By ‘kids’, I mean our son who will be 4 in August and the little girl I have taken in for daycare for the last two years.  She just turned three.

Above: John and Shea feeding bottle lambs

Two toddlers combined with my opinions about mixing parenting and farming was not a recipe for getting work done.  In times gone by the ‘tie the kid to the fence while you drive the tractor’ parenting theory was quite prevalent.  We’re not into that here.

Despite John’s frustration that I’ve been unavailable to help him for the past three and a half years, I firmly stuck to what I consider common sense.

Forcing two-yearolds in snow suits to walk up and down a huge hill back and forth to the barn with no help mom’s carrying buckets of grain, for example.  Or leaving them screaming while you feed hay because the kiddies – 25  lbs – are scared of the sheep – 150 lbs – when mom’s not carrying them.  These things don’t take a lot of deliberation to figure out.

Now that they’re bigger, though, and more comfortable in the barn, I’m going to take advantage of my new ability to get things done – and to let the kids get things done.

There is nothing small people like better than to feel they’re getting to contribute and be a part of what you’re doing.  It applies in the barn just as well as in the kitchen.

So, with that said, here are a few tricks I’ve figured out and picked up from other farm moms for helping kids enjoy chore time:

• Hay is always fun.  If you think you don’t have a need to have loose hay around, think again.  A safe spot – like that empty pen – is a great place for a climbing, burying roll in the hay, kid style.
• If you have an extra pen, why not put a slide or some sand in with some sand toys?  Or wood shavings.  The extra pen is a blessing.
• Trampoline with enclosure a.k.a. huge playpen.  I met a sheep farmer whose children – 3 years and 18 months – would spend all chore time playing on the trampoline with special ‘barn’ stuffed animals and soft balls.
• Give them their own, kid sized tools.  Our son has a pitchfork with a 36 inch long handle.  We taught him how to use it without injuring anyone and he loves it.  Visiting children get excited to take a turn really feeding the sheep.
• Make sure they can get up high.  Kids are eye level with sheep and a good head shorter than even a young calf.  Let them get out of range of licking, nibbling and loud baaaa-ing when they need to.

And, finally:

• Don’t wear out your welcome.  Be prepared to pack it in within a few minutes if the kids get tired.  I don’t mean jump the second someone make a peep.  Make a judgment call.  Have you been focusing on your work to the exclusion of the kids for too long?  A little independent time is important, but once they’re done, you need to be done too.

Growing up on a farm is something I always knew I wanted for my kids.  I don’t want to farm first, parent second, though.  But I also don’t want to parent first and farm not at all.  That would be cheating them of all the great things kids can learn and do on the farm.

So, as ‘my’ kids get more independent and confident, I will let them see me – and help me – work more.  With a little forethought, it can be good for all involved.

If you have any tricks to share when it comes to combining farm and kids, please tell.  Even if you have the most incredible ‘tie them to the fence’ farm parenting story.  I’m up for a good laugh.  (Funny, mostly because it’s a thing of the past, for the most part.  Thankfully!)

What is (or was) your biggest roadblock to starting a farm?

This was my first poll question of choice for you readers.

How to get enough money to start

Lack of farming know-how

The time it takes when you’re still working an off-farm job

Other answer…

Those were the options I provided for your polling pleasure.

I know that many of you saw the poll in our sidebar because, so far, 63 of you answered it.  And, of those 63, 57% said that how to get enough money to start their farm was the biggest issue.

So, now I have a question about poll etiquette.  Because, really, is it bad form to ask about someone’s challenges without at least a bit of knowledge that might help them over the hurdle??

How to get enough money to do anything is a sticking point for a lot of people and farming has a lot more ‘junk’ surrounding it than most businesses.

For one thing, there is a whole societal belief that food is cheap.  And, yes, crappy food is cheap – at the initial outlay.  The true cost of crappy food, or pseudo-food, as I like to call it, comes when you look at the health care bills it causes and the environmental damage it does.  When you’re producing good food, naturally the cost is going to be higher.

So, I guess step one to getting enough money to start a farm is to clear society of some old, mistaken beliefs about food and install some new ones.

If that’s step one, it kinda sounds like there might be a lot of steps before you get to the money part, doesn’t it?

But wait, there’s more than just cheap food ‘junk’ that makes it difficult to make a living farming.  As a fascinated observer of humanity, I have noticed that it isn’t only long time farmers who have the ‘Life is hard,  please notice me struggling’ mindset.

It seems that a lot of new farmers getting into sustainable agriculture have that same mindset and, honestly, it’s a killer.  This is the ‘Poor Dirt Farmer Junk’.

(John used to say that he was a poor dirt farmer.  But he has learned that to say this is to invoke the wrath of the wife.)

If you want to repel abundance, this is the way to do it.  Don’t get me wrong, farming is not Easy Street financially.  Yes, we struggle too.  But if you’re into farming because your identity is about struggle, well, a bucket of cash could fall on you and you’d still figure out how to make it hard.

So, do I have any new useful answers for those who are in the ‘not enough money’ category?  I’ll do my best, but it might not be what you’re expecting.

Three Financial Thoughts For Planning Your Farm:

1. Do it yourself:  Do what yourself, you ask?  All of it.
   Yes, the goal is to pay yourself a reasonable wage; $15 or $20 per hour, say.  But start where you are.  If you have little financial capital, make it up in hourly capital.
2. Sell first, then produce:  A lot of farmers (especially conventional farmers) have gotten into the habit of producing something and then trying to sell it.  Don’t do it!  Sell it – or, at very least, market it – first so you know you can sell it.If you don’t know how a C.S.A. (Community Supported Agriculture) program starts yet, find out now.
3. Know yourself:  (and your spouse/partner/family)
   Make no mistake, you will be short of cash and/or time – likely both.  Unless you save A LOT of money before starting your farm, you will have a farmer’s lifestyle for some years.

   Know what need motivates you to farm and be able to tell when enough is enough, for you and for your family.  Because, yes,  everyone can survive with nothing but second hand clothes, old cars, “No, we can’t rent a movie”, “No, you can’t play hockey”, “No, we can’t have a vacation”, without cable TV and “No, Daddy won’t be home to tuck you in”.

   But, can they thrive in the conditions you’re planning on foisting on them?

I know, number 3 doesn’t sound like a financial thought but it applies directly.  If you’re going to make hard financial choices for your family, make sure the individual personalities you’re dealing with can thrive despite them.

Even better would be to make the financial choices that help your family thrive.  But don’t ask me exactly how to do that.  When I figure it out, I’ll let you know.

In the meantime, here is an unofficial number 4:  Starting a farm is like having kids.  You’re never really going to be ready or have enough money but that shouldn’t stop you.  Follow numbers 1 through 3, then jump in.

Your options are sink or swim and, in the case of farming, neither one is likely to kill you.

I write my experiences and thoughts about the realities of starting a farm, no holds barred, no rose coloured glasses, and people find me.  In startling numbers.  These days, one of my ‘How to Start a Farm’ series can usually be found on page one or two of Google.  (You can buy a $90 e-book on how to get yourself on the first pages of a Google search!)

I’m so encouraged that such numbers of you want to start farms!  I can’t tell you what that would do for our communities, our health and our economies if you all actually did it!

(Come on! You can do it!)

So, give me a moment of your time, and tell me what it is about farming that interests you.  I’m including some questions to get you started.  But don’t feel you need to answer them.  Just take a minute to tell me where you’re at with your farm dream and where you want to be.

If you’re not among the ‘dreaming about farming’ group but have already reached your farm dream, in whole or in part, put your two cents in!  I’m looking to get some serious farm-start-up momentum going over the next little while!

I’ve gone through the family farm situation while growing up and I’m deeply embroiled in creating and re-creating a farm now.  Creating a farm has so many facets.  It can get beyond overwhelming.  Tell me where your overwhelm is.  I’ve been to enough of the valleys and peaks that small farm start up can take you to.

There is a reason things get repeated enough times to become cliche.  Usually, they get said a lot because they’re true.

So here’s mine:  If I can help just one person succeed at a new farm, I’ll be happy.

I’m fascinated to know what draws different people to farming.  And, I love writing about the process we’re going though on our farm.  Give some good thoughts and I’ll have writing fodder for the upcoming winter writing season!

Here are those questions (should you want them):

1. If you’re looking into what it takes to start a farm (or turn your farm into your job), do you truly think you might do it some day?
2. If you already have started your own farm, is it working out the way you imagined it would?
3. What part of starting your farm (or expanding from hobby farm to income farm) has got you stumped?
4. In your wildest dreams, what does your farm look like?

Yes, there are a few acorns in there for good measure!

Now, the walkway to the house is guarded by tons of big butternut and acorn squash, and there are still more to be picked so that we can make them lunch before the bugs do.  Apple peeling was interesting as well, as I don’t generally peel apples , so it took a little while before I figured out that going around the apples and getting one long peel, instead of going up and down and getting a dozen, was preferable. After much apple peeling, coring and slicing, we had a nice large pot of apple sauce to be canned.
It would seem the chickens are feeling particularly frisky these days,  as a few of them decided to go for a run when I opened their enclosure to give them some food, luckily they quickly realized that they would much rather be in with the other chickens and let themselves be easily caught and deposited back with their friends. I guess they aren’t quite born to be wild. All the other animals seem to be doing well. The pigs are still oinking, the sheep are still baaing and the steers are still doing whatever it is that baby bulls do. Prince, the lovely backyard horse, is still fulfilling his duties, and conversing with visitors who pull up in their cars. I’m sure his demeanour has nothing to do with the apple scraps and ears of corn he’s been getting over the fence in the morning. Don’t forget to pet him  if you come by for a visit! I’m definitely looking forward to spending the next week with the Nyman’s and their crazy critters!

- Kenley

There are people who lead and people who follow.  Someone famous said that, I’m sure.  I don’t know who it was, but I do know that they were right. 

Each roll is appropriate to certain situations.  Leaders initiate action and make changes.  Good leaders make positive changes and improve something about the world around them.  But they don’t do it alone.  In fact, leaders couldn’t change much without followers.

Followers are perfect for getting jobs done and for keeping things going long after the initial action to get them started.  I’m sure we all can figure out which one of these characteristics we embody more, leader or follower.

(Even among these laying hens there are the leaders who jump out every time I open the door initiating the search for the greener grass outside their ‘condo’.)

How does this apply to starting a farm?  Well, the clue is in the word ‘starting’.  Like I said above, it’s the leaders that initiate action.  And you’re trying to initiate some serious action in the shape of changes to every area of your life if you’re trying to start a farm.

I’m sure this applies with all start up small businesses.  If you can’t summon and inflate the leadership qualities that you have, you’re going to struggle during the start-up phase of your farm.

Why?  Because initiating action requires certain leadership characteristics such as:

• Finding being in charge exhilarating, not stressful
• Being driven and having the desire to create

Being in Charge:  Exhilarating or Exhausting?

There are those who feel on top of the world when they’re the ones who get to call the shots, motivate the team and carry the lions share of the responsibility.  These people feel more alive when they’re coordinating a project or focusing on a goal.

This is not something that I have that much experience with.  While I don’t mind being in charge and do find it mildly exhilarating, I also find it mildly stressful.  Call me a fence sitter when it comes to being the boss.

There are those, however, who cringe at the thought of having to make decisions and be responsible for the outcome of a project.  These people will have a hard time starting a farm.  Starting a farm is a project and you, along with any partners you have, are completely responsible for making it run.  There are opportunities to be farm employees, but there is no space for someone starting a small farm to have an employee mentality.  Someone has got to be in charge.

Being Creatively Driven

I spent a few years working on setting up a Teen Room in our public library while I worked there.  Everything about the creation of this new space, the fine tuning of the guidelines for it’s use, the rearranging of attitudes around the need for it was exciting to me.

I was inspired and driven to make the new Teen Room a success.  And it was.  The only problem was, when the room was established and things were running on autopilot, I started to get board.  The challenge to create was gone.  The creation phase was over and someone more suited to maintenance needed to step in.

Granted, there are projects that inspire me enough to keep me interested even in the maintenance phase but this wasn’t one of them.

Farming needs to be one of these dual inspiration projects if you’re going to make it successful.  You need to be the leader in order to get the ball rolling and, even while you’re doing that, you need to be of a follower or maintenance mindset.

Both at once, you ask?  Yes.  Farming has to be done every day.  You need to maintain your animals even while you’re driving the marketing aspect of the business from your office.

A couple of quality follower or maintenance characteristics that will help in your farm business are:

• Enjoying routines
• Thriving on seeing physical results of your labour

Routines-R-Us

This one is mandatory:  In order to not go crazy farming, you need to be able to stomach the same routine seven days a week for months at a time.  I’m not meaning that you’ll do the exact same things from sun up until sundown.  But you will have certain tasks – chores – that remain pretty much unchanged everyday for a whole season sometimes.  And they might take you a few hours a day.

If you’re interested in a dairy farm, you’re looking at many hours a day, no changes but the normal farming surprises that come with animals and weather, 365 days a year.

If you don’t have a routine bone in your body, you don’t have a farming bone in your body.

A Result You Can See

For me, this is what makes chores do-able repeatedly.  While I don’t do our daily chores these days, I have been an everyday chore-er in the past and know that this is what makes it rewarding for me.  Standing back and seeing the turkey curtains on the barn all cleaned out, looking back at the row of cows that are milked and seeing that it is longer than the row yet to be milked.

Daily chores are much easier and more rewarding if you can take joy in the small details and if you feel accomplished when you see the results of your labour.

These are only a couple examples of how the leader and follower in us all need to be tapped into when starting – and running – a farm.  Now I’m turning the challenge over to you:

Post a comment below with your thoughts on what characteristics you have that will help you towards your farming goal.  And, by all means, share your thoughts on the things you have to work on.

Maybe we can help each other get a balance that will start a farm!

]]> http://jcnymanfarms.com/2008/08/20/how-to-start-a-farm-5-farmers-need-to-be-leaders-and-followers/feed/ 2 JNyman http://jcnymanfarms.com/2008/07/28/how-to-start-a-farm-4-farming-is-more-than-half-marketing/ http://jcnymanfarms.com/2008/07/28/how-to-start-a-farm-4-farming-is-more-than-half-marketing/#comments Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:18:33 +0000 J Nyman http://jcnymanfarms.wordpress.com/?p=104 ]]> This is Part Four of a series called: How to Start a Farm: 6 Things All Would-Be Farmers Should Know Before Getting Knee Deep in Sheep (or any other farm venture). See Part Three here.

There is some confusing language used around farming.  Even the word farming doesn’t really convey what the job entails.  (A lot of jobs have this problem, though.  When we say police officer, we don’t think paperwork, but I understand that they do a lot of it.)

I think the business of farming suffers more acutely from this confusion, though, because of the romanticism that it stirs up in people.  When people – even farmers – think of farming, they’re imagining sunny afternoons planting crops, late night barn checks watching and listening to their peaceful animals and all of the outdoor, in-touch with nature tasks that farmers do.  Even the less desirable tasks that come to mind are of the outdoor, hands on variety.

How many people picture paperwork, computer time and a long list of phone calls when they think of farming?  Not many.

And what on earth could farmers need to spend that much office time for, you ask?  Why, marketing of course.  Let me elaborate.

Marketing wasn’t always a task that the small family farm had to engage in, for sure.  In fact, at least since the Barley Days (1860 to 1890) here in Prince Edward County, marketing has been done by out side bodies.  Export to other countries and continents has been going on for generations.

My own Great Grandfather was a grain buyer for Pioneer Seed in Alberta around 1900.  He would travel from farm to farm buying up all the grain to export and ship to cities.  Similarly, nowadays, farmers can simply haul all their grain to the elevator or all their animals to the auction hall and wait for a cheque to arrive in their mailbox.

So why, you ask, do farmers need to do marketing if the systems for it are already so well established?  Why, if you can simply transport it to the right place and wait for a cheque, should farmers do anything else?  The long answer to that could be another post altogether to discuss the ethics of certain production models, start-up costs and more.

The short answer is this ‘Mailbox’ business model sees the farmer getting about 9¢ per retail dollar.  So bread, for example, you’d make about 14¢ for the wheat it took to make one loaf.  The ‘Do your Marketing’ model of small farm businesses can see you making 60, 70, 80, 90 cents on the dollar.

Hmm… a lot less work to get the same money.  Or a lot more money for the same work. Marketing looks pretty good, all of a sudden.

For those who have read the previous posts in this series, you already know that keeping your pencil sharp is essential.  The difference is that, on John’s Opa’s farm, the main use of the pencil was the math required to spend less than you make.  Your pencil will have more varied work.  It still has to do those expense calculations, but it also has to plan how best to market what your farm is producing.

For anyone seriously looking at farming for a living, I give you yet another set of questions to ask yourself:  Do you like dealing with people?  Are you a planner?  Are you self motivated?  Basically, do you want to do the marketing?

Because, farming really is more than half marketing.  Said another way, the success of your farm is based at least 50% on the quality – and possibly the quantity – of the marketing you do.

You might want to get a second pencil.  It’s going to be busy.

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.

Farming can look really good from a middle income drudgery job that has you bored out of your mind for 40 hours a week. You and whoever you share your life with might even head to your favourite wing joint once a week to mull over how and when to make your farming dreams come true.

Maybe you imagine a nice house in the country with an old red barn or a rustic market garden plot while you browse the garden centre, coffee in hand, picking out terracotta pots for your balcony herb garden.

These are just couple of brief mental images – possible normal, everyday scenarios – that I ask anyone thinking about starting a farm to scrutinize closely. How much of what you consider ‘normal, everyday’ could you stand to forgo?

This is important because, unless you’re bringing a small fortune into the farming venture with you (read: a cool million, no exaggeration), some of what you consider incidental will become luxury.

Farming as a small business (as opposed to a large business that you create with your million dollar investment) is not very financially profitable. Sure, there is a great return on investment if you’re counting health, peace of mind and other soul-salve type personal rewards. But, it is generally accepted that actual profit above and beyond a somewhat meager wage for your labour is hard to come by, to say the least.

I’m not saying it will never happen. I’m saying it takes a long time and requires that you ‘keep your pencil sharp’ as John’s Opa and weathered dairy farmer would say.

Let me lay out what ‘keeping your pencil sharp’ might entail using the two scenarios from above.

Start with the wing night dream session after a torturous week in a cubicle.

First things first, weekly wing night is out. Unless there is at least one substantial off-farm income, that weekly restaurant trip will turn into a biannual event.

How’s that working for you so far? Remember that you’re trading some of it for other rewards like starry skies, letting kids run out the door unchecked, getting your hands dirty and feeling connected to the natural cycles of the Earth.

Let’s talk about your forty hour work week. Feel long, does it? Well, you’re in luck. It’s history. Juggling an off farm job or a veggie CSA means 7 days a week from sunrise to sunset, or longer for part of the year, at least.

How about the vehicle that got you to the restaurant. Can you drive something cheaper? More versatile? Rustier? Something that is full of little bits of hay and smells suspiciously like livestock? Our Ford Focus is my farm truck, hay and all.

How about the dream farm scenario number two? I’m sure you can see where I’m going with the coffee and nice terracotta pots.

Sure, you won’t be confined to your balcony but your plants will be in whatever pots you can get at Giant Tiger for $3.99 or the cracked ones the old farmer left in your newly acquired, dilapidated drive shed. The coffee is something you’ll stop for on your way to wing nights – on your new schedule, in your new farm truck/’92 Ford Taurus wagon.

(Guilty conscience here: We currently drive a 2005 Ford Focus wagon, fully loaded with leather seats. We got it on lease and have been kicking ourselves – hard – and wearing the exact same clothes to wing night every since.)

Your nice house will be a wonderful home, if you make it so. But if you’re used to calling the repair folks whenever your tap is dripping, you’ll likely need to think again. A lot of minor things can be overlooked if you have to trade your dinner to get them fixed.

The big red barn, while an icon of simpler, nostalgic times, will be dark and damp and not that great for raising animals in. When the roof leaks, it will have to be fixed before the house gets any attention and will cost significantly more than you can fathom being able to afford. Here is where the line of credit becomes your friend and your foe. If you had any space left on it after planting crops, it’s full now. Better not schedule any more emergencies till after harvest time.

Have I got you kissing your computer terminal with it’s regular, tidy summed paycheque yet?

This is the reality of starting up a farm. The money will be tighter than most people can ever see themselves coping with. Handling money stress is a job requirement. But, if you’re up for it, if you can let financial uncertainty and the need for new shoes slide off your back like water off a duck, the rewards are worth it. And, if you keep your pencil sharp, you’ll see a sustainable farm income in time.

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).

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.