Category Archives: Small and Sustainable

ideas, essays, hints and tips for living in small spaces and living alone

Between Planting and Picking – Sandi Haber Fifield

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Between Planting and Picking - Sandi Haber Fifield photograph © Sandi Haber Fifield

Life on a small farm can be reflective and beautiful. Each season provides a new canvas for natures art combined with a farmers influence.

The end of winter can be trying as the final fits of snow and weather delays the birth of spring. Appreciation of the landscape can be overshadowed by daily chores, worries, and an endless list of things to mend as nature takes its annual toll.

And when I received Sandi Haber Fiflield’s “Between Planting and Picking” photo book in the mail, I was treated to an artful, reflective view of small farm life that allowed me to pause and enjoy her images.

Haber Fifield has found the hidden beauty of  small farms and shares 54 artful images of the time between the promises of spring and the reward of autumn’s harvest.  These are fresh images, most likely familar to the farmer and new to the non farmer.   These scenes are captured from spaces reserved for those who work and relish the work of the land.

The images are best viewed in print, a computer screen can only do them so much justice and the book is a sample of the  gallery show which opens March 3 and runs through April 16 at Rick Wester Fine Art in New York City.

Queen Anne’s lace and parked truck, Nelsen Family Farm, Kerbyville, OR, August 2010 © Sandi Haber Fifield

Haber Fifield’s project began in June 2009 and continued through the fall of 2010. The artist photographed family owned farms spanning New England to the West Coast and the Pacific Northwest. Teeming with the verdant and lush colors of these fertile fields, Haber Fifield made pictures that delicately balance the geographic with the geometric, while using the agricultural landscape to create a complex vocabulary of visual associations. Less documentary in nature and more about challenging her own vision, she finds in the unending cycle of growth and harvest a metaphor for her own image-making.

The monograph includes essays by Dominique Browning and Leslie K. Brown.  Their insight and discussion of the images  put  words to the feelings and emotions captured by Haber Fifield’s work.

Josh Viertel, President of Slow Food USA writes of the book, “Here are pictures of small farms, where food is grown with integrity, and of simple places that are beautiful because of the work that is done there.”

Harvested pumpkins, Belta’s Farm, Westport, CT, October 2010 © Sandi Haber Fifield

As I turned the pages, I found Haber Fifield’s images combining the order and chaos of a field:  a collection of tools, an improvised electrical box, or tools and chairs, as if the inanimate objects were patiently awaiting their owner’s return.

Her images take the viewer to private places: images of a journal/lunar calendar, a solo goose bathing in a tank, behind-the-scenes wash rooms, and laundry blowing in the wind.  There are no people in the collection, yet their influence is shown and felt with the turn of each page.

Many of the images also include barriers: fencing, crop netting, and make-shift backstops.In real life, these barriers  keep out predators and protect crops  and livestock. In the photographs, they serve to keep the troubles of the rest of the world at bay, while the viewer enjoys the art of the small farm.

Small Farm Cooking: Compact but now expanding

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I started gathering ideas for a small cabin more than 10 years ago and about 5 years before I began building a cabin.

A summer cottage in Norway. Small and sustainable.

During a 2003 trip to Norway, I visted a hand full of summer cottages and they influenced my ideas on how to use and multi-purpose tables, chairs, and furniture to make great use of a small space.

In the original ideas and design for the dog trog style cabin here at Two Mile, the larger cabin contained the kitchen area, and much of the cooking was done outside, weather permitting.  My original plans had some built in limits:  The first year, there was no permenant LP gas, and the I did not run electricity to power 220v appliances.  That left the inside cooking options  limited.

Snapshot from the Norway cottage, the two-burner cooktop and oven, built in to the counter space.

It was in one of the Norway cottages that an idea was planted that I later used in the kitchen here.  Avanti sells something similar, I see now they have added a rotisserie to the oven.  A small oven, with two electric burners on top.  The oven heats to just over 400 degrees, has top and bottom elements for broiling or toasting.  The top burners (with patience) boil water…although its quicker to boil the water in an electric kettle and then transfer to the cooking pot.

Now that I have a permenant LP tank and feed to the cabin, my eyes and mind have been wandering the options of an LP commercial style (translated:  hot burners) range that can be a bit more versatile.  Normally, I cook for one, but when I have guests, I can easliy be cooking for 5 or more and often with varied food preferences.

Using a kitchen island — which up until now was pressed against a wall, I returned it’s function to that of an island.  In Stephen Atkinson’s original design for the Zachary House, the design whcih inspired my plans here, his kitchen features a centered “altar” table. The island now mimicks his original thoughts and I have to nod to his design brilliance…it makes the space seem larger and homier.

The space for the new range, next to the 110V cooktop oven that has served many meals here over the years.

So this week, with warmer weather, shorer snow drifts, and some willing helpers from the local co-op who delivers the LP, I’ll add an extension to the LP line to connect to the new range.

The new range will be only for cookingm not heating the cabin or heating water.  By proxy, I’m sure it will add a few thousand BTU’s to the space as it is used.    If the budget were bigger…..I mean several thousand dollars bigger, I might consider an Amish style stove – heater like a Kitchen Queen, or go all out with the AGA cooker (around $18,000)

Ole & Lena Story

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The drifts reached the top of the deck

In honor of the Ground Hog Day snowstorm sweeping the country, it seems like it’s time to reivive a slightly modified “Ole and Lena joke”

Government surveyors came to Ole’s southern Iowa farm last spring and asked if they could do some surveying.   Ole agreed, and Lena even served them a nice meal at noontime.

After their work was done, the surveyors told Ole, “You were so kind to us; we wanted to give you the bad news in person, instead of by letter.”

“What’s the bad news?” asked Ole.

“Well, your farm is right on the state line,” the surveyors said, “and after our work was completed, we discovered your farm is not in Iowa.   It’s actually in Missouri.”

“That’s the best news I’ve had in a long time,” said Ole.  “I was just telling Lena this morning that I don’t think I can take another winter in Iowa !”

“Field Notes” the brand and the idea

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For my birthday this year, my oldest son sent me a gift of Field Notes “County fair” Regional Edition notebooks.

A sample of various journals used over the years

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 journals – another favorite of mine – come in plain pages, lined, and grid along with specialty pages for music notation and film and video story-boarding.  The Moleskine Storyboard Notebook Pocket story-board pages could also be used nicely for planning a raised be garden system.

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.


Should I Move to the Country

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A "For Sale" sign marks the beginning of a new rural life

My son sent me a link to an AskMetafilter thread about moving to the country.  The author’s question begins:

25 year old single female (kinda) city mouse might go country mouse. How well advised is this move?? I would like to hear from people that have done this and loved it or hated it.

The best response, from the author pseudonym “MonkeyToes” is linked here; and you can read the original question in detail, along with the other replies to the thread.

I’ve posted about a “Typical Day” here at Two Mile and “The Other Kind of Typical Day“.  It’s an interesting blend of work ethic and play ethic that comes from living on a small farm.  There are always things that must be done; hard things that leave skinned knuckles and permanent stains on clothing,   The kind of things that if someone asked you to do for a job, you might quit.  But doing these tasks for yourself becomes a game and a challenge and a riddle to solve.

The AskMetaFilter inquisitor asks a question many others may ask this holiday season and as we push into the new year.  Is it time to make a break?  Is this the year to build a country life?

An excerpt from the MonkeyToes reply:

* The work is endless. Entropy works overtime on a farm, and there is always a fence to repair, a hose that needs replacing because you hit it with the mower, wood to split, weeds to pull, vegetables to can, bread to bake. Sounds delightful, yes? It is, when you can do it by choice. When you’re out of wood in the house and it’s sleeting outside, *you still have to do what needs doing,* whether you want to or not, sick or well, no matter what time it is. Your discretionary time will disappear because you’ll always be trying to keep up with your To-Do list. No TV? That’s fine. I miss sitting down with coffee and The New Yorker–I’m too busy tending the fire and rooting around the barn for the heated pan so the chickens’ water doesn’t freeze.

* Animals are complicated. With each animal, factor in: the expense of feeding; potential veterinary care; housing; and transportation. Do you have the right fencing? A dry barn, or run-in shed outside? Is there a feed mill nearby? How do you haul animals when you must? How do you provide water in freezing temperatures? Are you prepared to put an animal down if necessary? Sheep and goats and cows only look like they just stand there when they’re in someone else’s field and you are driving by, admiring their beauty. Are you hands-on enough to do your own processing, or do you have a butcher nearby? Do you have the knack for picking up weird skills (maggot-picking, chicken-catching, coop-building)? If not, then I hope your friends do.

I share three books (Available from Amazon if you want to help us pay the bills here).  Great gifts for yourself or the friend looking to make the move.  Be forewarned,  giving any of these books to your soon-to-be-rural friend implies tacit permission to  expect you to work when you visit their new rural home.

Bridge to nowhere

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Bridging the gap, looking down the frame to the 1 acre pasture on the north edge of the ranch.

A year ago last April, I looked at a washed out gap along the east edge of the farm yard with a few of my local buddies from Saturday morning coffee and I uttered a few words…. seemingly harmless at the time, but began a project that almost became a legacy.

“Do you think we could push some dirt in there to get across to the other side?”

Well, the talk turned to culverts, wash outs, bulldozers and ….. bridges.

Plans, grew, testosterone flew, and men had visions of power equipment.  Big power equipment. This kind that uses tracks to move, not just tires.

“You could take the wheels off a flat bed trailer and slide it across and have a bridge….”  and then, just like a star of a television drama right before the commercial break, Bob says,” and I think I know a guy who has one.”

The “bridge” arrived a week or so later (wheels still intact) and it became a “one of these days” project.  It sat on the north edge of the farm yard through most of May 2009.

And June.

And July.

And August.  Well, in August, Bob did come by and flip it over and cut oft the wheels because the seller of the bridge “has to have these wheels this week”.  And then, both the wheels and the trailer sat through August.

And September, by then, it was named “the bridge to nowhere” because it sat there, doing nothing and going no where.

And it sat through December’s ice storms, January’s winter thaw, February’s cold snap…..

It sat during a birthday, a new year’s eve and a another birthday.

Hidden through most of the summer by tall grass, the “bridge” sat in the middle of the new horse pasture. I had two offers to buy it, as-is, from my neighbor to the north and a passer by.

But as the fencing for the pasture went up — more on that in another post — Bob moved the trailer down to the gap and a few days later, popped it across the open space.  October.

An angle grinder cuts through a rusted screw that once held a wood floor to the frame of the flat bed trailer

The wooden floor was rotted away and mostly missing.  The strong screws were now rusted to the frame and there are three gaps for the flooring and about 6 remaining rusted screwed per support cross member.  I cut out the screws with an angle grinder and will lay down a new wood floor and build a railing.

Tin Roof! Rusted. (not)

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The new roof, corrugated galvanized panel, not likley to rust

The dogtrot at Two Mile has a new roof over the breezeway that joins the two cabins and makes the breeze way.

The roof line of the dogtrot was one I tinkered with during the initial design.  The original design, and one often favored in traditional dogtrots is a single unified roof line.  In my early 3-D renderings, I explored alternative  roof lines that were unified, higher and lower than the other roofs.

In the first construction, I opted for a lowered center roof and built it using lattice to offer both shade and light in the center space.

Last last year, I took down the lattice during some repair and adjustment to the center breezeway due to settling of the two cabins.  I debated a number of materials for the new roof, including tongue and groove, PVC, and polycarbonate.

I returned to the original design by Stephen Aktinson, shows his Zachary House is sheathed in corrugated metal, and chose that material for the roof.  Later this fall, I will replace the lattice skirting with the same material.

PS:  Tin Roof, Rusted is the line at the end of the B-52′s song Love Shack. (See the 2009 CMA awards covered by Sugarland featuring the B 52′s here  Pop culture suggests it means this.  (really?)

An early design with a raised center roof

The settled on design, using lattice for the center roof

My First Tractor Published

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I am very humbled to include a blog post from this site  in Jerry Apps’ compilation of stories about farmer’s first loves.

My First Tractor: Stories of Farmers and Their First Love appears in many online book sellers this week and includes work by Michael Perry, Bob Artley, Roger Welsch, Bob Feller, Ben Logan, Gwen Petersen, Ralph W. Sanders, Robert N. Pripps, Patricia Penton Leimbach, Randy Leffingwell, Lee Klancher, Don Macmillan, Scott Garvey, John Dietz, and more.

Of personal note are two essays, one by Ralph W. Sanders, who by coincidence, is the father of a neighbor, and the other by Micheal Perry, who I blogged about a year ago.  Perry’s story comes, in part, from his book, Coop: A Family, a Farm, and the Pursuit of One Good Egg (P.S.)

I’d like to thank the folks at Voyageur Press for including me in this project.

The Farmall 706 which has served Two Mile Ranch since May of 2005

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