A CASE FOR THE IMPERFECT HOMESTEAD.

Comparison is the thief of joy. This is a phrase Hannah once told me that I've always loved. Nothing makes me feel like more of a failure than scanning permaculture books like "The Resilient Farm and Homestead," or "Gaia's Garden" and thinking, "Man, our farm looks nothing like these." I know they're well-established homesteads which have had lots of helpers over the years, but still. Hannah and I are doing our best to have a beautiful farm but farming always seems to get in the way.We long for a beautiful farmstead, but beauty is just not always all that practical. A beautiful farm takes a lot of work, and we've got a lot of that going on already. We work full time and that work sustains us, but little more.The thing I have to keep in mind, however, is that our farm––in conjunction with our neighbor's farm––is paying the bills. And that is a beautiful thing in and of itself, but also where the majority of our time goes. So unfortunately our aesthetics often get pushed aside. But if that means our homestead is perfectly functional, so be it. So be proud of it. Even if you don't get a hundred cans of tomatoes put up. Even when you fail to make your kimchi. Even when the turkeys eat your winter garden, but you still have plenty to eat and are surviving––or could easily survive––entirely off of the farm, that's something to be proud of. That's something you should consider successful, even if it looks insane.In fact I almost prefer it this way––the slow way. Sure, we could take out an equity loan and pump up our farm, build the cellar and barns we need, maybe even get some solar electricity to them. But the way we are going about it now–-slowly––allows the farm to adapt. It makes every new accomplishment that much more ours. We earned it. We built it. We did it ourselves. And when it is finally beautiful––which, by God it will be one day––and perennial plants abound, and the farm takes care of itself, and we have everything we need, we'll probably still be dissatisfied. We'll look at the current books and think, "Man, our farm looks nothing like these." So, really, what's the rush?- Jesse.

NO NEED TO WORRY.

Several years back, when I still lived in New York City, I got deathly sick. I was often sick in New York, but that winter I'm pretty sure I caught pneumonia (or something frighteningly similar). And it just so happened to occur during one of the many religious holidays where our landlords would take off work, thus getting ahold of someone––should something go wrong––became utterly impossible. Respectfully.Then something went wrong. The heat went out in our building while the temperatures dropped into the low twenties for days on end. And I remember feeling incredibly hopeless. I didn't have health insurance so I couldn't afford to go to the doctor, and no one in the building could get ahold of the landlords or the super. I have never felt so miserable or so close to death. I spent that weekend huddled around a cheap space heater, under a stack of blankets, coughing and probably crying a little.It was frightening to me how out of my control this situation was. The heat of the building was entirely in someone else's hands––as was the water and electricity––and if you happened to have pneumonia during a cold holiday when the heat went out, tough luck. With that being said, I cannot tell you how comfortable I feel right now. It's verging on single digit temperatures outside, and I couldn't be more confident.We have nothing but control over the heat in our house. We are safe, the firewood's not going to run out, and fire itself is not going to suddenly go on vacation. I recall this weekend in New York as a turning point for me––a moment in which I decided enough was enough. I no longer wanted to live at the whim of other people, of old heaters in old buildings, of old city grids in old cities. I wanted a cabin in the woods with a wood stove. I wanted control.And six years later, that's what I have. I have safety and comfort and consistency and peace of mind. I have a wife and baby who can sleep well knowing they too are safe, that the heat is not going to go out on us. Moreover, as a bonus, because of this life we live I rarely get anywhere near that sick anymore. My health is something else I'm much more in control of these days. So if you ever wondering how we're doing during these brutally cold days of winter? Don't worry, we couldn't be better.- Jesse.

ANNOUNCING THE 2015 CSA

Starting again sometime in May (or at latest, June)––when the garden's are up and running––we're going to begin our next 20 week CSA in Bowling Green, picked up every Tuesday at the Community Farmers Market. As always, there will be a great diversity of food from cucumbers, lettuce, beets, garlic, flowers... hopefully even some honey again this year (fingers crossed!), but almost definitely mushrooms. Really, the list is enormous. It's possible our shareholders could be eating over fifty different types of veggies (God bless our growing region)!So here's the breakdown:The cost is $460 for a single share (feeds a small family and breaks down to $23/wk)A double share is $800 (Feeds a large family––$40/wk)A share gets you a Rough Draft bag for your food and twenty weeks worth of veggies/fruit/etc., and a 10% or more discount on any market items.We are asking all members to pay in full by the beginning of the season––save for those interested who hope to pay with their SNAP benefits (please email us for details on that). We request the money beforehand so we may afford to get the season started––buying mulch, paying market fees, mushroom spawn, seeds, etc.. If this is not possible for you we can be flexible––please contact us. For more info on how the CSA works, feel free to email us at roughdraftfarmstead@gmail.com or call us at 270-457-4956.SPACE IS LIMITED. Please let us know of your intentions to join as soon as possible.Checks can be mailed to:Rough Draft Farmstead 992 Rack Creek Rd. Gamaliel, Ky. 42140We also hope to be coming to the Community Farmer's Market a few times before the season starts where we can accept cash, check or card. We can also invoice you through PayPal.  The CSA deliveries will be on Tuesdays in Bowling Green at the Community Farmer's Market throughout the season.We're looking forward to another great year, and hope to have you be a part of it!- Jesse + Hannah.

TOWARDS A FUTURE.

"My second grader has decided on a career in electrical engineering. He is leaning towards MIT, but I do not find them helpful and would prefer a Southern culture. Would you please tell me how to prepare him for admissions?"The amazing above quote comes from an episode of This American Life called "How I Got into College" where they talk to an Admissions Director at Georgia Tech who lets them read real letters from parents. And as you can tell, they're exceptional.However, I get it. And so do they. We all do. We all want the best for our children and as the world grows increasingly more competitive we feel pressured to get our children started on the path to success as early as possible. (It is no mistake that I am thinking about this with a 2 week old baby in the other room.)But for what kind of future do we need to be preparing them? Will their future be much like today, only with robots and autonomous cars, drones and Martian colonies? Or will it be a future with an even more cavernous gap between the rich and poor, month-long floods in coastal cities, widespread oil, water and food shortages worldwide or [insert any other depressing potentiality scientists are predicting by the year 2050]? Maybe it will be neither. But it could also be both. No matter the case, the future looks much different for our children than it did for us. And we need to at least consider (while we're, ahem, preparing our second graders for college admissions) that the latter is a possibility, too––that they might need a different set of skills to get along in their world than we did in ours.So for us we hope to prepare Further for both possibilities. And our plan, since no one has opened the Bugtussle Waldorf school yet, is to educate him on the farm. Here, his education can be both practical and prepatory. We can teach him math through baking and carpentry. We can teach him biology in the garden and forest, astronomy staring at our amazing view of the stars. English and history will come from the books we read together on rainy days, while science and chemistry will be everywhere. But he will also learn to hunt and forage and take care of animals and grow food which isn't really most public schools' thing. Hopefully these skills won't ever be a necessity, but at least they will be available for his use. By the time he's old enough, our only hope is that he will be prepared to thrive in whatever kind of future he finds himself in. Whether that's a world of academia, or a simple life back here on the farm, he'll have the luxury of being able to decide for himself. At least, that's the goal.-Jesse