Down on the Farm

Bling bling

Another couple of days go by, and another check shows up in our post office box as part of the Old Shaw Farm, end-or-the-year, fundraising drive for NOFA-VT.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Winter reading

Well, well. We are finally back in Vermont after a week of visiting for the Thanksgiving holiday. First we had company for a few days, and then we traveled to visit family. It was nice to see everyone, but we are also glad to be back in our own beds.

In our travels this week we went to the Book Barn in Niantic, Connecticut. What a place! Literally, buildings and buildings filled with used books. Plus, cats, goats, a play area for kids, and complimentary doughnuts and coffee.

We purchased several additions to our farm library, including a copy of "Down on the Farm". The subtitle to that one is "A Picture Treasury of Country Life in America in the Good Old Days", and it is just that -- lots of reproduced black and white photos of American farm life from about 1850 to 1930. This book was first published in about 1954, and although I haven't studied the phenomenon, it seems to be one of a genre of books I have seen about the "good ol' days" that were generally published between 1950 and 1970 or so.

My own unscientific theory is that the post-World War II boom in mechanized agriculture, with its dependence on commodity production, synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and economies of scale, basically killed the family farm, so that in the 1950s and 60s there was a wave of nostalgia for the rural America that was undergoing radical change. If my little theory is right, it also helps to explain T.V. shows like "Andy Griffith".

Similarly, we purchased three editions of the Foxfire series of books. These tomes, first published in the 1960s and 1970s, attempt to perserve the rural knowledge base from Appalachia, by writing down what were basically oral traditions that were rapidly becoming extinct. The result are wonderful books on all sorts of topics such as small scale logging, food preserving, cheese making, wildcrafting, horse swapping, and on and on.

The funny thing is that these books are now of interest to people like ourselves, who are kind of a second generation of back-to-the-landers. There are ideas in both of these books that we can use and modify for our own small family farm.

Plus, we also bought a book published in 1913 by the Canadian Department of Agriculture entitled "Fodder and Pasture Plants." It has these beautiful, full-page plates showing various grasses and leguminous plants that we have all over our veggie fields and our two overgrown pastures.

Also, we found a book for identifying weeds (if anyone knows of such a book with good color plates, we would be very grateful for that info), and a book by Helen and Scott Nearing about the year-round greenhouse they built.

Plus, we got some parenting books, and a book for our neighbor's kid, and you get the picture -- we ended up with a lot of books. But at least we have stuff to read this winter.

Pledge month continues

The fundraising drive for NOFA-VT that started last week is off to a roaring start. So far there is our contribution, plus I have already received a few loose commitments, and then today, our first cold cash came in the mail! A blog reader, who we have never met before, from a large, somewhat rectangular, midwestern state sent a check!

Thank you!! Thank you!! Thank you!!

I think this fundraising drive will end at the end of this year, so don't delay. Don't be shy, join the fun, and donate to NOFA-VT!! Thank you!!

Cutting collards

Going out at 5 pm to cut collards requires a headlamp this time of year.

There are still some nice collards out there though.

If you can see the rows covered in white in the first photo above, that's spinach seeded under remay, sleeping soundly (we hope) ready to grow early next spring.

Splitting wood

It's been warm (40s and 50s), so it's nice enough even first thing in the morning to split some wood before starting work. Waverly and I were in charge of stacking, although Waverly did a fair amount of supervising as well -- and requesting encores of I've Been Working on the Railroad.

A word from our sponsor . . .

For about a year now, I have been on the board of a truly remarkable organization. The Vermont chapter of the Northeast Organic Farmer's Association (NOFA-VT) "is a non-profit association of consumers, gardeners, and diversified farmers who share a vision of local, organic agriculture. Through education and member participation, NOFA-VT works to strengthen agriculture in Vermont."

But that little mission statement doesn't really do justice to the breadth and positivity of the work done by the extremely talented (and under compensated) staff of NOFA-VT. I mean, check out all the stuff NOFA-VT does, all with about 6-10 staff people (depending on how you count). Food education in schools, transitioning conventional farms to organic practices, certifying organic goods for consumers, providing technical assistance and resources for established and young farmers, creating and supporting markets for local, healthy food -- I mean, this is great work that is making the world a cleaner, healthier, and hopefully happier place.

Now, I am trumpeting the glory of NOFA-VT for two reasons. First, I spent some time on Monday at a board retreat, and as a result I am inspired by the work being done by both the NOFA-VT staff and the other board members (all of whom are significantly more accomplished than I am, at least when it comes to working in the agriculture community.)

But second, I have taken it upon myself to attempt to raise some money for NOFA-VT. Not that I really know how to do that. I mean, I don't know the first thing about fundraising, but I figured I would start by asking.

So I am asking any family and friends out there to make a donation to NOFA-VT in the name of Old Shaw Farm instead of getting me a Christmas gift. I am serious. And this comes from someone who really, really likes getting Christmas gifts. But, in the end, there really isn't too much stuff I need, and I would be happier knowing that some new resources are going to NOFA-VT. So I don't want anything on Christmas morning -- except a check to NOFA-VT for $5, $10, or I guess I could accept anything up to $10000000, if you would like.

And for the two or three of you out there in blog-land who hadn't planned on getting me a gift, anything would be appreciated. If you like this blog, send a check made out to NOFA-VT for $5 and I can forward it. Seriously. For some strange reason, between 100 and 200 people check this blog everyday, and most months we have about 500-600 unique visitors. If everyone gave $5, that would be . . . let's see . . . carry the one . . . well, a lot of money.

So, how do we do this? The easiest way would be to send a check made out to NOFA-VT to Old Shaw Farm, P.O. Box 181, Peacham, VT 05862. I will then bundle the 500 $5 checks and get them to the powers that be at NOFA-VT.

The other way is to bypass Old Shaw Farm altogether, and become a NOFA-VT member. In some ways, this is might be better, because building our membership base is crucial to NOFA-VT's long term survival, and pumped up membership numbers make the organization more attractive to bigger, institutional donors.

If this doesn't work, we may try the bake sale next.

I thank you, everyone who cares about a safe and healthy food system thanks you, and the Earth thanks you!!!

P.S. Before anyone mistakenly thinks this is all about altruism, it isn't. The fact of the matter is that our farm has directly benefited from NOFA-VT's technical assistance programs, conferences, and market building efforts. So helping NOFA-VT helps organic farmers, which includes us.

P.P.S. I also hope it is obvious that we ourselves will be giving to NOFA-VT until it hurts.

Lois comes to visit

My brother Geoff, my sister-in-law Sheri, and our niece Lois came to visit this weekend. One very popular event was going over to the neighbor's farm to see the sheep.

Here is our neighbor Elizabeth getting her sheep into the barn.

Elizabeth's farm is about a half a mile away. She raises organic vegetables, including a big pick your own strawberry patch, and they have sheep, a horse, a steer, chickens, and some turkeys. The morning started with everyone going over to her farm simply to buy some potatoes for dinner. (We sold all our potatoes as new potatoes this year, and don't have any russets to store for winter.) Elizabeth, who is wicked nice, showed everyone around, even though it kind of looked like they were trying to get out the door for the day.

Putting on the purlins

We put the top three purlins on the greenhouse today.

My office was closed today in observance of Veteran's Day, and Waverly was still scheduled for daycare, so Peter took the day off too so we could get done some of the greenhouse work that Waverly couldn't help with.

The purlins run the length of the greenhouse connecting the ribs.

You bolt them to the ribs.

Figuring out how to get up there to do the bolting took some creativity.

And there is a fair amount of play in the ribs, so it took some pushing and pulling to get the purlins on. But we got them all on.

Rushing to beat the freeze

We ran into a problem getting up the new greenhouse. We found a giant rock right where we needed to put a couple of ribs.

It was too big for us to dig out and move with our tractor, but we got John to come and move it. The delay put us precariously close to the ground freezing. So this weekend saw some major hustle to get the greenhouse skeleton in the ground before it froze.

This is what we woke up to Saturday morning.

It melted as soon as the sun came up, but it started getting colder, and this week is supposed to be colder than seasonal norms, like in the teens at night.

Waverly came out on her tractor to help.

The first rib up.

Susannah came by and helped on Sunday afternoon. Thank you Susannah!

The last task was to dig a trench all the way around so we could put in baseboards. The ground was starting to freeze as we dug. And it's flurrying out as I type. But we got the trench dug!

There's still a lot of work to do to get it operational, but it looks like the work that had to happen before the ground froze is done, and not a moment too soon!

Oh well

Those of you who know us well probably realize that the guy we were rooting for in yesterday's election conceded defeat today. Suffice it to say it is a subdued day around here. This is how I spent some time at lunch. But I think the flight urge will pass, as will the sting of defeat.

Advantage #492 of small town living

Went to my local polling place at 8:05, right after it opened. No lines. I knew half the people there. Probably more than half -- Bob, Hillary, Tina, Francis, Thelma, Lorna, Jay's wife (whose name I can never remember). No ID hassles because the people checking me in knew who I was (although they did try to sound official when they said "Name, please" before checking me off the list).

Get out and vote everyone, even if it isn't that easy where you are!

Baba comes to visit

My father, Baba, came to visit the other day.

Here I am with him as he reads "Les Animaux de Mimi" to Waverly. Maryellen speaks French and Spanish very well, so we have a number of books for Waverly in other languages. But it would be generous to say the French skills of my Father and I are rudimentery. So I think in this shot Waverly is having a good laugh over our pronounciations.

But it was great to see Baba, nonetheless. C'est la vie!