May-Act II For Foxhole Farm
A shift is happening here. It's a conscious shift and one which we have been anticipating since starting our farm. Having gotten another farm business off of the ground up in Michigan, we had enough experience to forecast a 'feel-it-out' phase at the outset of Foxhole. Between determining what this place would grow well and what the local market would demand, to understanding how to manage our time as new parents and farmers, there was a lot to be determined.
I remember the outlook in 2018. It felt as if we had just won the lotto scoring this property with a move-in ready old farmhouse and nearly thirty acres for quite a steal. We were in the right place at the right time as an offer had fallen through and the semi-desperate seller agreed to our offer. We had our first baby in our care and I was just starting to feel like myself again as she had rounded the sun for her first time. It felt like nothing could stop us as Rich and I threw it all at the wall to see what would stick. With a background in raising livestock and organic vegetables, we decided to incorporate both enterprises for our maiden voyage into this business. Year one we seeded 25 acres of beaten-up corn stubble to pasture and an acre to vegetables. We rode out the first year, growing a wide variety of vegetables for market, to find out that a couple handfuls of them didn't thrive in the schizophrenic weather conditions and clay-heavy soils of western Ohio. And as it turns out, folks aren't nearly as geeked about kale as they were in Michigan and New York, our previous markets. Kale turned out to be in that handful of crops which has an aversion to our conditions here. And so with two strikes against it, we moved kale to the back burner. This was the start of 'feeling it out'.
On the tail end of our first winter on the farm, we brought on a wee breeding flock of four pasture-raised Katahdin ewes and a handsome ram who we named Bahbby. This was a meager, but affordable start to our sheep operation. The plan was to grow the flock as we could, rotating them across our young pasture in temporary paddocks made of mobile electronet fencing to help remediate, fertilize and encourage the regrowth of a multi-species pasture. Regenerating this plot of conventional farmland from it's depleted, monoculture status would take time. But with the light disturbance of the sheep grazing and fueling the ground with their nitrogenous 'black gold' they drop along the way, a sweet symbiosis would be achieved between the soil and the sheep. And eventually, when the flock expanded enough to challenge the land's capacity, we would begin to select lambs for market to supplement our vegetable income and to make a living off the land.
Predicting we were at least five years out from that point, we decided against investing in a livestock trailer, the infrastructure necessary to load the animals, and a freezer for storing the meat. With the resources of a couple of 20-somethings who had worked in agriculture for their short careers, we had to be strategic with our first investments in the farm. We would give the vegetables and the sheep a fair shake and suss out the direction our ship should take. If, by the time the sheep were ready for market we had determined there was a market and that there was a part for them in the story here, we would use our acquired resources to invest in the necessary equipment to move forward. If not, we would find them a place to call home elsewhere.
Little did we know, the world was about to change. It was 2019 and it was the calm before the storm. We were slinging vegetables, our bread and pastries at two thriving farmers markets and were successful in selling whatever we could manage to grow and bake. By Thanksgiving Bahbby was flirting with the ewes, and little did we know, he was fertilizing the seed that would grow our flock in the first spring of the coronavirus pandemic. Jack, our second baby, came into our lives in late January of 2020, what some might call the nick of time.
We bobbed and weaved as the pandemic molded the world into a whole new place over the next few years. The business of our business being rather scrappy and contingent on the world around us, we heeded the call to adapt to the new reality. Buying habits changed, manufacturing delays and runs on the seed companies' inventories threw us for loops, but people never stopped demanding fresh produce, not to mention bread and pastries. We found that people were more comfortable shopping online, rather than waiting on line at the market. So, something that never seemed viable beforehand for a small farm, came to be: our online shop where our customers could skip the line and buy weekly produce from home. This paved the way for thriving off-season sales outside of farmers market as people were accustomed to accessing our site weekly. The business was growing and we had built something that could survive being turned on its head.
All the while, we paid close attention to how small livestock producers were faring. In a world which favors big business, the preexisting regulations don't make it easy for a family farm to be in the business of animal husbandry. It is expensive and difficult to harvest and sell meat and animal products for a small producer. It's a shame, as the small producers are typically the ones who take the time to manage animals and land well, in contrast to the feedlots which the regulations benefit. We didn't fail to notice how the small livestock producers suffered from the side effects of the pandemic. Multiple butcher shops closed, falling victim to the same small business issues that others face in the wake of covid. With fewer operations open, it became and still remains difficult to secure dates at the butcher. The result has been that individuals call excessively early to block off more spots than they need for their animals to be certain that they will be able to take as many animals as they have ready when the time comes. In fact, this winter we called our butcher for this coming fall and the following fall. We would have only been able to bring five animals this year and ten next. As we are not permitted to harvest our own animals for sale, this would have cornered us into selling whole animals at auction or into tracking down kosher buyers to come to the farm to purchase the live animals to process for themselves. The forecast is not feeling reassuring.
We made that phone call as part of our assessment of the reality we are in. The rest of the research could only be called soul searching. The sheep had become a part of this living system we have here. Rich, head shepherd, had started his days and ended many of them with the sheep which had grown to a flock of thirty, some of the ewes with swelling bellies challenging that number. The pasture had grown lush in a matter of five seasons, inviting pollinators and providing habitat and forage for birds and other creatures galore. Just two years in, we noticed a fox had found the conditions were welcoming enough to call one of our further fields home. We took this as a great testament to the ecosystem repair here at the Foxhole of foxholes. We and the sheep had matured together.
However, in the grand scheme of our life here, there is a tug of war at play. Our time and energies are the rope and we find ourselves struggling to maintain the balance that affords us the quality of life we seek in this way of life. We underestimated being called upon as parents of young kids. We raise our May and Jack on a sort of island far enough from our community of support that except for school hours, we are on our guard. That village it takes to raise a kid, there's something to that that is so natural and so true. Our ambitions were also tugging on the rope, maintaining thirty acres, a flock of sheep and labor-intensive mixed vegetables comprise our widdled down responsibilities. Over the course of time, I stepped back from catering, teaching cooking classes, selling at three different farmers markets instead of our one strong one, and various other farm projects that we used to keep up with on that farm in Michigan before we brought kids into the world. I suppose we really had thrown it all at the wall. And we are really starting to see what sticks.
The kids. The vegetables that we sell out of. Whatever we can pump out of our two ovens for the market table. And yes, the pastured eggs which we may or may not expand upon. Time and our soul searching will tell. These are where we should concentrate our energies, and it's time to cull the flock.
On a bittersweet Tuesday last week, our good friend Ben rolled up the drive hauling his big livestock trailer while I cooked the kids' breakfast. I was happy to be busied by my school morning routine of lunch-packing, breakfasting, brushing Jack's chiclets, all with my comfort blanket dogs at my feet. Socialite May insisted on finishing up and heading out the door to chat and visit with the guys and to see the sheep one more time. All the preparatory talks with her didn't manage to save her from the bitterness of the goodbye. And so after dropping Jack off at preschool, she and I took up all the time we could sitting in the parking lot, shedding crocodile tears. Her "Snow Culture" who she named when she was four would be moving on to new pastures. And it would be Rich who would have the job of watching the group's confusion as they were thankfully, peacefully unloaded at the family-run auction up the road, bleeting over their shoulders at him, making eye contact with the person who cared for them since they dropped on pasture. And when Rich and I were reunited at the farmhouse in the few hours we have alone in a day, we held each other too, bitter over the broken bond with these precious animals, but with the redeeming sweetness of a shipped steered right.
It's Act II as we see it, with many more acts to come if we can remember to pace ourselves and to take life as it comes. We have exciting news on expanding our veggie operation, which we'll share with you in the weeks to come. And guess what? As the universe would have it, a mother ewe gave birth a week before Ben's arrival. We get to spend some more precious time with ovine friends Shaggy-Doo, her ram lamb Sun and her ewe lamb Moon, until they get on their feet. The story will go on :).
Updates from the Farm:
-Online orders: It's getting exciting...salad, carrots, and so much more are on the menu as we continue to open our online shop weekly. One of these years I'll speak up enough to the Oakwood Market board to convince them to start market in May. But this year, we have to wait until June.
-Plant sale: We have a fleet of annual plants for your gardens which I will start to list this week, with a big plant sale on May 18th. You can shop that sale online starting on May 12th when I stock the shop and pick up on Saturday the 18th in Oakwood from 10-12.
-The Field: Conditions are right and we are in the field now with lettuce, carrots, spinach, peas, potatoes, etc growing. It's bound to be a big early start based on the soil temperatures and forecasted weather conditions.
-Equipped: We invested in bigger walk-behind weeding equipment which will make one of the biggest labors on the farm more efficient and easier on our bodies. This is one step in the right direction for growing more veggies with less work.
Thank you for reading :).
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