Two decades around equipment, and a lot of summers on a small farm.

I grew up spending summers on a small family farm. Cattle, a garden that fed people rather than decorated a yard, hayfields, and more fence work than I care to add up. That is where I learned that equipment is not a hobby. It is the difference between a chore taking twenty minutes and taking all afternoon.

Then I spent more than twenty years in equipment trade publishing. I started out selling classified advertising, moved up to associate publisher, and eventually served as publisher and director of the heavy construction side of Equipment World. I was on the business side of the magazine, not the editorial side. I did not write the stories.

What I did was sit in the rooms. For years I attended the major manufacturer press events, where a company rolls out a new machine and makes its best case for it. And for years I helped host peer group meetings, where the people who actually own and run this equipment sat around a table and told each other what held up and what did not.

Why this site exists

Somewhere between the patio raised bed and the thousand-acre operation is a huge group of people with a few acres, some animals, a garden they take seriously, and a real budget they have to be careful with. Almost nothing is written for them honestly. The roundups are assembled by people who have never handled the product, and the specs quoted are the ones the manufacturer wanted quoted.

What I bring is not that I have tested everything. It is that I know what a manufacturer chooses to emphasize and what an owner ends up caring about a year in, and those are rarely the same list. Sorting one from the other is the value I am offering.

How I handle recommendations

When I have used something, I will tell you so and tell you how long. When I am going on research, reputation, and twenty years of hearing what fails, I will tell you that too. I would rather be trusted than sound certain.

This site carries advertising and brand partnerships, and sponsored material is always labeled as sponsored. It does not get mixed into the recommendations. I spent twenty years selling advertising for a trade magazine, and the reason that magazine was worth advertising in was that readers trusted the part nobody had paid for. Same rule here. If a product is wrong for a small place, that is what it will say here.

How the site makes money

Two ways. Links to products here are Amazon affiliate links, so if you buy through one, Amazon pays me a small commission at no additional cost to you. You pay the same price you would have paid going to Amazon directly.

The site also sells advertising and category sponsorships to brands that want to reach people working small acreage. If you are on the brand side and want to talk about that, write me. If you have a question about something on your own place, write me about that instead. I answer either one.

info@capstoneconnect.ai