Inner Debates and a Farmer Tribute

Conrad home

The house I grew up in, in Tacoma, recently sold for $230,000.

Blow me away!

My parents bought that house in 1953 for $12,000.  It is 1,340 square feet of living space and a one-car garage.  When I lived there it was a three-bedroom, one-bath home. It just sold as a four-bedroom, 1 ½ bath home.  Mind you the square footage is the same, so there must have been some serious squeezing being done to accomplish that magical trick.

$230,000 . . . blow me away!

Bev and I bounce back and forth between staying in this house we own or selling it, downsizing, and moving into a tiny home.  We’ve been debating this for years now.  I’m not sure we are any closer to a decision than we were five years ago.

We are comfortable in this home and really that’s the main reason for staying.  As our kids love to remind us, we have equity in this home, and “equity is important,” they love to tell us, but important to whom?  Sooner, rather than later, Bev and I will pass on, so I guess the equity is important to those who would inherit but truthfully, we don’t much care about that.  This is all about the quality of our lives.  Our kids can fend for themselves, and how our equity affects them is not really a point of conversation.

On the other hand, selling and living in a tiny home on an acre of land has always appealed to us . . . take the equity from this home and completely pay for something small…no mortgage payment sounds heavenly right about now.

So the inner debate continues.  In the end the decision will really be Bev’s.  I’m twelve years older than she is, and chances are pretty good that I’ll die before her, so it all comes down to what does she want when that time comes.  I’ve lived in my truck before, so it makes little difference to me.

In the meantime, I’ve got firewood to stack.  Like it or not, winter will be here shortly, and firewood is our only source of heat, so this task can’t be put off much longer.  It might be eighty-five right now, but those temps won’t last much longer in our northern environs.

ANOTHER SIDE OF THE COIN

We went for a hike up in the mountains this past weekend, and on the way back home we stopped and visited with some friends who own a farm in the town of Mossyrock.  Now get this: Lydia and her husband Richie work 200 acres . . . by themselves!

You gotta love farming to work 200 acres of cattle and sheep, just you and your spouse.  Think about that for a moment.  Do you know how much land 200 acres is?  It’s about 150 football fields.  Let that sink in for a moment.  Two people!  The night before we visited them, Richie wrapped up his day of haying at ten p.m. I have no doubt he started at sunrise.

God bless the farmers of the world!

Have a great week living your fantastic lives!

Bill

The Changing Face of Farmers Markets

An interesting thing happened to farmers markets over the past few years as they tried to establish a toehold in the marketplace . . . they became too popular!

No, not too popular with consumers.  Statistics show that consumers continue to support local farmers markets in record numbers.  The statement has more to do with the communities where you find farmers markets.  Success breeds success in retail.  What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, that sort of thing, until it is not, and then it just becomes excess.

Put another way . . . too much of a good thing will eventually have unintended consequences.

Let’s use our local area, Thurston County, Washington State, for an example.

The grandfather of farmers markets in our county is the Olympia Farmers Market.  It has been around seemingly forever.  It literally does millions of dollars in sales, and what was once traditionally a weekend market during the summer has expanded and included Thursdays and Fridays and a limited schedule during the winter.

So if it’s good for Olympia it must be good for Tumwater, three miles away, and it must be good for West Olympia, and Lacey, and Delphi, all of which are less than five miles from The Grandfather, and suddenly the year is 2019, the dollars to be spent are limited, and something has to give.

What inevitably happens is that some of those smaller markets will close.

The same can be seen nationwide. The amount of dollars being spent at farmers markets is increasing across the nation, but the number of farmers markets, for the first time in decades, is declining.  In other words, the market is saturated and only the strong shall survive.

What does this mean for struggling markets?

It means the same thing it means for any retail establishment facing stiff competition: learn to market effectively, learn to diversify, learn to attract customers, and learn good customer skills . . . or perish!

It is not enough in 2019 for a farmers market, facing tough competition, to simply offer fresh fruits and vegetables.  A farmers market in 2019 must be a fun place to visit.  It must be a destination that people wish to visit, a happening place, a place people want to return to.  All markets have live music. They all have community booths and local artisans.  What can your market offer that other markets do not offer? Why would a family of four prefer to visit your market rather than a market three miles down the road? A market manager, or a market Board of Directors, who do not understand this basic retail concept, are failing at their jobs.

The Flea Circus Effect

I like to use the flea circus analogy to drive home this point.  Are you familiar with the flea circus concept?

Flea circuses date back to the 1820s.  They may, or may not, have used real fleas, but they all consisted of tiny machines, rides, etc, which were activated “by fleas.”  Those which did not use actual fleas simply presented the magnificent illusion of tiny fleas on merry-go-rounds, or fleas on trapezes. It was really a brilliant piece of showmanship and marketing, to present an illusion so grand that people would spend money to see something that actually did not exist.

This same way of thinking would serve well the smaller markets trying to compete with the larger ones.  Present the illusion of more happening than what really is or do, in fact, present something that can’t be seen anywhere else.  Simply having live music is not enough. Simply having fresh fruits and vegetables will not do the trick.  “Unique” should be your call to action, or you will find yourself facing a situation where all the action in the world will not save you.

Learn to adjust to the times or become a statistic!

This is hard for some market managers. They may be great organizers. They may even have great people skills.  What they are lacking is creativity. They can’t think outside the box.  They pour money into advertising when, in truth, all the advertising in the world will not make their market attractive; and besides, the best advertising is word-of-mouth, which will not happen unless they find a way to make their market interesting and worth attending.

And so it goes!  Some “get it,” and they manage fun, successful markets.  Others do not “get it,” and their markets slowly rot on the vine.

Bill

Into an Uncertain Future

I do believe it’s time for an update as June quickly transitions into July.

It seems odd not doing the farmers market scene. I miss the fellow vendors and the customers . I don’t miss the politics of it all, or the constant scrambling to get things done, or a market manager who was rude and inflexible, but I miss the people.

And it’s weird going out to the farm to feed the chickens and only having twenty-five greet me. I’m accustomed to hordes greeting me, not a measly twenty-five.

But it’s all good!  My attention is now turned to our backyard.  Bev and I are trying to figure out what we want to do with it.  The pictures I’ve included are the backyard as it is currently.  As you can see, we have a lot of unused space to play with.  We have two aviaries to play with. The question is: what to do with it all?

OBSERVATIONS ON WHAT IS THERE

It’s all changed so much over the past five or six years.  At one time there were close to 100 quail back there. We had probably thirty rabbits . . .three goats for a few weeks . . . up to eight chickens . . . at one time half the yard was an unruly vegetable garden.

It all started with an herb garden.

The thing is, we have far too many ideas than we do time. That has to change or I refuse to even begin another project.

But so much could be done.  I can see it on the projector in my mind.

All told there is probably close to a ¼ acre here.  The front yard is solid berry bushes.  Occasionally we even go out there and trim them back.  We were determined to not have a lawn and by God, we don’t have a lawn!  So the front will stay pretty much the same albeit a little bit neater.  It’s the back that has us mystified right now.

Oh well!  As grandma was fond of saying,  it will all come out in the wash.

The veggie garden is 12’x17’ if I remember correctly.  It is, as you can see, quite full.  A part of me wants to add to it; a part of me does not, opting instead for using one of the aviaries as a greenhouse.

So many ideas, and we’ll sort through them all, in time, and come up with a workable plan.

Stay tuned!

Bill

Why Bother With Urban and Small Farming?

Some of what I’m about to write is tongue-in-cheek. Some is the truth as I see it.  I’ll leave it up to you to figure out which is true and which is hogwash.

I’ve thought long and hard about this topic, the advantages of urban farming. Why in the holy hell do I do what I do? Why do any of us? Is there any point to it at all?  Is there any social positive which comes out of urban farming?  Is this some crusade destined to fail, or is there hope attached to it?  And what could I possibly say here which might convince some of you to “leave the Dark Side and enter the Light?”

The problem, as I see it, is that what I consider to be wise, prudent, and socially responsible may seem ridiculous to others.  I came to this realization years ago, but it was reinforced recently when I was watching a Ted Talks on the topic of sustainability.

Let’s just take “small farming” as a topic to discuss.  I say we need small farms. We need that local connection with our food. We need to support those who do the hard, dirty work so that we might eat healthy foods.  We need to applaud the small farmer at farmers markets and roadside stands, not make it harder for them to succeed.

The flip side of it is this: small farms will never be able to feed all the world’s hungry. They are actually an inefficient use of the Earth’s resources, and the product produced is priced out of reach for our city’s poor population.  We need more room for housing, not more room for cows, sheep, goats, and chickens.

And my counter-argument kicks in immediately, as does the other counter-argument, and a stalemate of disparate beliefs settles in for the long-term.

I heard it over and over again while working the farmers market. People would come up and say: “I would love to come here more often, but I can get food for my family at a much lower price at CostCo or WalMart,” and it’s almost impossible to argue about that with a single mother of two on a low fixed income.  She can get food cheaper at WalMart, and the fact that the cheap food may be bad for her health is not of primary concern because, well, she is poor.

AND URBAN FARMING?  REALLY?

Buttercup is on the left

In Olympia, my hometown, we can raise five hens. Five!  To continue this discussion, what difference does it make if I raise five hens for personal consumption?  What difference does it really make if 1,000 people in Olympia do the same? What difference could it possibly make, in this world, if 1,000 people in Olympia raised food for themselves from backyard gardens?  I can show you profit statements for WalMart and Safeway and CostCo, and those profit statements would tell you that the majority of Americans are only concerned with one thing: being able to afford ANY food, no matter the degree of health concerns. The last time I checked, McDonalds was doing quite well, thank you very much. Either a vast majority of Americans don’t care, or they can’t afford to care.

So again, what possible difference can it all make? Why do this urban farming/small farming thing?

THE ANSWER

And really, the only answer I can give you which makes any sense at all, to me and to others, is the fact that it makes me feel good to do what I believe is right.  I harm no one with my efforts, and I certainly do not harm the planet by doing what I do.  It is good for my physical, emotional, and psychological health to work with the Earth to produce something healthy.  And it just makes me smile to know I am continuing in the tradition of my grandparents, Iowa corn farmers from back in the 20’s, back in a time when farmers were respected as the backbone of this country, doing their thing in the breadbasket of this country.

It’s the only answer I can give which does not invite argument.  It makes me feel good and brings no harm to anyone or anything.

So put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Bill

This Fabulous Life of Mine

Things are about to get real.

This week the farmers market season begins.  For the next twenty-four weeks I will need to squeeze five days of work into four, Wednesdays being the market days.

I love doing the markets, but I hate what they do to my schedule.

Whine, Whine, and Whine!

Here’s what I know to be a portion of my truth.

I am seventy years old and ridiculously healthy.  If I didn’t tell you my age, and you watched me at the farm, you would think I was fifty . . . that kind of healthy.

I spend my days doing what I love to do, writing and working with birds and dogs.  I work for no one else. I do not have a boss hanging over my shoulder watching what I’m doing and holding my paycheck ransom.  I may not be rich but I am also not wanting.

I am loved.  I have the absolute best wife on the planet, a son who loves me, and dogs which love me.  I have friends all around the country, through my writing, and friends in at least twenty other countries.  My writings have been read, literally, by millions, a fact that still blows my mind.

I have had an incredible life, road trips and trips at home (think about that one for a moment).  I’ve climbed mountains, hiked hundreds of miles of beautiful countryside, owned businesses, taught hundreds of children, and experienced so many fabulous things as to leave me dizzy with joy.

So this little 24-week hiccup in my schedule is nothing more than an opportunity for me to whine should I want to take it . . . or an opportunity to bask in the wonder which is my life.

I think, at least for today, I’ll do the latter!

Have a great day!

Bill

Chickens are Fascinating and That Makes Me a Nerd

At the risk of sounding like some crazy old man roaming the fields, talking to chickens, covered in chicken poop, completely detached from reality, I gotta tell ya, chickens really are fascinating birds.

And I’m convinced they are conniving tricksters who derive great pleasure in confusing me.

The only “truth” I have learned about raising chickens is this truth: chickens need fresh water, they need food, and they need shelter from predators.  After that, all the other stuff you are told by chicken experts, well, it may or may not be the “truth” when you raise chickens.

An example?

When we first started on this fowl journey, we were told we would need one nesting box for every four or five hens.  I took that as gospel and dutifully built nesting boxes in every coop based on the number of hens using that coop.

Wrong!

Chickens, for whatever reason, like to lay eggs where everyone else is laying eggs.  Give twenty hens five nesting boxes and invariably you will find twenty eggs in just two of those boxes, with the other three boxes empty.  It happens every single day when I collect eggs. And just for fun, when the mood hits them, they will completely ignore the nesting boxes and lay eggs at the base of a tree, or in a random cardboard box.

PREDATORS

I’m telling ya, in the daytime, chickens know when a predator is nearby. I have seen chickens run for cover when a hawk is circling two-hundred feet above them, and I have seen an entire flock stop all movement and cock their heads towards the woods when a coyote or deer happens to be within one-hundred yards of them.  They somehow know!  At night they are comatose and very susceptible to predators, but daytime is a different matter altogether.

We moved the horses into the pasture next to the chickens recently and surprise, surprise, there has not been a single sighting of a coyote since we did it.  If you ever get a chance, check out the YouTube video of a donkey attacking a coyote.  It is a real eye-opener about those “placid” donkeys.

And there’s been a sighting of a cougar a mile away from the farm.  Not  the news any of us wanted to hear.  Not sure what to do about that, but I’m pretty sure our defenses are not cougar-proof.

UNTIL NEXT TIME

Gotta run . . . it’s not raining today and I’ve got work to do until the next storm arrives.  Countdown . . .  ten days until the farmers market opens for business. I am cautiously excited about it.

Bill

Busy Time…Good Time

PREPARING FOR THE NEW FARMERS MARKET SEASON

One month to go and the 2019 season of the Tumwater Farmers Market will begin.

Besides running a booth at that market, where I sell goat cheese, chicken eggs, and quail eggs, I’m also the President of the Board of Directors for that market.  I love the market, which is saying a mouthful since I’m a card-carrying member of the “Introverts for a Better Society Organization.”

There is no such organization.  I’m just being silly to drive home a point.  For me to love something which forces me to be sociable is saying a mouthful.

So March is a busy month for me.

Introducing new chickens to the flock

We have been raising fourteen chicks at home; they are now pullets, so this weekend we moved them out to the farm and introduced them to their brand new coop (4’x8’) and the other seventy chickens.  We put them in their new coop and surrounded that coop with chicken wire so the other chickens could check them out without bullying them, which chickens have a tendency to do.  I arrived back the next morning to discover the wire enclosure had fallen down and everyone was getting to know each other up close and personal.

The best laid plans of mice and men!

It all turned out okay.  Not too much bullying occurred, and the newcomers are slowly learning about pecking order in a large flock.  I’m pretty sure they will be fine when I go out there this afternoon.

Egg production is increasing with the longer days

It happens fairly quickly. We went from twelve eggs a day to twenty to thirty-five yesterday, and that increase happened in the span of ten days.  We should be up to sixty per day soon, just in time for the market opening, which was the plan all along, and ain’t it fantastic when a plan actually works? In the meantime, I have a lot of eggs which are not being purchased.  That’s just the way it is.  How many ways can I prepare eggs for meals?  LOL

Coyote problems

As I mentioned in an earlier posting, we have coyote problems.  The neighboring housing development got into the action lately when they started losing cats and poodles, so they hired a trapper.  Evidently the trapper was successful, because we didn’t see a coyote for about a month.  But there are so many of them . . . another one has appeared of late, and two more chickens went missing last week.

I just bought some wolf urine.  Evidently if you spray that stuff around your property, coyotes will stay away.  I’ll let you know if it works. In the meantime, I am doing my best to keep the chickens confined  in one fenced area of the farm, and  I’m working with Maggie to herd roaming chickens back into the fenced area when they fly out of it. So far it’s working pretty well.  I’ll keep you posted on the continual battle of man vs coyote.

Gotta run…have a great week!

Bill

The Financial Reality of Small Farming

I’m going to borrow some information from the farm website owned by our son and his wife, Lost Peacock Creamery.  Since they already posted this financial information, I don’t feel like I am betraying any trust.

From their blog:

Last year we spent $37,000 on animal feed for our goats. We brought in $56,000 at Farmer’s Markets. That’s not profit. That doesn’t include the wages that we pay so people can work them (because we are only two people, we have two small children, and we still have to make the cheese that gets sold at the markets); the packaging costs of cheese; market fees; gas; the cost of free product that we sample so people will want to buy our cheese; blah blah blah blah blah.

And that’s just to feed them. There is the cost of the chemicals that we use to clean our milking equipment, the cost to upkeep our machinery, the electrical bill to run everything (we pay extra so that our power comes from alternative energy sources), the cost of bedding, repairs to animals shelters, insurance, etc.

Let’s not even talk about the hourly wage we’re not collecting.

 

Now why do I share that posting by Matt & Rachel?

It all goes back to a recurring theme of this blog: supporting local farmers is supporting a lifestyle which is born from love.   I know of very few small farmers who are making profit, let alone living high on the hog, pardon the weak pun.  Would Matt and Rachel make more money if they didn’t take such care to be an organic farm? Of course they would, but they have chosen to make the absolute best cheese possible in the healthiest way possible, and that kind of commitment is costly.

My wife and I raise chickens to sell eggs . . . we raise them on Matt & Rachel’s farm.  Last year we lost money.  I suspect we will lose money again this year.  Why, then, would two intelligent people choose to do so?  Because we think it’s important that one, people have an outlet where they can buy healthy eggs and two, because we absolutely love being a part of the local food distribution system.  We feel we are doing our part to make our community healthier . . . Matt & Rachel feel the same way . . . I don’t know any small farmers who do not feel that way.

I do not write this for sympathy but rather for understanding about small farming.

It is a labor of love, plain and simple, and I believe it is a vital part of our economy.

Just something to think about!

Bill

 

 

Chicken Coops, the Weather, and Other Things

Someone suggested the other day that I write a book about farming.

I suggested to them that it would be a book about the mistakes made while trying to farm, and the title would be “Trip, Stumble, and Fall in Farming.”  Let’s face it, I’ve made just about every mistake possible during this urban farming adventure, so I’m much more qualified to tell people what not to do.

One thing I can say, without hesitation, is you should do research before diving in, but I would add an addendum to that: very little that is written about farming is etched in stone. What works for one person may not work for you, so never look at that research as being black and white only.  Experiment and find out what works for you in your particular environment.

Building a chicken coop

There are some basics which are as close to gospel as you can get. The coop must be secure from predators.  Chickens are totally defenseless at night.  They don’t sleep so much as they go into a coma, and they are easy pickings for any predator who can defeat your coop defenses.

The coop should have ventilation so there is always fresh air flowing through it.  You can drill small holes in the walls (make sure they are smaller than the smallest predator), or you can cut out little windows, but those windows will need hardware cloth for protection.  Don’t worry about the chickens “catching a cold” in the coop. They are very hardy birds.  Chickens are raised in Alaska, in the Northern Plains, and in New England, and they thrive in those arctic locations.

Each coop should have a roosting bar and enough nesting boxes.  How many is enough?  One nesting box is good for three or four hens to use. That’s an average figure and not gospel.  Some hens don’t even use nesting boxes, but I’ve also had ten hens all use the same box, so go figure! I build according to average figures and let the hens work it all out.

How big should a coop be? I error on the side of “too big,” simply because I like my birds and I want them happy.  The smallest coop I build is 4’x4’, and that’s good for six hens minimum.  Remember that chickens don’t spend a lot of time in the coop.  They are there to sleep and they are there when the weather is downright nasty, so 4’x4’ is more than enough room.

FARMERS AND WEATHER

I was thinking, the other day, about farmers and weather, and my thoughts went back, many decades, to my grandfather on his Iowa farm.  At the time I was seven, and at that time I thought the old man was obsessed with the weather.  It seemed like the only thing he ever talked about was the weather.

“We need it to heat up, Billy, or else that corn won’t grow tall and strong.”

“Sure hope it doesn’t rain tonight before we get that hay in the barn.”

“Billy, I don’t know how a man is supposed to make a living, farmin’, when God’s against him, sending down hail in June for God’s sake!”

And so it went!

Fast forward sixty years  and I’m out on the farm,  cussing the mud, cussing the snow, cussing the cold, hoping for better weather, repairs gotta be done, pasture needs to dry out, mind you this was on a perfectly gorgeous February day, forty degrees, the snow glistening in the fields, God’s gift to all of us silly enough to think we can control any of it, and me struggling to find appreciation for it all.

Deep breath!

It’s an easy obsession to understand.  A farmer is involved in two main job endeavors: keep the crops growing and/or keep the animals alive, and those two endeavors are deeply affected by the weather.  Unexpected, out-of-the-norm, extreme weather brings with it problems for a farmer.  There is no time to sit back and marvel at the majesty of a snowstorm when chickens might die.  Ninety-degree days are not for basking in as much as they  require a constant water source for the livestock. Too much rain can ruin seedlings; too little can ruin them as well.

A rainstorm can mean a roof needs patching.  A snowstorm can mean more insulation is needed.  Heavy winds can topple trees onto fences, meaning new fences must be built.  Greenhouses can collapse under too much snow.  Animals can develop hoof rot and/or fungus with too much rain.  The problems can seem endless and overwhelming at times.

Still, it’s one hell of a life.  It’s a life to be proud of.  It’s a life to gain great satisfaction from.  My only regret is that I started so late in life.

I have to go now. My dog, Maggie, and me, we have a walk to take.  The country road is calling me.

Bill

Record Snows and Sweet Melancholy

Snow has arrived.  A storm blanketed us early this week; another is due today (Friday), and still another is due Monday the 11^th.  Very odd for the Pacific Northwest.  We are pampered here.  The Pacific Ocean acts like a comforter for us on the western slopes of the Cascade Mountains.  It keeps our temperatures moderate in winter, so for three snowstorms to fall upon us in the span of one week is almost unprecedented.

The farm is beautiful in the snow.  The firs and pines are cloaked in white.  The fields glisten in the sunlight, dancing sparkles entertaining those who walk among them.  Noise is muffled, as if Nature is holding its breath, declaring to all that sound is not allowed among the shadows.

The birds of the forest chirp, in wonderment or confusion I can’t be sure.  The screech of the hawks is ever-present, for predators are unfazed by the weather, so great is their instinct to find prey.  Occasionally a twig will snap, signaling movement, but no movement can be seen.

Maggie is a child at play on our walks, reminding me of decades past when my parents would have to drag me, kicking and screaming, inside after a day of sledding, snowball fights, and building snow forts.  She bounds through the fields, her snout white, oblivious to the cold, concerned only with the next discovery, and I find myself strangely jealous of my dog as she basks in the wonder of it all.

The chickens are tentative, frightened, confused, their pecking ground covered, unsure of what to do next.  They mainly stay in the walk-in coop, preening, clucking, gathering heat from each other, and I know not what they are thinking for I do not speak their language.

I find myself wistful . . . a sweet melancholy rushes over me . . . the years are rapidly passing as I enter my seventh decade on this planet, and wonder how many more snows I will see, how many more walks I will take . . .

Update: we ended up with eighteen inches of snow.  I was unable to make it to the farm for five days, so our son and his wife handled the chicken duties for me.  I am quite happy watching the snow melt this morning. I didn’t think it was possible to miss a bunch of chickens, but I do.

Bill