Welcome to "The Farm"
Many people visit the farm and come away saying that “the farm is magic”.
I agree. The farm is magic, and part of the magic is that this place is committed to the things we talked about yesterday.
We’re engaging in the adventure of abstraction. We’re doing anything we can to reverse the slow descent to the inactive commonplace. We’re disrupting social norms. We question everything and engage our imagination to bring forth something new.
These things are choices, and they are a choice that we all have the power to make.
I think joy is also a choice. These things are choices that you make every single day.
Every day your short term momentum starts all over. No matter what was going on yesterday, you can choose to make today better. You can choose to start your ascent out of your inactive commonplace. Be active. Choose to do the things that will make you feel good. Choose to do the difficult things that Resistance blocks you from doing.
Schedule time for the things that are most important to you. Spend more time doing that and less time in your inactive commonplace.
This is all well and good, you may be thinking, but what exactly is the plan? What are we doing here? Why are we doing it?
In a sense, all the things I’ve been talking about are the plan. They’re at least the only things that are guaranteed to remain the plan over time. These things we’re talking about are the principles that are guiding the farm and the things we’re doing here.
The plan is to disrupt the norms. The plan is to engage with the process of creation. We will co-create a better world.
I have no idea where that will lead us. Right now, we’re building an unconventional farm while raising an unconventional family and living an unconventional life.
We believe this is important work, because all around us we see the slow descent occurring.
Even in the initial process of setting up the farm, the plan from the NRCS - the government organization that is in charge of our farmland conservation practices - was to choose some combination of spraying every last inch in glyphosate and other pesticides to kill every last living plant on the property, torching the ground to destroy left over vegetation and seeds, and tilling - before starting anything.
These “norms” are begging to be disrupted. Their roots lie in a flawed paradigm. This paradigm is one of dominion, one where humans are separate from nature. This is a paradigm of looking at nature (a complex system) like a machine (a complicated system). This is a paradigm where you can pursue a local optimum without hurting the system as a whole.
We know enough now to see that these practices are not the route to abundance and wealth.
I ask every farmer I meet how business is, and I have never once had a conventional farmer say that it was good. Every single one of them is working as hard as they can and doing the best they know how to, but they see less and less wealth each year. They work a full-time job in their fields squeezed in around the full-time job where they actually make their money.
This is a norm begging to be disrupted. The provision of food is one of the most important jobs there is, and right now it doesn’t pay.
The plan is to do this disrupting, and help others do the disrupting on their land too.
The plan is to “regenerate” the land through holistic management, which means we’re not just optimizing for production. We’re going to set things up to optimize for the good of the whole system.
In practice, this means that every decision made here will consider not just what is produced but also how will it affect things like water, air, soil, and wildlife. We want biodiversity to increase over time because we want all life to thrive, not just one or two selected species.
There is a lot that goes into this. A lot of research, reading, discussing, planning, and design. The design is especially important because many of the things we believe are valuable and important take careful consideration.
You need to understand the land and what it needs. You need to understand your relationship to the land and what you need.
This has kept us very busy over the past couple of years.
Many people have been asking for specifics. I know I haven’t gotten there yet.
We’re about to. That’s what this writing process is partly about. I’m sharing the context of what we’re doing to help you see the value.
Over the coming month, we are going to dive into the specifics of what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and how you can participate.
By the end of this week, I will share an initial draft of our designs and project plans for the upcoming year.
This will include the tree planting.
This will include how you can get food from us moving forward. We have built a network of local farmers with the goal of helping you easily access a full assortment of meats, cheese, milk, fruits, and veggies throughout the year.
This will include Farm School.
This will also include the events and adventures we’re planning.
I'd like to start these conversations so that we can have something more concrete and finalized for the start of the new year.
You asked for the plan.
Get ready, cause its coming!
Now it’s your turn. Joy is a choice. Adventure is a choice. What are you going to choose to do this week? I suggest engaging your imagination and bringing forth something new. Engage the process. It is fun.
Life is good!