For my birthday this year, my oldest son sent me a gift of Field Notes “County fair” Regional Edition notebooks.
These 48 page pocket notebooks are reminiscent of the pocket notebooks used by farmers, salesmen, preachers and others. Long before GTD, Palm Pilots, iPods, and the electronic organizers we’ve all come to use, a pocket notebook and pen were the best ways to keep information. On today’s small farm, the daily journal kept a small notebook such as these Field Notes serves two purposes.
The first is organization. Do this, do that, don’t forget the other thing.
The second, is creating a legacy and sustaining the culture of your family farm. The sustainability of your visions, challenges, sweat equity, and successes can be recorded for future generations to page through, reflect upon, and in some cases laugh. Imagine what will have changed in the world in 25 years. Or 50 years. Or more.
I’ve used a variety of sizes and styles of paper notebooks as I’ve built the cabins and planned projects at Two Mile Ranch. I’ve used calendar style journals to record weather, laying habits of chickens, garden plots, feed purchases, building and shelter plans, shopping lists, and the general diary of events.
Lined journal pages and grid pages work both for writing and for sketching ideas. The Moleskine Ruled Notebook Large
I think there are two schools of thought about keeping a journal or a group of journals. If you keep two calendars, perhaps you’ve had the circumstance of the calendars not being in sync and as result being scheduled for two events at the same time. Likewise, it seems, writing things in two journals could lead to having the wrong journal at the right time.
The other school of thought appeals to those with distinctly separate kinds of journaling. Writing in two or more notebooks helps organize and group information – I suppose similar to the individual subject notebooks from our K-12 school years.
I keep three notebooks — which seems confusing at first, but works for me. A larger weekly planner records weather, planting, egg production, and significant farm events. This is my record system. This year I’m expanding it to track feed consumption and purchases. I do this currently on the computer, but adding a paper record to the bound journals will make a different kind of lasting record.
A smaller, pocket size planner carries my daily schedule, to do lists, and project ideas. In this book, I also write down what I need to complete a rainy day project — and I usually buy materials for those in advance and keep them in the barn. When I have a bad weather day that keeps me from doing regular work, I have both the material and the “to do” list for inside projects.
A third journal is a creative space — note taking , ideas, sketches, scribbles, outlines and so on. This third notebook is used off and on, some times, its used daily, other times, I’ll go a week or more without writing in it. I’ve not kept a daily narrative journal, although when I read the except below. I get tempted Not so much to write a journal for me, but for the young eyes of the future who might discover them, read them aloud to each other, and laugh at “the olden days” around the turn of the 21st century.
The Michigan DNR hosts a web page that features an August 1884 excerpt from Charles Estep’s “Farm Diary 1883-1886.” His farm on Musgrove Highway later became the Fred Bulling Farm in Sebewa Township, Ionia County, Michigan.
Saturday, 23rd. Foe was sick all night last night. After breakfast I went down and got Mrs. VanHouten to come and see her. She said we had better send for a doctor right away, so I went down home and started Bion after the doctor and got Mother. Then I went and got Mrs. D. Leak. In the meantime Mrs. Olry came. Dr. Smith came at two o’clock. At about four o’clock our baby was born, a bouncing healthy boy of 8 and 3/4 pounds. Foe was very sick, indeed. Mother stays all night.
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By The new season seed catalogs: The postman rings twice this time of year | Small Farm Life January 17, 2011 at 2:17 am