[goodcompanion]

@John 95 wrote:

You have no culture no matter how hard you try to believe you do. How’s you’re favorite sport of baseball going for you? You people have no idea of community but you sure feel cool riding behind your horses.

Whoa, pretty sarcastic there. What exactly are you hoping to get out of this discussion, John?

I agree with Carl that as stewards of land we are also stewards of community, should the community ever choose to value us for that. And I’d also argue that we do have a culture, it’s just a very jumbled and confused culture. Given a crisis, I think my community could pull together. If I didn’t believe this, I couldn’t live here.

I’ve lived inside communities similar to the migrant workers described, in north africa. Much of that bond, that spirit of cooperation, is created by adversity. The less adversity, the more individualism. And of course individualism reigns king here in the U.S.A. That’s not all bad–were this a conformist culture we mightn’t have the freedom to farm or log as we chose. But there are obviously huge downsides as we move into an era of increasing resource scarcity.

But not too far back in history we were able to pull through a crisis together–doing so was a major part of my grandparents’ experience of community, during the depression. So I at least hope and believe that the wherewithal to do this isn’t lost forever.

[goodcompanion]

Thanks for your thoughts. I’m kind of wondering if there is someone else out there who is embarking on a mission of similar challenges who might be interested in exchanging ideas and observations in more detail.

I’m learning to be a realist. One of my strategies for next year is to make a practice of using the horses for smaller jobs with more regularity, instead of just for large jobs occasionally.

Large jobs occasionally is the nature of a grain farm. We need grain to bake bread. Growing less grain isn’t an option since we still don’t produce enough to supply our own bakery. I’ll just be flexible about how these large jobs get done. But we’ll diversify our planting next year and incorporate more beans and maybe potatoes, plus the grain and hay, and that will lend itself to a more even workload throughout the season.

[goodcompanion]

I’m still looking for a community that isn’t made up mostly of morons.

Jokes aside, people are people and it seems to me you end up having to make peace with those around you however hard it is to understand them. Not having been born into farming myself, I had some choice as to where and how to begin farming and chose the champlain valley as the closest thing to a surviving agricultural community that one can find in the northeast. But we’re not part of a planned community or eco-village or anything like that, so some people around us understand us and some think we’re from the moon. Some remind us why we do what we do, others are barely tolerable.

I grew up just as the initial wave of back-to the-landers was ending, usually either through assimilation (trading the VW bus for a saturn), though some became successful in their farming ventures and kind of turned pro, so to speak, and a few others stayed put, decidedly did not turn pro, and in other respects stayed pretty much the same, eventually crossing a line from fiery hippie radical to crusty old curmudgeon.

But the joint ventures, the communes and cooperative farms, always ended badly, with financial messes, legal proceedings and/or hurt feelings. Yes, we need community to be more than lines on a map, our survival in fact depends on it, but I feel that we as americans are so very bad at cooperation and interdependence. The whole culture is aligned towards individualism; even a committed group of principled, ethical people can’t swim against the tide, except perhaps some Amish and Mennonites. So we’ve decided to take a good neighbor when we have one, be a good neighbor when we can, but not to hold our breath waiting for camelot.

We hope for our mission of a new agrarianism to be embraced by the wider community, but our happiness in this place isn’t contingent on that happening. And I guess that even if I did happen to live in an enclave of others that really understood what we’re about, it wouldn’t feel real. Though I guess the entire state of Vermont is an enclave of sorts.

[goodcompanion]

The consumers of old were usually pretty grateful to have bread at all. With abundance comes fussiness. I suppose that’s human nature.

So as a baker I have to decide how far to go to cater to that fussiness. Many of the people I know who make a go of small-scale farming do so through excellence of product. But for our operation it’s the process that’s unique–going from seed to loaf on-premises–and I couldn’t say for sure that a tastier, crustier loaf that results from that process, just a more local, lower-impact one. Some people are moved by that if there’s time enough to explain all that. Others don’t particularly care, they just want good bread.

We focus on traditional french breads–baguette, batard, levain–but we dabble in all sorts of other hearth loaves too.

[goodcompanion]

I agree that the format has its limitations too. But in the end it is the words, and the people who stand behind those words that count.

I’m glad to see Lynn here at all. Lynn, it would be our loss not to have your participation here. But to me, at least, it’s some consolation that I can always look forward to reading your words in SFJ.

I’m hopeful that we’re creating something of worth here. And I’m glad that this forum is here at all and willing to tolerate the emoticons, et cetera, and thank those that have gone to the effort to create this dialogue.

[goodcompanion]

As regards our cultural predicament, I am reminded of a line in an Incredible String Band (one of those psychedelic/folk bands from the 60s) song, sung from the point of view of the minotaur in the labyrinth:

“I’m the original discriminating buffalo man
and I’ll do what’s wrong for as long as I can.”

[goodcompanion]

Lisa,

I can offer an invitation of sorts. If you were interested in coming here, to our farm, at some point this coming season, I could offer you and your animals plenty to do–you could try out plowing, haying, or grain harvesting if you had a mind, alongside our horses. We have accommodations for both people and extra horses. Might be fun if you had the time.

Erik

[goodcompanion]

There is nothing like the immediacy of it. When a well-made plow is turning perfectly, and the animals comfortable with their load, it’s really engrossing. I always find that when I’m working animals that time passes very quickly, yet my senses are more attuned during that time.

Driving even a small tractor for the same job leaves you quite jaded in comparison.

[goodcompanion]

Carl,

Who was it who said the only way forward is backward? Your thoughts are well-put. However the culture’s appetite for an easy answer that entails little change of lifestyle is such that we’re loath to consider it. Biofuel is an easy answer. Or electric cars. Or something. Just let it be such that everything can keep going more or less as it has been going with no disruptive or inconvenient changes.

As an advocate for animal-powered farming in my area (my own difficulties getting off the ground notwithstanding) I have noted that some folks understand why we do what we do on our farm in a cerebral kind of way, but can’t imagine how animal power could every have any application in their own lives. Whereas the same people could imagine driving an ethanol-powered car, or heating their home with a corncob-burning furnace.

I find myself very worried by ideas that are entertained or even embraced with regard to biofuel by people literate in what peak oil will mean in the coming years. For instance, the idea that we will all be cropping oilseeds or switchgrass to create a liquid combustible. Such people, seems to me, are seldom farmers themselves and have no notion of how massive region-wide mining of carbon even through a relatively benign crop such as switchgrass will affect our croplands. There are also no animals in these systems, just plants that we can cut and burn.

Looking around in vermont today I still see many, many tracts of good land that are neglected and growing up to brush. So part of me thinks, hey self, why be so down on the biofuel crowd? What the hell, why shouldn’t someone crop something for fuel there? Answer, because it won’t be just there. If it’ll prop up our habit, the whole region will be planted in switchgrass until the soil is totally destroyed, for the second time in history.

We have a real problem with that balance thing.

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