THIS & THAT.

We've been having camera issues and also not had a lot of internet time lately, so here are some photos from the past week(s) as a little catch up.Our friends makes some pretty awesome gingerale.Our house is filling up with these guys. We will be sick of them come February, but right now it is still pretty exciting.Further loves playing the guitar with Jesse. Guess what he is getting for his first birthday?All efforts to keep a clean house are currently being thwarted by our crawler.Shiitake logs fruiting.We have been eating beets in everything lately - which means lots of pink meals! 

SELF-INSUFFICIENCY.

Hannah and I are not survivalists. Not on purpose, at least. We did not move to the country for fear that the world would collapse and we'd need to be self-sufficient. Sure, we thought it would be good to know how to grow our own food, but not necessarily because we felt we'd ever have to, but because, well, we're curious humans. And we like good food. And we like living simply. And we like the countryside.That being said, living off-grid we find that many of our interests overlap with those of survivalists, preppers and the like, respectfully. But one area where our interests do not overlap is in the area of self-sufficiency. To us, this is not an interest. To us, there is no such thing. We have found that there is community-sufficiency and then there is insufficiency.What I mean by that is, having lived rather primitively for the better part of six years now, we have come to see the value in having a good relationship with our neighbors. I am not ashamed to say, we are dependent upon this relationship. We depend on them for feed corn, for hay, for large tractor use, for general savoir-faire, and for friendship.Would we perish without them? No––I guess we could get along on our own if we had to. But we hope and work to never have to, and we definitely never want to. And we hope they would never want to get along without us, either. We want to build a relationship with our community strong enough to survive any disaster, any end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenario, not because we feel it's necessary, but because that is the type of relationship you should always have with your community.All of these off-grid magazines seem more focused on the individual––on guns and survival techniques––than on community. And I get that to some extent. I get the increasing fear (and the increasing population of these magazines). Climate change is having its way with the world. Tensions and temperatures are high. Especially for those who live in a city or near the ocean––people are starting to worry. And without our neighbors, I might be inclined to worry, too.For us, though, we are always practicing survivalism whether we claim it or not. We need our neighbors as much now as we would should the world ever crumble––because sometimes it does crumble a little and they swoop in––that is survivalism to us. Maybe we are survivalists in that sense. Maybe we should all practice a little less self-reliance, and rely a little more on the people around us to survive now, while things are good, so that if things ever turned bad we'd hardly notice. We'd just turn to our neighbors and say, "You need any help with anything, you let us know."And I have no doubt they'd say, "You do the same now, you hear."- Jesse. 

THE FARMER AND CHEF SERIES: THE VALUE OF RESTAURANT SALES.

In a recent post I openly pondered, "What is the value of selling to chefs?" And though I did attempt the question, I still felt I couldn't do the answer justice on my own. So for a little perspective, I called urban farmer Curtis Stone to get his thoughts.Curtis is an interesting dude. Rapidly becoming known for his small-scale, high-efficiency Canadian urban farm, Green City Acres––which famously grosses over $75,000 a year on 1/3rd of an acre––Curtis is sort of a legend in the small farming community. To put his farm's income in perspective, we figure one full acre for us right now grosses around $25,000 per year––it could be as high as $50,000 by next year if we seriously throw down (and we're gonna try). That said, we grow a vast majority of our own food, so that figure may need some adjusting, but you get the idea––$75,000 on a third of that is pretty impressive. (Don't worry, Curtis wrote a book, and no, I can't wait for it to come out either.)So I gave Curtis a call and rather amusingly our whole first conversation lasted only 5 minutes 46 seconds before his phone died. But, if Curtis is as efficient on his farm as he is on the phone, I am not surprised in any way he makes the money he does. I barely needed a follow-up phone call to get what I was after––the man wastes no time.When I reached Curtis he was still packing for the farmer's market, and used that as an example of what makes selling to restaurants so attractive. "Like right now," Curtis explains, "I'm bagging [affectionate expletive] arugula, and it takes me four times as long, because it takes me the same amount of time to pack a quarter pound bag [for market] that it does to pack a two pound bag for a restaurant." And, one could safely assume, it also takes four times less work, and less hours, to sell it to a restaurant than to a market.Restaurants, distributors and wholesalers make up around 81% of his farm sales now (up from 20% when he first started farming). Even with a discount of 25%, he insists––and is the type of dude who would know––it's still highly profitable. "You're getting a slightly lower price point," he admits, "but you're selling at a higher volume. And you're moving more product with less packaging time. So it's a better use of labor to sell in large volume... We move high volumes of high value crops to high value customers."If you're a farmer, dependent upon market sales even to a small extent, what Curtis does is attractive. For Curtis, a single restaurant order can be anywhere between $200 and $1000. "And what it takes to pack that order," he adds, "is negligible compared to what it takes to pack for market." In other words––nay, in his own words––he is saving time while selling more.So what makes restaurant sales worth it is not just having an outlet for food you might not normally sell, or having someone to buy in bulk, it's also about efficiency, and about profit from that efficiency. Now, if I may editorialize, 81% restaurant sales is not our style. We enjoy the diversity of markets, and especially our CSA relationship. But hearing Curtis' take on the value of restaurant sales definitely lends a good perspective to the idea––it shows that restaurants don't just buy produce in bulk, but they save time in bulk, too.For more from Curtis Stone follow the Permaculture Voices Podcast where host Diego Footer checks in with Curtis every week. Cutis' book The Urban Farmer comes out around the New Year, and is on preorder now. And for those really interested in an in depth examination of his practices, check out his online course.- Jesse.

THE FARMER AND CHEF SERIES: EIGHT LESSONS FROM ROCKY GLADE FARM.

If a farmer is truly trying to work restaurants into their sales, I found Rocky Glade's advice to be thoroughly insightful. So insightful, in fact, I couldn't fit everything I wanted into the last post. So I thought it necessitated one more short piece––a collection of eight interesting tips, ideas and stories farmers should consider when hoping to work more with chefs.

One - Don't call chefs. And definitely don't call chefs at night––while they're cooking––unless you absolutely have to. "I will not call you [in the evening]," says Julie, "unless it's something I have to have an answer on. But if I'm trying to beat cold, or beat rain, I am gonna call you because I can't wait." Email is generally preferred, but each chef may have his or her own preference. And as the chef gets to know you, and how farms function, they will understand the necessity behind the occasional phone call.

Two - Invite the chef to visit your farm. Help he or she to understand where you're coming from: "Our hoop house is just like [restaurant] tables," says Jim, "Our profit is how much you sell that table, but also how fast you turn it. You can't put a six month crop in a hoop house because you can't give up those three lettuce crops, or the four radish crops."

Julie adds, "And they get that because they don't want someone sitting at a table for three hours not ordering anything."

Three - Send samples, take pictures, physically show them what you've got. "If they can see it and touch it," that helps sell it.

Four - Pay attention to what they want, and don't send them things they can't use. "Early on, what we didn't send built the relationship as much as what we did."

Five - Indeed, build your relationship. A lot of farmers may view restaurants as an opportunity to dump ten bushels of kale every week. But it's not that easy: "We work that relationship just as hard as the CSA," says Julie. You have to communicate with them regularly, listen to them, anticipate and care about their business as much as your own.

Six - Eat there: Rocky Glade tells us they have only eaten at Rolf a few times, and "...actually seeing your food come out on a plate," Says Julie, "You go 'Okay, that's why. That's why you want this small. Or that's why you don't want it bunched...'. If I go and eat, and watch my food come out, it helps me do a better job in the field." -Julie

Seven - Have your chef be specific about what they need. Jim tells us, "A lot of chefs will tell you, 'I'll take all you can grow'. Rolf and Daughters is really good about telling you what the goal is and why."

Eight - Share the risk. This is something Rocky Glade is still working on and Julie tells us, "The only way I've found to share the risk is by doing a bunch of research, finding out how much something might cost, I tell him what I would have to charge and he decides if it's worth it." In the case of a very expensive seed, they say, "if [the chef] helped with the seed cost, [he] could buy it later at a discounted price." This sort of "risk sharing", since chef's are not as fond of the CSA model, might be the best way to safely experiment with new crops and new ideas without risking too much of your own space, money and time.

Big thanks again to Rocky Glade for all their insight–-what a great family and model farm. Don't forget to keep up with the Vaughns through their website, and visit them at the Franklin Farmer's Market.

- Jesse.