Our most recent visiting volunteers left just over a week ago and the next one isn’t scheduled to arrive for another two weeks. While it is nice to have a break and enjoy the house to ourselves for a spell, to be honest, it’s a little eerie, all this quiet.

(As I typed that, our three year old sent a stack of blocks cascading onto the floor next to me. Quiet, like so many things, is relative.)

Since our membership as WWOOF hosts started in January of this year we have had something like 25 weeks of help between all our visitors.

We’ve had two people from Korea, two from Japan, two from the US and one from England. Our next guest will be from the US.

For my part, I’m taking some of this down time to reflect on how we’ve done as hosts so far. There is a responsibility to create an enjoyable environment for people who are volunteering on your farm, after all.

How could we improve the accommodations, the work environment?  How well have we managed the energy of our home where the pressures of farming, working full time, parenting and relationships can cause tension?

How well have we balanced getting all the farm work done with showing our visitors what a great part of the country we live in?  Because, that is a big part of why a lot of people join the WWOOF program in the first place.  It is a great way to travel without a lot of expense.

So, with thanks for all the help and company we’ve had; and with appreciation for getting to travel vicariously to the places our guests have been, I am reveling in the quiet and knowing I’ll be happy when it’s back to a crowed mealtime.  And making notes about what worked so I can do more of it.

While doing dishes after dinner, I let my mind wander. It’s the only sensible thing to do with the first solitary moments of the day. For me, it makes work feel like leisure time. It was that thought that made the light bulb go on. My apologies in advance for those who don’t follow my logic.

See, I was having a leisurely moment while doing dishes. At that same moment, John was laying under the haybine fixing and, no doubt, swatting mosquitoes in equal measure. That was more than an hour ago and he’s still fixing and swatting.

The fixing of the haybine is something that should have happened last winter but I’ll save the reality of a stupid-long to-do list for another entry. This entry in The Real Farm Life is about fixing, building, solving, creating and jimmy-rigging. And enjoying it.

I’m not kidding when I say that MacGyver has nothing on him. My husband makes our farm run. Anytime something gets broken – or old – he can fix it. And not just fix. He can resurrect, resuscitate, create and recreate like a surgeon. We wouldn’t be farming if he couldn’t.

If you’ve read the first two entries in this series, you already know that start-up farming and finances are not bosom buddies. If you really want to be scared, check out the price of a new haybine, even a small one. Or calculate how much the local equipment repair shop will charge to maintain an old, worn out machine.

Here’s a haybine advertised for sale. The dealer describes it as ‘a honey’. I can tell you that it would take more than honey and the list price of $2350 plus tax to keep this aging beauty making hay.

Here at J. & C. Nyman Farms, we take great pride in spending very little money on farm equipment that gets the job done. We have a gorgeous fleet of antique and nearly antique machines that cost up to $800 each. That’s right, up to $800. (Anyone who took me up on checking out the price of a new haybine is saying, “Not possible. That guy would have to be a magician.” Farmers are Magicians was the alternative title for this post.)

John takes enjoyment from the task and pride in a job well done when a hunk of rusty, dented metal that is twice his age can be pulled out of a fence bottom and returned to it’s original function through his handiwork. The fact that neighbouring farmers will pull into the field just to watch and wax-nostalgic over our 1953 tractor pulling a 1960-something combine is just icing on the cake. The real payback is that the whole set up actually pays for itself. And it does so on our small farm.

I can actually see that phrase in my mind. It pays for itself. It’s on a marquee complete with flashing bulbs and neon. I’m not joking. That’s how significant it is that a small farm can make equipment pay for itself. The gurus of small family farming in North America will tell you to get cozy with your neighbours and borrow tractor and driver services instead of buying and maintaining your own. It’s definitely a viable option. That brings me to the crux of the thing.

If you’re considering getting into farming, take stock of your mechanical ability and your desire to put it to good and frequent use. Are you a MacGyver? If so, it’s a green light. Start checking out farm auctions and dealerships and assessing how much fixing cheap equipment in your neck of the woods will run you.

If you’re not so inclined, it might be an idea to take stock of how much equipment your desired farm enterprise requires. We have a good friend who runs a small organic and heirloom vegetable farm. They could do what they need with one small tractor and cultivator and a good relationship with the neighbouring farmer.

We, on the other hand, have many mouths to feed. Making hay for any number of animals is not something you can get done as a favour. Even bartering for it would see you giving up your Great Aunt’s silver tea service or your vintage Indian motorcycle. The problem is, older farmers with the time to make your hay wouldn’t know what to do with your valuables once they earned them.

No deal. Either you’re a fixer or a trader. And some things just can’t be traded. And, even if you’re a trader, there are umpteen dozen little gadgets and ‘useful tools’ that you could sink your account at the farm store with. From buying a new chicken waterer instead of slapping a little silicone on a leak to tossing the whole ax when you break the handle instead of saving the head and installing a new handle. There are a million ways you can make your farm sink or swim.

The final word is this: If you’re going to be a farmer, you’re going to have to have a little bit of MacGyver in you.

Do us all a favour, though. Don’t have the hair bit. Have a different bit. Please.

I get a lot of people landing on our blog because they’re interested in starting a farm. While I think this is wonderful – mostly because it means that we’re not the only crazy people on the planet! – I wonder how much these would-be farmers actually know about farming.

There is still (perhaps more now than in the past?) a glamorization of farming that is totally false. More people hop on the ‘eat local/save the environment/chemicals are bad’ bandwagon everyday and, at first blush, farming can look like an idyllic way of getting in on it all.

Don’t get me wrong. We’re on that bandwagon too. It’s a good place to be for the physical and mental healthy of our family and for the environment. I just think that there is a misconception about the life of a farmer that needs to be cleared up.

More people getting into farming is good for everyone. I want those who choose to farm to succeed. Starting a business you’re not prepared for is a sure-fire way of not doing that. Hence this series of posts about The Real Farm Life. So, here we go:

The Real Farm Life Fact #1: Farming Let’s You Get In Touch With Nature

You thought I was going to start by trying to scare you off farming, didn’t you? I might yet. But I want people to get into farming because it adds to the greater good and is a great way of life for you and your family. If it really is for you, that is.

Take getting in touch with nature as an example. What do you think of when you read that? Are you thinking sunny walks through tree lined pastures while you check your hay crops?

Yep. That’s farming.

How about the sun setting over the roof of your barn with the sounds of your laying hens settling onto their roost for the night?

That’s farming too.

And feeling your muscles burn just enough to know that you and your kids are not couch potatoes.

Farming does that.

Okay, how about raccoons taking down half an acre of sweet corn just before harvest to the tune of $250 of heirloom seed and countless (and penniless) hours of labour?

You got it. Farming.

Worse yet. Getting up 3 times through the night to feed a tube down the throat of a newborn lamb in minus 30 Celsius weather trying in the hope of getting it warm and nourished enough to survive only to find it cold and still come morning?

Farming.

These things are just as much a part of farming. Don’t get me wrong, often enough, you find a revived, tail-wagging bundle of energy come morning to reward your sleepless night. If not, it wouldn’t be worth doing, would it?

And it is worth doing. Again: If it’s for you.

Everyone likes the idea of farm life. But if you’re going to take it on, you’d better like actually doing it. And you need to be able to handle the parts you don’t like.

Getting in touch with nature through farming means nurturing life, coaxing it and coddling it with your own dirty hands but it also means holding death in those same hands. You have to be able to watch death, to touch it, run the shovel and go back to the coddling and coaxing with vigor. Can you do it?

(For the record, I spill more tears at lambing time than I would otherwise cry in a whole year).

If we’re really on our horses and manage to find a volunteer babysitter, we’ll also finish bottling the last of the syrup, broadcast some seed on pastures and, with luck, fix the barnyard fence and get the sheep out of the barn. In an ideal world, the girls would have been out ages ago but our world is not ideal, per se. Our world has a building code with overzealous by-law enforcement officers (another story). It is possible that more still will get done in the next four days. This is Spring, after all.

Though this Spring thing happens every year and, every year, brings an over-abundance of ‘tasks’ to get done, it never feels normal or routine. This year is no different. In fact we’re starting our new Meat CSA and still only two years at this farm property. Fences are on the menu, as are auction sales and trips to the farms of relatives to buy livestock. Nice to know that we can get some animals from people we trust.

What is it about Spring that makes it seem so out-of-the-ordinary? We do this every year. Why should it feel new this year? I mean, again this year?

There are other things that we do every year at the same time that can become routine. How about Christmas? Christmas music, turkey dinners, crazy Christmas mornings opening presents and rushing to get where you need to go. Christmas gets to be routine.

Perhaps Spring feels routine to others. Maybe it’s just that John and I are relatively young and have not been in the exact same position for long enough to feel routine about our Spring to-do list. After all, we have farmed at three different locations in the last 9 years (not including his family dairy farm), each of us has had a number of different full and part time jobs trying to fund this farming project and we’ve started a family. I’ll assume that this has something to do with the lack of routine.

And, we have a neighbouring dairy farmer who has been in the dairy business with his black and white Holsteins, on the same piece of land for over 45 years. When I see him heading down the road to cultivate and plant a field, I don’t get the sense that it feels very new to him.

On the other hand, even should a person ‘do’ Spring the same way for years, I doubt it ever really feels old and worn out. I don’t know that auto-pilot is really possible for a farm in Spring. This may just be my personal connection with Nature and the unseen energies of our world, but ‘newness’ is what Spring is about, isn’t it? Even if you’re doing the same-old, same-old, there’s a spirit of beginning that comes with this season that a long standing routine can’t break.

Isn’t there? I mean, Spring is so full of resuming, rebirth and renewal. I’m running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to keep all the resuming, rebirthing and renewing from overwhelming me and yet, what would be the opposite of these things?

Stopping, dying and decaying?

No. Those are not what Spring is doing. Spring is new and new is not routine. That little voice in my head says: “Live with it, Colleen. And enjoy it. Revel in the fact that a life of farming has chosen you. People existing in air conditioned boxes might feel routine about this warming season but not you. You get to feel the life ‘spring up’.”

Feel the life spring up. Yes, that is what I’m doing. And, no, it isn’t routine. It’s amazing and exciting.

_____

Here’s hoping that everyone gets to feel a little life spring up in the next few weeks. Happy Spring!

What I mean by ‘storming’ is that we’ve been Stupid-Busy for a long time in preparation for the maple syrup season. This moment of calm that I’m making use of to write can hardly be classified as ‘before the storm’. More accurate would be ‘after the brain ceased to comprehend the chicken scratches on my to do list’.

Here’s a little run-down of what’s going on, just so anyone who’s in a leisurely way this time of year can be busy vicariously through us.

Late September 2007: John and Colleen are NOT considering making maple syrup this year much less being a part of the large tourist event that goes on in their county. It would be too much work in too short a time.

October 2007: Something happened to their brains and John and Colleen decided that it would be ‘fun’ to do maple syrup this year and that they should run an entrepreneurial program for teens at the same time.

November 25 2007: Friends and family are enjoying roast turkey at J. & C. Nyman Farms after spending the day moving the sugar shack from John’s parent’s bush to our home farm. Eight posts are in the ground and a bit of strapping is on.

February 25 2008: There is a roof on the sugar shack but no walls. Sap is expected to start flowing within the week. 14 lambs are born today and Colleen is at a four day conference in Ottawa. John wonders why his hair is going gray so quickly.
(In fact, here is John trying to put the roof on in the dark after a full day at his off-farm job. Yes, we are nuts…about farming, that is.)

March 1 2008: The first day of the teen program is here and the taps are going in the trees. Having five teenagers to teach slows some things down but it speeds others up. And teens are fun to have around. They have tonnes of energy (which we need to keep us going!).

Monday, March 24 2008: Colleen has sent Shea out for babysitting . Errands were run in the morning and computer work caused a sore backside in the afternoon. (And still she types at the computterer when she gets a break!)

Gravel arrives by the truckload and the evening will consist of creating a driveway to the sugar shack, painting a farm sign and trying to ignore the vast amounts of mud tracked through out the house. Housework is off for this week.

Tuesday, March 25 2008: All scrambling will stop and what’s done will be done. Cameras for the regional news program will role at 12:30pm with Colleen being interviewed about the teen program and the Maple in the County weekend that runs this coming Saturday and Sunday.

Later Tuesday, March 25 after the camera operator says “It’s a wrap!”:
Let the scrambling resume! More gravel to move! Maple syrup to boil! Labels to create! More baked goods to bake! Supplies to shop for!

That’s my storm and I’m relishing this little piece of calm that I’ve afforded myself. I think I’m going to go make a cup of tea and re-read my recent post about Surviving a Start Up Farm. Especially the part about witnessing your days.

Then I’m going to step back into the storm.

Nothing like being surrounded by like-minded people to make you feel comfortable. And, that’s the thing about like-minded-ness , you’re likely to get appreciated in that kind of a group. (Think Oxford is going to add that one to the dictionary any time soon?)
Now, before this starts to sound like I neglected to leave my ego at the door, let me get to the point.

Farmers don’t get a who lot of appreciation in North America today. And this is not wining. Most of what we’ve gotten in the past has been deserved either through willful disrespect of nature or consumers or through apathy when it comes to promoting ourselves. Sadly, a lot of current farmers are taking the flack for the ‘sins of the father’, as it were.

Anyway, either we’re vilified and painted as a group who doesn’t respect the environment or animal life or we’re considered extreme ‘weirdos’ into astrology and tree hugging. Generally, we get one of those two pigeon holes regardless of whether or not either of them fits.

So to chat with parents who are frustrated with the grocery stores* of our small town and to be able to tell them that we produce some of what they’re looking for… This is enjoyable. We produce food for people to eat and appreciate, so this is like ‘Mission Accomplished’ for me.

And, to have people actually approve of what you’re doing and be genuinely interested is really a treat. And I’m not talking interested on their way through the McD’s drive through. I mean interested like ready to contact us and willing to pay for good food.

Even without the prospective customer part, the appreciation motivates me to keep pushing in an industry that is challenging despite being rewarding.

Here’s a challenge for anyone interested.

If you get the chance in the next week (or how ever long this challenge stays in your mind), make a farmer know that you like what their doing. It takes a strong will and conviction to not take a better paying, easier job off the farm sometimes. Appreciate someone and add your positive energy to the food we all get to eat.

I would love to know how readers feel about the families that produce their local food. Please comment and get that good-food energy going right here too!

(*Our local grocery stores are actually quite exceptional. Especially for the population base they have to draw from. Still, they don’t have a patch on the bigger cities, though. People do make some trade offs to get to live in the country.)