Why starting a farm is intimidating:
Internet Startup
Farm Startup
And did I mention the uncontrollable factors of pests, disease, and weather?
I am looking for work. But not just any work, the proper kind of work.
Good work seems difficult to find. I must be patient and remember what I am looking for.
My Principles for Work
1. My work should be something I can pour myself into, something I can be passionate about, work that I believe is worthwhile. The goals towards which I work and the means by which I work towards these goals should be virtuous.
2. My work should be challenging but attainable, busy but not exhausting — both mentally and physically. I should always be learning and, at the same time, doing things that I am good at and confident in.
3. My work should not maintain the status quo of a system that is unhealthy — the system in which the work is placed must be healthy or the work must move the system towards becoming healthy.
4. My work should help others.
5. My work should pay a fair and living wage for what I put into it. My work should allow me to live comfortably enough, to feel financially stable, and to be able to save for the future. The present should not be sacrificed for the future, nor should the future be sacrificed for the present.
6. My work should be collaborative and with people I like.
These are the principles for the work I am seeking; perhaps, too, principles for life.
Ah, been quite a long time since I wrote anything here. Much too has happened.
I finished up at the ranch in early August — 14 months there, all said and done. And I now know 10 times more about cows and oysters than I ever did before, among other things. But I am still by no means equipped to farm anything of any sort on my own — in other words, I am not really “Farmer Wu” but more like “on-the-way-to-becoming Farmer Wu.” An exciting path, to say the least.
After the ranch, I made a trip out to North Carolina and back (for a wedding). Then spent some time couchsurfing in SF, housesitting in Berkeley, and camping in Napa, with some in between time in hotels with my mom while we continued to look for some house properties in the area. The aim is to have something purchased by the end of the year, but we’ll see how that goes. That will be my home base for future endeavors; and a nice place to retire for the parents. After the floating around, I flew to Atlanta (by way of Chicago) for more weddings. And that is where I am now — staying at home, relaxing most of the time, attempting to find workshops/classes I can attend while I’m here. It’s been nice to have some time off.
As for next steps, I applied to a 6 month intensive vegetable farming program in Santa Cruz, which I will find out about in December and which would start in April. Between now and then will be consumed by house-buying, house-cleaning-up, house-moving, house-fixing-stuff-that-I-may-or-may-not-know-how-to-do, and house-gardening. I will most likely find some vegetable farm to work at, but not until January at the earliest. But those are my plans. Slow plans; I savor the pace.
I’ve also been thinking plenty and trying to concisely define what my broad goals/principles are. I recently re-read Wendell Berry’s Unsettling of America, which was probably the one book that I would attribute the most influence. So, out of that, a few ideas, distilled I hope:
1. Becoming a Producer. I would like to become a producer and a consumer. As Wendell Berry puts it — to be equal to one’s own needs. To this end I want to grow much of my own food (veggies, meat, honey, eggs, milk) and to cook it — how delectable! I’d like to learn how to fix and build stuff around the house (carpentry, woodworking, plumbing, electrical, sewing, who knows). Whether I want to go into commercial food production I don’t know — I’ll have to get more experience in these before I am able to make a decision. But the principle is to be able to provide a number of things for myself, first hand, instead of doing everything by the proxy of money. That the work of production is entertaining, stimulating, skillful,
2. Nature as Model. In whatever capacity of production, I would like to take nature as model, as much as possible. In terms of growing food, it has to do with animals and vegetables together, integrating annuals and perennials, some maintaining of wildness, letting natural processes do the work for me, increasing diversity. It has to do with turning waste into fertility, creating/using indigenous energy (I just made that term up), searching for solutions that solve multiple problems and that function on multiple levels/circles, and working on a small scale. Think little, not big.
3. Community, Connection, History. This, I think, is much a function of staying put. The value of being settled, of knowing the history of the people around you, the land around you. Things accumulated slowly over time. Taking the phrase “staying in touch” literally, physically. And despite the fierce independence of being a producer, understanding the necessary reliance on others — but best if that reliance is on others you know.
This is the last of roundup events that I had yet to see. Branding of calves (with an electronic hot brand, as required by the state) and the administering of the Bang’s vaccine, a contagious disease that causes spontaneous abortion. Serious stuff. Only vets can administer the vaccine (unlike some of the other ones we can give) and each dose is tagged with a unique ID, which is affixed to the ear and which is also tattooed on the ear.
Here is the tool to be used for branding.
Branding Iron
Here is the end result.
Lazy JL
It’s called the ‘Lazy JL’ brand, which is because it’s on it’s side, not because Joe Lunny is lazy.
Here are the tools for the Bang’s vaccine:
Administering Bang
And, now, what you’ve been waiting for:
Yeehaw! Or something.
So, it’s been quite a while since I posted last. And there is some news to share. I’m going to be leaving the ranch come August. It’s been a wonderfully rich experience — I can’t even begin to articulate the past year. Yes, it’s been a whole year!
So a few more weeks here and I’ll be on my way. My parents will be looking for a house in the Santa Cruz area and will be looking to move pretty soon. I’ll be helping there and maybe finding a little bit of work to do on the side. But we’ll see.
Anyhow, hopefully some more updates to come soon.
So….long time no post.
Quick recap: visited family in LA, got sick, got better, moved cows to another ranch, mom visited, went to wedding, got busy with oyster farm, selling & delivering beef, not feeling like blogging, etc etc.
But, to the cows. We moved the cows to John Wick & Peggy Rathmann’s ranch in mid March. They head up the Marin Carbon Project and are using our cows to graze their pastures and working with UC Berkeley scientists to measure the carbon sequestered by doing the management-intensive rotational grazing. Very cool stuff.
Anyways, we had some nice (and late) spring rains last week, which were great for the pastures but made some of John & Peggy’s pastures a little soggy. Too soggy for their water truck(s). So, about 10 days ahead of schedule, the cows will be coming home! Which means my vacation from cows is over. Ha. We’ll move them tomorrow. And we’ll have a lot of figuring out to do. We’ll reinstitute rotational grazing at the G Ranch, but perhaps not immediately. Not sure we have all the pieces ready. At least we have some extra bales of haylage that haven’t yet been consumed.
artichokes
volunteer mustards, i.e. weeds -- but edible!
cover crop: peas, vetch, oats
Oh yeah, by the way, my good friend’s fiance decided to interview me for her blog.
Last Wednesday I got to hear Joel Salatin speak!
For those of you who don’t know Joel, he was featured prominently in Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma (the whole third section about “Grass” is about his farm) and in the recent documentary Food, Inc. He is a self-described Christian-libertarian-environmentalist-lunatic farmer who practices mobstocking-herbivorous-solar-conversion-lignified-carbon-sequestration-fertilization with his cows (those are his own words). He is the quintessential farmer of the sustainable food movement.
He spoke about the history of agriculture in the past century. By the middle of the last century, the West had all but exhausted its natural fertility. It was during the first half of the 1900s that this problem was being grappled with. There were two responses. One was the industrial agriculture model, which relied on chemical fertilizers, pesticides, large machinery, pasteurization, and genetically modified crops. The other was the sustainable agriculture model, which relied on aerobic composting, crop rotation, probiotics, and polyculture. We obviously took the industrial agriculture route. Salatin argued that if we had taken the other route, we would be producing just as much food as we do now, but without the environmental consequences. I’m not totally sure how he would calculate this, but I agree in principle. We would have to have more farmers, but I think we would also have more food. Anyways, it was interesting.
And, most importantly, I got a picture!
Me and Joel Salatin
By the way, if you’re interested click here for an interview.
Hi Everyone,
As I’ve mentioned, there is a huge struggle going on to fight for the survival of the oyster farm. Please take a moment to watch this video and sign the petition.
Thank you and please let me know if you have any questions about the issue.
Jonathan
Last Friday we had a mini-roundup put together at the last minute (I didn’t even know it was happening until the morning of!). We ear tagged the remaining calves (the ones that hadn’t been born yet the last time we did this) and castrated the bull calves. This time I saved the “rocky mountain oysters,” also known as “cow caviar,” “bull fries,” or “swinging beef.”
Here it is, in all its glory.
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