THE NEWS

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