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Subject: Market Farming

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  • From: "Dori Green" <dorigreen00 AT hotmail.com>
  • To: market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: market-farming mulch,goats,etc.
  • Date: Sun, 01 Jul 2001 21:11:09 -0400


Nancy wrote to thank me for an informative post -- hey, that's the whole idea of the list, but thanks for your thanks! <G>

It all really is not as difficult or time-consuming as it sounds although I do admit to sleeping well at night. I often also hold down a full-time off-farm job while operating the farm, sometimes as much as 300 miles away. And I don't know if I've mentioned it, but I'm officially "disabled" with arthritis, asthma, fibromyalgia, chemical sensitivities, and bone spurs. I just keep finding jobs that I _can_ do. It's getting harder to hold a standard office-type job because this package of miseries gives me good days and bad ones -- on bad ones I have a hard time moving at all so getting up and out is a serious hassle. But it's cope-able.

During the summer, animal care only takes half an hour a day. The goats and I are presently into a good system of them letting themselves out at about 7 pm and browsing in the wildlife area until dark, then I go out and fill their water buckets, toss a little hay for bedtime munching and nesting, and let them in. They could let themselves back in but they want to make sure I get some exercise and make the requisite blood sacrifice to the mosquito gods. This pattern will continue just until I locate that spot where they're going over or under the woven wire. Dale is going to help me put up the hundred feet of horse fence and I'll close in the other two sides of the apple orchard with the Premier woven net fence, so they'll hardly miss their banishment from garden access.

Garden care takes as much as I want to put toward it, though much of that care is of the "oops" nature (oops, the wind has really come up, I'd better move those seedlings down to the ground before it wafts them off the table and across the road).

I am constantly blessing the people who swapped their old riding lawn mower for a lifetime farm membership. They sure blessed me with this gift!

If one disabled old lady can handle this operation on a part-time basis and financed with an Unemployment check, just think what I could do in that some day when there are:

- three to five resident members covering basic expenses ($200-$300 per month each) and putting in ten hours a week each toward house and yard upkeep and basic animal care and mutual support (like cooking supper once in a while)

- a hundred shareholders owning the land and supporting development like greenhouse solar barns for year-round harvests with a $1000 investment each (guaranteed with a lien against the property, good for a $100 annual credit good for anything we produce or weekends in our guest cabins, redeemable after a two-year commitment)

- a thousand annual members maintaining operations with a $60/year contribution or ten hours of work in the gardens.

I do agree, it's a great idea. It's a logical progression from the basic harvest-sharing concept of a CSA although it does require a farmer who's willing to turn ownership over to the group. If this was my family's land or if I had my own family I might not be willing to do that.

This year's expansions have been important. Goat rescue is great and goats are great, but ponies are more popular and even though she's hard to catch "Wee Bridget Flynn" my 75c-a-pound pony is worth her weight in gold for publicity value. It doesn't hurt that she's very pretty. And getting the go-ahead from the insurance company to actually let children ride her -- now that was another biggy!

Getting that lower field worked up and planted is three years late but by the gods and goddesses it's DONE and this year it's going to grow something besides weeds.

Dale Tractor Guy showed up today and cultivated the middle field. Next week the tomatoes go in along with the fall broccoli and greens plantings and late root crops (carrots and beets), and the second group of beans and peas. My knee is already much better with two days of rest and this time I'm stopping when it starts to hurt, not after I straighten up to the slow sound of ripping overworked cartilage half an hour after it told me to stop. I'm not brilliant but I'm trainable. BTW, all of the claims for comfrey are well-founded. The goats left me a little bit for poultices and it's working.

These two fields have moved me from the "heavy gardening" class to "light farming". At last! Dang, I wish I had some housemates to share the happy dance with.

One woman is handling the whole six acres because most of the 2-acre raised bed garden is in sod rotation this year (farmer talk for "the weeds took over"). I'm fixing that in a 4x20-foot section at a time and I can already see progress. Cultivation for the other four acres is mechanical -- Dale swaps tractor work for storage space for his tractor, Ralph lets me pay him cash when I have it.

Today's thunderstorms didn't deliver much rain, but they did break the heat wave. Tomorrow is going to be delightful in the garden, a perfect day. And with the brace I think my knee will be up to it although I'm going to be smart and not fire up the walking plow to make deeper furrows. A shovel will make nice deep holes and I'll stop before the other knee rips.

The economic side of this "sustainability" equation is the only part that's still missing. Memberships and shared ownership fix that -- it finally occurred to me that my biggest drain is that $500 a month I pay out in interest on the remaining mortgage balance. A killer, but easy enough to change if I can locate just 60 people who agree that this is a vision worth investment.

Haven't found 'em yet. But I'm still convinced that somehow, some day, I'm going to make it happen. Hopefully, here. This is the week that I'm expanding my definition of "local" to include Rochester and Syracuse and New York City. I've heard a rumor that there are a few people stuck in cities who might like to share a farm.

Dori Green
Ash Grove Community Farm & Center for Sustainable Living
Corning, NY

http://www.ic.org/agrove

Now accepting credit cards at http://www.byregion.net, go to New York Healers and search for "Ash Grove Community Farm".

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  • Re: market-farming mulch,goats,etc., Dori Green, 07/02/2001

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