Our Story

We all have "a story," don't we? The thing about our stories, though, is that they are ever-changing. Evolving. Progressing. Becoming refined. And not one of them is exempt from the bad and the ugly.

And the blessing, here, is that each chapter builds the next - the foundation of false starts, hard-times, and heartache all contribute to the present. Which, as you all know, is a gift.

On Saturday our friend Martha stopped by the farmers' market to say hello and that she really enjoyed reading our article in the Stanly News and Press.

Wait, what? I hadn't been aware that it was going to come out so soon! It seemed just like last week when Shannon Beamon, a staff writer for the SNAP had pulled up in the driveway, the skies threatening rain. We had met Shannon once before at a pizza night over at Fair Meadow Bakes.

While Shannon and I meandered around the farm between the garden, raised beds, greenhouse and pasture - we chatted about how this family arrived in North Carolina from California. We also explored the why, the how, and the results of our figurative detours along the way. Eventually we sat at our dining room table, with her asking questions and me answering them, while often finding myself off on a tangent. A story cannot be told in just an hour. There's a fraction of a lifetime of information to gather and organize!

As Shannon left I thought, "I hope I didn't make us out to sound like pompous asses." Even though I know we are not pompous asses, there are the perceptions of others to consider. Or, are there? Maybe a story gets its uniqueness from the interpretations and perceptions.

There are certainly misinterpreted parts of our stories. The parts where people perceive a statement one way, when really the truth is the opposite, or at least another version of the perception.

There were a few mistakes in this story, like the "motor-home" we traveled across the country in? It was a 1982 GMC one-ton dually, a 6-liter diesel, pick up truck. Slower than molasses in January. And not real comfortable to sleep in, which we did several times.

Also, I don't paint. I'm not good at it, but Captain Strong Arms painted this entire house, by himself, with one brush. Two coats, mind you. And that was AFTER he scraped, sanded, and caulked. THEN he primed it before he began painting - with that SAME brush.

It's true, I did make a lot of sandwiches. And chase a perpetually-active toddler. Most of all, I was one-third of a role in the building of our story. And I have taken a lot of photos along the way.

While we do use solar-power, it has nothing to do with the outdoor wood stove that heats our hot water and in the winter time heats our house. Those are two separate entities. And two separate stories. Like the one where we didn't have electricity for three months while we were saving our pennies for the solar panels.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed that tidbit of our story. As Dr. Who says, "I’ll be a story in your head, but that’s okay, because we’re all stories in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?"

Happy Cows Come From...Hope Farms

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Gains and Losses = Hope

Yes, it's another one of those posts.

Having a green thumb isn't all it's cracked up to be. Being dependent on weather and the health of the soil from which the garden grows is a large portion of success, or luck, however you look at it. It has always amazed me immensely to look at a seed and contemplate how this tiny speck of hope uses soil, water, oxygen and ultimately becomes nourishment in the form of food or beauty. Either way, the ability to raise plants is a gift. Sometimes it comes in a not-so-pretty package.

Wind-ravaged and rain-soaked, the plants in the garden are each telling their own stories. Some sweet pepper plants have turned yellow and have wilted from all of the water. The tomato plants in the greenhouse are suffering, probably, from some form of humidity-induced fungal issue. Heat and sun-loving okra plants are stunted, yet with stubborn determination flowering and even producing a few pods of little okra babies. My Swiss chard has mushrooms languishing at their feet and the cucumber vines have had holes punched delicately in their leaves by a voracious cucumber beetle and their numerous family members. Squash plants are forlorn soldiers, laying on their sides, awaiting final death from the vine borers and damage from the squash bugs.

Even so. Hope. It's what keeps us all going. Even in the rainiest season in decades. Or akin to the summer of 2007, the driest of seasons in decades. This cyclical change in the weather has been happening for hundreds of years - those that have been recorded that is. It is the reason that the farm is named so.

More often than not we have a tendency to complain, "why me?" when things aren't going the way we'd like. The point, here, isn't to dwell on all of the things that can and do go wrong, but to realize the gift of learning that is within the failure. If I hadn't jumped into a market garden with both feet this year I never would have known what it is like to test the limits of my knowledge and also to have come to the realization that using synthetic herbicides and pesticides are never sustainable!

Having a purpose can go a long way in getting us through the doldrums that too much spring and summer rain can induce.

Sometimes that purpose is difficult to locate in the weedy patch of life. Our gardens can reflect us. Crazy, I know. Hither-thither, vines going astray, weeds filling in the gaps of a once clean palate. Right this very minute, I can relate to that reflection. The weeds have taken over. I'm a bit disorganized (especially inside the house!) and I'm not as vibrant and productive as I was two months ago.

There is a reason for the changing of the seasons. I'm ready for the season of FALL!

How is YOUR garden growing? Is it a reflection of you?

What We Did Today

It's all fun and games when I can sit down at the computer, after a shower, with a cup of tea and tell about it.

We added more raised beds today.

It was an exhausting day, but in the, it-feels-good-to-move-around, instead of sit-in-the-chair-all-day and stare at the computer, way. It's that good old-fashioned tired. You know the kind.

I smiled at the radishes poking up. They are so quick to grow.

Getting back into the groove of farming, (growing our own food, in addition to growing for market) is not a gradual step. I've primarily been in an office, in meetings, and organizing events, workshops and such for the last  year.

After three (or 15) days of convincing Captain Strong Arms that my spinach would come up - it finally began to come up. Phew!

 It's the softness of winter that gets me. It'll be a good while before I build up the strength and endurance I had and it won't come easy. And then, it will be the heat of summer that gets me. Oh for the love of farming.

Back to the Farmers' Market in just 6 weeks and three days.

I am looking forward to getting back the the farmers market - there's a reward in that unique to anything else one will ever do. Tomorrow? Meeting in the morning, meeting in the afternoon and meeting in the evening. Farming will have to resume on Wednesday, for me, thank goodness Captain Strong Arms takes good care of the farm when I'm home and when I'm not home.