December Genuine Faux Farm News

This will be the first time since August/September 2019 that we've managed to produce a GFF Newsletter two months in a row.  Of course, I've also been producing a blog post nearly every day since April 2020 and we do put together a short email newsletter for each delivery.  But, I've come to realize that we've gotten away from letting people know what IS going on at the farm. 

What's up at the farm?

I have to admit that I've been grateful for some above average temperatures in the late Fall this year.  With the Pesticide Action Network job, I am not as free to work on the farm as I was in prior years, so this has given me a chance to get things done without a high-stress/high-energy burst of long days in frigid weather attempting to get it ALL done.

Of course, there is never such a thing as getting it all done.  If I've learned one thing - that's it - work on the farm is perpetual and continuous.  But, it is also true that there are things that really need to be done by a certain time and others that you can... well, you can get along without completing them for a while longer.

At this point, we've gotten almost all of the irrigation equipment in and most of the poultry equipment is also in.  The hens are in their winter room and winter pasture.  Crops are done for the season as we decided not to do anything with late plantings and will probably just go with some very early plantings for next Spring.

We are about at the point where we shut down the walk-in (which is now used to keep things warm rather than cool) and move the remaining product into the house.  The biggest projects are to clean up the high tunnels, clean the turkey and brooder rooms, and re-arrange all of the equipment in our outbuildings so it is all properly sheltered AND we can get to the things we need to get to.

Of course I have simplified the list for this post and, of course, we won't get everything done I hope to complete before we decide we just ride the rest of the winter months out at whatever point we get to in the next week or two.  It's a typical early December on the farm.  We do what we can and then we do what we have to.

Avoiding the temptation of the Status Quo

We have made some decisions to move on to different models for our farm during the last few years.  One of our consistent enterprises has been to raise broiler chickens for meat and turkeys.  We are aware that we have developed very good systems for each and it is often easier to just "leave well enough alone" and just keep doing what we've been doing.

Except.

Except, we found that we were getting pretty tired of raising the broiler chickens in the numbers we had been doing.  They were taking too much of our available farm time and energy and we weren't getting to do some of the things on the farm that we like doing more.

So, there has been an internal battle where we find ourselves see-sawing back and forth.  How can we give up an enterprise that by most measures is successful and in a good position to continue that way?  How can we justify feeling worn out by one enterprise when the others we enjoy more suffer from lack of attention?

Don't worry, we aren't struggling with it that much.  We continue to stand behind the decision to raise turkeys, but drop broilers to numbers that are more personal and family use numbers.  But, we want to point out that voluntary changes in life aren't always that easy to see all the way through.  

Seed Savers and Jorgensen Plaza for the win in 2022

Rob will continue to work his 90% time job for Pesticide Action Network for the foreseeable future and Tammy will continue to work for Wartburg College as a Professor of Social Work.  We do not anticipate hiring someone on a permanent basis to work on the farm.  As a result, we have to be very selective in how we parse out our farm hours.

What we have learned in 2021 is that we CAN accomplish a lot, but we have to continue to shave certain tasks off of the list if we want to be successful with the Genuine Faux Farm and our jobs.  While we did lose two of the three crops we grew for Seed Savers to extreme weather events, we feel comfortable that we can still produce for them in the future.  The concentration of labor needs favors our new model, so we will continue to refine our processes to make this one work until it does OR until we are certain it will not work.  

And, we have been pleased that Jorgensen Plaza's kitchen has become much easier to work with during the past several months, increasing our optimism that we can grow food crops in larger, bulk amounts to serve their needs.  With farm time at a premium, we cannot spend it as we did when we ran a CSA farm share program or other models with numerous small orders.  We still want to grow food for local consumption and this is our window to do so.  Here's hoping we can continue to work with JP in the future.

Remaining 2021 Schedule

We have one remaining egg delivery scheduled for 2021 on December 8th (Wednesday).  We will maintain our normal times - 5:15-5:30 at Yogi Life in Waverly and 6:00-6:15 in the West parking lot at Jorgensen Plaza.  

After that delivery, we may contact individuals who have ordered larger numbers of eggs if we get overwhelmed by the numbers in our hands.  Otherwise, we will see you again in 2022.