I'll be honest. It has been a bit of a depressing 2017 for me. After resigning my position at the Puget Sound Food Hub in January, I spent the next nine months looking for a new job. With the farm idled down to a 10 hour/week job, this left a lot of time to get increasingly frustrated and depressed. On top of that, in early June, the farmer my neighbor uses to mow part of their land for hay accidentally mowed the 2 acres of Edison wheat I'd planted in May. This did not help my mood. It looked like a total loss, but the early signs of good news appeared about a month later when the wheat managed to regrow and actually send up some seed heads.
The news got better slowly as I started to get some job interviews, but those were followed by an equal number of rejections. I started to wonder if the PhD I finished in 2011 had doomed me to being overqualified. My daily farm chores helped to keep my sane, but it was hard to feel positive and thus I couldn't muster the motivation to blog. My brain is at its best when it's constantly trying to tackle new challenges, and all the challenges felt out of my control.
I was able to get some relief when my neighbor allowed me to test out the combine for the first time on a cover crop of rye/vetch that he had let go to seed in August. After immediately running over a wooden post and spending a couple hours to figure out why the machine wasn't working, I found the offending post and proceeded to pull about 700 pounds of seed off a 1/2 acre. Success!
The wheat was ready to harvest in the 2nd week of September, and although there was more clover (planted with the wheat to provide a field ready cover crop for winter) than wheat, the combine made quick work of the 2 acres and yielded about 900 pounds of grain.
The news got better when I was finally offered a job a few days after finishing the wheat, and I'm happy to announce that I'm now working for Skagit County helping to coordinate agricultural programs. I should be well positioned to help support the local ag community and have time to continue expanding my seed and grain business in the upcoming years. We'll also be celebrating the wheat harvest by cleaning and milling the grain using (extremely) antique equipment that has been stored in my neighbor's barn for 30 years. Please join us on October 21st from noon to seven p.m. at the farm (you can find more details on our Facebook page).
I still plan to share more of the lessons I've learned over the last 6 years, especially now that my mood is improving as I get back into a routine. Thank you all for sticking with me over the course of this wild farm ride. In the end, it's the community of supportive folks that has made it all worth it!
I still plan to share more of the lessons I've learned over the last 6 years, especially now that my mood is improving as I get back into a routine. Thank you all for sticking with me over the course of this wild farm ride. In the end, it's the community of supportive folks that has made it all worth it!
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