Scaling down, or setting realistic goals

I am forty-four years old. And while I am in reasonably robust good health, I do have some issues (especially joint issues) which periodically remind me that I am no longer in my twenties, or even thirties. I have also, thanks to the economic meltdown of 2009, had to be very cautious of my rapidly-depleting finances. As a result of these factors, I have had reluctantly to begin to re-think some of my farm dreams. I have not given them up, but I have scaled them back considerably.

In order to head up to Sterling College for that wonderful year-long Sustainable Agriculture program, I would need to sell my condo. Given the current market, that would be hard to do without taking a loss on it, and that's not something I want to do if at all avoidable. I would then have to look for a place up in Vermont, to either rent or purchase. Again, not impossible, but a challenge, from so many hundreds of miles away. Finally, I would be taking a major chance on being able to find or create – as soon as possible after completion of the program – a farm-based enterprise that would make money... and do so more-or-less on my own, since it is unclear just how much hands-on support I would enjoy from my lady-love. Having to take her interests and desires into account also complicates – no offense to her – a move which would be challenging enough even if I were alone.

Given this combination of circumstances, it seems to make the most sense to me to remain in this area and try to find permanent, benefited employment either in the Maryland Park Service or something related, and from there look at ways in which I/we can "homestead" on our own land once I'm in a financial position to move from this condo to a place with some actual land attached. Major goals include a large garden, and chickens! Possible longer-term goals include a family cow and perhaps a couple of draft horses or oxen, if or as space and financial concerns allow it. The main focus would be, not on making the farm pay for itself, but homesteading on whatever property I/we end up with, as a way of increasing self-sufficiency and, hopefully, decreasing costs.

This is not quite the "farm dream" that I had even six months ago, but it is a more realistic goal to strive toward, considering the realities of my current situation. And it will allow many of the same sorts of things I was looking for in obtaining and running a larger farm, including greater food self-sufficiency, improved health and well-being as a result, a more sustainable lifestyle in general, and perhaps even a greater level of independence from "the grid" if I am able to heat with wood, utilize solar and/or wind-power for a portion of our electricity, and so on. So, this is the updated version of my goals for at least this part of my future. We shall see how they shape up, in practice!

Background to my farm dreams

I have always had farming in the back of my mind. My current dream/passion/goal to have a small farm of my own took shape somewhere around 2002, plus or minus a bit, but even as a child, some of my favorite playthings were farm-related, and I used to say I wanted to be a farmer when asked what I wanted to do when I grew up. Over time, other passions and other goals took over, but the ember continued to smolder in the back of my mind – or heart – waiting for the right impetus to blow a breath upon it and cause it to burst into flame once again.

That breath was breathed by some books I happened to read on homesteading and traditional farming, and the coal was further fanned by websites (many of which are listed on this site, in the "links" section) and other resources I discovered, like ripples spreading out in a pool when you throw a rock into it. I even took a half-day workshop on draft-horse driving offered at the Carroll County Farm Museum, and have the picture to prove it! But my mother’s health was shaky, I was the last of us “kids” to be unmarried and living at home, and so as had happened before, after the accident that took Pa’s life, I put my dreams on hold to care for her.

Then came Spoutwood, in 2005, and at least I was working on a farm – even if it was all produce, with no livestock, and certainly no draft horses or oxen! I advanced rapidly to a position of some authority and considerable responsibility, peaking in 2007-2008. The loss of Ma in 2007, though heart-breaking, freed me up in some respects, but by that time I had a commitment to Spoutwood, and a position that, for the first time in my life, was paying a living wage (albeit without benefits). But then the economy caught up with me, or rather with Spoutwood, and I was first cut to half-time, and then, just a month or so ago, told that my position was being cut.

And that is a brief sketch of the events which led up to this journal entry, last week:

Thursday, August 13^th

Not every thought that recurs is a divine sending. Some are simply pipe-dreams, fantasies or visions of the way things could be, or one might want them to be, if one lived in an ideal world. But there are certain recurring thoughts which, because of their content, their context, or their timing, do seem to me very much like the Cosmos is trying to tell me something. One of those thoughts has been insistently battering away at my conscious­ness recently – okay, primarily since last night, which is not long, I admit… but this is by no means the first time for this thought. It has, as I say, been recurring, for a very long time. This is just the most recent recurrence. And it is this:

I am unemployed. Granted that I will, barring something entirely unexpected, be employed by the end of the month or, at latest, the beginning of September; but the job I will have then is not ideal in a number of respects, ranging from its substance to the fact that it is part-time and not well paying on an hourly basis. Furthermore, it is only an eight-month position. No other prospects – or at least, no tolerable ones – have presented themselves. I must therefore consider options outside of immediate em­ployment. I have on several occasions considered going back to school, but for some reason – actually, for different reasons – I have always refrained. Something or other just was not right. And when I ask myself, “what do I want to do with my life?” here are some of the answers that I come up with:

• be outside a lot of the time
• work with my hands as well as my mind
• as a writer, do something that’s worth writing about!
• be, as much as possible, “my own boss”
• get out of the urban/suburban sprawl to a rural area
• work with animals, plants, hand tools, and simple machines
• be self-supporting as much as possible, especially as regards food
• own enough land to enjoy privacy, and coexist with nature as friends
• do something in which I can, as much as possible, work out of my home
• be able to end the day with the satisfaction that comes from accomplishing tangible tasks successfully
• help to re-weave the connections between humankind, non-human nature, and the world of Spirit
• do something I can hand down to future generations, if I am fortunate enough to have offspring
• live lightly on the Earth
• teach others

When I look at all of those together, “small, diversified family farm” is what seems almost inevitably to coalesce out of the matrix. While there are other possible careers or even vocations that could accomplish several of these ends, that seems to me to be the only one that hits them all. The problem is that I don’t really have the kind of practical, hands-on experience, backed by theoretical learning, which it would take to really make a go of such a small farm. I have been at Spoutwood for five years, but I have basically functioned all that time in a support role: I have not been the one in charge of planning and executing the field plan… and in any case, Spoutwood is strictly vegetables, whereas I want to include livestock in the mix, along with draft horses (or possibly oxen) for at least some of the motive power.

The problem is that there are very few place which offer the kind of training I’m looking for. But there are a few, and of these, by the far the best – that I’ve been able to locate, anyway – is Sterling College, in Craftsbury Common, Vermont. I visited Sterling College all the way back in 2002. At the time I was looking mostly at their Northern Studies program, but I also had the chance to check out their Sustainable Agriculture offerings. I was impressed then, and I continue to be impressed, although of course I haven’t visited recently. Based on the website, though, it looks like they remain head-and-shoulders about the rest.

And of course, this is Vermont! Much as I love Maryland, and I love my home state a great deal indeed, Vermont is one of the places that I have seemed strangely drawn to for years. For whatever reason, I have loved Northern New England since I was a child – perhaps because some of my favorite books were set in that region – and that love has not lessened a bit over the last forty-three years. I know it’s cold and snowy in the winter­time, and buggy in the spring, but it’s so beautiful! And it’s also relatively sparsely populated, at least compared to the rest of the Atlantic seaboard. It gets dark at night, there, outside of the cities, and those are comparatively few and far between; the forests are my beloved balsam fir and paper birch, and there are moose and loons, and even rumors of wolves making their way back into the area, coming down from Canada. The very air there is redolent with evergreen resin!

And Sterling doesn’t just teach the principles of organic vegetable growing, or livestock management (what used to be called husbandry), although they do teach both things; they also teach the important subsidiary aspects: everything from small business economics (essential in making one’s small farm profitable) to the use of both tractors and draft horses – I’m especially interested in the latter – on the farm and in the woodlot, as well as the use of hand and power tools, including chainsaws… basically everything you need to know to make your farm and woodlot productive and self-sufficient. That is something that I have not seen anywhere else, and it is why I am seriously considering undertaking the Sterling program.

And now, of course, I have found out that Sterling offers a one-year, non-degree program in Sustainable Agriculture which looks as if it could have been crafted precisely to suit my needs! There are many practical considerations to be dealt with: do I rent out my existing place for a year, or sell it? Do I look to purchase a place up there, or rent one? And either way, do I look for a small farm now, that I might be able to stay on after the program is over, or just rent a small house to live in while the program’s going on? What do I do about all the stuff that’s sitting in my storage unit, especially if my relocation to Vermont proves to be only temporary?

Of course, now that I am in what seems to be a solid, if still currently long-distance, relationship, my “significant other” will have something to say about these issues, I am sure. But they are ones that need to be dealt with, well in advance of moving up there. Nothing is ever simple! But I do feel strongly as if this is what I should do, need to do, am being called to do – call it Providence, Fate, Destiny, or whatever word/concept you prefer, I do not think it was any accident that I learned about this unique opportunity now, at what may be the one time in my life when I am actually free to take advantage of it. It will be very interesting to see how all the details shake themselves out!

Updating on this blog, and life in general

Previous visitors will note some changes to the focus, and even the name, of this blog. As I have written in the introductory blurb, the name “Albion's Meade” combines the ancient bardic name for England with a play on words: “meade” can be both a green meadow and the intoxicating brew Celts and Vikings alike considered the font of inspiration. It is also the working name of the small, diversified family farm I hope one day to own and operate: “Albion’s Meade Farm.” Much varied commentary may still be found herein, but a major focus will be my journey toward becoming, at last, a “yeoman farmer” in the Jeffersonian tradition.

Why this change? One reason is that I am currently out of work: Spoutwood Farm, where I have been employed in one capacity or the other for the last five years, is a non-profit educational organization, and the “non-profit” part became all too literal this year. With income failing to meet expenses, they were forced to cut my position, and therefore, me as well. This has led me to do a great deal of thinking and soul-searching, regarding my future, as well of course as more pragmatic job-searching.

Nothing is certain at this point, but the most likely outcome I can foresee is that I return to school, either in the Spring, Summer, or Fall of 2010; the program I am most strongly leaning toward is Sterling College's program in Sustainable Agriculture, after which I would start my own small farm (hopefully with the assistance of my “significant other”), most likely either in New England or Pennsylvania (Maryland, much as I love the state, is just too expensive). Although the Sterling program is undergraduate, I have found no graduate program which compares to the kind of practical, pragmatic, hands-on training provided there; with my existing academic background, I am hopeful of being able to complete the program in two years, same as for a masters. I am making inquiry, however, into the prospects of teaching at Sterling: combined with a small farm nearby, that would be by far the best of both worlds!

So, I am hoping to turn the challenge of losing my job into the opportunity of starting a newer and better life, one which is more integrated, fulfilling, and close to Nature. And as a writer, I am reminded of something I read some years ago – perhaps the best piece of advice ever given to a writer, especially an outdoor writer: “Live the kind of life that’s worth writing about!” That is something I have not really been doing recently. So, all things considered, I am optimistic about my future. With a little luck and a lot of hard work, I hope to be able to turn the challenge of unemployment into the blessing of satisfying, worthwhile work in harmony with Nature.

May it be so!