Woodlot Manifesto: Part I

This is a little off-topic, but it’s been kicking around my head for a while now, so I figured I’d post it. My husband and I have been going around recently, telling everyone that we want to farm when asked What We Do. There are a surprising number of positive responses, which is very cool to see. There are also a surprising number of people who think we’re kidding. I can’t think of why- it’s not as if farming is untraditional or anything. ^_^

I want to make a few things clear first, since the word Farm means a lot of different things. We do not plan to make our entire living from the farm. Lest this be taken as a copout, let it be remembered that pretty much nobody made their entire living from a farm until the 20th century, and few of even the large-scale “real” farmers do it today. Mr. Mellifera is currently studying to be a history professor. This is an excellent counterpart to farming because once tenure occurs, there are no more career-related moves. His job will also provide those all-important benefits and a salary, which although apparently considered pretty piddly by professional standards, is puh-lenty for farming.

What we grow will depend a lot on where we end up with his job—I think it would be fun to do some maple sugaring, but if we end up in Tennessee it ain’t happening. More important than that is having a general idea of what you want out of your farm—how much it will be oriented towards self-sufficiency vs. cash crops, animals (yes or no?), how one’s children and extended family will fit into the picture, what your standard-of-living expectations are (or aren’t), etc. That being said, we’d like a giant veggie garden, a straw-bale/cob house and outbuildings with masonry stove heating, chickens, berries, bees, fruit trees, some permanent pasture, and some fields to rotate between pasture and grains. And sheep. I will admit I’ve kind of fallen in love with Icelandic sheep (so low-maintenance! So delicious!) and keep telling Husband we have to live somewhere cold enough that sheep would be alright. Not like all the sick alpacas people keep bringing to the vet hospital I’m working at right now (in Florida. For some reason wool-growin’ critters native to the Andes just don’t do well here).

Anyway, looks like the preamble was wordy in its own right, but that’s ok. Onto the actual document. It will occur in parts since nobody wants to read long posts and I don’t like to write ‘em. I’d like to dedicate this series to Wes Jackson, Wendell Berry, Allan Savory, and especially Gene Logsdon—farmer-writers who wrote from real experience, not dreams, and showed me life has other possibilities.