Twelve

 

It's December.  And like so many other Decembers, those who write get tempted to review how the year has gone up to this point.  It sometimes feels as if we discount December as a month where nothing can happen in it because we're too busy looking back.

And so, in protest against our tendency to do just that, I decided to do something different and look back to years prior to 2023. 

I'm such a rebel.

Actually, my motivation has come from recent efforts to do some much needed organizing.  You see, I have reached a critical mass of unorganized files - both on the computer and in the farm office.  The symptoms are increased grumblings and rising frustration as I attempt to find something that I KNOW I have and want to locate so I can complete a project.

So, in an effort to clean out files and pictures I no longer need, I spent some time perusing pictures that were fairly well organized from over a decade ago.

Yeah, that's not terribly effective if I am truly dedicated to achieving my goal.  But, it did result in motivation to write.  So, it can't be all bad, can it?

In any event, I came across these images in June of 2011.  Our farm had (and still has) a nice granary that sits pretty close to the center of the farm.  But, like nearly every other building on the farm, the roof had not been maintained and we were needing to make the choice - fix the roof or watch the building slowly come down.

These pictures reveal so many things that I might not have fully recognized in 2011.  But, now that I have the distance time gives, I can view things from a much broader perspective.  

Upon our arrival at the farm in 2004, there were seven buildings.  Among them was a large barn with a milking parlor added on and a farrowing building.  Both of those buildings are down.  The barn still needs to be cleaned up, but the other building has been gone for some time.  Otherwise, the house, truck barn, Poultry Pavilion and the granary have all gotten new roofing.

And all of them have undergone significant changes.

The granary had a cupola that, while it looked neat, was the center of most of the degradation of the building.  If we had been "made of money" we might have done things differently.  But, as it was, we had to figure out a balance that was affordable and effective.  So, the cupola came down and the roof went on.

The granary has undergone other changes, like two new doors, one on each end.  But, we have never quite managed to gather enough resources (including motivation) to push through and do all of the things we thought we might do with it one day.

Of course, some of those dreams were products of needs and desires from twelve years ago.  Things aren't the same now, so some of those dreams are no longer relevant.  But, the granary still stands.  And that, in itself, is an accomplishment.  Things could have gone very differently than they did.  But they didn't - and that's why it can be important to take the time to look back and reflect.

In the moment in time that this work was being done, we were desperately doing our best to plant, harvest, weed and do all that we did every June for many years on the farm.  Our hands were "on the plow" and our heads were down as we worked to make the season a success.

But, twelve years later, I looked at some of the blog posts and I have a different view.

Yes, we put a new roof on the granary and that building is still up and it is still useful to us.

And....

• Our peer mentorship with Blue Gate Farm, Scattergood Friends School Farm and Grinnell Heritage Farm officially started in 2011.
• Rob played his last baseball game that year.
• We reframed both the west and east sides of the Truck Barn which, ironically is now in need of some similar attention today.
• Tammy (and I to a lesser extent) helped to bring the Waverly Community Gardens from idea to reality in 2011.
• 2011 was the year we started taking scaling up our equipment seriously (probably in part because we had some peer support - see the first item in this list).  this was the year we added a BCS walk-behind tractor the farm too!

After I wrote a post on 2010, I figured that was about as pivotal as we could get for our farm.  Then, I look at this list - knowing there was much more going on - and I see things that are every bit as important.

For example, where would we be if we had not started on our journey with our farm friends?   

Well, things would be different now, that's for certain.  And I don't think things would be better either.