SO WE DID IT.

Officially, we bought a BCS walk-behind tractor. Well, not us, exactly. Our buddies at Farm Credit bought it, we just get to use it until it's paid for. But yes, we now own our first piece of real machinery and if feels.... good actually. Really good.And I acknowledge how incredibly uninteresting farm machinery is to most people––I am one of those people––but I will at least say, even though it's a machine, and it runs on gas, we do feel this move put us one step closer to our goal of sustainability. Allow me to elaborate.We are going to be woking with semi-permanent raised beds. These beds will never get compacted, nor fully turned over, and will therefore promote good nutrient retention and healthier food.Farming this way will allow us to grow a lot more on a much smaller piece of land––so less land under tillage. And we definitely used more gas driving to and from the gardens this year than we will in an entire year of farming our new garden space with this machine. This idea cannot be emphasized enough. Driving was not only gas guzzling, but time guzzling as well. The BCS will save on both.Most importantly, the BCS will take much of the stress of hand-farming off of our shoulders. I don't have the best back and shoulders in the world. I want to be able to throw the ball with my son in my forties, sweep my wife off her feet in our sixties, shake my fist at youth in my seventies, cultivate our tomatoes till I die. And I need all the help I can get.So anyway, yes, we're those kind of farmers now. We're jumping on the bandwagon. But we're also not changing to do so. We are still building our food forest––more than ever really––and still living simply (or complexly, depending on how you look at it).And sure, we're eight thousand dollars in debt, but we're feeling completely okay with that. Ready for it. Excited. After a three weeks of work with the BCS, we can really get a sense of the possibility of owning a machine like this. A lot of food will come from this. A lot of food and even more health.- Jesse*NOTE - that picture is actually of our dear friends tractor we borrowed a while back. We have been too busy using our own BCS to take a picture of it, but trust me - it is already very dirty.

LIVING OFF THE LAND.

Although this is how people––including myself––have sometimes referred to the way Hannah and I live, something about the phrase "living off the land" feels inaccurate.Two things come to mind when I think of "living off" of something. First, there is living off-the-grid, in which one purposely removes oneself from the networks set up by government or private business––the grid––and tries to live without the conveniences of water or electricity, or tries to create those conveniences on his or her own. Either way, the idea is to live apart from the something, thus "off".The second idea evoked when I hear that phrase is living off one's parents, or off one's credit cards. To live off of something in this manner is perhaps to survive on something that is not one's own, or to frivolously live outside one's own means. So when I hear "living off the land" I think of someone either living detached from the land, or taking advantage of it. Perhaps even recklessly.It may very well be a silly prepositional difference (that I recognize no one will switch to), but I'd like to think we live with the land, not off of it. Hannah and I are not perfect, but we do attempt to give back much of what we take. As we clear our farm, we tread lightly into our forest, primarily using animals to fertilize and manage the woods to avoid erosion and preserve habitat. As we garden, we grow then replenish, using no-till methods everywhere possible, while trying to implement more permaculture systems slowly over time. When we forage or hunt, we take only what we need, and try and use every bit––or would, I suppose, if I were a better hunter. For the next couple years we will continue to live without electricity until we can afford an electrical system––solar, wind, thermal, etc.––that relies on a renewable resource, not on a finite supply of oil, or coal, or gas created by highly complex and slow-moving natural processes over billions of years. By living with the land then, we make it healthier, more bountiful, more productive, more diverse, create topsoil, encourage life, and give back. If we were living off of it, I feel as though we'd have little left, forced perhaps to turn to chemical fertilizers to convince anything to grow.Living off the land in this sense is precisely what we wanted to change about ourselves by choosing the lifestyle we did. We no longer wanted to be detached from all that sustained us. As physically hard and emotionally straining as it is, we wanted to know where our food came from, and we wanted to be a part of it––our food, our clothing, our water, etc.––as much as possible. In fact, maybe that's the question we should all ask ourselves in any decision––food, clothing, travel or otherwise: is this purchase or activity or lifestyle with the land, or off of it? Because the reality is that whether we live with the land, or off of it, we all indisputably need the land to live. And our children will, too.- Jesse.

TRANSPARENCY.

It seems that about every year or so we hear of a new ”ag gag" law somewhere looking to prohibit activists from surreptitiously filming the treatment of animals inside conventional farming situations––feed lots, confinement hog farms, CAFO's, etc.. Recently, Kentucky was that somewhere.As a Kentucky farmer who has livestock, I would just like to say our farm has nothing to hide. We are proud of how we manage our animals and if someone wanted to come and film our treatment of them we would not protest, nor would make them feel they have to film anything secretly. In fact, people do come film. Openly. People come visit our farm often and we are happy to show them the animals, and talk about how we manage them. I don't think I would do any job I wasn't proud of, or that I'd be willing to let someone film––boring or not.But I also have to ask, as much as I despise these laws that prevent activists from protecting animals: How many more videos of animal abuse and unbelievable health conditions do we actually need to see before we stop eating conventionally raised meat? We can't keep blaming the farmer. We must accept some, if not most of, the responsibility. Hannah and I have a lot of really wonderful conventional farmer friends and most are just honest people looking for a stable way to make more money. And if there remains a stable living in raising animals in a confinement situations, there will be farmers doing so. Many are just chasing the dollar, and the dollar just so happens to be in cheap meat.I believe people should be allowed to film farms––especially if they feel there's injustice or abuse occurring––and I also believe that farmers shouldn't farm any way they wouldn't be proud to show the world. But we have to start taking the hundreds if not thousands of videos that exist and actually learning from them. The true injustice isn't that the Big Agriculture is trying to stamp out these videos––should we expect anything less?––but that there is still an incredibly vibrant market for cheap meat despite all the videos and documentaries and books and information that already exist. We all know that every McDonald's Burger and every steak Doritos Taco from Taco Bell (sorry), endorses the cruelty. Be it chicken, beef, turkey or pork, to support cheap meat is to actively invest in the mistreatment of animals, and the degradation of our environment. Buy more organic, local food and less big meat and conventional farmers will take note and change if that is where the money is. Because we don't need more videos, just a lot less tragedy to film.- Jesse.