The Beginning Farmer

Yeah, it is kind of nice to see how things are coming together with boxes being unpacked and the old house starting to empty out. In the words of the guy from “The A-Team”, “I love it when a plan comes together.” But wait, that isn’t the only image of our house right now…

The kitchen is starting to look good … the rest of the house on the other hand is going to take some work. The good news is that we will get a dumpster in soon so we can start cleaning up the construction mess little by little and that the house will get put together. For now it will just take time.

Have you every watched the “Story of Stuff”? Well even though we have tried and tried to take more stuff out of our house than we bring in it always seems like we are fighting a losing battle. And when you move everything is magnified! So, today we went back to the house in town and continued to pack up and move as much stuff as we could. Most of what was moved today ended up in the “shed” portion of the house or at the church, but there was still plenty of stuff destined for the house.

The good news in all of this is that my family (dad, step-mom, brother, sister, and Autumn) were able to come help us sort though it, load it up, and unload it. They were a great help with the moving and with keeping the kids occupied.

But, as always there is a down side … today it was the rain. Living in a construction zone in the rain is not fun because there is no grass … just mud. But, moving in a construction zone that is all mud is even worse. Then you have to add in the fact that we moved in the dark and on the side of the house with no hope of light… Well, let’s just say it was exciting!

On the plus side, we still got the chores done and my dad and I went in the dark to pick up a bale ring that I had purchased a few months ago. He needed it to feed some round bales to the Dexters that are still living down at his place. We will see how the round bale thing goes… neither of us have ever been big fans of the large rounds, but they were available.

I’ll try and take some pictures of the house tomorrow. Right now it looks like a mountain of boxes with no hope … but, I know things will shake out soon enough. Thanks for putting up with the random and somewhat boring blog posts lately. But, in reality this is all part of starting a farm from nothing and trying to do it on a shoestring.

I haven’t had any time to take any pictures because we have been in all out moving mode, so this will have to be one of those pictureless posts. But, I am glad to report that along with moving three loads of stuff from the house (a load consisted of a 6×12 Uhual, a Chevy Astro, a small car, and the big old church van) we were able to get some important jobs done today with the help of Becca’s family. They helped put up some plywood in the storage area so we are slightly more mouse proof and plant the important flowers that we dug up from the old house.

But, I still haven’t mentioned the free stuff… This is the way it is. If anyone would like anything for free they can just show up at our house in town! Yes, we had two extra weeks to move, but in those two weeks we had to decide if we were going to do some more major packing or if we were going to get the house more prepared. We decided to go with more house work, and I’m glad we did, but that meant that not everything was in a box.

We are now left with a house that seems full of stuff, but really isn’t too full … it just appears that way. Today my family is coming up to help and hopefully we can get most of it gathered up and out to the farm because we have to be out on Tuesday. And to tell you the truth I just want to be done!

As a funny aside it was my week to give the message at church and I just happened to be talking about materialism and giving. The idea was that the best cure for materialism was giving. I reminded the people that if they weren’t sure whether or not they had been sucked into the materialistic trap a time or two all they needed to do was MOVE! Than you really see how much junk that you feel like you “need” to have.

Let me just say I am humbled again, and re-energized to live a more simple life. One of those simple things I enjoyed today was seeing the chickens wandering around the farm. We finally we able to let them out of their mobile pen because we are going to be around all of the time … it was a great thing to see!

**Sorry for the rambling post, hopefully we’ll be back into a better routine by the end of the week.**

Well, since I am moving today and setting up the new house I’m missing out on seeing my cousins Minneapolis Moline threshing machine working at the local pumpkin patch. Oh well, there will be time for that later… For now wish us luck and enjoy this threshing video.

Today and tomorrow are going to be the super-duper moving days as the Book family heads out to their new home (which is in various states of done-ness depending on which room you are in). With that in mind I hope that you understand if today’s post and tomorrows posts are a little anemic. In fact since I’m blogging from the farm now on my Verizon internet it is even kind of difficult for me to leave you with a video to watch!

So, I’ll just let you imagine me working hard carrying boxes and furniture … and packing stuff also. And, if you are in the area feel free to come lend a hand 😉

We are beginning the big move today, so I gotta let you know that things will be a bit brief this week because of all that we will be up to. But, I did want to follow up a little bit on the news that Joel Salatin and a couple of partners bought a custom abattoir. In fact they bought the abattoir that Polyface Farm has used for quite awhile. In part they bought it because they didn’t want to lose such a good source so close to them, but also it seems because of an investment opportunity.

I wanted to follow up because a few weeks ago I asked the question, “Is Polyface farm still the small family farm that Mr. Salatin wrote about earlier on?” I purposefully did not offer an opinion either way because I really had none, but rather I asked the question because I figured it would be a question that would come up among those that disagree with his farming methods or that he really is “making” it on the farm (they argue he makes money off the farm).

Well, recently a fequent commenter, Mellifera, posted a link to a fairly long Mother Earth News question and answer article with Mr. Salatin that covers quite a few different topics. Also, Mr. Salatin wrote more about their new business endevor in the latest issue of “The Stockman Grassfarmer”. It seems that it is as much as an investment as it is an opportunity to save an abattoir that they use. He doesn’t think he will be spending much time there himself (because he would blue up on the regulators!), but they do think it is business that can be profitable in and of itself.

Polyface Farm sure is growing…

Nothing says “beginning farmer” like counter top, outlets, and cabinets. But, truth be told those are a huge part of our farming venture right now because with out those things it really would be “like” the pioneers. And, those are the things that I have been working on the past few days out at the farm. We put the cabinets in a little while ago, but just this past Monday we threw the counter tops down and really got after the wiring (with some help from friends of course). I have got to say that I’m really excited that we now have outlets where there just used to be wires sticking out, and that we can now plug stuff in and leave the breakers for those circuits on! Hey, I even used the switch to turn the hall light off last night…

But, really it is doing tasks like I did today (and the help of a great community of believers committed to serving each other) and others involved in our home building that has made farming on 40 acres possible for us. While it isn’t a lot of land it is a great start (better than many are able to start with), and if we weren’t constructing a house we wouldn’t have been able to afford this much land. Scrimping and saving since we were married, having family and friends that are willing to help, and our own sweat equity has made this dream possible.

For example, a 40 acre farm, with a house and some buildings, in a county south and west of here (where land is a slightly lower) is listed for $225,000. I know that might sound good for some, but in our area and with our budget (remember … just one paying job in this family) that is out of the question. In fact if we just go a few miles to the east of our place there is a chunk of bare land listed for $160,000. That is for 40 acres of a similar timber to tillable ratio as our farm.

So, it seems that counter tops, outlets, cabinets, and a whole bunch of great friends are really valuable when it comes to a beginning farm. In fact I would say the great friends willing to help are more valuable than any “beginning farmer” loan that we didn’t qualify for or any other governmental assistance.

Recently I was contacted by someone who works at “Farmers’ Markets Today” magazine after I wrote a Epi-Log post about some of the magazines out there for the homesteader types or the wanna-be-homesteader types. Well, yesterday I received a sample issue of the magazine and I liked what I saw. Plus, I liked the fact that it is based out of the town where I spent the first 21 years of my life … Cedar Falls, IA!

It really is a fairly new publication, only debuting in June of 2007, but I think the have done a wonderful job putting it together. Plus the subject matter is right up my alley and I love the fact that they do a really good job of going straight to the source when it comes to their surveys, articles, and more. Another great thing about this magazine is I believe it can help direct-to-consumer farmers all over the country share ideas and things that are working for them. Every other business sector has a “journal”, so why not the small-scale direct marketing farmers.

You, can check out their website linked above for more information … but, here is a sampling of what is in the issue I received.

• An article about mobile food sales and deliveries.
• A neat little piece about a blueberry association that’s members work together in marketing and more (really cool idea … any ADCA members want to jump on this)
• Tips on buying a used tractor online (I could have used this earlier … although I’m pleased with ours).
• An article about pricing strategies at farmers’ markets.
• And of course there is a whole lot more that I didn’t mention.

I encourage you to check this neat magazine out and even give it a try if you would like!

Dexters are either going to be black, dun, or red (in order from most common to least common). On our farm we have both black and dun and we absolutely love them… But, why not have all the colors? That is the question I asked myself when we got into Dexters, so even though I said that I was done buying cows I ended up getting a nice little red heifer this weekend. Her name is Grandma’s Jasmine and she is from Grandma’s Dexter Farm near Toddville, IA (north of Cedar Rapids). We picked her up on Saturday and she is already settling in to her new environment as the first Dexter on our new farm.

One of the reasons that we decided to purchase her is because our herd bull, Hershey, carries a red gene (he is dun). Now that we have a red heifer on the property we will have a chance to have some red calves most likely beginning in 2010. Of course I doubt we are going the seed-stock route, but is nice to see the various colors in the herd and if we did want to sell some heifers at some point we could have a nice variety … maybe

Also, we were able to put a halter on her at Dan’s farm so I plan on working with her this fall and training her to lead. Hopefully we can show her next summer at the ADCA annual meeting that will be in Fort Dodge, if nothing else it will give me an excuse to go out and mess with the cows a little bit more.

So… we have pigs, chickens, and now a Dexter on our new farm. This week we will begin moving in and need to be totally in by the 14th. After that fencing and preparing for the baby will be our priorities. Hopefully we can find time for it all!