MORE WITH LESS.
When we first started farming, we wanted to do it all. Well, we still want to do it all––that never goes away––but we used to actually try it. The goats, the chickens, turkeys, pigs. All of it, all at once. And what we learned––the hard way––is that when you do everything, you can do very little of it well. Then when you don't do anything well, it's hard to enjoy what you do.So that's why no pigs this year. That's why no turkeys. We have cut way back, and honestly, it's been great. It's early yet, but I can say with confidence that I am a far happier, saner farmer when I'm not chasing pigs through the woods at three in the morning. Or fencing and re-fencing and re-fencing goats. I doubt Hannah would disagree.Especially, that is, when we're not suffering financially at the same time. And we're not this year. We're actually making a reasonable, living wage doing less. More so than we ever have farming. By focusing our effort on one main project––the garden–-we are officially for the first time, kinda making it.There's more to it, though. Family for instance. I want to spend time with them that doesn't involve planting, harvesting or weeding while one of us chases Further off the rows (though I want that time, too); time with them that is not me too sore to engage, too tired to stay awake until 7 p.m.; quality time.I want my son and a Seuss. My wife and a glass of milk. I want to sit down at dusk and write a blog post with the freedom to occasionally stop to hear what the scarlet tanager or Audie Cornish have to tell me about the world. And not at dark, but at five or six I want these things––a normal hour of the day to do normal things. If more farmers lived reasonable lives, perhaps more people would choose farming. I want that, too.Will we ever return to doing it all? Maybe, probably, sure. Perhaps when Further is grown, or when he can be the one chasing pigs.But smartly. Farming is so full of possibility it is hard not to overdose. What is actually important to you gets buried in the potential that is soil, sunlight, water. But if you take a step back, and picture the life you want, you realize it can be achieved with a lot less work. You can make an impact, feed people––lots of people––and live to write about it. Because I could easily spend my entire day homesteading the fire out of this place, from dawn to dusk, but I'd sure miss my homestead in the process. That's what I've learned in these past seven seasons: do a few things well, and make sure one of those things is happiness.-Jesse.
RECOMMENDED READING.
January is our leanest month around here. It just always is. We have no income to speak of and lots of expenses - seeds, new tools, greenhouse repairs, compost. Plus, some unexpected expenses - blown head gaskets, new cylinders, endless car problems. All of this is coupled with hours and hours spent planning and plotting in the garden and looking at past finances. So basically, we think a lot about money in January.
We received this lovely book from our friends for Christmas, and it has been a nice reminder for us during this sometimes-stressful month. Yes, money is an important and essential element to our lives. But it is equally important to remember why we are doing the work we do. It is not just about making money. And, as this book so perfectly puts it, when we only monetize every thing that we do on our homestead, we are taking away from its overall value.So, for anyone out there scouring seed catalogs and preparing taxes and perhaps wondering how in the world it makes sense to raise chickens, I would recommend this book. It is not completely practical, considering that the Hewitt's don't need to make an income from their homestead, but it has been a welcome break in all of the number crunching for us. We can make it through this month! Farm on, good people.-Hannah.
FARMSTEADING.
When we originally came up with the name Rough Draft Farmstead back in 2011, our thought process was simple. We liked "Rough Draft" because it fit us as artists, but also "Draft" spoke to our ambitions to one day have draft animals. "Farmstead" originally just sounded better than homestead or farm, but it also felt more accurate, like it was directly in between the two. But over these past few years, I really feel like our farm has begun to embody the farmstead part of its name. And I'm proud of that.We homestead, sure. We grow our own food and cure and preserve and dabble in permaculture, cheesemaking, etc. etc. etc.. Certainly, we are very involved with our home. But we also farm. Professionally farm. We make our living growing food––a living that becomes increasingly more reasonable as we get better at it and as we dig in further.And I like it this way. I see a lot of interest in homesteading and permaculture, but not enough in actually making a living on this lifestyle. I love completely sustainable ideas, but nothing is sustainable if it can't pay for the farm, or the bills. This doesn't mean you have to drop all of your dreams and buy a giant tractor. It just means you should find ways for your life make your living. For us, we want to eat good food, so we grow a bunch of it and sell the excess (so to speak). We want fruit and herbs and mushrooms––same thing. And we do our best to feed as many people as we can. I have no idea if farmsteading is a word people use––my word processor is certainly skeptical––but I do like what it implies. It's a combination of farming and homesteading, and a viable way to make your life your livelihood.- Jesse.
MESSY MONDAYS.
A couple weeks ago I wrote a post called "The Case for the Imperfect Homestead" in which I talked about how it is to look through the photos of certain books, or magazines, or websites and not feel inadequate as a farmer––to feel like your farm is hideous by comparison. Well, as one of our astute readers pointed out in the comments of that post: these farms I label as perfect are themselves imperfect––they, like us, just do not share the photos proving it. Touché––it's not like we share the mess either, the dirt, the unfinished projects, or the five-gallon buckets that pepper our yard like lawn ornaments. To know our farm through our blog, is to see a very curated version of our lives. In turn, we may create the same feeling of inadequacy in our readers that those other farms do in us. Which is the opposite of our goals with this blog.So with respect to that, we've decided to occasionally start sharing photos we wouldn't normally share––photos that will show the world we are perfectly human––photos "without makeup" so to speak. We want people to come here and be inspired. And if nothing else, we want people to come here and see that sometimes it's okay to be an utterly mediocre homesteader. So here's to Messy Mondays, where we'll give you the picture we would normally show, and then the unedited version.So here's a picture of the cabin:
And here's the reality: