The one hundred and forty acres that the White Barn sits upon across the ditch from our house is officially going Organic. No more Genetically Modified crops will be planted there. For ten years now I have been taking land back into old fashioned management acre by acre. And every acre felt like saving a life.
For me the land feels like a large sleeping sow who needs feeding and cherishing to nourish her fertility.
So finding a tenant for the land who grows transitional and fully organic crops in the area was like finding gold.
The land belongs to my mother in law and she is thrilled to be “going organic”. Today I take the new tenant for a meeting with her and after that I will know even more. But so far I know I will have more hay land ( the buffer zones). My cows can graze the stubble after harvest. We can plant the old hedge rows again. The land will be tilled only be couple of inches down – no more gouging with the heavy discs and in the winters it will be tucked in with a blanket of cover crops. Somewhere on the land a portion of the land will always be resting in rotation and on this portion for this rest period my cows will graze and fertilize the land. I hope. I will know more about this soon.
The possibilities are endless.
I feel welcome on the land again – we are doing right by her.
I am so so pleased with this days work. In fact it took me only three days to bring this deal to fruition. Handshakes today! .
Our learning curve will be tremendous.
I feel that the tenant and our John and The Matriarch and I are once more truly back on the land. 
Great news, aye?
I have been studying the Khaki Campbell ducks looking for signs of males. Other than male behavior I cannot pick them. Maybe they are still too young – after a moult they should get more grown up feathers and we will know more then. NINE eggs yesterday. So I definitely have nine females. 
My cows coming over to hear the news and their developing grazing opportunities.
“Next year cows – we have to get the GM soybeans out first”. Now we wait.
You can see the field butting up against my alfalfa fields. 
Though personally I make no money from this change I feel like I have enabled a momentous change for the family and for the land. I feel a real sense of protectiveness over this plot of good ground. This is my Rescue. This is like Hope. This is the future.
Oh and for the record : this man, the tenant, grinds his grains into organic flours that are used by many Chicago organic bakers. I will double check the name for you. I will interview him for you soon.
The Fellowship Forest is safe now. No more burnings.
And now to work.
Tonight I am having a meeting with other growers who have problems getting good feed – we will talk about my Grain to Farmers project.
Have a great day.
Celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
62 responses to “THE NEWS”
Really wonderful news. It will be so interesting to follow the developments, and watch the process.
Amazing Celi!!! Well done!!! You are making fabulous changes in your area! Yes, there is hope!!! xo
Hoorayyyy! I know how important this is to you! It’s a great step forward!
That is great news! It will be fun to watch this all evolve…..
That really is fantastic news, I know how much it means. Incredible. And so is that last photo of the sky…
I am so thrilled that you are going this route with your farm. I could see you have had this on your conscience a long time and for good reason because you are a good husband of the land. (as in husbandry). I’m sure you know how great this is but I’m sending you all the hoozas and hoorays from this end of the world. Well done and continue!!!!!
Not what I expected..but even better..You have worked long and hard for this and what a great achievement..to say ‘well done’is an understatement but you know what I mean. It is great BIG WONDERFUL news and I am very pleased…Its so much better with GM foods everything should be natural as God intended it to be… YEAH!!! it is good news….chuckled pink!
Congratulations! What a triumph for everyone concerned. Your animals must be cheering.
A job well done Miss C. Congratulations!!
What wonderful news! Little by little, little people need to take over their small corners of earth and do things like this. Bravo!
Can I do that again?
(Hitting the “like” on your comment again and again!: )
Excellent! They will making you mayor …eventually 😉
This seems appropriate for today…
“In this life, we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.” ~Mother Teresa
Fantastic news!
I am very excited for you!
Do ducks REALLY only lay one egg per day? That is what I was told about my Coturnix quail, but some days I would collect 4 eggs, the next day I would find 16, and I only had 4 girls. The last of their eggs are in the incubator. I completed my quail project. It wasn’t worth the effort for what I was getting. It’s such an inbred variety that the survival rate of the chicks is abysmal. They either die in development, or they hatch all wonky and can’t walk. *sigh* So I feed out the chicks to my smaller snakes, and the eggs go to my Gila Monsters (this is Heather from becomingcliche), and now the adults are in the freezer for the Komodo dragon.
The image of the piglet sitting made me laugh out loud. If that one is available in the shop, I may have to have it!
Hey Heather – thought that must be you – I know no one else who freezes small birds for her snakes! I don’t know about quail but my research tells me ducks Lay every day. We will see
I love boiled quail eggs.
Congratulations! This IS the best news! You are amazing. I can’t wait to learn how it all continues. I’m thinking about the worms. How they will be able to happily come back. And how there is just a little bit more clean space coming. And Safe space for birds and butterflies and grasshoppers and crickets and ladybugs and all the rest. I hope for a complete success. Big hugs!
Yes! It’s like the Monarchs already knew and were saying “Thank you!”