[sprocket]

I'm in a very similar situation as you are, except instead of starting a vineyard, I started a goat dairy and cheesemaking business. We produce a variety of raw milk goat's cheeses:

  http://imgur.com/a/KWSy7

and raise +/- about 100 dairy goats:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb0ur8cdOfY

Weather definitely affects our income as well; we were in a drought for the last couple years, which limited our grazing time.

As you also noted, being a broke cheesemaker seems to be far more interesting to folks than being a developer. :)

[vram22]

Interesting. I have an early background in farming (before I got into software). What online resources or books would you recommend for the goat rearing business? and in what sort of climate do you do it?

[sprocket]

Resources out there are going to be dependent on the scale of goat rearing you plan on doing. What works for 2 goats won't necessarily work for fifty, and what works for fifty goats won't necessarily work for 200.

They're also notoriously difficult animals to get right. Most vets do either cats and dogs, or cows and horses. Goats are an entirely different beast, and really, the best education I had was just doing it, and learning things the hard way.

I'd spent some time prior to farming working with herds in both France and England, which was very informative. If you're able to find someone who's at the scale that you imagine your self to be at, some day, learning from them is likely the best option.

[vram22]

Thanks for the answer. That makes sense, to ask someone doing the same.

[dejv]

Animals are tough, thats like goodbye all of my vacation ever.

[sprocket]

I still manage to make it away from time to time, but they are a significant ball and chain. We do seasonal production at the moment (though as we grow, we'll move to more of a year round production schedule), so we have about 2 months of downtime in the winter with fairly minimal work on a day-to-day basis. I usually get an employee or family to check in twice a day, feed, and make sure nothing's dramatically wrong.