Confessions of a CCC

Appeared in Pioneer Press newspapers

April 24, 2010

See if you can detect a theme to my winter reading.  My bedside table has been buried under the following titles:

·        You Can Farm!

·        The Green Gardener’s Guide

·        Growing Green

·        Growing Fruit

·        Practical Orchard Plans and Methods

·        Storey’s Guides to Raising Chickens and Dairy Goats

·        Keeping Chickens

·        Chicken Coops

·        Chicken Tractor

·        Seed to Seed

·        The Berry Grower’s Companion

And, in addition to these practical, how-to volumes, a couple of why-sos, in Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and Michael Perry’s Coop, a pair of writerly takes on going back to the land, why one would, and the associated ups and downs.

So, yes, I understood that, as a cosseted corporate creampuff (CCC), I knew virtually nothing about what I was getting myself into down on the farm.  I realized I was impelled by largely romantic notions.  And, I had a Rumsfeldian recognition that I faced many unknowns, both known and un.  So I spent the indoor months cramming my head with book larnin’ and theory -- the stuff which, as a CCC, I know how to do.

But now it’s Spring – and an early one, at that, and it’s time to start turning that theory to practice.

We’re close to breaking ground (we hope) on the addition to the old house.  It will go through an old fenced garden, with many plants worth saving.  So, the first job we chose to tackle on our new land was making a transplant bed to save these refugees.

We schlepped our roto-tiller (yes, we already had one in the ‘burbs – used twice, I believe, in10 years) up to the farm and found a likely spot by the barn – out of the way of construction, and in the sun.  The tiller woke up nicely and we soon had a fine new bed, about 15’x15’.  Several hours later, it was filled with legacy plants we’d saved from the looming back hoe.

It was a good feeling, though my hands were still vibrating from the tiller, and our backs were aching from the crouching and digging.  Which was nothing compared to the head-aching that followed the recognition that we’d spent a good half of one of the two days a week we currently can put into this project, addressing 225 square feet worth of cultivation -- or approximately one 1,500^th of the 8 acres confronting us. 

Those 1,500+ half days – of start-up work -- before us, come out to about something over two years’ worth of daily labor, or, at our weekender pace, about seven years.  So, at least I know what I’ll be doing for a while.

Now, by modern agricultural standards – or historical ones, for that matter – eight acres isn’t a whole lot.  But it’s plenty for a guy who’s used to just having a lawn.  And a lawn service.

Beyond the adjustment to scale are even more fundamental questions: What to do? How to do it?  Where to start?

We have three pastures today, roughly the size of football fields.  We’d only seen them in fallow periods before.  Now they’re growing away. And I have a push lawn mower made for a standard suburban lawn. 

And what is that growing there, by the way?  Is it just plain grass? What kind?  Do I let it grow and cut it for hay later?  Is it the kind that makes hay? 

We want to start planting.  One book says to till the field.  The next book says not to, as there’s all sorts of good stuff down there you don’t want to disturb. 

How do I find out which way is best?  One book says talk to your local extension agent.  The next book says never talk to your extension agent.

I’m ready to work.  I’m willing to work.  I need a plan.  I’m reminded of the old Mike Meyer sketch on “Saturday Night Live,” “Middle-Aged Man,” who came to the aid of young people inexperienced in such mysteries of life as escrow.

Is there a “Middle-Aged-Farmer Man” out there to help a CCC like me?