It’s a new day rising in a new year, perfect timing for Tiny Farm Blog to officially become a tale of TWO (tiny) farms: where I started out on this surprise growing adventure six seasons ago, and what comes next. There’s a long and complicated story here, not without its drama and prickly points, but luckily, all that is really beyond what TFB is about, so I don’t have to go into it here! Yay. The new situation is as much of an unusual and unlikely set-up as the current one was unexpected, a more or less instant meeting of minds. There were more, well, logical options, but this feels right. It’s very real tiny farming, with all of the hard (though fun!) work and financial challenges to face, PLUS, the prospect of a whole new start-up in the field…which is the really exciting, critical part.
The new farm is just down the road, only about 30km (19mi) away, but with the many lakes in between, getting there by road doubles the distance. I won’t lose touch with the PEOPLE I’ve come to know and the friends I’ve made, but it means a complete change in my I-don’t-drive local. The garden and facilities are also nearly starting from scratch. I’m going from a farm refined over several generations for this one purpose—a fantastically practical agricultural infrastructure, you could say, with Bob a living part of it, carrying forward a couple of centuries of classic farm maintenance skills—to loosely tended hay fields and a small, bare barn.
I guess for me it comes down to challenge, perseverance and a self-test (although I really don’t like…testing!!): How transferable is the “tiny” spirit, how much have I REALLY learned, and how far can tiny farming go, without becoming just another small business (let alone, just another mortgage payment)? I’ll include more details of the old and the new, as they fit. In any case, this should make for interesting times on the blog. As I understand it so far, tiny farming is about growing, about people as much as crops, and it’s about change… Let’s see what happens! :)
