Monday, November 18, 2013

With a little help from our friends


One dark night


our greenhouse walked to its winter home


with help from 
my brother, Dan, 
and the Tollefsons- Aidan, Keirnan, and Tom.

Many thanks to our friends!



Squash


We've got a lot of squash around here. 


Some we even grew ourselves.

Everybody's eating squash- 
people, chickens, and even Abbi the cat.



Saturday, November 16, 2013

My kill

In keeping with the spirit of firearms hunting season, 
I killed a deer.





Unfortunately, it was my neighbor's 
hand-painted deer statue 
which I knocked over 
while backing my car out of their driveway.





Fortunately, they forgave me.

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Too

This bowl of porridge is too hot.
This bowl of porridge is too cold.
This bowl of porridge is just right.
--Goldilocks




Why, i' faith, methinks she’s too low for a high praise, 
too brown for a fair praise, 
and too little for a great praise. 
Only this commendation I can afford her, 
that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome, 
and being no other but as she is, I do not like her.
--Benedick, Much Ado About Nothing




Oh everything comes in its own special size
I guess it can be measured by where you put your eyes
It looks big when you're close
And it looks smaller back a bit
That's about the size of it.

Oh the big becomes the little
When you see it back a bit
The huge becomes the dinky
Which is just the opposite
Of the larger that gets smaller
It never seems to fit
That's about the size of it.

That the big becomes the little
That's the way it seems to go
That they make up a larger thing
Is something good to know
It's nice to know that though we're small
There's always room to grow
And that's about the size of it.

That's about the size
It's where you put your eyes
That's about the size of it.
--Sesame Street's "That's About the Size of It"

In general, we get three basic responses to R Farm- too big, too little, and just right.  
For those most impacted by the negative consequences of our choices- rooster noises, free-range poultry, fallen trees- we are too big.  We respect that they didn't choose to farm so we are working to try to minimize our intrusions into their lives while still accomplishing our goals, which is no easy task on any given day.

For those with the most farming experience our 6 acres and dreams of knee-high goats are too small.  Several farmers with tractors and serious livestock have given me this dimpled smile with twinkling eyes when I talk about getting Nigerians.  It's not a demeaning look but rather an indulgent one, maybe even a whimsically fond one, like a parent watching their kid.  Given that most 5th grade 4H-ers know more than I do about farming, I've decided that I'm okay with bemused.  I do hope someday to wow them with Nigerian goat milk caramel or something impressive so I can join the 'real' farmer club.  Not likely.  Maybe someday I'll work up to livestock that weighs more than I do, but I'm a novice and for now, I tell them, I'm sticking to livestock I can load into a dog kennel in the back of my mini-van. 

For those who also long for a farm of their own- urban dwellers with dreams of space and quiet, aspiring homesteaders, expatriate rural kids all grown up and working their opportunities in the city- we are just right.  They come to garden, visit, hunt, and play.  They ooooh and aaaah over our eggs, pick apples for the chickens, chainsaw, walk through the woods, eat some homegrown food, laugh at our escapades, and remind us why we are here trying to keep our balance between too big and too little and find our just right.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

My garlic muse

I completely ran out of initiative, creativity, and gardening energy with my new raised bed of perennials still to finish.  
I simply couldn't do one more unfamiliar farming task alone.
 
Garlic, multiplier onions, walking onions, chives, garlic chives, perennial and self-seeding herbs- 
all waiting and the fall clock ticking.

So I called my neighbor Heidi who knows gardening 
and she and Eva came over last weekend.  
Eva played with Mark and Anjali 
while Heidi dug and planted bulbs, 
Tim trimmed weeds and hauled supplies, 
and I read instructions, separated bulbs and roots, 
and scattered seeds. 

By the time Eva needed her mom, the momentum had shifted and Tim and I were able to finish the project quickly.


Thanks Heidi for being my garlic muse!


Thursday, November 7, 2013

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Spaciousness and security

Saturday at the Minnesota Dairy Goat Association conference, I was listening to women who farm larger properties than I do and the beauty of spaciousness swept over me and I could for the first time understand their desire for it. 

As a suburbanite and then a city girl, I often felt vulnerable and exposed on the large open farm properties we visited while looking for our new home.  Not being able to see our neighbors in the summer felt isolating after the endless togetherness of the Cities and I took comfort last fall when the leaves fell and I could see neighbors' houses.  I felt less alone in the big world.

Sometimes I still find comfort in seeing their lights in the dark and I'm sure I'll look out over snow and be glad that help is a short walk away.

Yet, the pleasure I take from open spaces has grown into a longing for more land.  Well, perhaps not more land precisely but the spaciousness those women spoke about, the elbow room, the ability to do their thing without having to signal first.

I can see more clearly now how this desire for spaciousness, this leaning into open spaces formed us as a country.  Liberty.  Freedom.  Self-determination.  The land made us.

But lest I bask too long in the rosy glow, these same women also spent hours addressing their security concerns in a seminar on livestock guardian dogs.  They felt the vulnerability, too, and took significant, costly steps to protect their livestock, their property, and their family.  

I recently visited Bernice's farm in Iowa, a 100+ acre farm she referred to deprecatingly as 'just a small homestead' as we drove around it in her golf cart.  (Apparently small farm means something quite different than I had previously believed.)  She spoke about the last flood which closed the road, isolating them on their property for several days.  She spoke about raising her kids and farming while her husband worked off-farm for decades.  She introduced me to her dogs, all seven of them, which had been my purpose in the visit.  One lives in the house with her and the others are on rotating duty 24 hours/day.  Before she could let one particular male out of his kennel she asked me to get into the golf cart because he was known to nip strangers' heels to urge them off his property.  In answer to my unspoken question, she explained that he was particularly good at nighttime border patrol duty when no stranger, human or animal, was welcome.  We talked about my longing to feel safe and rather than poo-poo me as a skittish city slicker, she affirmed the prudence of my concerns and proposed preparedness and a dog as viable solutions.

Listening to these strong capable farming women talk about their fears and then how they take action in response has been empowering.  I thought it was just me being paranoid.  But these women aren't paranoid; they're powerful. 


Perhaps I need greater security in order to choose more spaciousness in my life. 

I'm not exactly sure what this means for us.

It's not just about space.  All farms have borders and all farmers have neighbors.  Even the women with large acreage tell stories about their neighbor issues. Our conflicts over wandering poultry, irritating sounds, and bad odors are minor compared to the twisted, dangerous neighbor tales I've heard.

It's not just about dogs.  We've tried the dog thing and we haven't been successful at it to date.  I wish I had a better security idea than dogs.  A quieter, easier, cheaper, equally reliable one.  But thus far, I don't.  And after all these women-and-dogs stories, I'm wondering if trying again would be persistent or foolish.  Maybe both. 

It's not just about making perfect choices either.  

It's about taking action in response to fear, threat, and danger. 

My action this morning is reflecting.  Hopefully, this will lead to some more best guess actions in good time.

Hopefully.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

We survived the crash of 2013


At first I heard a pan drop, 
then glass shattering, 
then pottery breaking-
BANG!
 
 

When I came out I found this.


I immediately put on shoes and Mom looked hypnotized.  
I swept and swept and swept.
Then I noticed some pottery hanging by a thread in the cupboard.
 So I got on a stool and oh so very carefully picked out the pieces of pottery.


Then I noticed that one side of the cupboard was open 
and the other wasn't.
So I very carefully took out the remaining half of the bowls 
and cups.



The people who built this house put the screw about an 1/16th of an inch away from the stud accidentally.
 Dad put the cupboard back up and screwed it into the wall-
oh, did he screw it in well!




Things are back to normal and last week we got new pottery from Powderhorn Empty Bowls at Powderhorn Park in Minneapolis.

By Guest Blogger: Anjali

First sledding day



This morning- frost!

Not wasting a minute

of the much-anticipated

long-awaited

first day of sledding

 the kids slide down the ramp

and then hit me with a 'snowball' made of frost shavings.
 

Let the sledding begin!

Pooped

I'm pooped.
Tuckered out.
Mentally exhausted.
Flat out of initiative to try new things.
Saturated with adventure.

I have never been so glad to see winter coming.
Seriously.
Being a beginning farmer, even on a small scale, is taxing.

I will also add that I have never been more impressed with farmers or more grateful for food.  These people work hard and smart and unrelentingly.  Impressive.
 
When Tim brought home my fall CSA share from La Finca Farm, I cheered.  It was like a reunion with old friends I hadn't seen for a long time- potatoes, squash, arugula, leeks.  And I didn't have to do a single thing but cook and eat them.  Man, what a deal!

Anjali introduced me to Dirty Jobs on Netflix and I've been watching episode after episode, laughing as he's covered in poo or slime or grease.  I keep saying, "I'm glad that's not my job!" while his adventures and misadventures in trying new dirty jobs every week help me to get perspective on my own.  When people normalize their jobs removing slime from eels or harvesting alligator eggs while Mama Gator lurks nearby or blowing up walls of salt hundreds of feet underground he makes this 'yeah, right' eye roll which suits me exactly when I'm doing one more crazy thing I never imagined doing which somehow has become my life.  Yesterday it was chasing a duck (chasing, not catching) with a neighbor so that between us we could figure out how to trim the feathers so it couldn't fly. 

It's been a long journey from Minneapolis to completing our first year here. Some laughing, some good food, some time with old friends, some quiet snow days, and I'll be ready for more adventure.  
 I'm so very glad this is my life and my job.