Memorial Day weekend Part 2 – Grass is done!

Now to finish out the weekend’s fun!  On Monday morning, Jeremy and I were both dragging after 3 days of working on the yard.  At the same time, the end was in sight and we knew that if we worked on it for a few hours in the morning we could finish it.  So we dragged ourselves out of bed (late) and got to work.

We leveled out under the maple tree, tilled the aisles and raked them smooth and dug up the wormwood to transplant out to the farm.  That got the last part of the side yard north of the sidewalk ready.  Then we started on the south frontage.  We had 7 raised beds still there which amounts to about 25 wheel barrow loads of dirt that had to find a home somewhere.  Nine of them went to various neighbors who wanted good quality topsoil.  It felt good to see the soil we built going to good homes where it would continue to grow great plants.  Of course, we still had another 16 loads of dirt that had to go somewhere!  Some of them we spread thinly around the maple tree because it was a finer tilth than the mulch mixed soil already there.  The rest we spread all over the south frontage and raked it out smooth.  There is a slight crown to the frontage now (a little higher in the middle than on the edges) but it’s not too noticeable.  Then we put down grass seed.  We didn’t have any straw left at that point, so we just raked it in with the plan to pick up straw over our long lunch break.  The after picture below is from Tuesday after we put the last straw down.  We even got a bonus rain Tuesday night!

Side Yard last year

Side yard this morning

Another view of the side yard

Along with all the work on the yard, throughout the weekend we had been building another load for the farm.  We had a bunch of pavers, more clay, another cattle panel from the fence, several cedar fence poles and a bunch of weed cloth all loaded up in the truck by lunch on Monday.

The weekend was not without casualties though.  Catherine has requested that we bring her rock to the farm.  Her rock is a small red boulder with a nice flat side for sitting on.  It weighs somewhere around 500 pounds as near as we can guess.  Our plan had been to roll it off of its current pedestal into the wagon, roll it up the ramp on the trailer and take it to the farm.  Unfortunately, when we rolled the rock onto the wagon, one of the wheels shattered.  Apparently red rider wagons are not made for 500 lb boulders.  Who knew?  So instead we rolled the boulder up into the new bed around the maple and we’re now figuring out whether and how it’s going to make its way to the farm.  We are also figuring out what to do about the kids’ wagon since it is now totaled.

Catherine's Rock

The wagon after the rock  :-(

After all this fun, we took a LONG lunch break (about 4 hours) that included a good nap.  It was nice to be out of the heat and to know that the side yard was fully seeded. 

When we finally forced ourselves to get back to it around 5:00, we loaded the brush pile from the corner of our back yard onto the trailer.  Then we headed for the farm.  We unloaded the brush, finished trimming around the last of the trees in the upper pasture, watered everything on the lower level and cleared out some more of the fence line.

We also got a surprise treat!  While using the electric trimmer to clear out around one of the baby trees, our neighbor offered to let us use his scythe.  We have 2 scythes on order but neither of us had ever used one.  The opportunity to try one out was just too much to pass up!  His scythe worked really well for all the tough weeds that the string trimmer didn’t handle well.  With its help, we cleared enough of the fence line to plant the grapes later this week and got a good start clearing where the blackberries will go.

We visited with our neighbors a bit too which is always nice.  We are collaboratively working on the details of the living fence in the upper pasture between our properties.  The more we talk, the more we find we have in common.  It feels good to be moving close to like-minded people.

Then we watched the sunset at the farm and came home.  What a weekend!  For those worrying that all we ever do is work, we took Tuesday off…   ;-)

Also, we have been picking blackberries!  Check out these beauties!  The grapes in the bottom picture won't ever get to finish growing unfortunately.  We'll be moving the vines this week or next and will have to prune them back hard so they'll survive the move.  *sigh*  Some year we'll get to have grapes from our own vines!

The blackberries are HUGE and delicious!

Healthy grapes, for now....

Memorial Day Weekend Part 1 - Green Fuzz

The kids are spending this week at their grandparents so Jeremy and I have a whole week to ourselves!  You know what that means, right?  That's it!  We can get tons of work done!  Wait, was that not what you were thinking?  Clearly you think you are reading someone else's blog... 

The long weekend was packed full, so I’m going to post it in 2 posts (look for the second one tomorrow). 

First, the green fuzz.  The grass we planted a week or so ago has come up quite well.  There is now a nice stand of green fuzz in all the seeded areas.  With a little luck (and a lot of watering) hopefully the whole yard will look like this in another week or two! 

The weekend started Friday with getting Mom’s truck cleaned up and ready for Scott and the kids to drive it to Mom’s Friday afternoon.  Once that was done and the rain had stopped, we took a load of clay from the former raised walkway under the maple tree out to the farm.  Unloading it was heavy, muddy work from the rain the night before.  Unfortunately, it didn’t look like it had rained at the farm at all.

The kids and Scott were on their way about 3:00 and Jeremy was still at work.  What’s a girl to do with the house to herself on a beautiful afternoon?  Clearly, I needed to get more work done!  I reshaped the planting bed underneath the maple tree and moved all the extra mulch up into the new bed.  After that, I was about beat.  Jeremy came home late on Friday and we didn’t do much of anything else.

Maple bed - picture taken after paths had been leveled and wormwood was taken out

Saturday morning, Jeremy and I worked for about 4.5 hours to get the side yard leveled.  Jeremy ran the tiller to break up the soil in the former chicken run while I raked and moved the dirt to different places in the yard.  We had about half the side yard leveled when we called it good at 1:00.  Saturday evening was my end-of-class potluck for my childbirth class and we fired up the cob oven for pizzas.  That took the rest of the afternoon and evening, although we went at a significantly slower pace than normal.

Jeremy working the tiller - this little guy ran a LOT this weekend!

Sunday we took mostly off.  Jeremy played in a game, we went to Sunday school and I taught the last class in this childbirth series - nothing too physically demanding which was a nice relief.  When Jeremy got home from the game, we decided to try and get the bulk of the side yard seeded since it was so close already.  Another pass over the chicken run with the tiller and some more raking and the side yard was leveled up to the maple tree.  We got it seeded and straw spread as it was getting dark Sunday evening. 

(Picture taken on Monday morning before we started work again)

Stay tuned for what we did on Monday and what’s coming up with the rest of the week!

Quick Update...

We now have all the poles from the chicken run down, the holes filled and we've started leveling that area and the rest of the side yard.  We dug out about 1/3 of the clay riased path under the silver maple too.  We have high hopes that there will be grass seed down on that side of the yard sometime this weekend. 

The seed we planted a week ago is now sprouting.  Soon the north half the lot will have a short green fuzz that will hopefully turn into actual grass!

All for now!  Thanks for checking in!

Working on the Farm

Last night I went out to water all the plants and trees on the farm and to continue clearing out the fence line for our grapes.  There is progress all around!  The growing cleared area along the fence will soon house our established grape vines which will use the existing fence as a trellis for now.  We have more clearing to do before its completely ready to put down cardboard/paper and soil for the planting bed.  We’re thinking about planting sweet potatoes under the grapes as a living mulch also.  Most of the trees in the top field are leafing out and growing.  I trimmed a circle around each one so that we could find them more easily.  Eventually there will be a nice line of peach and mulberry trees along with some other thus far undetermined trees.  Enjoy the pictures!

Ripe Currants!  First fruits from the farm.

Our whopping 2 tomato plants are looking healthy

The "garden"

The grapes will go along this fence eventually

One of our baby peach trees in the upper field

A baby mulberry in the upper field is leafing out

The upper field.  You can just see the RV in the far corner

The middle field

Looking down from the middle field to the garden spot.  Gives a perspective on just how much more we have to do...

Looking to the right from the same spot as the last picture.  This is the north  half of the lower field.

Great Kids!

You will have to pardon me a bit of parental pride here.  My kids are just awesome!  As they have grown and started showing more and more of their own personalities and, really, as those personalities are being shaped by our lives and choices, I have been amazed by just how good they really are.  Pardon me while I share a few recent examples that make me proud.

During Catherine’s sleep over, the girls were trying to pick a movie to watch.  Catherine was standing in front of her friends holding several movies.  Two of them were Scooby Doo movies that she really wanted to watch.  She held up the first SD movie and said “Raise your hand if you want to watch this movie”.  All but one girl raised their hand (including Catherine).  Catherine looked at the one who didn’t want to watch it and I waited for her to say something to the effect of “Tough luck, majority rules”.  Instead, Catherine very politely said, we’ll the vote is 3 to 1 so we may watch this one.  Then she calmly moved on to the next movie.  No fuss, no arguments, no peer pressure to the girl who didn’t want to watch it.  Just good manners and excellent diplomacy and respect for her friends.  Parental heaven.  The girls then voted unanimously on the 3rd movie presented.

Jacob is my even keel kid.  He virtually never argues about anything and rarely ever complains.  One (of many) example of this is his chores.  I can remember complaining and whining about doing chores virtually every day at his age.  My son doesn’t do that.  When we ask him to do his chores in the morning, he puts on his shoes and does them.  When we ask if he’s put the chickens up in the evening, he puts his shoes on and does it.  Its phenomenal and fantastic and makes me want to squeeze him every day.

One final example.  Yesterday, Jeremy asked the kids to fold the laundry from the dryer and work on filling the holes where he had pulled out the remaining posts from what was the chicken run.  The kids, totally by themselves with no direction from a parent, divided up the tasks.  Jacob folded the laundry and Catherine went outside to fill up the holes because she wanted to be outside.  When Jeremy checked back in from what he was working on, he found Catherine attempting to use the nail to pack the dirt in the holes.  For those who don’t know, our fencing nail is a 6’ iron bar with a flat round end and a wedge end.  It weighs nearly what Catherine does.  She knew that the nail was the tool that I had used to fill holes the day before and she was going to do whatever she could to do her job the right way – even if she couldn’t even really pick up the tool.  When Jeremy took over the job of packing the holes, Catherine went back in the house and helped Jacob fold the laundry.  No fussing or arguments – just great kids.

Ok, now that I’ve screamed from the digital roof tops about how proud I am of my children, we can go back to our regularly scheduled homestead programming….

Chicken Moving Time!

Yesterday was chicken moving day.  We started after church by moving the chickens into the backyard so that we could demo their run and load up the chicken coop.  The chickens mostly thought this was a great deal – the backyard has lots of tasty bugs and grass to eat and plenty of space to explore.  The brush pile in the corner was a particular favorite!

Barred Rocks exploring the fallen leaves

 

While they were entertained, we emptied out the bedding in the coop, took out the feeder and waterers, and took down the run.  It took about 3 hours to get it to the point we could actually move the chicken coop.  One of the steps in this process was removing 2 of the cedar fence poles around the run.  These are 10 foot cedar poles that are about 3 feet in the ground, so it took a lot of digging and then a LOT of pulling to get them out of the ground.  I’m incredibly glad that Jeremy is part ox and can lift things that I can’t even contemplate! 

Once the coop was free, we tipped it over to add some supports underneath.  This being our first adventure in coop building, we had neglected to install enough floor supports and the floor had started to sag a little bit.  Once those were in, we were ready to load up.  Luckily, my brother arrived right as we were getting ready to lift the coop onto the trailer.

After some maneuvering, thinking and serious heavy lifting, the coop was on the trailer.  The kids and I caught the chickens and put them in their temporary carriers (2 large dog kennels).  2 of the chickens are staying with us because they have been hen pecked pretty badly.  They need to heal up before rejoining their friends.  We may even send them to a different home – more about that a different time.  Good thing we have a chicken tractor for them!

Coop resting on trailer ramp

 First try - the dolly under the left end slid out making this effort a failure

 Next we put 2x6 ramps (boards) under the coop to help it over the edge of the trailer ramp.

Success!  Jacob has found his calling as a supervisor.  ;-)

We loaded up all the various chicken stuff – food, scratch, grit, chicken wire for the new run and other miscellany – and headed for Baldwin.  We also brought the ice cream freezer and homemade ice cream mix and the remaining birthday cake from Catherine’s party this weekend.  The idea was to mix it up and have a celebration dessert after we finished getting the chickens settled in their new home.

The chicken’s new run at my brother’s house is constructed of arched cattle panels – it closely resembles one of our tomato tunnels for those of you who are familiar with our garden.  The coop sits at one end with only one door opening onto the run.  The end of the run is hinged to make a gate and the back of the coop is easily accessible.  When we had it all finished, Scott tossed some old hay (read: free bugs) into the run and we set the chickens loose to acquaint themselves with their new home.  All the kids in the house were fascinated.  I don’t know what it is about chickens, but kids just love them.

 Kids surrounding the chickens

While building the run, we decided to have an impromptu BBQ to go with the dessert so I made a run to the grocery store for brats, dogs, beans and chips.  A little bit of grilling and some hand cranking of ice cream later, we had dinner!  The kids even did most of the ice cream cranking – a welcome first for us.  Daisy enjoyed getting to see something new too, although she didn’t seem to understand that barking at the 150 lb dogs behind the fence was perhaps not the smartest plan.  Fortunately, it’s a strong fence.

The kids and Daisy cranking ice cream

So, now that corner of our yard is much closer to being grass.  We still have to dig out the dirt in the old run down to the level of the rest of the yard and remove the remaining cedar posts.  Hopefully that will happen this week.  A little bit of leveling later, and we’ll be ready to seed most of the side yard leaving just the area under the maple tree and the garlic and shallot beds to finish up.  The end is in sight!

No more chickens...  :-(

A Pleasantly Productive Day

Yesterday was a really good day.  Between Jeremy and I, we managed to get the plants at the farm watered, a section of fence line cleared, trees pruned, and the yard north of the driveway seeded!  It was a really good feeling to have made that much progress in one day.

The plants at the farm are clearly missing the rain and suffering a bit from being transplanted.  I think most will make it – some look fine already – others we’ll have to wait and see.  The strawberries look good and most of the onions look like they’ll make it.  Most of the herbs look like they’re springing back, although a couple look a bit rough.  The gooseberries, in particular, look to have taken the move well.  The fruit trees were almost uniformly sad.  I pruned them back significantly in the hopes that they will re-grow as the roots get reestablished.  The Arkansas Black apple was the exception – it looks just as good as it did when we moved it.  The transplant doesn’t seem to have phased it at all. 

There were some other pleasant surprises during the farm trip.  Several of the little mulberry trees we planted are now leafing out.  Some have swelling buds showing that they’re trying to make a go of it too.  Then there are a few that have clearly not made it.  The peaches in that line are in varying shape.  Some look really good, others we’ll have to see.  I figure that all the trees in that line were free, so whatever lives is a bonus anyway!  We’re working with the neighbor to turn the area from our tree-line to the fence in the upper pasture (where these trees are) into a living fence/hedge.  He has offered to plant some thicket forming plums and blackberries on his side and we have the trees on our side.  We can fill it out with additional trees until we have a functional fence that livestock and people are inclined not to go through.

I made a fair bit of progress clearing the fenceline to the south of our raised bed in the South West corner too.  This is where the established grapes from our house are due to be planted, so it has to be cleared before we can put down paper or cardboard, soil and mulch to make the planting bed.  The plan is to clear out all around our current raised bed as the expansion on the current garden.  It will still be perennials and hopefully will eventually form a nice screen from the road as it fills in.  Bit by bit.  Of course, I forgot to take pictures while I was out there, so you’ll have to wait a bit for the photo update.  Feel free to yell at me in the comments...

While I was working on all this, Jeremy was working at home.  The tiller worked great today – I guess it finally decided we weren’t just going to leave it alone.  He tilled the top layer of soil between our house and the neighbors, in the area where the fruit trees used to be north of the driveway and the frontage from the mailbox to the neighbor’s driveway.  When I got back from the farm, we seeded all three areas and got 2 of the 3 covered with straw.  Now we just have to keep them moist enough to get the grass to sprout.  I suspect our water bill this year is going to be unpleasant.  Enjoy the before and after pics!

 The strawberry patch on the south side of the driveway year before last.

 Same part of the lot last night, photo from the other end.

 The north side of the driveway 2 years ago - potatoes and strawberries.  Lawn bags in the background are where we built the beds between our house and the neighbor's that year.

 The same view this morning.

Same area with photo taken from the neighbor's side of the sidewalk.  With a little luck, it will become a seamless field of green grass in a few weeks.

Why I Hate Machines...

As you all know, we are working on moving our garden and planting grass.  A key step in the grass planting process is loosening the soil so that the little grass seeds can take root and flourish.  Since we have had no rain, some of the ground has been compacted by a bobcat and there isn’t a small amount of yard to plant, we decided to dig out our old tiller and use it.  I should remind everyone that our garden has been no-till for 3 or 4 years now, so the tiller has only been used when someone else borrowed it in that time.

As you can probably guess, it wouldn’t start.  More specifically, it would turn over for about 2 seconds then die.  We lost an entire evening of Jeremy’s time on Tuesday trying to get it to start.  It then started and ran successfully for a while last night (Wednesday) but died when it hit a rock.  It wouldn’t re-start after that.  Another evening mostly lost.  I say lost, we did have other things to do that kept us productive for the evening, but it wasn’t the job that really needed doing and it created incredible stress and aggravation.

So what makes me generalize this heartwarming experience to all machines?  Why not just say that this particular machine through our own neglect (not using it regularly for 4 years) is particularly challenging?  I blame all machines because it’s a pattern that I have seen repeated over and over and over.  Allow me to explore some recent examples. 

We used to have a motorized lawn mower.  It was a craftsman push mower with a bagger and it ran just fine.  It would cut through whatever you chose to run over and it always started up easily.  Couldn’t ask for more, right?  Not quite.  The mower needed gas so we had to remember to buy gas and fill it up.  Every time I used it, my hands would tingle for an hour afterward (I have pre-carpal tunnel syndrome).  Then there’s the fact that in our small back yard turning the mower around and around and around required some significant muscle.  It also made a lot of noise – far more than most of the machines in the factories I have worked in.  I suspect that I should have been wearing hearing protection while mowing.  It produced lots of lovely fumes too – just what a want to breath on a beautiful spring or summer day.  Lastly, the speed of the blades means that it can easily throw a rock or stick with enough force to do serious damage to people or property.

Let’s contrast that with the manual reel mower we use now.  The mower is light enough that I can easily carry it around – no problem to turn it in our small backyard.  It makes virtually no noise – only a soft whirring as the blades spin.  The blades will stop when they hit something instead of throwing it around and they don’t produce vibration in the handle.  Mowing the yard does take a few minutes longer because we do have to pick up extra sticks as this mower won’t cut through them.  I’m not convinced that’s a bad thing though.  I find that after using the reel mower, I still have energy to do other things.  In other words, I find using the reel mower to be LESS physically demanding than using the power mower. 

Now lets look at the bobcat we used to move our garden soil.  There is no question that using the bobcat allowed us to move far more soil in a week than shovels would have, but that benefit wasn’t free.  The ‘cat compacted the soil which will now take extra effort to loosen.  It left small piles of soil scattered around the yard that now have to be shoveled or raked out.  It damaged the French drain in our side yard which will require some re-work before we can plant grass over it.  It was also loud and vibrated and required renting a huge trailer to move it around.  That was definitely not free.  Would shovels have been better?  I don’t know.  It would have taken much longer and required a lot more muscle power.  On the plus side, as we moved beds the ground would have been immediately ready to plant because we would have leveled as we went and the ground would not have been compacted.  We likely also would have taken the time to build new planting beds on the farm as we went.  Instead, we have a giant pile of dirt that will have to get moved again (with shovels) to create new garden beds.  That time and effort has to be accounted for in the overall benefit to effort equation.  Would that have made up the time difference?  Maybe.  It bears thinking about.

There’s a psychological component at work too.  Having the machine for a small period of time meant that we were in a hurry to move as much soil as we possibly could during that week even though the weather was far from ideal (it rained off and on all week).  That hurry created stress and interfered with our home life.  If we were taking the shovel approach, we would have slowed down and let it rain while we did other things.  We would have been comfortable flexing the schedule however worked best for us.  Instead, we let the machine dictate our schedule and we got impressively burnt out by the end of the week.  We are only just now coming out of that mental place.

All this amounts to is that I think we often underestimate the costs associated with using a piece of machinery to do a job and overestimate the benefits.  Sometimes doing things the slow way isn’t actually any slower when you look at the other time required.  I suspect that if we had taken the time to water the ground (its dried to clay rock now), then take a hoe or shovel to loosen it, we would have made more progress than we have right now with the tiller.  If we hadn’t used the bobcat to move the dirt, we would probably still be moving garden beds now but we would also likely have had more beds built on the farm and more areas planted back to grass at home.  The extra effort would have made us stronger too (that’s the nice way of looking at tired muscles, right?).

Consider that the next time you feel like you “need” a machine to do the work.  Look at all the time associated with the machine and all the costs and by products.  Then make an informed decision. 

What’s a Reciprocal Roof?

I was asking this same question not too long ago.  I came across the concept while looking for people who had built small strawbale houses themselves on the internet.  One of the case studies I read had used a reciprocal roof and it looked really neat.  So I researched them a bit more (read “I frantically scoured the internet for anything and everything I could find about this way of building a roof”).  After doing the research, it looked like a great way to do the roof on the cottage we’re planning to build on the farm.

A reciprocal roof uses an interlocking pattern of timbers to create a clear span (no support poles in the middle) roof design.  The poles are arranged such that each one supports and is supported by another pole in the system.  This arrangement effectively transfers loads among all the poles and creates a very strong and rigid roof structure.  It’s also fascinatingly gorgeous.  I like that using this design, the octagonal space in the main living area will be mirrored in an octagon at the peak of the roof visible from below.  The timbers themselves will also be visible which should create a really nice effect similar to this picture from http://www.simondale.net/house/index.htm .

To get a feel for how one of these is constructed, we built a model.  Our model has 6 sides, so its not completely accurate for ours which will have 8 sides, but it gets the idea across.  First you prop up the first pole (or popsicle stick as the case may be).  Then you start laying out the next poles one by one.  Each one rests on the one before it and gets notched so that it can’t slip.  In the real thing, these will also get pegged or bolted together so that they can’t pull apart.  The last pole is inserted under the first and on top of the prior pole so that all the poles are locked together.  Then the support is removed and the roof bears its own weight.  You can read more about building a reciprocal roof here (http://small-scale.net/yearofmud/2008/11/26/how-to-build-a-reciprocal-roof-frame/ ).

Model pieces notched and ready for assembly

Support the first rafter

Stacking the rafters

Finished Model

This model is strong enough to support a plate easily.  When you play with it, it’s easy enough to see how the loads are transferred through the individual members such that the majority of the weight becomes tension along the grain (the direction that wood is strongest).  A small amount remains sheer where the timbers meet at the peak of the roof so the timbers are sized to handle that load.  We found the calculation for that in one of our timber framing books.  Additional math for the reciprocal roof can be found on this website (http://www.mts.net/~sabanski/pavilion/pavilion_design.htm ). 

There are a couple of challenges in this type of roof though.  The first is that you’re putting the roofing material on a bunch of triangles instead of a bunch of squares or rectangles.  Our modern roofing systems aren’t really built for that, so it will involve a lot of customization (read “labor and frustration”) to get everything to fit correctly.  The second challenge is what to do with the hole in the middle?  Some designs leave this open, some use a skylight there.  Leaving it open isn’t really an option – I don’t like it to rain in my house.  The skylight is interesting because it would let in a lot of natural light.  However, I have yet to find anyone whose skylights didn’t leak at some point and I don’t want to deal with that either.  Because of that, we’re planning to build a cupola to sit over this spot and allow for some airflow and maybe some light.  The current thought is to size it so that we can put small windows in it to allow in daylight and have vents (or make the windows where we can open them from below) so that it will create air flow through the house.  The finer details of how all that will work are still in the design stage, so stay tuned!



 

Every Day, Little Up

We get asked the question “How do you do it all?” any time someone hears the list of things that we have done/are doing/will be doing soon.  It is quite true that we have a lot going on.  We have two kids who each have activities and play dates.  We both work – me for 55 hours a week including commute and Jeremy varying amounts by season.  I am active in the local Transition group promoting sustainable living in a variety of ways in Lawrence.  I teach workshops on canning, food storage, localizing the economy and a variety of gardening topics.  I co-organize a community garden for the Ronald McDonald House in Kansas City.  I teach childbirth classes one day a week for 2-3 hours.  And we grow food – lots of it.  We’ve also managed to build a greenhouse, a barn, a cob oven and a variety of other projects over the last few years and now we’re building a farm.  With all that, we manage to have a little bit of a social life and occasionally even talk to each other.

Are you tired yet?  We are too, so don’t feel bad. 

So how do we accomplish all this?  At work, I do a fair bit of Lean Manufacturing stuff.  For those of you not at all familiar with what “Lean” is in an organization, it’s the management/problem solving philosophy that pushed Toyota to the #1 carmaker spot a few years ago and is responsible for many fortune 500 companies managing to revolutionize their businesses.  It centers around continuous improvement and solving the real cause of problems.  If you’re wondering why this has anything to do with this blog post, hang on – I’m getting there!

One of the stories I read as part of learning about Lean really struck me.  There was an older Japanese man who was a lean consultant to an American company.  He spoke English but not perfectly.  As the plant manager and the consultant walked around the manufacturing plant for the first time, the consultant was dismayed by the lack of regular, continuous improvement activities happening.  Every change had to be approved, debated, discussed and modified by several levels of management before it could move forward.  This resulted in very few changes happening and a workforce that was completely dis-engaged from doing anything to improve their workplace.  In other words, this company was losing out and getting nowhere.  After trying to convey the idea that continuous improvement must be a way of life – change and progress must be normal, everyday occurrences – the consultant became frustrated.  Finally, he told the plant manager “Every day, little up”.  Every day, do something to improve.  Every day, lift yourself a little higher.

That phrase has taken a life of its own for us and really embodies what we try to do.  Each day we try to do something that moves us forward.  Some days it’s really small – I managed to hang 2 sets of blinds Sunday, for example.  Some days it’s huge like when we move 10 cubic yards of dirt in a day or plant 100 strawberry plants and 350 onions.  The important thing is there’s something every day.  The quote doesn’t say “Every day change your entire world”.  It says make a little change every day.

We weren’t always this way.  We used to think that if we didn’t have at least half a day to devote to working on something, it just wasn’t worth taking the time to start.  We used to think that if we couldn’t finish the whole project in a day, we should wait until we could.  It’s no surprise that if you wait until you have a whole day with nothing at all going on, you’ll be waiting a long time.  We also used to get paralyzed thinking about all the things that we needed to do.  It can get really overwhelming. 

Then came this quote and a convergence of other factors (read “super stressed out time”) that made us reconsider our perspective.  We started breaking things into smaller pieces.  We gave ourselves permission to put something down today and pick it back up again tomorrow.  We started looking for the opportunities to use the extra 10 minutes we have here or there to do something to move us forward.  Where I used to think “I have 10 minutes before I have to leave for work, there isn’t anything I can do in just 10 minutes.”  Now I have a whole list of things that I know I can do in 10 minutes.  I can weed a small patch of garden in 10 minutes.  I can knit or crochet a row or two in 10 minutes.  I can work on a blog post for 10 minutes.  I can clean the counters or fold a load of laundry or harvest lettuce for dinner in 10 minutes.  If I don’t have enough time to finish a whole project, can I at least do half?  A quarter?  10 percent?  Something? 

So that’s all there is behind being able to do lots of stuff.  You just have to do it, and keep doing it, and then keep doing it some more.  Eventually, you’ll look back and be amazed.  “Every day, little up” adds up to a lot in less time than you think!

The RV is gone!

Well, gone might be too strong of a statement.  The RV is moved.  There is no longer an eyesore on our driveway and we now have shelter on the farm.  Woot!  We hitched up and pulled the RV out to the farm Friday evening to its new home on the hill.  Eventually, when we get the first greenhouse up and covered, the RV will move in there.  For now though, it is in a nice meadow, sheltered by trees and easily accessible by the farm road through the property.

 pulling out of the driveway - watch out!  This vehicle makes wide right turns!  Or left turns for that matter...

 Straightening out and away we go!

 Turning into the farm at last.  Pardon the dust.

 Up the hill and...

 Finally home!

We also moved the rocks from the former paths by the garage so that that area could be seeded back to grass this week.  That will finish out the north half the lot outside of some plants that still need to be transplanted.  The key activity is getting the grass in though, so the transplanting can happen whenever.

There wasn’t a lot else that happened on the move front this weekend.  Jeremy picked a bouquet of wildflowers from the farm for me for Mother’s day.  They smell so wonderful and there are so many flowers blooming right now!  There are many that I have never seen before.  The wild roses, in particular, smell heavenly.  I hope your Mother’s day was equally wonderful!

Goals for the Farm

In creating our plan for the farm, we’ve spent a fair bit of time thinking about what we want our farm to provide.  Essentially, we’ve been answering the question “What should our farm do?”  After a lot of debate, here’s where we are on it right now.  Please understand that all things are evolving as we go on this journey – this list may very well change over time.  Also, many of these will take many years to happen – please don’t expect to come to the farm right now and see much of any of this!

Our farm should:

1.       Be Home.  Home is the place that puts you at peace and renews your energy.  The farm should be laid out in a way that encourages us to slow down, notice our surroundings and feel grounded.

2.       Be sustainable.  We plan to use appropriate technology, organic growing and sustainable building practices to create our farm and maintain it.  This is an important point and drives many of the other goals for the farm.  It’s also the most challenging element to do.

3.       Grow Food.  Our farm should provide us with all that we need to eat otherwise it isn’t a farm!  We want to have a varied and healthy diet from what we grow – fruits, berries, vegetables, milk, eggs and some meat.

4.       Provide an Income.  We want the farm to be a working farm that provides our primary income.  The income earning parts of the farm must be integrated into the whole in a way that maintains the overall property’s sustainability. 

5.       Have multiple living spaces.  We recognize that most people of our generation will have their parents and their grown children living with them at some point in their lifetimes.  Our property should provide for this in a way that lets all parties have privacy and community at the same time.  We also want to be able to host friends and family who may want or need to stay with us for a while due to changing economic circumstances.

6.       Be educational.  We feel that helping others learn what we have learned (and are still learning) is an important part of the work that we do.  We want to create spaces, both indoor and out, that facilitate teaching and learning so that we can continue this part of our work.

7.       Require minimal maintenance.  Using permaculture principals, we want to set up our farm such that most things happen as a natural course without our intervention.  The goal is to get our part of keeping the farm going down to something we can do when we’re 70.

8.       Age with us.  We will get old and be less mobile than we are now.  The farm should be set up so that we can do that while still providing for our own livelihood.  We also want it to be something that can be handed down to the next generation.  The greatest gift we can give to the next generation is a working farm.

9.       Be robust to climate change.  We recognize that weather will get both more extreme and more variable.  Our farm should be designed to handle both serious drought and consistent drenching rain.  The challenge of designing for the unknown is huge but critical to our long term success.

10.   Involve animals.  We don’t know yet what animals we will want to have – both wild and domestic – but we know they are a key part of the farm ecosystem we are trying to create.

That gives you a flavor for what we’re trying to accomplish.  The next step is figuring out what each of these require and how they interact.  What features combine to satisfy these goals?  How should we arrange them?  How do we balance the different goals so that each one is satisfied without dominating the others?  These are the questions we’re working on now.  Stay tuned!

Looking west from the garden bed at sunset