My first born son just turned twenty and because we moved to the farm when he was a newborn, this provides an easy way to mark the years of progress on the farm. Arriving at the farm two decades ago, I had little vision in mind beyond desiring a large vegetable garden and beautiful perennial beds. I hadn't seen the farm in more than a dozen years and hadn't given much thought to the state of it.
For the first few years my time and energy were almost wholly consumed by fulfilling baby needs and trying to nap. I started a vegetable plot and built a short stone wall to buttress a perennial bed. I accomplished this while my son napped by great patience and the use of levers. I'd place one stone, then run inside to check if he was still breathing. That's the sort of thing new mothers do, even when we know it's ridiculous.
As the baby grew fat and hardy, I stopped checking on him as often, but I had learned the important lesson of chipping away at large, daunting tasks a little each day. Before I became a mother I thought of myself as a busy person, but in reality I had many hours of interrupted time in which to pursue my hobbies or just loaf. Now I had five minutes here and there in which to be productive beyond parenting duties. Bit by bit I made progress on the veggie garden and flower beds, and expanded into raising chickens. Bruce Lee's words became my new favorite quote: "Make at least one definite move toward your goal every day. If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you'll never get it done."
I was doing really well, plodding along, making incremental progress on various projects, but I had one big problem: I kept thinking up new projects. Soon I found myself putting up pasture fence, taking care of horses, and planting an orchard. This in turn lead to pasture improving, training the stubborn beasts of burden, and pruning the orchard. It seemed that the more I did, the more potential I saw in the land I was working on. I needed a new quote to live by and once again Bruce Lee provided: "A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at."
I think Bruce meant that the goal might be unrealistic, and even if you don't reach it, by striving toward it you will reach a close approximation that you'll be happy with. Another interpretation that applies to the farm: The process of working toward the goal is such a learning experience that the goal itself inevitably changes along the way. I see this as a positive thing, even when some projects have to be radically re-envisioned or even abandoned. If valuable experience was gained, the time spent wasn't wasted. Obviously some mini-goals absolutely need to be reached as expected, like mending a gate to prevent livestock escapes, or finishing this blog post so I can move on. Most importantly, it's good to have a large, overarching vision that guides decisions, not really a goal as much as a lodestar, that is unwavering. I've never articulated such a vision, but in the last few years one has coalesced inside my head. The twenty year anniversary of our arrival at the farm seems like a good time to put it into words.
I wish to promote increased biodiversity and productivity of the land over which I have control while minimizing labor and other inputs.
No doubt farmers and land stewards everywhere seek to increase productivity, but often in the narrow sense of more product to be sold off-site for cash with no true accounting of input versus output beyond what is needed to remain solvent. I wish to increase total productivity, meaning optimizing the system for maximum biomass production, while decreasing inputs from outside. This means buying less hay and animal feed from off-site mainly, but also spending less on gas and at the grocery store.
Increasing biodiversity is another way of saying increasing productivity, but for wild species rather than domesticated. It means fostering species richess--expanding the number of different species that live here--while maximizing the number of individuals of each species the land can support. And last but not least I want to do less work for bigger returns as time goes on.
This final goal might seem at odds with my peculiar habit of continually dreaming up new projects. It all comes down to working smarter, not harder. In the past few years I've started projects that appear large and overwhelming, but with luck will result in huge payoffs down the road. One is hand-dug earthworks that form a series of ponds/watering holes and raised walk/driveways that retain water on the land while increasing ease of access. In the future I expect this area support an explosion of animal and plant life simply due to the more even presence of moisture.
The other project is removal of invasive species from young forest trees. Particularly egregious are multiflora rose and Japanese honeysuckle which are the scourge of this area. Wild grapevine, while native, is equally bad if not worse. These opportunistic invaders use young trees as ladders, attaching themselves and growing with them, stealing the sunlight and ultimately stunting the trees. The good news is that if the trees are freed from their clutches early enough, in a few seasons they can put on enough growth to shade out these competitors, or at least make it difficult for them to reach their lowest branches. So a little effort now will pay off in the long run.
By getting better at identifying projects that provide big dividends in the years to come with a moderate effort now, I hope to fulfill the "minimizing labor" aspect of the farm vision. Meanwhile I will plug away at my current projects. Slow and steady wins the race. Or as Bruce would say, "Long-term consistency trumps short-term intensity."
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