Moving day minus one. Tomorrow we take the second trailer load, the main haul (when moving a tiny farm, it’s good to have access to a 20-foot trailer like this one, it’s Bob’s) The first move day, Part 1, was at the end of November, with the Kubota compact tractor and some other bigger stuff, like irrigation pipe, the greens-drying washing machine, the Horse rototiller, heavier things. This time around, it’s all of the smaller, indoor tiny farming gear: seed inventory, light racks, plug sheets and other seed starting tools, books, computer, PAPERS (lots of paper, somehow, bins full of notes, print-outs, brochures, receipts, you name it), hand tools, and so on and on. The one big item is the composting toilet, complete with its converted ice fishing hut enclosure (which is crammed with fluorescent light fixtures and plug sheets for the move). We did a bit of loading today, but most will happen tomorrow morning. After this, there’s a final trailer load in March: John Deere riding mower, greenhouse, farm stand, a heap of valuable scrap lumber. Moving an entire line-up of tiny farming gear is a really interesting way to see exactly what STUFF we think it takes to grow food on a small scale, on a couple of acres. Of course, the equipment list can vary a lot from tiny farm to tiny farm, but this overall set-up is probably pretty similar to the majority of North American under-five-acre farms. It’s not SO much gear, but we still rely on a lot to grow. A lot more than a handful of seed and a pointy stick!
Mid-February melt-off
It rained steadily, on and off, all day yesterday, through the night and still today, with the temperature a couple of degrees above zero. In other words, cold, gray, wet, miserable, and also perfect for removing vast quantities of snow. The 2-3′ of coverage in the field is gone. It’s still cold, though, and back to sub-zero tomorrow, so no giant warm blast of spring just yet, only an easy way to the greenhouse to clean stuff out. Great timing!
Onions emerge
Four days from seeding and the first Red Wing onions are popping up. A fine sight to see, the first new on-farm veggie greenery of the season! These guys will be transported to the new farm on Sunday… So many things going on at once—seed starting while moving the tiny farm—if you’re a fan of the slightly surreal (I am!), this is just great!
See ya, goats and chickens…
Doing the last rounds on the old farm, saying farewell to chickens and goats. Here, a bunch of the girls (goats) are chomping away on hay, and the eight cockerels are enjoying a day in the cold sun. They seem to be getting on well, there used to be usually one low guy running a little scared, but since they’ve been kept in for a bunch of supercold days, all has apparently been worked out and they stick togther now. Of course, who knows what’s going on in the chicken mind?! The goodbye is not any formal thing—a little ceremony, perhaps?!—just something in my head. Ends and beginnings are weird, before and after we can make as much or as little of ’em as we like, but the actual fact happens in a blink. It looks like I’ll do the big main farming move on Sunday. The farm sale doesn’t close for a couple of months, so I’ll be back here in March (hey, that’s only next month already!) for the greenhouse and to dig up some herb transplants. Meanwhile, I’ve given Bob the chickens (the girls are laying away, the guys, well, they’re past their tender meat-bird prime…and looking good), so they’re be well taken care of. And I’m looking around these last days with slightly new eyes at the familiar stuff I’ll be leaving… :)
Fully enclosed, at last
A 10-hour day with Bob, and plywood is up on the four walls of the new seedling room. It’s rough work, with an uneven floor and really uneven joists to cut around, either spend forever measuring and marking, or recut by increments for tight fits, or do the cut-outs generously and get things done quick. We took the rougher, faster route…and got done. There’s still the ceiling to go, but the room is already snug enough to heat, so the move is next! This feels like a weekly installment TV show, it seems to be taking so long. No wonder, we’ve only been averaging a day or two of building a week. But other things are moving forward as well, and the end of this little project is really just around the bend. That’s good!
New seed started!
This is it, the official start of the new growing season (since there wasn’t time to plant out garlic in the fall at the new farm)! I seeded a fresh packet of 1,000 Red Wing red onion seeds in three 72-cell plug sheets. That’s 4-5 seeds per cell—after the good results last season, I’m going the multi-plant route again, 3-4 onions in one spot, instead of singles. There are lots more onions and leek to come, including sets, this is the beginning. I’m still at the old farm, the new seedling room is not quite ready, so I’ll be starting a few more things here in the next couple of days, and take them along on the move! For the Red Wing, I hung a couple of lights on one of the light racks. As usual, the trays are covered in plastic wrap to hold heat and moisture. This tiny farm marches on!
Village general store
When I came to the farm six years ago, there was a second, slightly bigger store, actually called the General Store. It was sold, managed badly by the new owners, and soon went out of business, and Isabel’s mini-emporium of necessary stuff became the last store standing for 10 miles around. It’s a three-minute walk down the road—the farm is right on the edge of the village—and I’ve gone there for this or that, including picking up the mail, most of the days that I’ve been here. It doesn’t have a particularly quaint, rustic country store look, but it does the job! Isabel had been running it for decades, knew everybody, and her easy blend of diplomacy, discretion and informative chat made it a news hub for the area (no small thing: you find out the rural life is all about what people are up to). And she had a sharp eye for country retail. As I slowly found out with some amazement (coming from a land of endless stores), she managed to pack just about everything you had to have NOW into one small space. A 3-inch drain plug, gear clamp, 2-stroke motor oil, Kikkoman Japanese soy sauce, photocopies, if you really needed it, chances are it was in there. I used to joke (well, I was serious) that on one tiny, 2’x4′ section of wall, she had 90% of the most useful stuff in the giant hardware store in town. Her strategy was pretty simple, keeping tabs on exactly what her customers, farmers and cottagers, and the more “city” type commuting folk living in the village, needed again and again. Combined with my not driving, Isabel’s efficiency encouraged the growing make-do-or-do-without part of my tiny farm experience. It’s startling how much extra junk you don’t really need to buy. For minimalist one-stop shopping: 4 stars! :)