Think it’s not possible?  I mean, Foie Gras.  Come on.  It’s the most inhumane foodstuff available, right? Well, it can be. Most times it is.

Take the time to watch this video and you’ll get your dose of sustainable agriculture inspiration, that’s for sure.

Almost makes me want to get some geese.

For some comedic relief to start and to show that I don’t only read about farms, check out this great daily comic.  Today’s strip is about ear wax.  How does that entice ya? 

Here’s meat – or rather the veggies – of my reading, though.  And oh!  The inspiration to be had in the gardening department!

Click here for Winter Planting Plans on the Observer Organic Allotment Blog

• Check out the beautiful produce pictures at one of my favourite blogs, Throwback at Trapper Creek.
• If you’re interested in extended season gardening specifically, click on the winter garden plan picture to read about this piece of useful art.

• For those of you who get a little overwhelmed with the task of gardening to sustain a family,  (we’re just starting to attempt to grow enough to avoid the grocery store), I found this great resource.  It’s a gardening calendar specifically for hardiness zone 5b but I’ve got to think there are more helpful bloggers out there in other zones.  (Potential future post: compilation of gardening calendars?)

On the livestock front, I had the pleasure of reading about a shockingly smooth pig loading session at Tylerfarm Homestead’s blog.  Yes, it is that time of year.  The cold weather meat producing animals have reached full size.  The freezer will be full soon.

Our pigs are not yet ready for the freezer as they are on the slow, mainly grass-fed plan. Here John is enticing them back to the barn after a successful attempt to escape. Our three year old sounded the alarm while I was cooking lunch: "Mom! The pigs are on the road!"

My pig loading experience stems from long ago and was not that smooth.  When my sister and I were small, our family lived on a small farm near on Blue Mountain.  My mother has been known to tell the story of one loading day when a somewhat coarse talking neighbour came over to help out.  I would have been 3 or 4 years old with my sister a couple of years older.

I guess my sister, Gena, and I sat on the edge of the log enclosure the pigs lived in and observed the proceedings.  Later in the day, the weather had turned and we went in to play in our living room while mom worked down the hall in the kitchen.

As she tells it, her ‘mom-sense’ went off and she started listening more closely to us playing.  Finally, certain that she was hearing our attempts at some of the worst language you can think of, she came in to ask us what we were doing.  My sister, always bold and sure of her right to do as she pleased piped up:

“We’re playing ‘load the pigs’, Mom!”

Neighbours.  You take the good with the bad.

On the topic of pigs, click on this lovely Large Black to visit the site of a great little farm that I have recently

Click on the photo to check out Upper Canada Heritage Meat.

discovered not too far from us.  I have yet to approach them about it but I’m dreaming of some of these beauties for our farm next year.

For anyone yearning to hold onto summer just a bit longer, here is the one and only flower on our new hydrangea bush from this year.  It took all summer to brew.

I took this picture two days ago and it is still sitting there, though slightly less fresh.

On a final note of what has been, for me, a leisurely, random post, our co-op student, Kenley, was here on Saturday for what was her last full day.  We did some puttering around in the garden, shelling dry beans, taking down the pea trellis, bundling the last of the herbs for drying and generally enjoying the beautiful day. 

We have enjoyed having her here and are thrilled that our local highschool has seen fit to run an agricultural co-op program that actually give the students the chance to learn from experience.  What a novel concept!

Kenley’s last few hours will be spent next Saturday, preparing our meat CSA packages for delivery.  After that, we’ll be back on our own and richer for having had her with us.

Now, I can cross ‘Sanity saving’ off my to-do list and move on to the marketing. Happily, that is a task that I enjoy, not only because I know that a small farm like ours would never fly if someone didn’t SELL IT!

Hello!

My name is Kenley, and I am doing my co-operative education portion of Prince Edward Collegiate Institute’s new program County Roots at J&C Nyman Farms. In the County Roots program, we learn about three very important sectors of business in Prince Edward County, these sectors being agriculture, marketing and tourism, and hospitality. Part of the agricultural portion of the program, which runs for the full school day, Monday to Friday, is selecting a local farm and going to an interview with the owner(s) to do a 3-week placement at the farm. After deciding which farms we could easily access, we went for our interviews. In my opinion, mine went fairly well and on Monday, the twenty-second of September, I started my placement with the Nyman family. So far I have really enjoyed working with the animals here on the farm, because they are all friendly. J&C Nyman Farms differs greatly from all other farms I have been to because the animals are fed very natural foods that are good for them, and they get to spend the majority of their day outside, which, as a vegetarian and animal activist, I feel is the way they should be treated. Colleen & Johnny seem to really respect the animals and what’s good for their well-being. I have a learned a lot already in my few short days here, such as how to wash eggs, and that eggs need to be stored point down, as well as many things pertaining to raising healthy and happy animals. I’m sure I will continue to learn more in the next two weeks of my placement, and now am off for another adventure on the farm.

Kenley-Ann Noll

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).

My, how I was mistaken. The Lada of my youth was never a car in the way a BMW M3 is a car, for example. Similarly (and yet very differently), the Lada’s I have known were not cars the way, say, a ’68 Camero with gold pin striping is a car.

Why, you ask, am I bringing up painful vehicular memories from my family’s sordid car history? It may seem unrelated but to my mind these cars are relevant to the struggle of pricing what we produce here at the farm.

Lost yet? Bear with me.

Very simply put, trying to determine a selling price for our meat gives me a head ache. Any way we do the math, the delicious, healthy SOLE food we produce is a BMW. And high end vehicles cost more to produce. So does high end food. Working a living wage into the equation is the challenge.

We’re working at whittling the cost down as we progress and, not insignificantly, we don’t have to buy grain at the exorbitant prices of late because we produce our own. But, at the end of the day, J. & C. Nyman Farms lamb, for example, is still a BMW of lamb. And that’s where the head aches start.

See, people go car shopping and expect to get what they pay for. If you pay for a Lada, you know what you’re getting yourself into. Something that will be cheap to buy, easy on fuel but cost a lot to maintain and have a short road-life.

If you choose a BMW, you’re expecting – and getting – something that delivers performance, pleasure, fuel efficiency, low emissions and a long driving life ahead.

Unfortunately, when it comes to food it doesn’t matter that the produce cost a top quality dollar to produce and is truly quality food. The average consumer is conditioned to be able to pay a Lada price and believes they’re getting the BMW product. (The fact that they’re not actually getting the quality of the BMW is one of the great crimes of the big food machine, but that’s another story altogether.)

Where does that leave me with my calculator in one hand and my head in the other? It leaves me trying to explain (to people who are open to the idea) that they’re not actually getting the BMW for the Lada price. It leaves me needing to be informed and sincere enough to be able to show them that they’re eating Ladas. Yummy.

Realistically, I’m not going to be able to convince very many people to stop buying their bargain food and pay a lot more for our top of the line variety.

So I’m using my calculator to cut out a large part of that living wage I mentioned. And I’m selling what we produce to the customers who are willing to pay a little bit more for quality food.

And, most importantly, I’m sleeping well (possibly not as well protected as my husband John here, but well) and I’m reveling in my days.

I get to do something that is good for the Earth, my community and my family. And, I love to do it. Living wage? Who needs it!

So, I’m sure many farmers would laugh to hear me say that there are only three essential things to lasting through the sometimes permanent start up phase. But, in my humble opinion, you’re wasting your time if you even think about those other important details before being very clear on the first three. And they’re basic. You’ve heard them before but if I need a reminder now and then, I figure you might be due for one sometime too.

Without further ado, here they are:

Essential Task 1: Witness Your Days

Focus on the very minute you’re experiencing as much as possible. If you spend your energy focusing on the future that you hope for, fear will never come or can’t pay for you will miss stuff. Big stuff. And, you won’t get nearly as much done on the farm.

What is the reason almost EVERYONE sites for wanting to farm? Lifestyle. Also described as a good environment in which to raise kids. Or peace and serenity.

If you spend too much time living in the future (or the past) you will miss the very purpose of farming and you won’t get that much farming done due to scattered attention.

What a waste. If you must be wasteful, do it in other areas. Don’t waste your children’s childhoods, your relationship’s honeymoon years or the work time before breakfast. Hell, leave the fridge door open instead.

Essential Task 2: Know What YOU Love Doing

As well as knowing what you love to do, do it. As young people, we don’t often really know what we want to do. We get into things only to find out years later that we don’t enjoy what we’ve created. I think that we often create these ‘How did I get this life?’ scenarios and think we’re doomed to live them out until the end of our days.

Don’t get stuck. Review your life and if you don’t like what you spend your time at, change it. Having said that we rarely know what we want when we’re young, we’re also rarely totally off base. If you thought (or think) you want to farm at age 20, when you reach 30 or 40 you probably still have that in you. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. But do review and change what needs changing.

It’s amazing how many farmers are their own bosses and still feel they are trapped by their farm. (Hint: Don’t get too far in debt to farm. Much harder to change things then.)

I put that in brackets but it could almost be the fourth essential task. The more debt you take on, the less you can change when you find you’re spending your time doing something that doesn’t make you whistle while you work.

Channel the dwarfs. Make sure you’re doing whistle-worthy work.

Essential Task 3: Stop Working and Hang Out

This may sound counter productive. I am talking about the start up phase, after all. Aren’t we supposed to put our nose to the grindstone and get this business up and running before coming up for air?

NO. Take a lesson from Leo at ZenHabits and Reward Yourself. Often. Your spirits will sag when one or more family members are working full time jobs doing something they may not much enjoy only to come home to another full time job that entails manual labour. Even when it’s raining.

You’re spirits will sag at some point. That is unavoidable unless your a member of the Brady Bunch.

What you can avoid is resentment from family members. If you don’t take a break to be with and focus on your loved ones, their resentment will be well deserved. Notice the emphasis. You’re not taking a break to stick your head in the latest farm paper here.

As Leo points out, it is good to reward yourself. If the budget is really tight, sitting down to a play-dough cake made by your two year old and a hot coffee will feel like a feast. Have the occasional feast.

Feast on your family’s attention and let them feast on yours. Hang out. Dude.

___

There they are. The thunderous threesome of ‘must-do’s’ as I see it. And, yes, they are pretty fluffy, not business-minded at all. They’re possibly even spiritual on some levels. And sure, you could rhyme off more than three essential business practices that seem to blow me out of the water.

Here’s the thing. We’re talking about farming. And, again, let me take you back to the reason people choose farming. There are very few basic motivations for starting a business. It fills your pocket is definitely one. It strokes your ego is not uncommon either. Or, it allows you to do what soothes your soul.

Farming falls into the third category. Pocket lining and ego stroking are not farming’s forte. So, my 3 Essential Tasks are Soul Tasks. If you let these slip, your going to erode what you set out to accomplish.

If you aren’t witnessing the passing of your days, if you’re not doing Whistle-Worthy Work, if you aren’t stopping to reward yourself and your family with your attention, you’re going to miss out on the Soul-Paycheck. That lifestyle, the kid-friendly environment and definitely the peace and serenity will pass you by.

Don’t let it happen. That would just be working one ‘because I have to’ type of job to pay for a second. Don’t work two full time Soul-Drainers. If you’re going to run a Start Up Farm, at least make it a Soul Farm.

program will give them a quick tour and answer questions. Here we have

some teens getting familiar with the barn inhabitants.

Below we have some Tapping Sweet Success participants again. Teamwork is the order of the day. We were getting the sap evaporator ready to boil and create that

sweetest of spring treats: maple syrup.

The day turned quite warm by mid afternoon and everyone was glad to peel away some of the winter clothes.

Anyone need a quick drink between trees? As John drilled and I inserted spiles and hung buckets, Shea tested the sap to make sure it passed muster.

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.)