I guess we should tell you about this...

I'm not sure why I'm feeling so shy about this, but we are going to be in Portland tomorrow night, October 12th, as part of the program for Friends of Family Farmers great series, inFARMation (and Beer!)

The topic is Funding for Farmers, a topic near and dear to us, as many of you know. As part of the floor show, they are going to be showing a presentation thing that we made last year at the Clatsop Community FEAST. I'm totally blanking out on what FEAST stands for, but it was a Community Food System organizing workshop hosted by Clatsop Community Action (our local food bank) and the Cannon Beach Farmers Market. I was asked to speak about 'Farming in Clatsop County'. The timing of when the event happened was such that we were in the final stages of negotiation for our farm, waiting to hear about whether or not our loan would be approved.

I was actually terrified to be standing up in public, in front of the press even, talking about my work as a farmer, when I had just had to assure our lenders that we had no intention of farming on the land we were buying. (Yeah, it was a long, sad ordeal, and the full story of our farm loan experience is one best told over several bottles of wine.)

What came out of me was less a report about the state of farming, and more of an impassioned rant about how unbelievably complicated it was to try and buy land to start a farm on the Oregon coast to grow food for our local community.

The presentation was well received (I've found people often respond well to a good rant!) and we were asked by several people to record the voice-over to the images so that it could be shown elsewhere, or posted on line.

And so it has been, and if I were better at all this self-promotion marketing stuff I would have posted a link to it here ages ago. Honestly, I think I still have some residue of fear that if I talk about this all in public that the bank will somehow take our farm away. Which I know, I know, they can't do. But you have to understand, it was a really crappy, stressful experience trying to get that loan. Is there such a thing as Post Traumatic Loan Syndrome?

Anyway, if you are in the Portland area tomorrow night, and want to come see us at inFARMation, that would be great!5:30-8-ish at Holocene, which is a deeply hip space, and very cool. (Michele from FoFF describes the atmosphere as 'skinny pants meets overalls'.) It's a really fun event, and it's free. Although I will encourage you to buy refreshments at the bar because it's good to support Holocene, who are making the space available to FoFF every month for inFARMation. So come hungry and thirsty.

And if you can't make it, you can check out our presentation on the North Coast Food Web site. It takes about 25 minutes, so go make yourself a cup of tea, or pour a whiskey, make popcorn, whatever, and settle down for a story.

I'm very excited that also speaking at inFARMation will be both Severine Von Scharner Fleming of The Greenhorns and Jared Gardner, who is working on a legislative campaign to start an Oregon state bank, which presumably would not make quitting farming one of the requirements for getting a loan to buy a farm.

I'll stop now before this turns into a whole new rant on the subject.

More 46 North Farm News:

Lime has been spread, and our winter cover crop is sprouting (and Fawn Fawn & Co. are loving it), and we are Making Plans for next year. So exciting!!

Our sexy new Italian BSC tractor thing is working just fine (and giving Packy a hell of a workout). I'm sort of hoping he'll show me how to use it...

The Bus (and its band) left on tour but will be back soon, maybe in time to help get the barn painted before winter really kicks in. (That would be the band helping with the painting, not the bus.)

We're strategizing on ways to get some of the farm buildings ready for winter, which will involve a lot of tarps, we think. And plywood. And lighting candles (not in the buildings) and saying various prayers for a reasonably wind-free season.

Eddie and Squeaky are basically supportive of all the farm plans, but they insist that next year we remember to plant catnip, because they have gone a whole year without fresh drugs and that is really way too long.

Hope Autumn is beautiful wherever you are.

Inspiration

It's been four days since we got back from our weekend in Corvallis, and I am still buzzing. Last Saturday we attended the OSU Small Farms Conference- 600 people all gathered in one place to talk about small family farms, farmer's markets and the challenges and joys of running a small farm in Oregon. It was great, especially the opening talk by David Mas Masumoto, author of ' Epitaph for a Peach' and 'The Wisdom of the Last Farmer', which I look forward to reading as soon as Packy is finished with our new (signed!) copy.

We had never been to the OSU Small Farms conference before, and it was such a good experience for us both that we will definitely be back. It was great to run into so many friends from the North Coast food and farming community there, and to meet up with fellow farm enthusiasts from all over the state.

One of the best things was seeing how many other first time attendees there were at the conference. Interest in farming is exploding in Oregon, especially among younger people- I've heard that our state is actually seeing an increase in the number of farms in operation, running against a declining national trend.

Even better than Saturday's experience was the gathering we attended on Sunday sponsored by Friends of Family Farmers.

The Farmer and Rancher Delegate Meeting to discuss the Agricultural Reclamation Act has to be one of the most inspiring days of my recent life, as well as one of the best run meetings I have ever attended. (And given that this was a meeting of 60 or so highly opinionated farmers and ranchers, that's really saying something.)

The best description I can give for what this was all about is in the words of FoFF themselves:

On February 28th, 2010, we will host our first Farmer Delegation in Corvallis, where a cross-section of family farmers will come together to establish a statewide platform for food and family farming in Oregon. Through this process, the Agricultural Reclamation Act for Oregon will be written. Our combined strength, represented through this document, will put family farms first, and ensure that public officials hear and understand the needs of farmers who are practicing a type of agriculture that respects the land, sustains rural communities and contributes to the states economy.

You can go and watch this short film that FoFF made about the process to learn more- if I was tech-savvy enough to embed the video I would, but I'm not, so you'll have to just follow the link.

It was a phenomenal day- great discussions and debate about some of the biggest issues facing small family farmers all over the state. There are a lot of seriously talented and smart people farming in this state, which gives me great hope for the future of small farms in Oregon. I have never felt so sure of my decision to become a farmer, and of the importance of that work to the communities we farm in as I was that day. When we were all asked to come up at the end of the meeting to sign our names to the ARA declaration, it was pretty powerful stuff. I will admit that that was not just a speck of dust in my eye- I was genuinely moved by the courage and determination of all of the people in that room to find a way to continue farming and providing healthy food for our local communities. Packy and I both came away so fired up, and determined to find a way to get our farm up and running again. We had a lively discussion throughout the long drive home to Olney shifting between the ideas and questions raised at the meeting and our plans for our farm's future.

Many thanks to all the hardworking people at FoFF, both staff and volunteers, for organizing the meeting and for pulling the whole day off so brilliantly. You are all amazing.

Thanks also go the the Astoria Co-op for helping to sponsor the event when they saw that we were attending as delegates from the North Coast. Their commitment to supporting more local food production in our community is so encouraging, and we hope to be able to supply them with great locally grown stuff in the not-too distant future. (Maybe even some edible plant starts this year, if we can get the greenhouse rebuilt in time.)

Getting ready for more seedlings... you can never have enough!

It was more than a little hard for me to come back down to earth on Monday morning, get in the car and head off to work to help make sure our mortgage gets paid. We still have a long way- and several thousand feet of elk fencing- to go before we can truly start farming seriously, but for a couple of days I got to think of myself as a farmer again, and to remember why I love doing it so much.

Which is why I know that I will find a way to make our farm rise again- I can't not do it.

As hard as the work is, I have never done anything so satisfying in my life.

Little do The Elk know that they are standing smack in the middle of our future orchard.

We need SUCH a huge fence.....