The farm definately has a wild feel to it. That thought hit me again and again last weekend. I've come away from the weekend absolutely convinced that we found the right place.
The house needs some work. I think I'm a little dissapointed that we wont be building from scratch. I was getting excited about the idea of designing a house and all the thoguht and planning that goes into such a project. I dont want for us to get overwhelmed with potential improvements and become satisfied with putting bandaids and patches all over the place. If something is worth doing, its worth doing right, but I'm not sure we even know how to do things right. From design, to buying materials, to labor, there are going to be a number of ways to do things.
I have uploaded a few more pictures, but I decided to move them to a different site. You can check them out here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/newfarm
enjoy, i'm off to Madison to hear Yonder Mountain String Band. Good times, I'm sure.
Thursday, October 14, 2004
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2 comments:
Hey, it's Julianne here. I really enjoy reading your farm blog, even though I think you all are having a little more "Walden Pond" experience and I'm having a little more "Deliverance" experience. I really envy the isolation of your farm, since ours is so close to a main road.
Mark and I have spent a lot of time brainstorming what we might want to do with our property. One thing that really helped us to get more focused was starting a farm journal thingy that is just a notebook with our ideas and observations in it. The whole experience has been overwhelming, and every other day Mark comes home with some ridiculous amount of information to process and we have to try and um synthesise? What's the word when you're blending it into the stuff you already have and modifying your previous ideas to accomodate the new information? Because that's what we do.
An unexpected source of information was the county fair. We got a lot of brochures on grass seed and other local crops. Also, we often watch what our neighbors are doing, and Mark records things like "Grass harvest in north field 3rd week in August. Field burn 4th week of August." That may not be the most scientific way to do it, but it's just one more source of information. Mark is also always busy doing his own science projects, like posting a stick in the pond to see how much the water level varies, or digging up holes and testing the drainage of the soil.
Another fabulous source of information is the Univeristy of Minnesota website. At least, I think that's the one Mark always goes to. The university students in oregon are apparently too busy smokin dope and chaining themselves to trees or protestors or the common worker or something to be doing research and putting up websites. Hey you hippies, take yer dern petition and get outta my yard before I put a few bullet holes in your lil VW there! Yee haw!
Love, Julianne
Thanks for the good words, Red! In heaven, the hippies and the rednecks will hold hands and sing. Well, maybe just the hippies. What I'm trying to say is that perhaps Walden Pond can learn learn a little something from Deliverance. How to squeal like a piggy? Kidding. Your suggestions are great. We're already doing some of them, and the U of M website! That's where Bex works! It's like a sign or something! I think the journal is a great idea - our neighbors were burning their fields this weekend and I realized that might be something to take note of. I love that we're living parallel lives. i just can't WAIT to get out on the land permanently, like you are. I'm so jealous!
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