Modern Farmer and the Ideological Agricultural Divide

There is reason to celebrate. The second issue of Modern Farmer is here! My husband picked it up at Whole Foods on Monday. (It is also available at Tractor Supply. I could subscribe, but buying magazines at Tractor Supply with my chicken feed sounds so cool. The first issue of Modern Farmer made me very happy.) 

The two places I am most likely to buy my copy of Modern Farmer--Whole Foods on one end and Tractor Supply on the other--are quite telling about the range of consumers bound to read the magazine. 

Yesterday's New York Times piece on Modern Farmer, while mostly positive, got one thing wrong. While acknowledging Modern Farmer's unique aesthetic, the piece claimed that “articles report on straight agricultural topics more often found in farming publications like the 111-year-old Successful Farming.” While there may be occasional overlap between the two publications, I doubt there will be many people who read both, due to the fundamental ideological divide in agriculture today.

On the one hand you have the agri-intellectuals (a term of contempt in some circles) or what I call food ideologues, and on the other you have industrial--or conventional, or Big--agribusiness (often the object of my contempt). But if I’m honest, this divide deeply concerns me. 

I don’t pretend to be beyond this divide--as I have described it, one side is made of people (albeit ideologues), and the other is an abstraction: monolithic business. Indeed, many modern agricultural problems stem from greed, and greed on the scale we’re talking is only possible at an impersonal level. (And I’ve tipped my hand with “many modern agricultural problems stem from greed,” because there are many who believe that industrial agriculture is feeding the world. I'm not even going to address that here. I recognize that most of the people driving the combines and sprayers and using mass quantities of commercial fertilizer are decent people. The greed I’m talking about is more subtle, more insidious, and usually attributable to people who spend little time on farms.)

When I moved to this rural address, I automatically started receiving--I stress that I did not subscribe--three eye-opening publications: the aforementioned Successful Farming (a waxy periodical aimed at conventional farmers), AgriNews (a no-nonsense paper reporting on drought conditions and the trend toward cover crops), and Beyond the Bean (straight propaganda put out by the United Soybean Board). All of these have shown me what kinds of concerns industrial farmers have, and there is a broad range. Contrary to what many agri-intellectuals assume, many of them are concerned with soil health, nitrogen runoff, and a few dozen other environmental and health issues.

Still, it was all too clear what Successful Farming was about. Each issue focused mostly on maximizing profits. Sometimes, and definitely in the long run, that aligns elegantly with helping the environment. In the short run, however, planting corn on corn (not rotating with soybeans) because the price of corn is just too sweet this year is considered good advice. 

That’s not the kind of advice you would find in Modern Farmer, which features highly diversified farms. I mean Old MacDonald farms, with a moo-moo here and a cluck-cluck there, but also with robotic scarecrows and Wi-Fi-enabled weather sensors. The modern farm is exciting, innovative, dirty, rewarding, and possibly devastating. Neoclassical and wildly experimental at once--exactly what we need right now. 

Both Successful Farming and Modern Farmer might feature farming apps for your phone. Successful Farming might describe an app that retrieves soil survey data--very cool and very practical. Modern Farmer describes iCow, an animal husbandry app that has gained popularity in Kenya--possibly practical, but wicked cool and with a global focus. Successful Farming magazine profiles mostly white men from the Midwest. Modern Farmer’s Issue #2 opens with a piece about a Lebanese farmer watching Syrian refugees plant eggplant. Sure, there are plenty of white people in Modern Farmer. But there are also profiles of farms staffed by people as diverse as what is grown on them. 

I celebrate Modern Farmer for straddling this divide between food ideologues and actual farmers. Food ideologues are both my favorite and my least favorite people: they are the optimists, the hobby farmers, the intellectuals, but they are often also the most radical and the least flexible (ironically, I mean the least intellectually flexible). Let me be clear: by “actual farmers” I do not mean the guys who carpet most of the county with corn and soybeans every year. I do mean people who work the land and get dirty--not just agri-intellectuals. There is nothing wrong with people who live in the city, read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle or The Omnivore’s Dilemma and grow cilantro in their windowsill. I was that person--still can’t claim to be much more, but I am a work-in-progress. Many people are not able to do much more than have an awareness about our industrial food system and fulfill Wendell Berry’s suggestion (1989) that we “participate in food production to the extent that [we] can.” 

Some people are taking growing food for yourself a step further. It is the first time in human history when more than half the world’s population live in cities than in rural areas. American farmers are getting older on average (pushing 60). To combat these trends, there are grassroots organizations like The Greenhorns (described on their site as a “working to recruit, promote and support the growing tribe of new agrarians”) and publications like Modern Farmer.

Courtney Cowgill, a farmer who has written about farming for The Associated Press, is quoted in the New York Times piece on Modern Farmer: 

“I know they’re trying to reach people like me and the kind of hobbyists and the people who are just kind of enamored with the idea of farming,” … To appeal to the person who wants to romanticize farming and the person who is knee deep in turkey droppings “is hard, and I think they’re balancing that,” she said.

That seems about right. Modern Farmer speaks to those of us who are earnest about walking the walk. Those of us slowly gaining experience with something like actual farming who see a complicated road ahead. 

I have oversimplified and I want to list caveats at every turn. But if I ever want to stop writing, I need a pithy exit: I am still learning. 

Winter Chicken Coop In Progress

I almost hate to post any pictures until it's done, but it looks so good! Dad built and painted the box white (what do you call the box where you retrieve the eggs?).

I'm so happy that we were able to salvage this metal that was sitting in the corner of the property for fifteen years, from when they built the barn. Fifteen years in the woods and there was surprisingly little rust. It wasn't hard to clean up at all! Dad has done some creative patchwork and, as with everything with this property, we got lucky.

We're guessing it won't be final until mid-October. There are lots of little decisions about details (what will the little chicken door be made of? how will it hinge? or will it hinge at all? what will we do about a fence? how do we keep it from getting too hot with those windows? how will we insulate here and there for winter?) and we have to wait for several inches of rain and then a dry spell before we can lay the electrical wire from the barn.

Meanwhile, the chickens are hot! (And so are we. Looking forward to the cooler weather and some rain.)

Building the Winter (Permanent) Chicken Coop

Dad's retirement is benefitting me greatly.

Just as we copied the plans for the chicken tractor from the book, Self-Sufficiency for the 21st Century, Dad found a Maine website, Downeast Thunder Farm, with detailed plans for a coop.

It has been hot and we need rain. I think Dad is looking for signs of rain clouds here.

Once again, Dad has been doing all the design and more than his share of the work. (Is it pathetic that the power drill makes my piano-playing forearm shake all evening? Don't answer that.) And again, there have been some key alterations.







One ridiculously awesome alteration: since we recently replaced the windows in our house, Dad has repurposed our old kitchen and laundry room windows for the coop.

 

This narrow structure will have windows on either side. 

The view the chickens will have of the pond.

In the dead of winter, the chickens will be getting southern exposure, which is nice.

The siding will be metal found in our back woods, leftover from the barn. I'm trying to convince Dad the chickens need a solar hot-water heater. (I don't want to spend too much on electricity, do I? No, I will not go out there several times a day in the freezing cold to change their water.)

To recoup our investment (re-coop?) we would have to charge maybe $10 per dozen eggs for years to come. But my father is out of control! What can be done?

Indiana Produce for a Santa Fe Feast

August in Indiana. The days are shorter already, and we've had a couple cold snaps. I start to feel a twinge of melancholy, like the whole year is already over. But something absolutely magical works as a countervailing force: the harvest.

Bountiful, Indiana harvest! I am joyful.

Today, I woke up and picked food for lunch and dinner. Lunch will be Italian--Caprese--an easy way to consume our basil and tomatoes raw (we'll only eat my five black tomato favorites: Black from Tula, Brandywine Black, Black Krim, Japanese Trifele, and Nyagous).

Dinner, though, will be chile rellenos made with our Anaheim and Poblano peppers, with salsa verde from our tomatillos, and tomatoes on the side.

Other days, we cook the black beans for a couple hours to make a black bean and corn salsa/salad.

We will try this year to make blue corn tortillas--we have no idea what we're doing, but that's part of the fun.



Yum. Yum. Yum.

James's salsa verde:

(Tomorrow: Margarita Pizza, using sweet, pink Mortgage Lifter tomatoes.)

July in Indiana: At a Glance

July in Danville is time for the 4-H Fair, where I saw these rock star chickens:

and went on a couple rides:

             

Our chickens are growing every day. Their winter coop is being built: 

       

In the field, there are some mighty pretty spots (this album I linked to is the best). We have Black-eyed Susans and Purple Coneflower and plenty of others (some came in June and are gone).

   

Around the house: Shasta daisies (more of our Shasta daisies--an explosion of Becky daisies--here)

Blue Salvia, 

Italian White Sunflowers 

Baptisia, and much more.         

        

Then there are vegetable gardens desperately in need of tending. I'll only show one picture, of the row garden:

It needs work, but we're about to leave town for a week! We're visiting Maryland, where I graduated from high school, and Virginia (we'll get the garden tour at Monticello).

Thank goodness my parents live next door, but taking care of the chickens alone is a lot to ask (although they do put themselves to bed, even if it takes a while).

The Chicken Ark and other stuff...

At last, the chicken tractor is here! We just need a few finishing touches (chicken wire around the whole thing, for one).

Dad is the carpenter. He made some vague plans from a book come to life, and we are all grateful. Of course I worked on it, but I'm not going to pretend I did any of the higher-order carpentry. I got more practice using a saw and a drill--both skills I've used many times since we moved here. I remain impressed with the ingenuity required to build something from scratch. Dad is proud. When we carried it from his barn to mine today he must have said, "It sure looks good" six times.

It has a ladder that we can pull up and down...

...and the coop/roost part where we'll get the eggs (chicken expert speaking)-- that part at the top opens...

So how cool is that? Right now, the chicks are hanging out in their rubber bin, but they are growing so fast. Meet Marie Curie, Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, and Doctor Emmett Brown (also a female). And no, we can't tell them apart by looks yet. I took this picture yesterday and I swear they've changed significantly since then.

That's the chicken ark! I promised other stuff.

Tomato varieties this year include:

1. Brandywine Black (our favorite) 
2. Brandywine (which is a potato leaf variety--a non-starter for seed saving) 
3. Nyagous, 
4. Japanese Trifele 
5. Black from Tula  
6. Mortgage Lifter
7. Beefsteak (I realize there are many, this was what the original seed packet said)
8. Aunt Ruby's (green when ripe-that will be interesting)

and I think I'm forgetting something. Oh, I had a salad in Santa Fe with some cute green striped cherry heirlooms (I think "zebra," but I'm not sure) from Trader Joe's. I saved those seeds and I have sprouts, but who knows whether they will be true or revert. I can't believe that's it! It's late, but I've still got seeds for Bloody Butcher (a bloody potato leaf) and Black Krim.

Lots of peppers, too. Beets and radishes, arugula, asparagus, rhubarb, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, ... and I am running out of steam. I was out playing in the dirt and sunshine half the day. The other half, I was sorting through  many voices weighing in on the current "crisis in psychiatry" --a discussion I waded into last week. Guess which part I enjoyed more?

The secret of my un-success, or great advice I won't be following

I caught this inspiring passage in The Greenhorns' New Farmer's Almanac last night:

In whatever you engage, pursue it with a steadiness of purpose, as though you were determined to succeed. A vacillating mind never accomplished anything worth naming. There is nothing like a fixed, steady aim. It dignifies your nature, and insures your success.

This sounds about right, and it is a variant of great advice I've heard--but not heeded--my entire life. If wisdom comes with age, and wisdom has anything to do with accepting that which we cannot change, then I am wising up to my nature. I can't take advice that is at odds with who I am fundamentally.

This is not to say that while I garden, or play piano or guitar, or write poetry, or take an online class on complexity, or make home movies on my iMac--or any of a great number of other things I do with a sometimes moderate level of proficiency--that I won't be attentive and present and pursue excellence in that moment. But I am a generalist, and I don't want to change that. My attentions drift and dart and as long as I keep moving, I'll pick up some things.

The line I take issue with from The New Farmer's Almanac, then, is "A vacillating mind never accomplished anything worth naming." I've heard (and I'll buy it) that the days of true Renaissance people are gone.

There is simply too much to know in the 21st century, too much information, too much specialization is possible, for any [normal] person to be an expert in more than a few pursuits. Excellence takes practice. It takes time. It takes exclusive devotion. So much for expertise in my own life.

I guess my response now has to be, oh well. Leonardo da Vinci was the quintessential Renaissance man, and I've always been amused by this lamenting biographical note of Giorgio Vasari's:

He might have been a scientist if he had not been so versatile. But the instability of his character caused him to take up and abandon many things.

Oh well! Here's to instability of character. Besides, I've got loads to do today.

April's Farming Publications Set Me Straight

"Of course this year will be better than last! Every farmer knows that. Every year."
                                                         --My grandmother, two weeks ago

I have a sheet of paper on my fridge that's meant to remind me why I'm here, on rural Indiana farmland, without my job teaching creative writing--why I left everything I know for a life I knew next to nothing about. Like most manifestos written in a moment of clarity, it now blends into the environment and I rarely notice it. Item one: I want this to be a place where the work keeps my head clear and I can sleep well at night after a day of honest, self-guided work, knowing that what I did that day fits with my values (among which are sustainable living, soil health, and less consumption for consumption's sake).

I could rattle off a list of reasons this list has started to feel like a remote wish. They would sound like excuses, and technically they are. In my defense, some of my excuses are good ones, but I'll skip them all for now.

The first year I lived here, I did nothing but read about what Depression-era organic pioneers Helen and Scott Nearing called "The Good Life"--a life of virtuous hard work that eschewed consumerism. I read almost exclusively about this and had nothing if not a sense of purpose. Because ... (I have my reasons) that sense of purpose was lost.

But this was a banner week for fresh farming publications. The inaugural issue of Modern Farmer came out and it is as delicious as I imagined.

The photography and layout are just as beautiful as their web pages, and of course their philosophy is perfect. Here's Ann Marie Gardner in the letter from the editor:

There is a global cultural movement taking place. Organic has gone mainstream. There is a growing curiosity, even concern, about the source of our food--how it is produced and distributed, the ethics of big ag and the sustainability of small ag. Even as farming becomes cool, and beehives and rooftop gardens spring up across urban landscapes, rural farmers in the United States and abroad still toil against very real problems: droughts, lack of access to land, regressive policies. A global economy means that our food supply chains are all connected--we can't ignore the international implications of our personal choices.

On top of that, The New Farmer's Almanac (2013) from The Greenhorns came this week after a long delay (their first almanac).

The introduction by Severine Von Tscharner Fleming gave a fantastic overview of back-to-the-land movements and our tendency to glorify by-gone days of farming, dating back to Virgil's 29 BCE lamenting the loss of a golden time in agriculture. Besides the great historical perspective, I was reminded of what brought me here:

Under the sky, under the stars, we have time (what a privilege) to consider our lives and what we can do with them. It is possible to quiet the mind, especially with so much time screwing and unscrewing hoses, moving fence, watering seedlings with regular swoops of the sprinkling wand. In this way, stillness and reflection coexist with routines and chores, observation brings in new themes of inquiry, every day is a catalog of small, useful insights, which we can attach to visual cues alongside the inventories of grain, hose, bits and valve, and brainpower to design our own personal theories of change.

Our first chickens come in two weeks. We have no idea what we're getting into, but I'll be next door in my Dad's barn helping him construct the chicken ark (or chicken tractor). My back and arms are sore from pulling up an erosion fence two days ago--a job that took a sledgehammer, cinder blocks, chain, and a giant lever. When that was done, I spent several hours with a shovel and a garden rake preparing the ground for the spring vegetables (late start this year due to the cold).

I'd write more, but I need to bundle up (it's 40 degrees and rainy) and head over to Dad's barn. If what I've said here hasn't amounted to anything profound, I'm hoping the work I do with my hands today does.

***

Here it is so far:

Today's Small Contribution: Water Conservation

Installed a dual flush toilet with a simple $40 adapter kit. We depend on our well for water, and after two summers of drought, I'd like to conserve this precious resource wherever possible.

Speaking of water: We plan to set up a rain barrel system along the south side of the barn this spring to get water to the gardens--preferably drip irrigation. We moved here from the desert, and it looks like some of the best practices there might become necessary here.

Life on the Farm: The Sequel

It is now just over two years since we moved to our Indiana homestead next door to my parents. With the sale of six acres to our neighbors on the other side comes an official re-appraisal of our home and time to take stock.  

We are extraordinarily lucky to be here: our buying 21 acres, a house and barn was financially unlikely. Acquiring this place came together through an uncanny confluence of events. 

And we took immediate steps to make our home more sustainable. We insulated every inch, with emphasis on attic and crawl space. We put on a metal roof, which will last longer (no asphalt shingles in the landfill every time it hails) and reflect heat in the summer. Our new carpet was made from recycled bottles, our new wood floor was sustainably-harvested bamboo. 

The triumph of 2012 was installing a geothermal heating and cooling system. This meant goodbye to propane altogether, and ahead of schedule!

The problem with making such progress so quickly is that you eventually slow down. The beginning runner knows improvement like the experienced runner will never see again ("I cut my time in half!"). Now we are running out of money and what we have won't go toward solar or wind energy, like I dream about, but to necessary maintenance on the house. Fixing the old and rotting windows and the damaged gutters--these are also investments, but more about preservation than cosmic improvements. I always raced like that in cross-country--no sense of pacing, I shot out in front of everyone for the first mile, then watched everyone pass me and dragged myself to the finish line.

But we are lucky. My dad (here he is, above, in plaid in 1979, teaching me to rake leaves) had a stroke that grounded him from flying a year ago. He was a test pilot who dreamed his whole life of farming. He recovered marvelously, is in great health and now has time to grow more food, help me with projects, play guitar and even write songs! My mom sews--clothes, curtains, pillows, purses, lampshades, cloth napkins--and we reap the benefits. The "family-share model" I envisioned works well. There is far less commuting (fewer fossil fuel emissions!) when one family can pick up groceries at the store for the other. And of course there is sharing the fruits and vegetables of our labor.

So this year, lacking sufficient funds for ambitious plans, we will nevertheless continue to put hard work into the place. There will be plenty of greenhouse, gardening, and landscaping projects. We will get those chickens we meant to get two years ago. Yes, chickens--who inhabit more and more urban backyards--will finally have a place on this homestead. It's back-to-basics, and that was always part of the plan.

Another thing: One watches the weather differently from a rural county road. When I first described the move here, we were experiencing a once-in-a-generation winter, punctuated by a treacherous but breathtaking ice storm. Since then, in the summer of 2012, we have seen a drought that rivals the 1930s, with more days over 90 degrees and less rainfall than 1936. 

Drought-ravaged corn along County Road 200 West, July 2012. 





It's hard to know for sure how the native grass and wildflower field of 7 acres, planted summer 2011, fared in the 2012 dry spell. The grasses are drought-tolerant, but they take several years to establish themselves above ground. I have my fingers crossed that they were busy building deep root systems this past summer. I suppose that's exactly where I stand: with the grasses. It's hard for me to tell whether I'm going to thrive here or not, and I'm just hoping that I've been building an impressive root system. As an Air Force Brat, I was never practiced at putting down deep roots. I came here with an admittedly romantic notion of the hyper-local: that I would take a small piece of land, care for it, leave it better than I found it, and through my actions feel a deep sense of connection to it. For the grasses, we hope for summer rain. For me, it's less clear. I wrote before that the move here was sudden and yet it had been building for years. I'd like to trust those seemingly contradictory circumstances that brought us here, so that finally, being here will be like the end of a good poem as my mentor Tom Andrews defined it: both surprising and inevitable. 

Planting Native Grasses

I was warned: there is virtually no time to write in the Spring and Summer on a farm.


Still, I am an archivist by nature, so at least I documented the process of planting the warm-season native grasses with pictures. Establishing these grasses is expensive and elaborate; that is especially daunting for someone like me, who thought grass was grass until just under a year ago. They say that during the first few years, the grasses are establishing strong root systems and may not grow very much above ground.

This translates to: your field might be very ugly for three years, and only then will you know for sure whether the grass was a success. That's partly why the practice typically involves adding legumes and native wildflowers into the mix. Thankfully, it rained an inch and a half two days after drilling, and one day after broadcasting the remainder seed by hand. This is perfect to pack down the seeds.



One plants these warm season grasses both to control erosion (they have massive root systems) and provide critical wildlife habitat. This album shows the critical two days of planting the grass seeds, mostly Little Bluestem. We started spraying the field two months before (in this case, chemicals are the ecologist-recommended route). Despite all the spraying, the field still looks very grassy in places. Just looking at the unevenness of the field, it's hard to believe the no-till drill will work. The fluffy seeds can't be planted more than about 1/8 inch deep, and one should be able to see 30% of the seed on the surface after planting.

Dad (our neighbor!) supplied the tractor. We rented the drill. The ideal drill in this situation is a Truax, but because there are so few rangeland drills in the state and it was getting close to too-late-to-plant, we ended up with a Great Plains. We were not able to calibrate it like we would have liked. (I had a great video on calibration--free from the US Forestry Service, but this drill was missing the parts to do it right).



Insights about life on this farm will be better after a few years of perspective. At least I've got a few pictures in a Picasa album. I even had time to add a few captions.

Hoop House 1

It took two days to build. It didn't cost a dime.

I am trying to listen to real farmers. So here's one lesson I can recite, but have yet to learn (and the story of how I am obstinately trying to defy it). Real farmers know better than to try to force an early Spring. Around here, they say mid-May is the time to plant. (Of course, it depends on what you're planting, but...) I have not practiced patience, and this winter is killing me. This time last year, I was planting tomatoes and peppers in raised beds in Arizona.

The Indy Star has run pieces on hoop houses--"greenhouse like structures"--that the USDA is supplying farmers, to extend the growing season. Also known as "tunnels," (low and high), these plastic structures retain heat and protect plants from the elements.

Fortunately, the articles and pictures motivated my Dad. That is all it took to start the project. I've talked big about converting our covered porch into a greenhouse someday, but it needs to come in stages, and I need help.


We used scrap wood from his barn and mine, scrap metal from the roofers, river pebbles Mom and Dad had collected, some kind of wire mesh (I still don't know its original purpose), plastic sheeting from painting the house, and we had all the nails, screws and tools we needed on site.

To make the hoops, we took dry-wall brackets from his barn, bent them to 30 degree angles and locked two into each other so there was no sharp edge, pounded them flat together, then bent them into semi-circles. Voila! Hoops.


I confess I did buy dirt. I needed this mix. Good starter dirt is inert, and I just have buckets of worm compost. Here's something I learned: nutrient-full soil is not the ideal way to start seedlings indoors. Sure, it gives the plants a boost--makes them tall and green--but you want to be strengthening the root system instead. It's all part of the hardening process, preparing sheltered plants to move outdoors. I thought that slowly exposing baby plants to the elements was all you needed to do.

The real problem: I need purely passive heat, from the sun and plastic. If the energy-food balance is off,--if I supply electric or fossil-fuel generated heat and light--I won't be living up to my ideal. From the beginning, I have called this a 21st Century Sustainable Energy Farm.

Alas, "real life" intruded, and the something-for-nothing wish was denied. On the second night, we had snow and the temps dropped to the 20s. The caulking to seal up the corners was in danger of not drying. Without good sealant, I'd have a mess on my hands every time I watered. I found myself running Dad's kerosene heater at full blast, burning fossil fuels--both directly and indirectly, as it plugged into an outlet. (If I were to start on how much propane we have burned this season, this discussion would be moot. That is a more pressing goal, but this project was a fun diversion.)

Was Hoop House 1 a success? Not unequivocal, but perhaps I can call it a compromised success. Actually, Hoop House 1's real test has not yet begun. That starts when I plant the seeds.

Life on the Farm

We moved to our Indiana plot next door to my parents in October of 2010. I imagined I would keep an in-depth blog, but the experience has been far too overwhelming to document on a day-to-day basis.

When Grandpa Burrous (left, teaching me to plant corn) passed away last May, the occasion served as a catalyst to get up and move near family. I dreamed of living near my parents, but we would have had to build on the land behind them. That was out of our price range.

In a rapid turn of events just months after Grandpa's funeral, the man who lived in the house next door to Mom & Dad's became ill and moved to Florida. We decided to leave the sunny, beloved desert of the Southwest to farm here.

The winter has been unforgiving: we've had more snow and ice than I've seen in my ten or so years (taken together) of living in the Midwest and years of winter visits. It has given me a chance to read and learn from others, to plan for indoors and out.
I am charting out our native grasses and wildflowers for soil, water, and wildlife conservation, and making the house more sustainable one step at a time. I am impatient by nature, and this harshest of winters has forced me to be still and accept what is beyond my control.








I would like to chronicle the progress of the place and how it teaches me. Only some of this growth will be for others' consumption. I know that the decision to move here was both sudden and had been building for years. Only perspective will help me tell the story.



In the meantime, the tangible:

1) We replaced an old propane water heater with a heat pump hybrid, which will burn considerably less fossil fuel. However, that (and a leak--now fixed--in our propane tank, which fuels the furnace that has kept us warm this winter) only strengthens my sense of urgency over converting to cleaner sources of fuel. I would love to preserve my lifestyle, but I know that the lifestyle comes at the expense of the planet and, more importantly, other people. Sacrifices will, and should, be made. This first winter away from Arizona (after a decade of acclimating to the climate I knew best as a child), the staggering propane bills convinced me and my husband to keep the house at 68 to 69 degrees.

2) We spray-foamed the completely open crawl space--an expense that also saves gallons of propane a month (maybe as few as 2 or 3 gallons, but at $2 a gallon and the rate we're going through it anyway, that's something). We did other, smaller things that I hope will make a marginal difference: caulked around windows and doors, insulated the hot water pipes (I spent that day on my belly and back in the dark, silver-fish infested crawl space), used canisters of spray foam (I do worry about the chemicals) in holes to the house, etc.

3) We put on a metal roof. This will reflect sunlight and reduce cooling bills in the winter considerably. It also makes the house look more modern, matching our sensibility.

4) We will establish 7.5 acres of native grasses in May. This carries a large up-front cost, but the benefits will last for decades to come. After ten years in the Conservation Resource Program, we might consider taking some of the land out of grasses to farm organically.

The rest will come in stages. We will scale up our composting operation from my two worm bins and outdoor spots by the woods. We plan to get some egg-laying chickens this spring. Of course, I will be busy growing produce for our family--and that family now includes two households. I am deeply gratified to know that we can help my parents around their homestead.

There are political and socio-economic caveats to all of this, more than I will recite here. We recognize that this life change is neither righteous nor consistent, nor is it a choice we advocate for everyone. Nevertheless, we came with the hope that we could live better. Better for the earth. Better for family. Better for ourselves. We will continue to be global citizens--hopefully more conscientious and deliberate than before.

That is the plan (the hope, the dream...) Apologies for the sentimentality here! I promise not to take myself so seriously next time. Slipping on the ice and getting the car stuck in the field keeps us humble.

PS: I forgot these two!
5) We replaced the very old carpets with carpet made from plastic bottles.
6) Of course, we changed all the incandescent light bulbs to CFLs.