Low Stress Farming

Dear Farmer came in yesterday and did his electrician thing. Wired up the outlets for a brilliant chuck wagon, the "sock" and the "shoe". Then we took a walk in the garden with children howling beside us (they are the local natives). He decided to get gas and took three daughters with him. When he came home, it still wasn't bedtime. What is this strange life? We call it " low stress".  No need for a pot of coffee and an hour of pacing to get worked up enough to walk out the door. No bombardment of phone calls or emails. For anyone wondering if it's worth it to make a major lifestyle change or have a stroke...do the change!!!

What we changed to:
Pay cut
Tiny house
Smaller herd
Bigger garden
More time
New job
Moved location

No Regrets!

Easy to be Distracted

It is the season that Dear Farmer and Family can be all too distracted.
There's chickens to be housed and cared for, buildings to build, the garden to plan and plant, goats hooves need to be trimmed, calf needs brushed, house needs little tweeks here and there, people to visit with, unending chores, fences to build, tractors to fix and clean, barns to clean, yard to cut....the list goes on and on....
With such a list, it's hard to "Stay On Task!"  {Perhaps that will be our theme this year...hmmmm....}
Priority given to things that must be done IMMEDIATELY!, like housing the little chicks.  And our missing 200...they came in yesterday...all 300 of them.  Someone at the chickery is having a good laugh, we think. The littlest chicks cannot fend for themselves, depending on us for their every need...
What else on the farm ranks in that same class? The smallest children.  Okay, both go on the highest priority.
Next on the list probably comes the rest of the animals, and medium size children.
And so on, and so forth...
But the list becomes hazy when the sun is shining and the birds are singing...and all Dear Farmer really wants to do is walk among the cows.  Sit in the shade and admire the beauty of creation.  Watch the children play Frisbee on a warm summer night.  These are both the reasons to keep plugging on through the work of today...and reasons to stay on task tomorrow.
Distractions can be the making of the memory...or the downfall of organization...
And so...we attempt to "Stay On Task!"
However, if you come to visit us, we'll happily be distracted!!!

Multi-tasking...

There are a lot of things Dear Farmer can do.
Multi-tasking, however, should not be one of them.
Dear Farmer has a habit of working in his head on a project, "listening" to the Wife talk, all while actually working on another project.
Surely I exaggerate, you say? No.  I am totally serious.
The fact that he does this, and does it on a very (all too) frequent basis, can fool most people into thinking that he can do it well.
The Wife concedes...usually he does do it well.
EXCEPT!  Except if it is late at night.  Late at night and driving.  Not a good combination.

Example: Dear Farmer and the Wife were out on a date.  Another "hot date" to the local farm-implement store and lumber yard.  While in these locations the Wife had opportunity to think on the present "tiny house" project we have going.  Think and think...and then release on Dear Farmer.  The conversation on the ride home was lively and funny and insightful.  And un-knowingly to the Wife...Dear Farmer was building the ideas into the plans of the "tiny house" in his head.  He was measuring lengths and angles while the Wife continued on the conversation about wash-tubs and clothes lines...
Then it happened.
As we were driving down the highway, approaching our turn-off to home...Dear Farmer didn't slow.  At all.
Not even a little. And the turn was coming up really fast!
The Wife did a little yelp ("turn.").  He didn't respond.
The Wife did a little more forceful yelp ("Turn!").  He blinked and looked around bewildered.
The Wife got all out bossy ("TURN, NOW!").
 Dear Farmer finally responded, "WHY? WHERE ARE WE?!"
"At the ROAD we LIVE DOWN!", the Wife elaborated in a rather forceful voice.
Dear Farmer yanked the steering wheel, stomped on the brake and turned (not a delicate movement by any means).
"What were you DOING?!", the Wife laid into Dear Farmer.
Sheepishly, Dear Farmer responded..."I was working on the tiny house, and driving home from Illinois on a Sunday night."
So we could either say that Dear Farmer was multi-tasking...or displaying signs of early-onslaught dimensia.  We'll go with the multi-tasking.
Dear Farmer, being his wonderful multi-tasking self, was figuring out the gutter system for the tiny houses, thinking about his upcoming commute to see us at the family garden on the Illinois farm and then returning to the Northern Farm on a Sunday evening, all while talking with the Wife on our drive home from our "hot date".
But late night, the worlds in his head, and in reality clashed...and he almost missed the turn to home.

Lots of laughter, lots of elbowing, and some good chuckles from the Farmer's Daughters, the Nordic Ninja, and the Wife.
We love our Dear Farmer...even while he's multi-tasking.

The Careful Planning of a Tiny House...or...The Size of My Shoe

Dear Farmer promised to build the Wife a tiny house in lieu of tent camping this year out at the garden.  The Wife has always loved tiny houses, we first started in one(see article: The Movement We Never Abandoned 2/23/2016 ) and the thought of being able to go back into one is a dream come to reality.
But exactly how to build a tiny house for a family of...ahem...thirteen?
Start by checking out the regulations for building a tiny house on wheels.  For a family of thirteen to live in the tiny house for an entire summer and fall...that size is SO not happening. He would need to build three tiny houses...but as we do not have three trailers, three vehicles to pull trailers, or three drivers. We quickly eliminate the wheels and trailer.
Now we are looking at building tiny house on skids.  This way house can be moved from location to location on site which makes the house an option for more uses.  If no one is residing in it, the house can become a storage shed, a studio, or even a chicken coop.
The tiny house will have two doors, two windows(actual double hung windows) and sleeping spots enough for thirteen.

But what happens to all the stuff you need?
Let's talk needs:
Food
Water
Clothing
Shelter

Those are all our basic human needs. Past that it's all luxuries.

The Wife has every intention of giving each child the luxury of electricity, internet, plumbing, fans, heat, and a small space for individual trinkets/toys.
Clothing will be kept in a mobile trailer that we will need to power-wash to get the stink of animals out of(the goats had lived there for a time) and Dear Farmer has plans to make it into a "family closet".
So far as washing those clothes go...a Laundromat isn't so bad, and if the Wife gets desperate to have her arms get a good workout, there's the clothing plunger and wringer secured on a tub.  Old Fashioned has a time and a place.
Now Dear Farmer is in the process of drawing up the plan for the tiny house for the Wife.  He estimates the size to be 10 x 20.
I guess for the summer the Wife will be the "...little old lady who lived in a shoe, she had so many children she didn't know what to do...".  Perhaps, like the Gilbreth Family (Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank and Ernistine Gilbreth) we will have to name the tiny house "THE SHOE".

Buying Fencing...or...The Reason Dear Farmer Takes His Wife Shopping

So off to the local farm supply store Dear Farmer and the Wife go!  It's date-night!

On the list: goat oats, new collar for polar bear(she's chewed off the other), and...fencing.

About three seconds outside the store the Wife realizes...she forgot her phone at home.

"Ugh!", says Dear Farmer, "Why do you even HAVE a phone?!"(This is a mute argument, everyone knows Wives have phones so they can leave them where they are not.)

The Wife says to Dear Farmer, "Don't worry.  I'm a big girl! I can handle the farm supply store.  I'll get what I need for the goats and the polar bear and I'll meet you in the fencing supply."

And so off they separate.

Dear Farmer goes off to the fencing supply.

The Wife detours to the kitchen gadgets, then rounds the corner to the canning supplies, over to the shoes...boots...children's boots...looks for all the sizes for the children who are needing shoes, realizes the boots cost more than she is willing to spend...over to the clearance racks for clothing..., down past the baby clothes(that are so darn cute!  do we know anyone that is having a baby???), through all the garden supplies, checking out the seeds, meanders through the paint department(to grab some colors that she'll never get to paint, but wouldn't it be nice to dream), through the hunting section, over to the bikes, and the books, and the dog toys....picks up the collar for the polar bear, picks up the goats oats, and turns to the fencing...
where she finds Dear Farmer.

It's been an hour.

 Dear Farmer is staring at a computer screen.
This is where he's to order the fence.
There's no one around to help him work the computer.
 He looks at the Wife and growls, "I hate technology!  I've been messing with this screen and I can't get it to the stuff I want!"

The Wife has two choices: Do it herself or find an associate.
She opts for the associate.
Over one aisle she finds an associate and explains a farmer needs his help.
 He doesn't look surprised.

Dear Farmer tells the associate what he needs.  The associate finds it, makes the screen work just fine, asks Dear Farmer if there is anything else he can help him with, and prints out the needed papers for the check out.  Dear Farmer laughs with the associate about the "good ol' days" when a person spoke to another person and they handed them what they needed.  The associate smiles and nods, then walks away...Dear Farmer figures the associate must be about twelve, "Had no idea what I was talking about.", he says.

Dear Farmer and the Wife go to the check out.

The cashier checks them out, she's about twelve as well.
They hand the cashier cash.
She looks at Dear Farmer almost sympathetically as she asks if he would like to open a credit card with the store.
Dear Farmer replies a solid, "No."
The cashier has to inspect the bills, draw on them with a marker, and then the computer tells her exactly what change to hand back.
She didn't have to do any math.

Dear Farmer and the Wife drive away with everything on the list.  Most importantly the fencing...

On the way home the conversation is about how young everyone in looks these days, and how young the police officers are(do their mothers know they carry guns?!).  They laugh about the not having to do math, and the credit card offers.  They giggle about the computers that aren't Dear Farmer's friends.

It's the fun of the evening...it's the lighter side of a boring activity...it's life...Dear Farmer's life.

To Be Industrious

Farming and the character trait of Industriousness go hand in hand.  Did you know that?
The Wife had first discovered this during childhood while talking with her Grandma the Amazing Farm Wife. When Grandma, while hanging laundry on the line, said,"A gardener doesn't go hungry.  It's hard work, but it feeds the family when others might go without." She had said this to The Wife when she lived in town.  Her garden consumed the entire side of the corner lot the house sat on, and it also shared the space with the walkway from the ally and the clothesline.  Looking back, it was a Norman Rockwell moment, but at the time, it was just barely appreciated.  One simple sentence and it planted the seed of Industriousness in The Wife for the rest of her life.

Living on the farm now we have no choice but to be industrious at times...the cows got out and there was no gate to block the road, we had to figure out how to make three people seem like a very large deterrence at the road side...things like this happen often enough to make you prepared at a moment's notice.
Then there's times that we choose to be industrious...to heat with wood, to milk a goat, to make soap, or to boil down bones for broth.
We see our children taking industriousness to the next level...knitting hats, gloves, dishcloths, crocheting blankets, stuffed animals, and slippers, making gifts with wood and nails, and training goats to pack-goat so they don't have to carry the heavy loads.

Recently we spent time with our Uncle Intelligentsia and his wife, Aunt Intelligentsia.  It was fantastic to hear Aunt Intelligentsia tell us of her process to insure the city where they live in be educated and funded for the community garden project.  She has had to be Industrious to see healthy lives restored even in the city.

Dear Farmer looks at Industriousness as a part of sustainable agriculture.  If there is no character of Industriousness in a farmer, there won't be a sustainable farm.  The two go hand in hand.
It's not easy, not always fun, sometimes barely appreciated...but it will change lives for generations.