Big Foot Season Three as New Farmers

​What does building a farm up from scratch look like?  As newbie farmers, we’ve been living that question daily for three years.  While our story is unique to us, it can still provide some insight to folks who are thinking about jumping into farming as well.  The start of Season Three, is a good time to look back for a review and a look ahead for the coming months.

​Four and a half years ago, there was an idea.  Mark and I were walking the Camino in Spain, and one of my meditations was what to call this permaculture farm idea.  Somewhere among the olive trees or the oak groves, the name Big Foot Food Forest was found.  We had no farm experience and no land, but now we did have a cool name. ...

Over the next two years, I took two permaculture courses (the basic PDC and an Applied course) and practiced by turning our suburban back yard into a nascent food forest.  On the planning side, I took the farm business start-up course at the New Entry project; and wrote up a detailed business plan for the MDAR approval to purchase our APR land in Montague.   These were important foundational steps – nothing close to actual farm experience and skills, but at least we had an idea of the direction we wanted to head in.

​Then it was Season One at our new farm.  We started with woods and beautiful wild fields of goldenrod and ferns, but no working well for water, and no electricity or buildings to speak of.  Bringing our own battery-operated tools, hand tools, water buckets, and lunches, Charlotte and I - with help from Mark, Josephine, and C’s boyfriend Robin - built the first Big Foot chicken hoop house.   We housed our small flock there and started our egg CSA.  Mark learned to build on the fly and put up a small garden studio – lots of family help on that project too.   Jesse Brown and his brother Jeremy from White Oak Timber Frame put up the timber frame, outer walls, and roof for a new house.  We did not live at the farm yet.

​By the very start of Season Two, Mark and I finished the interior of the new house to the point where we were able to get an occupancy permit and start staying here.  We also started hosting many work-exchange folks.  With them, we planted 3 acres of super-berries in what is now called the Berry Field and laid out irrigation.  We planted half an acre of raspberries in the Bramble Field.  We started about 200 nut trees with variable success.  We built a second barn for chicken flock number two and five sheep, and, in a truly amazing feat of whirlwind work, a workaway family moved the first hoop house from its old location to a new site near the house.  Both new barns were vastly improved versions on the first season.   We started intensive rotational grazing with the sheep.  By the end of season 2 we had: a house, a garden house, two barns, 3 irrigated acres planted with berries, sheep and chickens, water, electricity, and internet. 

​Great outcomes, with lots of booboos, disasters, and plain old dumb stuff along the way – there were plenty of days when it seemed like the mistakes were winning and I wondered what the heck I was doing.

 So, Season Three.  The big building project this year is the straw bale studio workshop, led by a seasoned professional and attended by 11 folks - most from nearby and a few from out of state.   To get the registrations for the workshop, we learned about marketing and outreach.   Another outreach project is to sell more of our produce.  We have arranged to sell our mushrooms at the Just Roots stand at the Greenfield Farmers Market - Yeah! – and want to get a little farmstand rolling here for our eggs, shrooms and berries plus veggies from farmer friends.   We have become very fond of meeting and working with work-exchange folks and will continue to do that this season.   With them, we will take care of the berries and more baby nut trees; build a trellis for kiwis; improve the sheep rotation system; and of course, harvest eggs, berries and ‘shrooms for our new sales venues.  Lastly, our woods have also entered the radar: in March, we completed a forest management plan and this summer will be planning the first partial, sustainable harvest (for the next winter), to make room for shifting the forest towards more nut trees and woody silvo-pasture. 

It is a lot, but it feels like we are growing at the right pace.  We can keep track of what is going on, and work at a hard, not insane pace.  There are a million mistakes, but generally, with every new thing we do, we start small.  While mistakes are exceedingly common, so far, none have been catastrophic, and we learn from them. 
 
This pace is a privilege and a luxury for which we are immensely grateful.  It is possible because one of us has a full-time job that pays enough for both of us to live on plus the start-up farm expenses, leaving the other one (me) to devote all her time to this food forest.  We can balance starting up as teeny tiny potatoes while we learn and grow, without the requirement to be financially independent.  Someday, I will make a running seasonal overview of how much we spent on the farm and how much our sales were.  Hopefully over time, our sales will go up and all the building and start-up planting costs will go down and we’ll grow towards a system that is productive and provides a small livelihood.