Still Winning 40 Years On Farmers Weekly It was the early 1960s, he was 18 years old and won £20. He used the cash to buy three weaners, kept them in his dad's back yard and invested the money he made from them in more pigs. What was a hobby soon escalated. He started keeping stock in someone's orchard, then in some buildings before going self-employed in the early 1970s. He's now the patriarch of this family, which keep pigs and Here-ford cattle on 120 acres of grass at Isleham in Cambridgeshire.
Teens Plow into Unusual Hobby Chicago Tribune They were a pair of typical suburban teenagers in Palos Park. Alan Shewchuk liked movies, and Nate Ferrin played football. They were active in church and both played instruments in their high school marching band. Then, a tractor changed everything. Yes, a tractor.
Grower Turns Hobby into Business Country World Winemaker Jeff Sneed left California in 2000 to “live a more meaningful life in the country, grow grapes and make wine,†he said. Sneed, formerly an architectural engineer, sold his house and the architectural business and sought a quiet refuge in East Texas on which he could build his dream.
Olive Oil has proven to be good for you. The only problem is how do you tell what olive oils really are good for you? And how do you find the good, unadulterated stuff without paying a fortune?
July 19, 2008
I've gone to my farm in Kentucky for the weekend. It's a great place to relax, do a little hard physical labor, and forget about the rest of the world. If you don't have such a place, I highly suggest you get one.
In the meantime, here's a little something that I found for you to read with your morning coffee.
See you on Monday.
J. Peterman
From The New York Times:
CAMPTON TOWNSHIP, Ill. - In an environmentally conscious tweak on the typical way of getting food to the table, growing numbers of people are skipping out on grocery stores and even farmers markets and instead going right to the source by buying shares of farms.
On one of the farms, here about 35 miles west of Chicago, Steve Trisko was weeding beets the other day and cutting back a shade tree so baby tomatoes could get sunlight. Mr. Trisko is a retired computer consultant who owns shares in the four-acre Erehwon Farm.
"We decided that it's in our interest to have a small farm succeed, and have them be able to have a sustainable farm producing good food," Mr. Trisko said.
Part of a loose but growing network mostly mobilized on the Internet, Erehwon is participating in what is known as community-supported agriculture. About 150 people have bought shares in Erehwon - in essence, hiring personal farmers and turning the old notion of sharecropping on its head.
The concept was imported from Europe and Asia in the 1980s as an alternative marketing and financing arrangement to help combat the often prohibitive costs of small-scale farming. But until recently, it was slow to take root. There were fewer than 100 such farms in the early 1990s, but in the last several years the numbers have grown to close to 1,500, according to academic experts who have followed the trend.
"I think people are becoming more local-minded, and this fits right into that," said Nichole D. Nazelrod, program coordinator at the Fulton Center for Sustainable Living at Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pa., a national clearinghouse for community-supported farms. "People are seeing ways to come together and work together to make this successful."
Share the Eye:
Hobby Farming and the IRS Mother Earth News If you're a homesteader who also works a full-time job away from the farm ... or if like many of MOTHER's readers—you engage in a "bootstrap business" for extra income, you should be aware of some special regulations set down by the government's Internal Revenue Service.
My Hobby Farm Farm for Fun When the wind is blowing up a dust storm, without a sign of rain, I can’t help but wonder why I bought this hobby farm. However, on waking to a bright day, full of promise, an optimistic mood soon arises.
Hobby Farming The New Agrarian When my father was a boy in the 1950s, his grandmother kept chickens in her backyard and tended a large garden. The hens laid eggs until they became an "old cluck" — my great-grandmother's term for a hen that no longer wanted to give up her eggs to the child whose job it was to collect them — and then filled the soup pot for Sunday dinner.
still thinking about today...
It seems I should really get out more often, or at least pay more attention when I do. Erehwon Farm is only a twnenty minute drive for me. I pass by it at least two to three times a week but have never checked it out. I often buy very toothsome produce from a few of the farm stands surrounding it. I'll report back if I get there this weekend.
The notion of consuming local produce in particular is very popular right now. The term "locavore" is being applied to a good number of well loved chefs. And, up to a point, I get the idea. But it's interesting to note that, yesterday, we were all talking about how the best olive oil had to be imported because you couldn't get good stuff locally.
DPR,
I often wonder if a lot of the "locally grown versus imported" is more of a state of mind than actual taste. Perhaps a few blind taste tests are in order?
As I understand it, in the case of wines, flavor is determined by the grape itself, the growing region/climate, the barrel, as well as the age of the vine. Yet the number of local wineries out here in the Midwest is growing almost exponentially. Just down the road from the aforementioned farm, a field that a mere three years ago was used to grow corn and soybeans is now draped by grape vines and a new winery being constructed right across the street.
Up until a few years ago I don't recall hearing too much about the wines and/or olive oil that is grown and produced in Australia, but now it occupies a fair amount of shelf space in many of the better markets and has eatablished a good reputation.
Olive trees may take a little longer to grow and be productive, but who knows, maybe some day? It would be nice to have another economically sound argument to save some of the farm land out here that is steadily being purchased and transformed by housing developers.
we have "farmers markets" in the San Fernando Valley (L.A.). Most of the produce is from neighboring Ventura County. Always fresh. Some comunities in "inner city" suburban areas have started community gardens. It helps the less fortunate obtain fresh food.
However, L.A. county and other counties nearby have been losing farm land to developers at a rapid rate. It would be nice to see a balance but develpoment, even when it's so-called "Smart Growth", is more oftenat the expense of rural areas.
ExPat,
When I was just a snot-nosed kid living in Chicago, it might have taken 15 minutes by car to begin our Sunday drive out in the country and we would just drive, and drive and drive until we hit a small town.. That trip today would probably take at least 90 minutes before Chicago and all of it's "Mini-Me's" faded in our rearview mirror and then it would be a series of short drives through farmland and woods between all the newer and every expanding urban areas.
I'm sure the benefits are many but afraid that they are short lived (probably just an emotional/nostalgic rationalization on my part).
At least they had the good sense to label it "Smart Growth" as opposed to "Purposeless and Meaningless Growth for Naught but Greed"". I'm really not as bitter as that may sound. For many of the farmers, selling off their land was the only way they could finish in the black. More power to them.
I think I'll go see how the corn's growing while I still can.
Spinner said...
Peter Lake:
Many years ago, we went to a county high school 10 miles out in a little town on the eastern edge of the county where Louisville is located. We moved back 5 1/2 years ago. We bought a town house in that little town. It now is a part of the continuous sprawl that became "Louisville Metro" when the county and city merged several years back. That little town is simply a berb in the big picture. We are still learning the reconfiguration and new landmarks of the "country roads" we knew as teens. And I am sure those growing up here today will rue the "loss" of what they know as "the city as we know it".
Another pathway here in terms of community gardens. There seems to be quite a movement afoot, not only to garden communally, but to live in a community with more of a sense of neighborhood. Remember my disertation on co-housing? People are trying new ways to configure their neighborhoods that include community gardens. My husband has just returned from his trip to LA and went by Denver where there are 6-8 co-housing neighborhoods in the Denver-Boulder area. All his pix show community gardens, well tended and obviously, a center of focus for the residents.
We have also wondered if there could be any way to control the traffic problem and use all that ground in the middle of cloverleaf interchanges for gardens... just a thought. Seems a waste of good land.
Greetings: I think people want, or think they want local products (produce and fish) because they perceive that these items are fresher. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Just the other night I had a table that was insistant on knowing that all our fish was caught locally (it is); then when seated asked if we served King Crab legs (we don't). I tried to tell the that crab legs are from Alaska but they just didn't seem to get it. I thought it was pretty funny. Tourist, you got to love um.
Spinner,
We too are witnessing the growth of community gardens, particularly in the suburbs, but also within the city where vacant lots are sometimes being utilized for food and flower gardens whereas just a few years ago, these lots were occupied by the ruins and skeletons of derelict buildings.
I like your "cloverleaf" thinking. If we just really, purposefully, looked at our surroundings, I bet there are many opportunities for coop/community gardens. Heck, it might even lower some barriers and get neighbors talking to each other again.
Be well and enjoy your Sunday.
Lovey said...
When I grow up, I'm relatively certain the only times that I wont just microwave some pre-packaged mush will be when I eat out.
I haven't decided what I'm going to do, or be like, when I grow up. I'm keeping my options open.
I'm delighted to hear that the community gardens are not unique to New York City. I had always thought they were simply a way for urban folk to do something a bit countrified and the custom of community gardens has long been a part of this city's landscape.
I imagine, in the types of area that Spinner describes, the word "community" is even more important than the word "garden". In smaller towns and suburbs, where everyone has their own back yard (and need not resort to a big central park), everyone can have their own little garden, isolated from everyone else. And, in car country, people experience each other filtered through a windshield. So, I imagine, those community gardens are even more about the opportunity for collaboration than the actual plants. Three cheers!
Okay, who is Lovey? I love Lovey. Just returned from Batman. Had hands over eyes for half of movie, Paladium manager claimed that it did not warrant fifty percent refund. Whatever.
Have been chewing on this all day. Got very excited when I read the article, way too early this morning. Farming is so dear to me. I mentioned earlier a 'lock and key' under which I was raised. That translates in this fashion: two academics, some land, and everything holistic they'd picked up from grad school in 1970's Ann Arbor. We didn't eat anything that wasn't co-opted. We didn't have television or radio. We had books. We had gardens. And dare I say, we had shotguns. Lots of them. I'm an odd amalgom of red neck and high brow.
We gardened as most intellectuals do—for sport and aesthetic back-patting. And I loved it. I sketched lilac blossoms for seven years running and turned pumpkins regularly for optimal orange-ness. Thought I was Alcott or Dickenson reincarnate.
And then I took a job on a real farm, in my teens. One day, the elderly couple for whom I worked, who existed soley on the earnings from this farm, asked me to come back when the sun had cooled to finish picking seven buckets of cosmos. And I did. And bees like cosmos—a lot. And one of them liked my a@#, A LOT.
I knocked on the door of the couple's home with only two buckets picked and explained that I had been stung, in an unfortunate place, and, obviously, would have to head home. The Missus pulled me into the kitchen, grabbed some of the meat tenderizer still laying out from dinner prep, pulled up the back of my shorts (in front of her weak-hearted husband) and slapped a spoonful on my buttocks. She pushed me out the door and told me to hurry with the last five buckets, as it was bound to get 'uncomfortable' soon.
And that's when I really fell in love with farming. Because I realized, sore ass in hand, that I liked not having an option to quit. I finished the harvest and went directly home to my master list of Life To Dos, from which I have still not strayed, and added:
Will own ONE REAL FARM.
Will set self up to succeed or fail based on productivity of hands.
Will get longer, bee-repelling shorts.
Loved the pic of of the business man in the field. Feels revolutionary. Could use some CAN NOT QUIT in the boardrooms across the country.
I'm from Quebec, and just returned from a short vacation there - to see friends, get ready for college there, and to eat wonderful Quebec strawberries. I suppose we're better known for maple syrup up in Canada, but I can testify with as little bias as possible that the strawberries bought from the farm vendors on the side of the road up in the country are at least 300% better than strawberries anywhere else.
I guess all that time in trucks, jostling and being sprayed with preservatives kinda makes certain foods... lose appeal. But, you know, that's just my... ahem... opinion.