Monthly Archives: February 2010

A number of years ago, when my reading tendencies shifted toward the environmental, I started looking at ways to reduce my energy usage and to live more sustainably.  While the term sustainability has quickly become overused and oversimplified, to me it meant reducing the money and energy I throw at things and relying more on my own skills and renewable resources.

To that end, in November 2004, I gave up my car.  Literally and figuratively, I gave it up — to the Goodwill program that refurbished cars for people in need — and walked away.

The reactions I got tended toward a mix of “how do you get anywhere?” and “I wish I could do that!”  In a small town, getting anywhere proved to be fairly easy, and though walking everywhere meant planning my errands more mindfully and taking more time, it allowed me to root myself more deeply in the community and to open my eyes to the beauty I used to speed by.

It made an enormous and wonderful change in my life, one I recommended highly to anyone who would listen.  I found that I bought less junk food at the store (why would I want to lug it home if I didn’t need it?), spent less on stuff, and enjoyed the fresh air, exercise, and peace that walking by myself offered me.

When I decided to pursue farming as my work life, though, I realized that walking would not suffice for my transportation.  Even if I were to find a farmer close to town who would be willing to hire me for a decent wage, I would need wheels to get to work and home again.

First, I considered a recumbent tricycle.  Don’t laugh.  I’ve never had very good balance and never got beyond training wheels on a bicycle, so I didn’t see that as a real option.  I test-rode a recumbent trike and loved it, but I didn’t have a place to store it.

And realistically, once I knew where I would apprentice myself, I knew that a 30-mile one-way trip would be a little too much for my legs to handle on a trike, and I didn’t trust the local traffic on the country highways to keep me safe.

So that left me with the necessary evil of returning to the burden of an internal combustion vehicle.  I hated that thought.  Return to dependence on gasoline and the ever-rising cost of fuel?  Return to expensive insurance, regular costly maintenance, and the posture-cramping physical act of driving?  Hated it, hated it, hated it.

But what choice did I have?

Well, the only choice concerned what type of vehicle to choose, and unfortunately for my environmental karma, the necessity of having a vehicle strong enough to haul flats of produce to market along with table and tent meant that I would generally have to consider a low-mileage vehicle like a truck.

The more I considered my options, the more I felt inclined to find a pickup truck similar to the one my friend Keith drives: a small to mid-size truck with four-wheel drive and an extended cab.  On the many rides we’ve shared, I’ve felt comfortable in the truck — not overwhelmed by some behemoth of a gas-guzzler — so I felt confident that I would be able to handle a similar model myself.

I headed out shopping in early winter, accompanied by my patient and helpful father, and it wasn’t look before I found what I was looking for:

The official Mid-Life Crisis: a red "convertible"

It was used, but gently, with no rust save on the running boards, almost new tires, and a sturdy hard flat cap on the lined bed.  It had the four-wheel drive, it had the extended cab with extra doors, and it had a modest amount of mileage.  Best of all, it had a price that was only slightly above my initial price range, and I was able to pay for it in its entirety.

Other people (men, mostly, I suspect) get little red sports-car convertibles for their mid-life crises.  If you count that removable flat cap, you could say my truck is a “convertible” as well, and it makes the perfect photogenic image of a mid-life crisis for the particular change of pace I chose.

Now, I’ve never been a car girl.  I could theoretically understand why people obsessed over cars (speed, power, etc.) but never felt it myself.  And I certainly couldn’t get why so many guys would refer to their cars or trucks as feminine entities.

But with this truck, I get it.  It’s a 1950s screen siren of a truck, a vibrant come-hither lipstick red, with a bouncy high ride and a devil-may-care flair.  If I don’t watch myself, I might just call it “She” or “Her.”  Though it is a steady sort of truck, it gives the impression of being fast and tantalizingly dangerous.

And I like it.  Who would ever have guessed I’d be a sucker for — a pickup?

It’s a dilemma.  I try not to use it much around town, but even my inner greenie has had to bow to convenience and comfort in the past frigid weeks.  (At least now that the weather is improving, I’ll be more tempted to walk again.)  I wince at the thought of long trips in it.  But secretly, yes, I do want to climb up behind the wheel and take her down a quiet country road and let ‘er rip.

The truck gives me a reality check.  Yes, I want to live lightly on the earth and do what I can to reduce my energy usage, and this isn’t the obvious way to do it.  But to learn what I need to learn about farming, about growing enough food for myself and to make a living, it’s a necessary tool.

There’s no easy answer, so I do the best I can in finding an acceptable balance.  I suspect that will be an ongoing theme this year.

Exhibits at the 2010 OEFFA Conference

Back in the summer of 2008, a conversation with one of my favorite farmers at the downtown market found its way around to the topic of the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association (OEFFA).  I’d heard of the group, but I assumed that only active farmers were members.  Not so, Mary told me; they welcomed anyone interested in organic, ecological, and sustainable agriculture in the state.

Well, I prefer my food grown sustainably, thanks, so I thought, I’m in!  I submitted my application and fee and hooked up with the local chapter, conveniently meeting at the library downtown.

Through the chapter, I saw familiar faces from the downtown market, along with other folks from organic and ecological farms in this county and neighboring ones.  I kept my ears open, hoping to learn a few things.

At the same time, being on the membership rolls put me on the email discussion list, so I could find out about all the other OEFFA-related events around the state: workshops, meetings, questions and answers, and more.  I also started to hear about the annual conference, a weekend event that brought together farmers from around the state for educational workshops on a wide variety of topics.

Coming from a family that prized education, I found the thought of a farming conference exciting.  (I know, I know — I have a warped sense of fun.)  But I couldn’t attend last year’s conference and had to wait for this year’s event.

The 2010 theme was presented as “Growing With Integrity, Eating With Intention” — which pretty much summed up my approach to food and farming.  The program appeared to have a mind-boggling array of workshops listed, so I knew there was no chance of me being bored.  And since I had a friend in town willing to put me up overnight, I saw no obstacles to signing up.

Good thing I did: this year’s conference sold out.  Approximately 800 people crammed into Granville Middle School for the conference, and from what I saw, everyone else had as much fun as I did.

While I didn’t get to every workshop I’d circled in my program, I did learn a few things from those I attended:

• At the workshop on weed control, I learned that the 5-7 week period after planting seeds or seedlings is the critical time for weeding — and that I’d better get a good hoe in my tool “box.”
• While I found several large-scale grain growers at that chapter meeting, I found more small-scale grain growing information at the afternoon workshop on “High Quality Organic Small Grain Production.”  I also met a couple of other people who were intrigued by my experience of growing a 10′ x 10′ plot of buckwheat and wanted to learn more.
• For a friend, I stopped by the “Solar and Wind as Cash Crops” talk Sunday morning and learned about some of the existing incentives for farmers to install renewable energy equipment on their property.
• Going beyond washing hands, the session on “Food Safety Begins on the Farm” really opened my eyes about the many ways that produce can be mishandled — and how to avoid those problems.

I also made several passes through the exhibits in the gymnasium (pictured above), picking up brochures and information sheets and talking with people about their organizations and products.  At one end of the gym, a long row of tables held countless books on sustainable agriculture, and surprisingly, I only bought one.

Okay, I tell a lie: I bought two.  But I wouldn’t have bought the second had not my dear contrary friend Gene Logsdon been sitting there, signing them.  Having met Gene a couple of times before, I greeted him gladly and gave him a friendly bit of ribbing that he thoroughly enjoyed.  As sustainable farmers go, he’s been out and about for years, spreading the word, and it was good to see him at the conference — especially after I’d been talking up his book Small-Scale Grain Raising at the previous day’s session.

All of this talk about the workshops ignores the point that we also enjoyed some very fine local meals at the conference, and I had the chance to talk with a number of similarly minded farmers, both beginners and veterans.  What a treat!

Exhaustion hit a day or so after I returned home, but the excitement of what I learned lingers on as I plan my course for this season’s growing.

With integrity and intention, of course.

Vintage US Crop Corps poster

So there I was, stunned by the realization that I really, really just wanted to be a farmer.

It sounded idyllic.  Well, maybe not quite idyllic -– I had at least enough sense to recognize that farming the way I wanted to farm would involve a great deal of physical labor, long hours, and frustration with the weather and with pests.  I had a vision of a diverse collection of crops growing lushly to feed me and my friends, with enough leftover to sell for income, but I had no illusion (from my own gardening experience) about how much work would be required to turn that vision into reality.

And did I mention the physical labor?  I’d worked in an office, parked in front of computer, for eight hours a day, five days a week, fifty weeks a year, for the past eighteen years.  I had chronic back problems, weak ankles and wrists, not nearly as much stamina as I’d like despite years of walking.

In short, I was soft, and I knew it.  And my dream definitely required strength.

But I couldn’t shake it.  Yes, it would mean a lot of work.  Yes, it would leave me exhausted at the end of the day, probably without much energy to preserve the harvest.  Yes, it would mean making a lot less money.  But I wanted it.

I wanted to work in the fresh air and sunshine and, yes, even the rain, heaven help me.  I wanted dirt under my nails, as awful as it is to dig out.  I wanted the pleasure of growing a larger percentage of my own food –- and of having enough to sell, to replenish my own coffers.

I just had no idea how to do it.

During the summer of 2009, my desk job caused me so much more anger and anxiety than usual that I had to explore other possibilities.  I looked into the apprenticeships offered by OEFFA, though many offered a mere pittance for salary, and I reveled in the quiet and even the mixed results in my gardens.  Somehow, I had to find an escape route.

A friend suggested to me that instead of taking the apprentice route, I become an independent contractor with my own business.  This way, I could combine multiple jobs -– such as freelance writing and editing –- with the farming and ensure a better balance of income.  This offhand comment became the revelation that lit the path for me, and I started to pursue the possibility of self-employment, something I had dismissed times before because it just didn’t seem right for me.  This time, it clicked.

As the saying goes, when the student is ready, the teacher appears.

I wanted to work with a farmer in the immediate area, and I had narrowed my initial options to three farmers I knew to varying degrees.  One had a handful of children plus in-laws who helped on the farm, and she wasn’t sure that she would have enough for me to do or would be able to pay me regularly.  One was enthusiastic but couldn’t pay me at all.  And one -– Dave -– not only said he needed an apprentice for the following year, he was ready almost immediately to hire me, and he would pay me a reasonable wage.

I had come to know Dave through meetings of the local OEFFA chapter, and I could see that he was respected as a leader.  We came together to help start Local Roots, and I soon learned that he really was worthy of that respect.  So when it looked like I’d have the opportunity to work with Dave, I knew everything would work out fine.

I spent four months setting up my business, lining up work, and cleaning up projects at my job -– and at the start of a new year, I resigned from my job and looked forward to starting out on a new path in life.

Look out, Farming, here I come.

Across Northeast Ohio, sprawling metropolitan areas give way to lush green woods and rolling acres of farmland.  I grew up here, in a suburban neighborhood west of Cleveland, always within distance of the classic amber waves of grain.  Barns, silos, pastures, animals, and tractors dotted the landscapes I traveled around the county with my parents.

Neither set of my grandparents owned or ran farms, though the generation before them did.  My parents grew up with extensive home gardens and the occasional chicken, and they carried that practice of growing their own food into their own homemaking, teaching me at an early age how to plant and weed and harvest.  In the summers, my schoolteacher mother would take me to local fruit farms where we would pick strawberries and blueberries, and we would return home with our bounty, ready to freeze some and to turn the rest into jewel-toned jams.  Come late August, my father would lead the charge in canning tomatoes for our winter pantry, and several packages of sweet corn would end up in the freezer, satisfying a little girl’s appetite.

Food, then, has always been an important part of my life, and I’ve been gardening and preserving the harvest for the better part of four decades.  Farming is not my birthright, nor does it run strong in the family bloodlines.

Farming, though, is where I’ve ended up.

More than five years ago, I embarked on a journey of personal discovery, if you’ll excuse the slightly touchy-feely turn of phrase.  A handful of events came together to challenge my view of myself and of the world, and I immersed myself in environmentally-oriented readings.  (I’ve always been a bookworm, and the introduction of an intriguing new topic tends to lead me to the library shelves.)  Many of those books explored the role of agriculture in the global environment, and everything seemed to indicate that though the vegetarian diet I had chosen years before was a good start, my need for food would be more sustainably met by following a local diet.

This didn’t seem too far-fetched to me: after all, between the home garden and the farm visits with my parents, I knew how good local food could be.  But the more I wrote about it at my original blog, the more I realized there were gaps.  Being a baker, I wondered how much flour or other ingredients I could source locally?  What about the dried beans so commonly used by vegetarians?  What could I, in fact, find?

The local farmers’ market reassured me on many items.  Honey and maple syrup appeared in abundance, nuts occasionally found their way to the market, and a local miller brought bags of flour and cornmeal and oats for a couple of years.  I began talking to the farmers to find out what else they grew or if they knew of anyone else who might be able to supply certain foods, and my enthusiasm for what I did find somehow endeared me to several of them.

At first, my questions to the farmers had to do with my own eating, but eventually I started turning to them for advice on growing or ideas for future crops of my own.  Each new bit of information opened a little window onto the farming life -– and fascinated me.  The more I learned, either from them or from my books, the more I wanted to farm along with them.

Farming couldn’t possibly be a valid career move, though, right?  Who in their right mind would choose to work at such a physically exhausting job, subject to the caprices of weather, and get so little monetary return for it?  I honestly didn’t think I could afford to farm, but I continued to talk with the farmers, and talk gradually turned to occasional offers to help.

By the time 2009 was well underway, I had found myself not only joining the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association (OEFFA) to learn more and to connect with more local farmers, but I also became deeply involved with the establishment of a year-round farmers’ market (Local Roots) -– and through that, had found more room (at a new friend’s homestead) in which to grow dream crops such as grains.

My learning curve continued to swell as I gathered more information and asked even more questions, and my group of mentors gave me the encouragement I needed to try new things.  As the season progressed, the urge became undeniable.

I wanted to be a farmer.