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  • From: Miranda Smith <miranda3 AT optonline.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: market-farming Leaving
  • Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 09:25:14 -0400


Dori,

My heart goes out to you. Farming alone is impossible. Farming in a
community is hard enough, but farming alone is dreadful. I have to say that
I have enjoyed your posts and also admire what you have been trying to do.

But life goes on and it is likely that you will find something else to do
that allows you to embody your values. And that, after all, is what is
important.

Good luck finding a buyer. I hope you get enough money to set yourself up
somewhere so you can still garden and keep a few animals. That makes
everything better.

Best,

Miranda
----- Original Message -----
From: Dori Green <dorigreen00 AT hotmail.com>
To: Market Farming <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2001 8:27 AM
Subject: [market-farming] market-farming Leaving


> This is a probable goodbye to my friends here, and to farming.
>
> I am putting my farm on the market today and making arrangements to
> surrender my animals to a humane society adoption program as soon as I
> receive an offer on the house. In case anybody's interested, it's $80,000
> for the house and barn and five acres, $15,000 for the adjacent 15 acres.
> Nobody will lose money -- I'm being surrounded by $400,000 Stik-Bilts.
>
> Against all better judgement and past experience, I opened my home to one
> more "hardworking but no money" housemate. She arrived on Sunday almost
two
> hours late without a phone call and hardly made any small talk before
> admitting that the place was not what she had expected and she would be
> leaving the next day.
>
> Turns out she had some sort of strange expectation of a Disneyland bed and
> breakfast place where she would be an instant intimate friend and full
> partner. Instead she found the reality for which I had posted pictures
and
> detailed explanations about the help I needed here, and I guess I was not
> the towering Amazon goddess she had envisioned. I did not apologize for
not
> matching her fantasies!
>
> When a housemate pays the officially-required first and last month's rent
> plus security deposit, I hire a $100 cleaning crew to make sure that we
> start off squeaky clean. When they come with nothing, they have to make
do
> with what I can do and if I can't afford new vacuum cleaner bags that week
> it might just be the best I can do with a broom and mop. My
> all-day-Sunday-though-worn-out-from-Saturday-market housekeeping efforts
> didn't meet her standards either, this announcement after grand
> proclamations in her correspondence that oh yes she was ready to pitch in
> and work for her room and board, I should put her to work. Oopsie, yes
> there was work for her to do, what a shock.
>
> I'm very glad that I stayed polite but firmly packed her immediately off
to
> a motel -- she was not staying for one more minute, certainly not for a
free
> meal and bed-and-breakfast stay.
>
> I just can't get it across to anybody that just one more pair of hands,
just
> a few additional dollars, would make such a huge difference over what can
be
> done by one person.
>
> For two days' effort in harvesting and schlepping, plus a full week of
> hauling water in 100-degree heat, I made $40 at market on Saturday. And
> sprang a leak in my gas line on the way there.
>
> I might still accept housemates and potential partners if they have a
> contribution to make and aren't so stupid that they think I'll accept
> criticism from them before they've put in that contribution. There are a
> couple of people I'm talking to now but if I have an offer before they
make
> up their minds, oh well.
>
> I am completely ready to sell this place, probably ten minutes before the
> bank would take it and for maybe five thousand dollars more than I owe on
> it. I tried for ten years, with my inheritance and life's savings and
> income and effort. All gone now thanks to the cruel dishonesty of that
> "build it and they will come" nonsense.
>
> They will come, all right. And say "wow what a great idea, wow what great
> work you're doing, hang in there." But they will not help for even one
hour
> and they will not pay even five dollars toward that work.
>
> I have been out of off-farm work for six months and there is nothing on
the
> horizon. I composted 1,000 grown-from-seed heirloom tomato plants because
> nobody helped me get them in the ground when I tore the cartilage in my
> knee, so I don't have a big tomato cash crop. I tried crawling along the
> rows but it just didn't work.
>
> My mortgage bank has arbitrarily refigured my escrow retroactive to 1997
and
> issued a demand letter for $6,000.
>
> The question has come right down to "and hang on to just exactly what?"
>
> I am so ready to be outta this business and wake up from this nightmare
that
> started out as a dream.
>
> Dori Green
> Corning, NY
>
>
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