Learning to Cope

Hey there y'all...

So as you know I am currently bogged down with end-of-year school work. I've found that I begin to get a bit loopy if I sit in my room doing homework for too long, so I decided to take a break and write a post.

I'm rather bummed right now, because a frost hit our dear seedlings, and a number of them (including most of our tray of chard) have permanently passed away.

This is the most difficult part of the year for me. I grow so attached to my little seedlings... even when I'm not there most of the time, apparently. When someone calls me from home, telling me that more seedlings have died, I get panicky. I go on wild searches on the internet for diagnoses and organic cures. Then I get depressed. I fall into a state of hopelessness, because what can I do, when I'm 2 hours away?

And if there's one thing that I hate doing, it's thinning. I know its going to happen, I plant 2 or 3 seeds in each plug, I don't do anything to avoid it, and then the day comes.... and I just can't. I can't pull up those little babies, who are working so hard to survive! Last year, for our little garden, I got my mom to do it for me. This year, Dan is taking on most of the dirty work. (It is interesting to note that "dirty work" in my mind means plucking little plants, but shoveling manure is perfectly clean).

It's a fact... I am just too attached to plants. As soon as a seed goes in the ground, I become its "mommy". I am crushed when one little guy plops over. Last year, I spent whole lot of energy on a couple of tomato plants that had been deemed the 'runts'. But I couldn't throw them away... so I made them their own little container. I was so proud when they bore fruit! (But it probably wasn't worth it!)

So how do I get over this? I've shoved aside the problem thus far, unrealistically reassuring myself that one day I will be such a good farmer, I will NEVER have to thin, and plants will NEVER die.

...Of course I know this is not possible. Its just a subconscious thing, spawning from my inability to cope with a regular part of nature and of farming. So how DO I cope?

I'm still trying to figure this out.

-Terra

PS. Meanwhile, here's a picture of my little babies!!

PPS. And NH, seriously, please don't snow again... not after we've all (including the plants) gotten used to the nice weather.

Dan Learns Time Management

I consider myself to be an organized person. I keep my living spaces neat, I arrange my possessions into categories, I wash my clothes with like colors. However all of these are spacial organizations; when it comes to organizing and managing my time I'm a mess, and as luck would have it I'm rapidly learning that farming draws heavily upon that very skill. So I'm presented with a choice: give up on being a farmer and take on a job where my time is organized for me or learn better time management. So far, I've opted for the latter.

This weekend presents an interesting time management challenge. If all goes well, I'll be up at the farm for two days, working on all the various things that need to get done, by myself. Terra, who has enough on her plate with school work, won't be around to help this time. Compounding the challenge is the fact that several things need to happen in a specific order. If all goes well, the end result will be our first round of plants in the ground, but between now and then is a juggling act of testing, improving and conditioning the soil. In order to make sense of this process, and accomplish everything in the time that I have, I did something I rarely do; I made a schedule.

It's a little strange to me: all throughout my years in school, I never made schedules. For large assignments I'd let deadlines be my motivator, and had I been inclined I could have plotted a very nice logarithmic function relating the closeness of the due date to the amount of work I did. I'm not proud of this method, and I've handed in some truly dreadful work because of it, but It served me well enough to earn a college degree. So trying to suddenly develop better time management skills is exercising a part of my brain that hasn't gotten nearly enough attention in the past. And it's actually a pretty good feeling.

-Dan

What I'm Looking For

I figured, since this is the beginning of the whole blog scene for us, that it would be appropriate to commence with a statement about what I am looking to gain from the farming experience -what my dream is, in other words.

1. Good Food

This means I know where it came from. I know it was grown with dedication and love. It was grown organically. It was grown sustainably. I know I can give it to my friends and family, and even to strangers, and feel good about it. I don't know what exactly makes home-grown vegetables taste better (is it because of the actual growing process, or just the accomplishment of having grown it yourself?) but it's no secret that they are simply better than what you can get in the supermarket.

2. Community

If there is one thing that I would like to bring my community together, it would be the food they eat. I think that we sometimes forget that food is essential for life. Why should we have to struggle so hard to get it? I would love to see my small town working together to produce all the food we need. (Goodness knows we have enough land...) So, one of my dreams will be accomplished when I see our community losing its dependence on the oversized supermarket, and spending more time in the sun, in the rain, together, smiling and growing and talking to each other.

3. Sustainability

The environment is of course a ever-growing concern on the minds of the public. There are a lot of issues that are out of my control, although I can do my part in reversing them. What we can do is to learn to live within the balance of nature (instead of fighting it, like humans tend to do). I am certainly lucky to have the opportunity given to me - especially the land and the time - to make a sustainable living situation for myself. I plan to take full advantage of the opportunity! As far as I'm concerned, I've lost enough time already! By the time I graduate college (probably just 3 more years) I want to be able to come back to a well-established, and always improving, sustainable homestead.

4. Experience

Lastly, of course, I just want the experience. This means a lot of things. Physically, I want to see myself at the end of the summer, or in a few years, tanned, hardened, calloused, ready to take on the challenges that I'm sure to encounter. I want to come back to school in the fall with stories as well as vegetables. I want to acquire the know-how to deal with practical situations, the mindset to be able to deal with business-related issues, and the knowledge of the workings of nature, plants, and animals. I'm sure that this path I have chosen will provide me with all of this. I see it as a wholesome career, filled with positive experiences. It's those experiences that I am looking for.

I believe that this covers most of what I am looking for... Love is difficult to define, you know. Even if you find it, you are always searching for it. So I'll just leave it with these four for now. And hopefully you can understand from these what makes me love farming so much!

Terra

Inputs and Outputs

I make the trip down to Lexington for a few days every week to work my other job at Peet's Coffee and Tea. Most of the time, my farming life and my barista life don't have a lot to do with each other, besides the occasional discussion about the farm with a curious customer, or my habit of recycling coffee shipping boxes for ground covers. But because of Earth Day, my shift last Thursday was a bit different.

On Thursday afternoon, a number of customers came into the shop looking for environmentally friendly coffee beans. I was thrilled to discuss with them the value of direct relationships with farmers, and in one case, the discussion turned away from coffee towards sustainable living in general. Later, after we closed for the evening, I talked for a little while with one of my coworkers about the farm and what makes for a sustainable lifestyle. When I left that night, I was reflecting on how nice it was to have discussions like that in order to make sense of the choices I've made for the sake of sustainability, as well as to help others find sustainable options for their own lives.

It turns out that both in broad discussions of sustainable lifestyle choices as well as trying to pick a coffee bean with good eco-cred, the guiding principle is the same: be aware of all inputs and outputs. This sounds so simple but it's not: you might know you are bringing coffee into your house, but where did that coffee come from, and where is the money you spent on it going? Knowing the answers to these questions will help you to avoid buying a product that was grown in a manner harmful to the well being of the land and the farmer who produced it.

In the case of our farm, being aware of the inputs and outputs is essential, and also deceptively difficult. I'm discovering that there are several currencies a farmer trades in on a day to day basis: Dollars, calories, nutrients, and karma to name a few. Managing inputs and outputs in all of these currencies, as well as conversion between them promises to be a path to a high level of sustainability, but only if done carefully and correctly. If we're careless, a lot of wealth could be squandered.

With that risk in mind, we're going to do our best to make good, informed choices about our inputs and outputs, with the understanding that there might be mistakes here and there. And hopefully some of our outputs come harvest time will make for good (and tasty) inputs somewhere else.

-Dan

Earth Day

Today is Earth Day. I am of the belief that Earth Day should be everyday. But then people wouldn't pay much attention, would they?

Ever since I was little, I loved Earth Day. I loved that it was in spring, when the flowers were starting to pop up, spreading scents across our old farm. The sun was gently getting warmer and brighter, and lasting longer. The grass felt soft, and the ponies shed their winter coats, leaving behind pillows of fur wherever they went. It is the time when I am - and most people are, with their own reasons - most aware of the Earth, because it tends to take us by surprise. One day you may wake up and hear birds, and look out the window and realize that it is green outside, and that the sun on your face is what woke you up. And suddenly, it feels like spring!

This year, my sense of spring, and of Earth Day, is different. It's not just the last frantic days of school, but also the frantic beginning of a summer. It's not just looking forward to long, lounging days, but also to a fulfilling and exciting adventure. Earth Day has a different meaning for me. It literally means Earth - uncovering it, digging it, tending it, and planting in it. I am so much closer to the Earth this year, as I focus all of my attention on it. It's health and vitality means everything to me. I am not just closer to the soil, but also I am more in tune with the weather. I feel the temperature closely. I watch the clouds move. I analyze the precipitation. By necessity, I am simply more aware of the Earth.

So this year, Earth Day is a reminder. I have to step back and remind myself of the simplicity of nature, and how everything works together. I have been stressing a lot about tiny little flaws in nature... every time a seedling wilts, or the ground is soggy... But this Earth Day, I am going to remember what I always knew before: Things grow. They want to grow. And even if I tried to stop them, I probably couldn't. I am just here to help them grow the best that they can. That is my new job as a farmer.

Here's to the Earth, who gets so much less credit than she deserves. With some effort from us, she would gladly help us back. (And she has.)

-Terra

Taking an Inventory

Terra and I have several times had a friendly debate over who's idea it was to start a farm. Her recollection is that I suggested the idea as an outgrowth of a more modest proposal to fix up the aging buildings. As I recall it, she suggested to me the idea of practicing organic farming in New Hampshire as "yet another option for your life," at a point when I was still very uncertain how to best spend my recently post graduate existence. In either case, it's strange to think that now, five months later, we've suddenly flung ourselves headlong into this project, without a whole lot of practical experience or know-how behind us. But that's where we are, and we're determined to make the best of it.
In order to keep myself from becoming overwhelmed at all the various things that aren't working out as planned, could potentially go wrong, or problems we haven't even anticipated yet, I've gotten into the habit of occasionally taking a mental inventory of our assets and accomplishments so far. And if it does good in my mind, doing it in writing and sharing it with the world can only do more good I suspect. So here goes:

• We've resolved to have a farm, whatever it takes. This is central to everything, because if Terra or I were willing to back down on this project, there would be plenty of opportunities to do so and it would happen eventually. But both of us are committed to seeing this season through, from planning to harvest.
• We've picked out what we want to grow and bought the seeds. This represents a monetary investment, getting us beyond the planning stages and into solid action.
• We've built a hoop-house. This was a major accomplishment, since it involved many steps, a lot of hard work, and a clear sense of purpose to see it through. We enlisted the help of my father for the actual design and construction, built the thing in Lexington in my garage, and then transported it up to Greenfield where we assembled it on a site we'd spent many hours clearing trash and brush from. Seeing it fully assembled made me feel like we were a lot further along the road to becoming farmers then we were when we started.
• We've started Onions, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Spinach and Kale in our hoop-house. So far, we have a number of healthy seedlings for all of these.
• We've cleared a 5000 square foot plot for vegetables. This isn't actually finished yet, because we still need to till and apply manure to the field, but the hard part, clearing sod and rocks, is done.
• We've cleared brushy weeds from the grounds around the barn to make it easier to move people and equipment.
• We've purchased a few new tools, and cleaned and sharpened a lot of old ones.
• We've helped Terra's father clean and organize the garage, so it's easier to find things.
• We've begun to talk to friends and family about supporting our efforts, both by helping us out and by investing in a farm share for this season.

So there is a lot to be positive about, but there is also still a great deal to be done. We are heading into a very busy part of the season, and we're going to have to stay positive as new challenges come up. Terra and I will make every effort to document our adventures in farming as they happen, so stay tuned!

-Dan