In the belly of a whale...

Yes, it's been a long time. I'll admit it. I haven't written or even thought about writing in a couple of months. It's just that we've been on matrimonial leave. Even though we've been working hard prepping the farm for the coming year, at the end of the day, I just don't feel like sitting down at the computer...I'd much rather cook a nice dinner for my husband and enjoy his company while doing something other than shovelling. I'm back, though, so you need not worry about whether we've disappeared.

Our primary task over the last week has been building a new greenhouse. We've been feeling pretty cramped in our first greenhouse and really needed additional space for starting all our transplants. After hashing out a multitude of ideas, we finally decided to just go for it and build another full size greenhouse. We scrounged around the farm looking for needed parts and bargain shopped all around town for the best prices on hardware, spent a few days building, and wham, bam, we had ourselves a nice, new, shiny greenhouse. Now the fun of filling it begins.

Other thoughts...

A couple days ago when we went to Western Farms to buy alfalfa for our goats, we were told they were just about out of it and didn't know when they would be able to get more. Apparently, all alfalfa is being exported to China because the floods they experienced last year meant they couldn't produce their own. To top it off, it's been too wet in our immediate area for alfalfa farmers to cut their hay. I guess a global food system means sometimes, even when there's plenty of local(ish) sources, you still have to compete against halfway around the world for food. Seems like it would be a smart idea to have farms that deal directly with real people in the middle of communities to safeguard against a real food shortage.

I came across some statistics that I found really interesting. Only 1.1% of Sonoma County's agricultural production is in vegetable crops. 72.1% is in fruit and nut crops (think grapes and apples). 13.9% is in livestock and poultry products and 8% in in livestock and poultry themselves. So, even though Sonoma County is very much an agricultural county, hardly any of it is vegetable production. With so few vegetables produced, why doesn't it feel like locals are banging down the doors to buy local produce? Just wondering.

Inspiration from Joel Salatin...

In our business, there are a few voices that stand out from the rest. Aldo Leopold, Wendell Berry, and John Muir have been preaching the importance of conservation, stewardship, and the necessity of maintaining a connection with the land despite the increasing industrialization and mechanization of mainstream agriculture. These guys were/are incredible thinkers and paved the way for much of our modern return to more simple, natural, and responsible agricultural practices. One person, however, now stands out from the rest as someone who is leading in our industry by example and who is standing strong against the tide of sterile, impersonal, unnatural farming.

Joel Salatin is a farmer. He has been other things (most notably a successful journalist), but it is in his simple life as someone who works with the land that he has been most influential and revolutionary. On his properties in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, Joel Salatin has created a model for truly sustainable farming, in which the farmer protects and nurtures the land through the raising of animals. Instead of taking from the land and never giving back anything in return, Salatin's system simulates the relationships between the earth and animals that can be seen in nature throughout history. Under Salatin's stewardship, the animals do not tax the land, they help improve it.

We had the pleasure of hearing Joel Salatin speak a couple weeks ago in Point Reyes. I have read most of Salatin's books and we have been fortunate enough to speak to him via phone, so I wasn't sure if I would take something new from the talk. I was delighted, however, to hear a crystal clear new message that, I believe, should be the litmus test for most new innovation in agriculture. Smart farming requires that we only do things in and with nature that we have examples of in the natural world. The disastrously filthy and harmful practices of feedlots, slaughterhouses, and conventional, chemical based crop agriculture are completely unnatural. Where in nature do we see animals being raised without sunlight and with food that is genetically unrecognizabe as nutritious and useful to their development? No where! Where in nature do we see plants thrive when fed with chemicals and sprayed with pesticides? No where! Where in nature do we find the most clean and sanitary spaces to be in closed and confined areas where there is no contact with the elements which are the most effective cleaning agents? No where! Our agricultural system has become so out of whack because we have become accustomed to applying man made, unnatural practices to the natural world. We cannot, without destroying nature, exert our artificial and unsustainable practices on the earth. As Joel Salatin suggests, we have to open our eyes to the intricacies of the medium with which we work. We work with the environment, with soil, with plants, and with animals. If we are aware of the realities and limitations of these things, we can most easily see the natural ways that the environment heals and preserves itself in harmony with the cultivation of plants and animals. Does it make sense to spray chemical pesticides and herbicides (i.e. roundup) around trees that we hope will produce bountiful crops of healthy, nutritious fruit? Absolutely not! If the chemicals are capable of killing the undesirable weeds and pests it is also going to harm the tree we are trying to protect.

The lesson I learned from Joel Salatin this time is that nature is not a petri dish. We cannot look at our agricultural work which occurs in the environment as isolated from the deeper workings of nature. Regardless of where we throw the rock in the pond, ripples will extend throughout. As farmers in today's world, we must accept the consequences of our actions and only do that which makes sense in nature.

A Whole New Year...

So we did it. We got hitched on New Year's Eve and now we're official. Our party was perfect. Surrounded by friends and family, we said our vows and grew together in a way that will never be undone. I had wondered if I would actually feel different after it was all finished and I do. I feel calm, balanced, happy, and ready to apply myself to life and business like never before. This year we will feed more people than last. We will grow more, we will grow better, and we will do everything we can to make the lives of those around us - our family, our friends, our communities - so much better. Thank you to everyone who has supported us and offered their positive intentions for the past few years. Now you get to watch us really shine.