Sorting Through The Mess On Farm

2015 was my second year on farm. After the successes and failures of 2014 I had a little bit of a better handle on things but it was still a big growth year for the farm. We were busy digging out of old farm “infrastructure” which means we were throwing out piles of junk, while trying to build too many farm operations at once.

Farm Operations in 2015:

• 1500 pastured broiler chickens
• 200 egg laying hens
• 12 pigs
• 1.4 acres of new apple orchard
• 1.4 acres of new hop yard
• ¼ acre of vegetables

Sales channels:

• CSA for broilers
• Pork Shares for pigs
• 2 x Farmers’ Markets
• Few wholesale accounts
• Farm Store (built/renovated 2015)

Major Projects:

• First renovation on farm store
• Starting to clear out old dairy barn
• Building signage leading to farm
• Clearing land
• Building garden beds
• Oh yeah, the brewery got started that summer, oh man

My head spins even now thinking about what goes into all of that. Each and every thing listed above had its’ own needs, set-up, management, expense, etc…

Old Dairy Barn

This pile of mess would become our tasting room two years later.

Milking Parlor

The milking parlor became our farm store after much effort.

I kept 250 egg layers in a greenhouse over the winter. I have learned a lot since I first tried this, but it was a hassle then.

My Partner

Winter of 2015 was when Scott became my partner in FMS. He's helped see me through the past couple years of producing content and growing our channel. Thanks buddy!

Allan Savory

I'm a total fan of Mr. Savory. He's documented his mistakes and how he's fixed them. His story and his mission are inspiring.

JM Fortier

Jean-Martin Fortier has been an inspiration on several fronts. Namely that his mission in life is to grow more farmers.

My greenhouses have gravel floors. I tried building raised beds to grow veggies. They became rat-hotels and that project failed eventually. Rats - 1, John - 0

With the old farm came old farm equipment. Here's the old John Deere stuck up to the axel in mud.

One of our projects on farm was building garden beds. 

Once the first dumpster came I should have kept filling them until i was done. I couldn't tell you how many we've filled over the years. The lesson learned is keep pitching things out until you're done, don't spread it out over time.

Me and my newly designed and built farm sign.

Sunrise on a trip to the poultry processor. it's the small joys in life.

Part of our hop yard. 

I mean, we grew some great vegetables that year. Without more marketing we didn't always have a place to sell them. Cart before the horse.

Like I said, small pleasures. Rainbow over chicken tractors.

My two best friends for the past million years. I'm just including this photo because I'm incredibly grateful and this was a fun memory for me.

Who could forget my farm mentor Troy Bishopp The GrassWhisperer? I only wished he lived closer so he could have given me more on-site advice. Love you buddy.

A Hard Lesson Learned

The list(s) above lead to my hard lesson learned for the year. My desire to say yes to everyone, to try and manage it all, to make things happen lead me to another year of “investment” in the farm that didn’t necessarily lead us that much closer toward a profitable farm.

Sure every lesson learned and every experience teaches you what to do and what not to do. There’s a lot of value in that. These past years have paid for a lot of my education as a farmer. At times that was an expensive education.

What we lacked as a farm and what I failed to instill as the farm’s manager is a coherent plan and a unified vision. People can accomplish amazing things if they know what they’re working towards. If you don’t have a goal and a plan that makes sense then you’re just making busy work for yourself and the people working with you.

If you’re lucky that busy work can yield good results. That year we produced a lot of chicken, we harvested some amazing vegetables, and our pork was top-tier. We also accomplished a lot in terms of digging the farm out from the somewhat haggard state that it was in.

As is always the case, we made the best decisions we could with the information we had at the time. I’m able to look back now and see what we did and what results came of it and I’m allowed to be critical. Reflection helps me grow.

What I Should Have Done

Looking back now, what I should have done is invest my time in fully digging out the farm from its’ mess, developed a farm plan over the year while I learned more about the land, and concentrated solely on the operations that tied the three businesses together (farm, brewery, distillery).

The financial expectations placed on my shoulders were that the farm would grow and produce things that would make money and support itself, while cleaning up and growing the other areas of the farm that needed work. Ha, that’s no good man, that’s just no good. You’ll notice when the next blog comes out that it took me another year and a half to make that realization.

The takeaway here for you is similar to last week. You cannot take on too much at one time, otherwise you’ll drown. Most agricultural operations happen slowly not only because plants and animals need time to grow, but farmers need time to grow too.

Employees

My situation gave me a lot of experience in managing farm employees and large groups of volunteers. I’m going to do more posts about employees over the winter but I’m not really going to talk about anything specific in these blog posts right now.

I do not want to tie any stories about staffing, volunteers, woofers, etc… to a specific timeline because I don’t want anyone to think I am pointing a finger. Some of the people in my horror stories were products of the time and we have since gone on to stay friends and remain in touch.

So when we cover management in more detail I’m going to make up imaginary people based on real life experience. And boy do I have some good stories.

Closing Thoughts

The further I get into this exercise of thinking back on previous years the more informed it is making my 2018 planning. If I could stress one thing for you on your farming journey is it this:

Take notes, take pictures, and for the love of all that is holy write down all the financial information you can.

You’ll want those notes, photos, and spreadsheets in the future when you’re wondering what the he** happened. Nothing is as eye-opening as reflection on contemporaneous documentation.