Plant Matter

I wish I could link you to an ad here, maybe from LandAndFarm, and say "This is the farm I want. This is the farm I'm going to buy. This is where I will be for the rest of my life."

Unfortunately, I'm nowhere near the point in my life where I can do anything more than dream.

I've been thinking a lot about what I want out of a farm. For a long time, and I'm talking since I was real little, I believed that I wanted a farm with lots of animals. Then, as I grew, I started to focus on sustainability and self-sufficiency, and decided that I wanted a row crop farm. I think, now that I'm maturing, I'm back to wanting farm animals more than I want to be completely self-sufficient.

I can definitely see myself working a farmers' market in whatever town I end up in, but I just can't see myself getting up at buttfuck o'clock to pack a truck full of pretty-lookin' vegetables, and trying to convince people that they want to buy from me and not someone else with similar produce. When it comes right down to it, I'm just not that friendly. So I think I'd better keep to the other side of the booths.

So maybe a small garden, just enough to keep me in the vegetables I like all summer long.

I grew up with a backyard orchard with apple and cherry trees. I definitely want to always live somewhere that lets me go outside when I want to make a pie, instead of having to go to the store. Wild blueberries and strawberries and raspberries and blackberries and huckleberries, too. I doubt property with those on it is all that hard to find in rural New England.

Maybe I could run a u-pick operation! I'm still not sure if I want to be a full-time farmer or if I want to just hobby farm. And by "still not sure" I mean "I'm still not convinced I have what it takes to make it full-time." I wonder how much time a U-Pick takes up? And I love baking pies, but I hate eating them (I know, I'm a freak). I could sell pies!

In the end, though, I know what I love. And that's animals.

But that's for another post.