The hay man came a day early to bale the hay (the rain clouds were gathering) but it was not dry. It was green. Too green.
So with my heart in my mouth I said maybe we can look at it again tomorrow. Maybe it would not rain. The fella sighed with relief. He had called to say he should bale it and felt responsible but I will keep going if you tell me to, he said, but I am afraid it will mold. The old man, his father, looked at the bales we had drawn and shook his head. Stand them on their edge like this he said rolling the bale under inspection to its side. And shake a little salt on, he said. Waving his old working hands across the hay, miming the delicate distribution of salt. Horses don’t like that mind. He said. I don’t have horses I told him, I am growing food here. I seen your pigs out there he said nodding with a gentle smile at the piglets playing leap frog in the fields. I like me some bacon, he said. He hitched at his denim overalls, resettled his straw hat back onto his head and pushed his teeth back into place with his tongue. We’ll be back tomorrow. It might rain. It might not, you never know. But this will burn your old barn down. Best we come back. Leave the baler here son.
And the flash of their truck had barely turned in the track before old man wind began to roll in with his stormy arrogant smirk. Can you see him. Gliding in like Butter would not melt in his mouth. His cap just so.
Smothering the sun and sending bolts of lightening snapping like fingers at my small pursuits. As we ran to bring in the green bales, the wind heaved the tarpaulin up off the Chickens Ark and wind and its thunder sent sheets of metal falling and pigs bolting through the electric fence and around the corner.
The light changed as it fell, into that deep ominous gold, the glistening unreal beauty of it like we were under heavy water. After we had brought in the hay, laid it out and salted its edges. No ride on the Clatter Box for you. After I had wrestled the tarp back onto the Ark and put the sides on, the wind pushing on one side and whipping things back off the other. Not giving me an inch. After I had called all the piglets back into their run and shut their gate. After I had called Mama into the barn. After we had walked through the dark back up to the house and Ton had jumped a gate and landed on a soundless skunk. The smell shooting back. The dog disappearing in despair. It rained.
Well we’ve baled rained-on hay before. The old man had said.
There you are.
Good morning. I have decided to give myself The Challenge. Take control. For the month of September I will only eat what I have grown on the farm. I know that my pork and beef is still walking about in the fields. And I know it has not been the best potato year and I am not milking Daisy. But I need to start somewhere with this. To get an idea of how it can be.
You need to help me name the challenge. Something succinct and to the point.
Now, I am not a masochist so we need to decide what foods (and drinks) will still be OK. My list is : Coffee. Olive Oil. Flour. I will still buy milk from down the road, because milking the cow is part of my plan. This summer she is dry but we can pretend I think. What about my after work beer and a glass of wine with dinner? I still have some pear cider left and I do make my own wine. Like most things I will just eat or drink Less. (When you make it yourself you are more frugal with consumption). I have vinegar in the cellar, all the herbs and vegetables in the gardens. Honey from last year instead of sugar.
The only fruit will be apples and pears (soon) , and the frozen blueberries and strawberries and peaches that I have harvested already.
Eggs, of course we have piles of eggs.
This will only apply when I am home. I will still go out to dinner if invited and things like that. Though this seldom happens anyway. My ultimate goal is to do this for a year (and then the rest of my life) so I feel it is time to have one of a few dry runs so to speak. I thought about doing it for a week, but that is not a long enough trial. Nor is two weeks. At this time of year we really do live off the farm anyway but I have not applied the challenge. So a month it will be. You and I have today to decide what I am allowed to buy, and what I have to push to the back of the pantry, though really I am not sure that there will be terribly much. The farm supplies an awful lot. I am not short of will power so this will be a fun challenge for me. John will join me when he is home, but he works off the farm. Plus I haven’t told him yet!
I need to do it, so I can see where the weaknesses are. And I would love to have you along for the ride.
Have a lovely day.
Off to work I go.
your friend on the farmy, celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
83 responses to “Old Man Wind Brings The Challenge.”
I found this to be most interesting! I am at this moment taking a break from canning my homemade Roasted Red Pepper Tomato Soup! It is delicious and even more so during our freezing winters here on the tundra of North Dakota. We grow hard red spring wheat and soybeans. Just finished harvesting the wheat. Dirty, hot, sweaty job for the ones who drive the trucks and unload the grain. The lucky one is driving the combine! I drive trucks and unload. I love your square bales. Out here we have round bales. Look like sheep from a distance! LOL Looking forward to reading more! Thank you! Love the photos! Mere 😀
Good morning Mere and welcome, what lovely comments. Your roasted red pepper tomato soup sounds divine.. do you have a recipe? I have piles of tomatoes and peppers! c
I also thought the writing in this post was noteworthy because it was so poetic “Smothering the sun and sending bolts of lightening snapping like fingers at my small pursuits” and of course… “Ton had jumped a gate and landed on a soundless skunk. The smell shooting back. The dog disappearing in despair. It rained.”!
What a wonderful train driver man cloud even if the train was hauling a hell of thunderstorm.
I’ll be very interested to follow your Sustainable September. By putting a plan in place based on where you’re at now, as is evident from the comments, I know you can do it. For me sometimes it’s difficult to feel like I’m anywhere near accomplishing what I want, because I tend to focus on what I have yet to achieve not what I already have… This clip shared to me gave me the perspective I needed. Perhaps you and the Commenters Lounge will enjoy it too http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGMW6YWjMxw
Thank you.. i cannot watch utube out here but will check it out when i am in town.. And you are so right about looking at what we have achieved right now, the future is lovely but we cannot live in it! c
Oh, I forgot, it’s called Hummingbird 🙂
Have a lot of respect for you, I’m Misfit’s other 1/2 & have never lived on or near a farm but I sure give credit to those that do. I have a friend that has a farm around Poseyville, In. & I know she & her husband work very hard on it. I think I’ll forward your blog to her. As far as I know, it’s a veg. farm only. Good luck in the next month!
The veges are the back bone of a farm I always think.. every one eats them, my piglets will run like yapping dogs when they see me coming with an armful of swiss chard! .. c
I loved the writing in this post, I was galloping ahead to see if it rained on your hay, I thought you may have qeaked it in when I saw that last picture of the sun setting, sorry it did not happen that way.
Re the self sufficency, do you really want to be self sufficent? It can be very tedious in a knitting your own toilet paper out of dog hair way! Seriously, you dont want to take all the fun out of your life, you are working way too hard for that and already doing an amazing job at growing most of your own food. How about thinking about it in a different way. Any income from the farm pays for food you buy off farm? And bartering is fantstic, you just have to stick your neck out a bit and acept that people will value your produce. I just bartered 5kg of free range pork for a 2nd hand fridge. I was suprised that the fridge owner went for it but I sell the pork for $20 to $25 a kilo so when you add that up it is not so far from the price of a 2nd hand fridge on Gumtree. I bet the “I like me some bacon” farmer would have bartered his services?
I 2nd the opinion above about making your own beer, so cost effective and so delicious and so necessary at the end of a hot day. Also spices, life is no good without a bit of spice in it.
Oh i absolutely agree, I am not going to take the joy out of my life at all! at this point i want to challenge myself to eat only from the farm to see if i can. I will still have soap and perfume and red lipstick .. think of it as research. Mainly I want to see what i am missing, what i have not thought of. How it could be. I make no income from the farm, maybe a few dollars from eggs, but i can and do barter. I have already done a deal with the old fella for bacon! Don;t you worry! he was such a dear fella, I wanted to keep him! c
I hope you make some money from the piglets when you sell them. I see where you are going with your home grown food audit. Pulses? how well do beans grow down your way or soy? Also what spices can you grow in the climate? There is a great book on fermenting foods by Bill Mollison.
What drama in the skies! These decisions must be so tricky. Good luck with the challenge!
That face in the cloud – what a great shot.That certainly could become a story book illustration…and a story.
Good time of year to practice the challenge – you’re up to it!
Oh Cecilia, your post led me to take another look at a book called Acadian Hard Times, published by the University of Maine Press. It documents life in the St. John’s Valley at the very top of Maine along the Canadian border where my mother grew up. It was a very isolated area, not in Canada although they spoke French, yet not much a part of the U.S. since they were so independent. I love looking at the pictures which was part of a documentary in the 1930’s & 40’s by the Farm Security Administration to track the impact of the FSA. It’s strange seeing photo’s of my grandparents and their farm since we have so few of them from that time. I don’t remember my grandmother really buying much of anything from a store other than a few staples – they did like coffee & store bought sugar every now & then. Bread was a type of buckwheat pancake called ployes made from a starter much like that for soughdough & the pancakes were eaten with every meal instead of a regular bread. Lard was used instead of oil. Since they had no refrigeration, everything was either stored in the root cellar or canned. Most of the farmers formed coops and bartered for almost everything. I don’t think you’d find a doctor out your way though who would take a chicken however.
Poor Ton – it sounds like he had a great jump, just a bad landing.
oh no… the rain. well i like this eating from the farmy for one month! that is my goal as well, as soon as we have our farm we want to start our way to eating only what we grow. i am aware that it will take many years until we will get anywhere close but that is the dream =) right now i am learning how to make cheese (we are on a small farm in northern israel right now http://wrappedtroubles.blogspot.co.il/2013/09/yarok-az-settling-in.html) good luck with your challenge!