Author: Philo

human

Nature vs. Nurture

Companies have begun to “grow” meat products.  These are started with DNA from the various animals that we eat and then are grown, like a plant.  There is something humane about this, at least at first glance. These meat products lack any vestige of conciousness; they are merely food without the death.   I kill most of the meat that I eat, and I don’t like to kill things at all.  But it’s honest and the animals always have a good life.

More and more plants are genetically modified to resist diseases or grow quicker; they are modified to last longer.  And there is something useful about this, at least at first glance.  These plants are often grown with a built-in pesticide or a gene that helps them resist cold temperatures.   I grow most of the food I eat and I don’t like to deal with the pests that enjoy my gardens. But I’ve found that natural remedies tend to take care of the problems.

Less and less people know anything about the food that they eat, where it comes from, what has been done to it, or who controls the food supply.  Grocery stores are easy, plentiful and sometimes a bit expensive.  I don’t like grocery stores because food is viewed simply as a product rather than a staple, and is often not respected.  There’s one right around the corner, near the farmers market.

Farms are no longer bucolic and healthy places to work.  They deal more with drugs and chemicals than with animals and plants.  Farmers are slaves to the companies and companies will soon phase them out for autonomous machinery.  The grocery stores won’t notice.  I hope someone does though.

Doing What Needs to be Done

About two years ago I gave up a cush and fairly lucrative job teaching college to experiment with self-sufficient living.  Since then I have struggled with what to say when people ask me what I do.  The conversations are a bit awkward, at least for me.

First, I am not retired.  It is difficult to remember the last time I worked this hard.  Self-sufficiency consists of farming, but not the industrial type.  Self-sufficient farming is physical and limited, but is rewarding and incredibly efficient if done correctly.  But self-sufficient living is not limited to farming; I am not “just” a farmer.

Self-sufficient living relies upon the ability to fix things, to build things, to plan things, to heat and cool and keep alive.  Self-sufficiency by its very nature is the dichotomy of retirement.  It is the realization that retirement is synonymous with inability.

Secondly, I am not a contractor.  While it is true that much of what I do during the day is carpentry-based the job title is not fully described by carpentry.  While it is true that cabinets and counter tops are installed, they are also built often with wood that was milled right at the farm.  But, I do not own a sawmill and I am not a cabinet builder.  I sometimes must repair machinery or bring old machinery back to life, but I am not a mechanic.

Lastly,  I make money and money is necessary, yes, but self-sufficient living is an act that strives to make money much less necessary.  The hours in the week working at Trollcastle Farm is directly deposited into the bank account but does not come in the form of a check.  Rather, it comes by not having to pay someone else; often money does not exchange hands.  Money comes from not having to buy all the material that I use, all the food I eat.

So, what do I do?  I run a business, a sole proprietorship.  I fix and build things; I grow things, I am a caretaker of the little piece of land that I have.  I work.  I am a working man.  I do what needs to be done.  That is what I do.

To Finish What You’ve Started

There is no way to know what you are getting into when you start a project.  The first hammering of a nail, the first whiff of dust or the first word tells us nothing; it only opens doors to unseen futures, futures that did not exist seconds before we’ve made our decisions.

But, when we’ve made our decisions, it seems, the futures pop into reality from the simplest of ideas, from the most vague of visions.  Futures, the ideas of futures, run our lives albeit silently at first.

The hen may not take to the chicks, the house may not be built, the dream may not succeed, the book may not be written; the idea may die unborn.  And yet we must push on.  It is almost as if a sickness takes over the mind and drives all reason from our heads and fills them with grandeur visions of what could be.

However difficult, however impossible our projects may seem when we are knee deep in mud or muddled over words, no matter if we cannot continue to hammer one more nail in a board, or bring another idea into existence: we must finish what we’ve started.  For not to do so is the true failure.

We must resist the all-powerful feeling to walk away because no matter what we do we will inevitably live and die with our decisions whether or not they are successes.

A Particular Failure

To do what is right is extremely difficult.  The agrarian experiment entails giving up niceties without giving up civilization; the grocery store is still a reality.  However, while visiting the “walk of shame” we are faced with choices: should I buy that bag of bread or bake my own?  Perhaps I should not buy those paper towels and just use my cloths I have at home?

Sometimes we fail to make the right choices because it is too easy to make the wrong choices.

The list goes on: pork, beef, flour, milk…

The opportunities are always available: farmer’s markets, neighbors, localvore, and just doing without.

Sometimes when we fail, we know that we have failed, or perhaps more honest: that we are failing in the moment; that we fail ourselves is the worst.  On the farm, failure is, as has so many times been said, not an option: the work must get done, and there will always be more work.

I cannot feel but there is a correlation in politics today.  This country has made the wrong choice because it was an easy choice to make for some.  To make the right choice from this point on will be difficult.   And while I do not wish this simple blog to become simply a political  podium, and cannot but hope that after this failure is finally finished that we can turn and perhaps after acknowledging that we have failed our selves, can pick up and do the work that is inevitably waiting as it is until our dying days.

Quotes

“The military does not create killers; it’s just finishing school.”

“The veneer of civilization is very, very thin…”

“We will not make the same old mistakes; we will make our own.”

“Whoever cries enough, laughs.”

“Windmills are going to be the death of Scotland and even England if they don’t do something about them. They are ruining the countryside.”

“Ignorance is a challenge; stupidity is a choice.”

“An honest man is always a child.”

“You’re class is too hard.”…”And why do you think that?”….”Because I’m not doing very well.”

“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.”

Pieces and Pictures.

 

As of late, the main job at the farm has been finishing the shop.  “Finishing” has included a hectic schedule of demolition and renovation that has lasted approximately five months.  The job was done alone, and perhaps because of the concentrated reno-work or simply because of the single-handedness there has been an intimate relationship with almost every piece, pipe, and plug in the place.

Now the newly installed floors are being sanded.  Every nook, every cranny, every crack and misplaced joint has been stared down.  The largeness of the job has become a singularity of pieces of a puzzle that is much larger than it seems.  Perspectives change without us knowing.

The fields are unmowed and the barn is filled with “stuff”, seemingly forgotten because of the total concentration on the shop.  However, perspectives change.  The sanding and preparation done, the floors are ready for finishing and the time to broaden perspectives again is now on the horizon.  Perhaps, with a little luck, the farming will come into view soon.

Perhaps soon the nooks and crannies, the cracks and crevices will be forgotten for different puzzles and pieces.  And one day, perhaps, all the pieces will be placed; standing back the picture that was always there, in pieces, will be in full view.  Perspectives change with the pictures that we create.

When in Doubt…

When in doubt, sit and have a cup of coffee.  There are times when we are stumped, misled, in a conundrum about how to do, how to fix something (and there are always things to fix).  To have the patience to know when it is time to stop and have a cup of coffee, however, is a talent that many do not have.

It takes perseverance and patience to know when it is time to stop.

What is the teacher that teaches us such things?  Anger and frustration.  Things don’t care and the universe (especially physics) has no aim or motivation to make our lives miserable.  We do just fine at that without any help.

When to tool slips, the nut strips, the puzzle just cannot be figured out…take a break.

On a farm it is easy to get wrapped up in the endless maze of chores, of work, of reparations.  But, having lived a life both in the professional and agrarian world, the endless list of things to do differ only in type, not amount.

And so take a break, grab a chair, have a coffee, get a nap; do what you need to do to figure out the problem.  As many have found out: many a puzzle has been solved in dreams.

Speed Limits

 

For the last ten days I’ve been motorcycling around the Northeast and the Midwest.  Through the rolling mountains of New York, the Catskills and the Allegheny mountains touted small towns, luscious forests and hidden restaurant gems that serve farm-to-table foods together with local brews.

The Allegheny mountains through Pennsylvania seemed more rough and rowdy than the somewhat civilized backwoods of New York, but they too served up ready brews and food from local farmers.  The stars of the trip, no doubt, but the winding road through West Virginia and the amazing nature that goes along with such twisting scenery soothes the soul, even at 65 mph around 35 mph corners.

The Midwest’s flat lands were a welcomed respite from from the work of the winding roads that flattened out in Ohio, Indiana and Missouri.  The food changed too.  Now the long single-lane roads were dotted with small towns and more fast-food.  The roads were beautiful in themselves and offered thoughts that were often recited out loud in the helmet while the wind whistled constantly.

I love motorcycles because they allow the riders willing to search an experience that is lost on those that scale the highways in their air-conditioned automobiles.  The experience is sensory in all its forms: from the smells to the tastes of coming rains.  The motorcyclist recognizes the differences between the small back roads and the long reigning highways.

The small roads offer smells of pine and forest, of food and farms, of the dank and dusky smells of animal life to the warm and inviting smells of people cooking for others.  The highways offer time but at a price: the experiences are limited to oil in fryers to oil at the gas stations.  Everything is fast, from the food to the freeways.

I have lived on the highways for long enough, but the small back roads take getting used to.  Perhaps I will slow those corners to their posted speed limits one day.motorcycles

Stupid Questions

We have a broody hen.  For those who may not know, a broody hen is one desires “motherhood”.  Our hen has been broody for about 1 1/2 weeks so far, but keeps changing boxes.  The cure is one of three things: 1) wait it out, 2) let her lay on eggs, or 3) buy some chicks and give them to her.

The natural thing is to let her lay on eggs, and we are trying to be as natural as possible: nature does know best.  However, she keeps moving boxes after a few days and by then the eggs are bad.  Is this natural?  Perhaps it is.

One thing I’ve learned from working on a farm is that the best method is the natural method; there are really no exceptions for this: nature really does know best.  But what’s in it for nature when a hen keeps moving?

The question, I think, is wrong headed: nature has not motivated goal, no purpose.  When I go into the hen house and my broody hen has moved it is me that wonders, not her.  Nature, like farming, is messy and running blind.  As farmers we really just hang on for the ride and try to find sunny spots to plant things in; we try to give our animals the best lives we can.

We fail much of the time, but much off the time we try to be farmers rather than caretakers.

My broody hen lays in her box because that’s what her body is telling her to do.  Maybe if we listened to nature a bit more we would stop asking such stupid questions too?

Persistent Perseverance

To make anything of value work, persistence is the key.  This old and perhaps worn-out adage is, in fact, true.  As a newly minted, self-sufficient farmer I can attest for that.  However, persistence is only half the story.

Perseverance is the other half.  Self-sufficiency is honest work; it is demanding work, and it is unforgiving.  Failure is not an option: it is a matter of fact, it is an absolute.  You will persist…at first.

And when persistence seems impossible, perseverance needs to take over.

Often times the work will seem endless, giving up seems at times the only option, but only half of that is true: the work is endless but life is not.

Take time to look up at the stars at night.  Take time to watch the fog break early in the morning over the uncut fields.  Take time to watch the turkey eating the fallen crab apples down by the creek.  And take time to enjoy life and the ones you love.

Work will be there, as it always is, but we must persevere in the happiness that is life and be persistent in the value that we put upon it.