Un Bee-lievable!

Complements of Ace Clip Art

It has been a while since I've mentioned anything about Farm plans. If you are interested in some of my farm-related blogs, you can see a couple here here.

Since Dan and I are city kids, we have been taking courses to help us figure out what kind of farming to do. I'm sure it's going to be a lot like having kids: you read and read about raising kids, you know exactly how it's all supposed to work and exactly how you will handle each situation so that your child will turn out to be the most beautiful, most intelligent and most well behaved in all the land. Then the kid comes along, asserting it's own will, turning your life upside down and making sure you're eating humble pie for the rest of your life!

We can read every book, take every class, ask every expert and still won't know what farming is all about until we're actually out there shoveling poop and chasing cows out of the neighbor's garden.

[As an aside: a few weeks ago, I went out to the coop to check on the chickens. The puppy was with me. When I started heading in the house, I noticed the dog was chewing on something. At first, I thought it was a stick or something. It turned out to be a dead squirrel! I was so grossed out! Once I got him to drop it, I knew I had to dispose of it or he'd be gnawing on it every time he went outside. Besides, it was disgusting and I didn't want my kids to see it.  I got rid of it and I was quite proud that I did it without the assistance of my man (I did make sure he knew what an awesome wife he has though: "not every woman would do this, you know.") I consider the whole incident hands-on training for farm life].

Anyway, some of the courses we have taken are: food preservation, intensive grazing management, beginning farming entrepreneur program and growing berries. Last night I went to the first of five classes on beginning bee keeping.

There are certain things in nature that I think are perfect and by themselves can prove the existence of God.  For instance, the fact that you can take a tiny, itty bitty seed, put it in a bunch of dirt, water it for a few weeks, it grows into a plant, the plant produces blooms, the blooms turn into fruit or vegetables, you pick the fruit off the plant and eat it. And it's good and makes your body healthy. The more I learn about farming, the more amazed by and in awe I am of our Creator and how well he provides for us.

Bees and honey are definitely on the "Amazed and Awed" list. Did you know that a hive of bees will fly 55,000 miles to produce one pound of honey? That one honeybee produces about 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime? That honey never spoils? (when it crystalizes you just have to put it in hot water to liquify it again). Honey has antiseptic and other healing qualities? It's all so fascinating! Honey bees (and other pollinators) help increase crops, gardens, flowers and other plants.

Our next two bee classes will be spent building hives and the last two we will get to establish a hive. I can hardly wait! At this point, we are planning to start at least one hive this spring. I'll keep you posted as more fascinating facts come my way!  ;)

More farm news:

• We are in the process of designing a barn. We have a builder and have decided the size and location of the barn. It will be a combination living space and storage. We also want to eventually put in a commercial kitchen.
• Dan started working on some gardens in the Fall. The plan is to begin planing several gardens of vegetables this spring.
• Dan built a hoop house for the chickens to stay in this winter. So far, they are doing well. A couple of times they have ventured out into the snow, but I think it's too cold on their feet. They seem to get a little grumpy, then run right back into the coop. We now have two egg layers - the mama and one chick. I'm not sure which chick it is yet. She lays light brown eggs. It's still so exciting to find an egg in the nest!
• One of the chickens, Caroline, is a rooster. He's not crowing yet, but he does have an attitude and he's definitely working on developing his voice. Once he crows, he's history. We don't want to annoy the neighbors any more than we already do.

That's all the farm-related news. The last thing for this post is that I'm taking an online blog course. I'm hoping to tune this thing up a bit and make it more interesting. I appreciate you sticking with me!

Standing Up for What is Right

I don't like to get into political discussions. Mainly because I'm ignorant. I'm shamefully unaware, most of the time, of what is going on in the world. Trying to figure out what is really going on in government just makes me feel depressed and stupid. I have made a bit of an effort in the past few years to be more politically aware, but I'm not sure where to get accurate information. You know, the truth. It doesn't seem like anyone knows what the truth is - about our government.

Lately, I've been more interested in healthy food. How, where, when and why it's grown. Part of it is my own self interest because my husband and I want to farm and since we live in a college town that is surrounded by farmland, there is a lot of information about farming. Part of it is watching movies like Food, Inc. and reading books like Food Rules by Michael Pollen and You Can Farm by Joel Salatin. It seems the more I learn, the more I need to know and the more I need to act.

Even though I was brought up in the city and know nothing about what it takes to be a farmer - I have "farming genes". I know it's not the same as running my own farm, but I still feel like it's some dormant desire to get out there and dig in the dirt, breathe clean air, harvest vegetables, feed chickens, herd cattle, etc.

Maybe I'll be able to do it, maybe I won't. Either way, it should be my choice to decide if this is how I want to attempt to earn my living. It should also be my choice to eat food that I've grown/raised and to sell it to other people who want it too. More and more I am hearing stories about people who own small family farms, who are being penalized for wanting to grow their own food and sell it to others. I don't mean penalized like getting a slap on the wrist and being fined a few hundred dollars. I'm talking about people who have worked hard, sacrificed and grown a honorable business, just to be obliterated by some huge corporation or the government (who is being supported by the huge corporation) for doing something the huge corporation doesn't like.

There are a bazillion things I could write about this subject. Like: how our country is the land of opportunity and people have a right to start a small business; why would a huge corporation be so threatened by a family farm that they have to invest millions (billions?) of dollars in legal fees to fight them to destroy them? Is it right for us to have only a few corporations that are responsible for feeding our entire country? And in the process allow them to destroy the environment with farm waste and the use of tons of diesel fuel every year? Why do we let these same companies treat animals in cruel and inhumane ways in filthy, disgusting conditions then feed them to us for dinner? What about the workers who work at the food plants - are they compensated properly and treated well for their work? Why aren't corporate farms held accountable and why aren't they more honest about what is going on behind their quaint "farm fresh" labels?

But what I really want to know is why wouldn't our government allow me to drive a few miles into the country and buy some raw milk from a dairy farmer? Why are there so many expensive regulations on small beef/chicken/pork farms when the corporate farms are killing us with their genetically altered, corn fed, hormone pumped feces covered meat? Why doesn't our government care more about farmers who are willing to feed us clean, simple, healthy food than they do about the corporate farms? Seriously, is it in our best interest to poison ourselves in the long run, just so that some can have billions/trillions of dollars now?

I have to admit here, that I am definitely part of the problem. I love fast food and eat it whenever possible (and I have the waistline and blood pressure to show for it). If I had to sit in the stock yard where the cows lived that provided the meat for my Taco Bell tacos or where the chickens lived that provided eggs for the Egg McMuffin I had this morning, would I be able to keep from vomiting those meals right up? Probably not. Every time I pull into a drive thru, I should imagine where my food came from and who made a sacrifice to get it to me.

I know this is kind of rambling, but a change is coming and I want to do the right thing. If you are interested in one of the articles I've read recently, here's the link:

Family Farm Ordered to Destroy 50,000 Pounds of Cheese

Guess Who's Going to be a Farmer?!

My husband and I are land owners. We recently purchased 50 acres of farmland about 20 minutes from where we currently live. I wanted to post some photos of our land, but I don't have any yet, so I picked some clip art related to farming. I wanted it to be obvious that it wasn't our property-I think this picture does the trick.

The land we purchased was part of a bigger farm that had been in the sellers' family for over a hundred years. Because there were so many family members who owned the property and who were spread out around the country, they decided it was time to sell. My man found it in the paper - it was being advertised for auction. 

I guess I need to be fair here and let you know that from this point on, we have conflicting sides of the story. Dan has a totally different take on the events that lead to the purchase of this land, than I do. I'm just going to tell you my side, because I'm pretty sure it's the closest to the facts and well, this is my blog. He's welcome to start his own blog and share his side if he wants to.

We have both wanted to buy land for awhile. Dan has always been interested in land ownership, even before I knew him. Recently, we had been talking again about purchasing land so we could plant a big garden, but decided now wasn't a good time to do that. We thought it would be best to wait awhile. That's why I was kind of surprised when one day, he said "Honey, I found some land that's going to be auctioned in May". I responded in my usual way, when I think he's talking about something I think will never happen: "Yes, dear. That's nice, dear. Mmmhmm." (By the way, he responds to me the same way when he thinks I'm being unrealistic. Like every time I tell him I'm going to make our millions selling my art work. I'm still working on that dream, so there is the possibility that it will actually happen).

One thing I told him is that I have absolutely no interest (none. zero. zilch. nada) in building a house. I've never met anyone who felt that building their own home (or having one built) was in any way a positive experience. It sounds like a big pain in the hiney to me and I'd rather live in a house that is already standing when I buy it. That way I can walk through it, look around, picture myself and my stuff in it, and decide if it's the right place. If it's not, I can move on.

Anyway, when Dan started talking about this land, I knew it didn't have a house on it. So we had some "interesting" conversations concerning it.

Dan: I drove by that land today. It's really nice.

Laura: Really? What kind of house does it have?

It's got some nice fields...

Is it like a 4 or 5 bedroom?

Some trees...

Room for a craft area?

gently rolling hills...

two car garage?

Did I mention there is a creek that runs through the property?

I think a few weeks passed and he would occasionally mention the land, but pretty much, I had moved on with my life and figured we were done with talking about that particular piece of property.

Then one Sunday after church he said, "you know, that land auction is tomorrow".  I said, "when are you going to take me to see this land?". We drove by that afternoon and there is no doubt that the property was beautiful. It really does have fields, trees, gently rolling hills and a creek running through it (and no house). It also didn't hurt that it was wonderfully sunny out. I asked him a couple of questions like "what would be your immediate plans for it, what would you want to do", etc. Then we drove home and that was the end of it for me.

The next day, I was visiting with a friend, when Dan sent me a text "the land is going for X amount, can I bid?" Since I figured there was no way on earth he was going to get it, I texted back "go for it, baby". A few minutes later he sent another text "I bid Y amount" and I swear to you, it wasn't two minutes later he sent me another message "i got it!" My response? "oh sh*t".

That's the story of how we acquired our land. One of the biggest differences in our stories is that Dan likes to tell people he had totally forgotten about the land and had let the whole idea go. I have to remind him that if that were truly the case, he would've been at work instead of being at the auction!

I'm happy that we have land and I'm excited to make plans and to get out there and do some work. But I'm also a little shocked, I think. I'm a city girl, not a big city girl, but a large-ish city girl. My husband is a city boy and we have no idea how to live the rural life. I believe we can learn and will learn. There are some strong reasons why we want to live in the country (which I will cover at another not-so-late-in-the-nite time). In some ways I just wonder if it's absolutely insane to consider beginning farming when one is in his/her late 40's? I guess we'll see, won't we?