The Farm

The Farm and the Land

Too much ink already spilt, I will pare this one down. We can do a lot here, with that "lotness" largely dictated by the number of farmers, not the land itself, though clay and sand do matter (soil explorer).  Here is one vision :

Some loosely to more cooperatively coordinated farmers working alone or together on individual and broader missions, including :

• Balance-point farm-life design, to endlessly reiterate the point : Part-time farmers, full-time humans. Where part-time is less than 70 hours/week. ;)

• Commonality : A nod and smile partnership, and more, of elbow-rubbing, brain-picking, heart-affirming neighbor farmers to build something big with -- namely, a farming life and community, not to mention a farm. 

• Sheep : A flock of not-born-to-be-killed sheep for wool and butter/ghee, ~ 100-150 head, 120 acres to guard against droughty years, 1 full-time farmer = 2 part-timers. Dairy does not need to be a part of this, but it does contribute to our temperate-climate bioregional dietary needs, if one pursues that end.

• Bees & Honey : 80 acres, 1/3 mowed per year, managed as wildflower apiary. To cultivate more untamed reaches of the farm, for wandering and star-gazing and sleeping, in addition to the honey.

• Orchard : Nut & Fruit : Organic (certified or not), founded on best available genetics, and moving those forward. There are enough good cultivars out there to make organic orcharding possible in this corner of the world, and we have enough time yet in our life to move that ball even further. Organic apples, for example, just aren't readily available in our neck of the woods.

• Small Fruits : Essex lacks a good PYO fruit operation for filling-out the greatness of summer as so much more than a blip in the midst of the cold seasons.

• Veggies : Essex Farm CSA is just through the woods, but if anyone wants to grow for our own little collection of folks or more, then we have the space. Some of us might still prefer, cough, our own homestead plots, despite their inefficiencies.

• Christmas Trees : If the operation is properly sized, the labor and income timing look like a good fit with our other work. Plus, the impetus here is to dream and do before we die, and I'm in love with winter and the holiday season, which means I want to smile at people as I tie up a tree and give them some hot cocoa with my snow-suit on. I don't need to hear how silly it is to grow trees to be cut after six years. :) Cecelia called dibs on managing this already. :)

• Staples, Perennial and Annual  (Fully potential) : Nuts (hazelnut, walnut, yellowbudy hickory, etc.), seeds (pumpkin, sunflower, flax), cereal grains (oat, rye, wheat, barley), legumes. 7-100 acres. Note the range of acreage here. We have 20 acres perfectly sited for it, but we would need only about 10 for our purposes. We could lean into a neohybrid hazelnut crop or larger nut tree, depending upon what our soil says about that. I, for one, have lots of room in my future schedule to push the edge on sustainable annual staples in our climate. 

• Everything else : Medicinal Herbs, Mushrooms, etc. : There is more that we can do, it is principally a question of available hours, talent, interest, and the understanding that we should not spread ourselves too thin for lack of seeing what then falls out of focus.