays himself as a soft-hearted individual. Unfortunately, this is an approach he has been using to maintaining friends. He has low self-esteem and if you surpass what his ego can handle he will begin to talk about how bad you are. He might begin to say that what you say you did is not true even though he knows it is. He might try and take what is yours just because he wants to be like you. He may even want to secretly be you but this gets manifested into hate. It is all derived from low self-esteem.

There are ways to deal with such friends. The first goal should be to talk to them and find out where their real issues are. Sometimes it is better to attack the problem from the source. However, if you find that these issues are based on rumors, jealousies, and a malicious intent to make you look bad so they can look good you might want to consider dumping these friends (the offenders). It can be hard but it is well worth the effort in the long run.

Friends should be a support for you instead of a hindrance. It is important to work on getting to know people for who they are and not what they can bring you. If you find flaws within their personality you can either accept these flaws or move onto better friends. No one is perfect but there are certain expectations of codes of behavior that should be followed.

One Man’s Struggle to Build a European Farm in Michigan

Some men want to write the world’s greatest book, some men want to become rich and other men just want to sit at home and relax. I want to build a beautiful European farm right in the center of Michigan. Each of us have our own goals but mine is a mix of investment, hobby, occupation, family orientation, retirement, and legacy all mixed up into one neat little farm property.

Someday the property will be beautiful with a long drive way snaking its way through an apple orchard, green grass, two rail fencing, small fields, chickens clucking away, and a few sheep frolicking. For human comforts the property will boast a bath house, hot tub, steam room, and sauna. There will be plenty of space to lounge around and relax. With a little effort there might be a nice pond in the back yard.

The farm is still a work in progress. We have a rather large field and another being built. The first field will be primarily for my family’s personal use. However, the additional fields will be for sale and there is hope that it will make money on organic corn, potatoes, onions and that kind of stuff. Eventually, each of these fields will also be fenced in for the use of sheep.

Currently the farm is selling a lot of firewood. For the most part I have been chopping but I do ask other people to help out when the need arises. Chopping is not the most fun but it will work pretty well when you can sell the wood for double of what it costs you. When I travel up on the weekends it usually pays my gas and a little extra. This will continue to be one source of income from the property.

As time moves on I will continue to develop this property into something beautiful and nice. Nothing happens over night but I would suspect that by the end of next summer the extension on the house will be in, the bathroom, the apple orchard and another field. This all works toward a final advantage of a beautiful property. It will be a property that will be the envy of its neighbors.

Some might question the logic of such an approach. However, if we look at the current recession we are in, the additional source of income, a house paid in cash, and an additional livelihood the questions start to melt away. More importantly as a professor and writer I enjoy the ability to develop and build something that lives and exists within nature. It will someday be a great place to play, love, and live.

Are You Successful?

Success is a mental state of mind. Some people feel successful simply by meeting their daily needs and others feel successful only when they have achieved more than anyone else around them. Success is in the heads and minds of individuals. Individuals have a level of success that must be achieved before someone is called successful.

This minimal level of success depends on the group that the individual is currently engaged in. For example, a minority might be considered successful if they maintain employment and live in a middle class neighborhood. However, this same level of success would be the “average” for most people.

Success is almost always a comparison game where the person is compared against his or her peers. A middle class person who rises to an upper class position in society may be considered a success to other middle class people but not to people within the upper class unless that upper class was hereditary.

There are also a number of factors that success is measured against. For example, a criminal who became a millionaire by selling drugs or fraud may be successful compared to his peers of criminals but wouldn’t be considered a success by the average citizens standards no matter how much money he or she has earned.

In general, if we were to take the medium of societal opinion we might find that success is orientated toward 100K of income for an individual, accrual of assets, and a reasonable education. These are benchmarks for movement into the upper class. In addition, success also is determined by how well you play the part of that upper class person.

Common Reasons Why Guys Dump Women

Most men know why women dump guys but do the women know why men dump them. There are lots of common reasons. It is not just about men always being more interested in women. When it comes to long-term relationships and marriage men also have criteria. When the woman appears not to be fulfilling these needs he might consider getting rid of her after a few days.

She’s a Gold Digger: Some men argue that every time they take women out to dinner it is about the most expensive restaurants, owning the right car, dressing in expensive clothing, and showing that you have money. These women are out for resources and money and are not interested much in the man himself. A man with reasonable resources may decide to leave a woman if she appears to be more after his money than after his personality.

Trust: Women have way too many secretive ways and methods about them. They are not always honest about who they are and where they are going. They just seem to not be honest about their interests, time, and intentions. Men who question such women on a constant basis may decide to break up with them for this lack of trust.

She Has Too Many Options: Some women keep their options open. They have lots of guy friends so that when one rejects them they can move onto another one. In the end such women scare away guys who want something more serious because they use these friends to anger the boyfriend, show she has options, and to manipulate him. The man may also not trust the intention of these “guy friends” as through experience they are interested in something more.

Her Friends are Critical: Why spend your time dating a woman that is unlikely to go anywhere. Her friends may be critical of the relationship based on the way she is explaining things. Usually women prefer to tell their side of a narrow ended story to their friends. Even though she may be the catalyst for problems arising her friends will never know that. In the end the guy may feel the relationship is worthless.

Bitchiness: Some women are never happy. They are always angry, playing games, trying to hurt other people’s feelings and being rude. Good men usually avoid such women because they do not want to be dragged down into a negative way of thinking. If you ask her how it went last night she will respond “why do you care?” These types of responses slowly destroy the relationship.

Droopy Eyes and Dating Blues

The dating cycle slowly drains energy and resources from one’s life until the deep seated circles around one’s eyes become apparent. One morning when you rise you look in the mirror and see that you look and feel just a little older than you did a few months ago. The parties, money spent, clothing bought, and hectic schedule have finally got the best of you. It is time to find a new approach to finding someone special.

Instead of hitting the latest club and dancing tonight you feel that curling up on the couch with a bowl of popcorn and your favorite movie might be your best option. Instead of spending money you have made the commitment to stay in and save your money. All the drinks you have bought, dinners you flipped the bill for, car payments you made so you can look well off, and movie tickets you have bought make your bank account look as tired as your face.

At first you are a little excited about giving up all the games and dram and move toward enjoying your life. It doesn’t take but a few weeks or months of boredom to find out that you have seen most of the shows on television and the color has come back into your face. Sleeping early has really helped you recover but you are now faced with the new challenge of being alone night after night.

It is that desire to share one’s life and thoughts that draws them like wild animals to the watering hole called “love”. One can only be on a sabbatical for so long before they must change course again and find something that occupies their time. At this point one must make a decision to head backwards into the dating game again or to find other things to do.

To many it makes sense that they find a balance between recovery, dating, and meaning in order to enjoy their lives to the fullest. Instead of hitting the clubs for a wild night out it may be better to take up dancing, painting, horse riding and other activities that are more beneficial. These hobbies can help you define what you want to do in your life and what purpose you were placed on this great earth. More importantly it can help you meet new people with similar interests.

Hobbies are projects, artistic endeavors, and activities that you enjoy doing. They are designed to give you expression to your need to be creative. It is also a great opportunity to meet people who have an interest similar to you. Some of the best and most meaningful dates have come from activities that you have engaged in with other people. The best love is that which snuck up on you from the shadows of a more meaningful life.