2009 Farm season report:

Today, according to the weather radio, is expected to be WARMER, with a high of 15 degrees. I thought that was funny. We had a wonderful foot+ of snow last Tuesday, followed by blizzardy winds and a week of very low temperatures, so the roads are still snowy and icy enough to keep me close to home. By the fall, I was the only one out living on the farm, and I'm now settled in the cozy little house in Ames with Nate for the winter. Thanks Stu for renting us your wee house! Nate and I are scheming about building a tiny house out on the farm next May, and we are practicing in town first, to see if we can handle the tight quarters. It would be a really great thing for the farm to have a house on-site. As far as I know, no one has been out to the farm since the snow fell, though we are slowly compiling a list of things we forgot and will get them when the weather clears.
The week before the snow, we harvested the last of the brussels sprouts and cabbages. They were yummy and scrumptious and we ate a bunch at our end of season pot-luck. I also saw signs of deer parties everywhere. The deer seem to have taken over the farm now that no people are living there, and they've been causing more destruction than I thought possible. For our first season and a half, the deer totally stayed away from the farm, but since then they've been getting more and more at home in our gardens. Nate and I spent an afternoon putting up mini fences around all the new trees we could, but we ran out of time and I'll just have to say a few prayers for the trees we missed. There are plenty of tender young trees in the nearby woods for them to nibble and lay on. We'll probably have to do some more creative fencing in the spring, now that the word is out to the deer community and maybe we'll be able to get a dog???

a summary of our season
Things went really well this past year.
Financials:
As you know, our financial model is a little strange. Like most Catholic Worker houses, we are dedicated to service and the Works of Mercy and we do this work for free (none of our workers get paid). Unlike a lot of Catholic Workers, we also have a business side – we have a vegetable CSA with paying members. This income stream keeps us from being dependent on donations for the basic functioning and projects of our farm. (We are however always grateful for any donations and they help us serve more people). The ideas of voluntary poverty, voluntary simplicity, gift economy, work-for-goodness'-sake are fundamental to the farm. They are big ideas and amazing in action, and give us tremendous freedom to take risky actions in faith without much financial resources. However, I have noticed that not everyone seems to find this way of life as fun as I do. Or maybe that it is such a big shift from what we are taught that we don't have a lot of practice living this way.
To give us some concrete goals, and some checks and balances, we set a target of splitting our produce/finances into thirds. We want to sell a third of our vegetables, give a third away to the hungry, and give a third to our workers and volunteers. I think this concrete guide is really important because it is often really tempting to sell more and make more money. Our other financial principle is that we want to spend most of our income on farm basic-expenses and improvements, leaving only a little left-over for emergencies or possible future purchase of land. This is to keep us from hoarding, or acquiring more than we actually need, and also to keep us from borrowing money (we can't make improvements if we do not have the actual money). These aren't set in stone – they are just guiding principles. We also need consensus among our team for any unordinary purchases.
We did a good job with these goals this year. At my current calculations/approximations, on our one acre in cultivation, we sold about $5,300 worth of veggies, gave away to shelters and soup kitchens about $4,300, and somewhere from $4,000-$6,000 to our workers. The last one is that hardest to calculate, because we tried to track food that left the farm, but don't know how much food was eaten on the farm. We also had about $5,000 in farm expenses this year, including seeds, new berries and trees, tools, rent and bills, repairs of buildings, and our biggest expenses were our new energy efficient fridge and the greenhouse we built.

Our crops:
Most of the plants did really well this year. In early spring, we expanded into the little pasture north of our shed and planted some perennials: asparagus, raspberries, strawberries, grapes, hazelnuts, currants, rhubarb, pie cherries, june berries, choke cherries, elderberries, and gooseberries. We also increased our perennial herb and prairie plant sections. Because this is rented land, we didn't want to spend too much money on these plantings, yet we really wanted some practice with these crops. We decided to compromise and try a little of everything, and if we are not here to see it fruit, hopefully someone will benefit from it. Unless they are totally plowed under by any future tenants, they will at least provide good habitat and food for wildlife. These crops were the most affected by our deer friends, and we'll see how they look in the spring.
The weather was unusually cool all season, and seemed wetter than most years. The spring crops especially loved this, while the warmer weather crops weren't totally thrilled. We had some wind damage, and some things got sick from too much rain (lettuce and tomatoes mostly), but other things were excellent. Like every gardener and farmer I talked to in Iowa, we had our best cucumber and squash year ever. Luckily for us, we were given a bunch of squash seeds this spring and had some extra space from our expansion into the pasture, so we planted more of these crops than usual.

oh no! attack of the mutant zuchini!

We probably grew too much cabbage and edamame this year, and not enough beets, garlic, and okra. Our garlic crop was beautiful though, and we saved enough seed to do a really big planting this fall. All in all, the farm did a pretty fantastic job of producing abundant and diverse food every week, while looking beautiful with flowers and wildlife at the same time.

Projects:

Since we were starting to get the hang of the vegetable thing, we thought we'd take on more projects this year. In the spring, we planted a lot of perennials, and built our new greenhouse. When we finished that, we put a loft into the old-pig-shed/ kitchen/ center of operations building and our friends Myra and Bill built us a lean-to on the back side of the shed. After installing a little wood cook stove in the shed and moving a lot of our farm tools to the lean-to, the shed is now a cozier kitchen/living space.
Later in the season, Nicholas put in some more rain barrels and work tables, and Jeff built us a solar shower (it still doesn't get hot, but warm is a big improvement). Building a house is a big goal for next year. The money for that project will not come from the farm, but from Nate and Alice and they will own the house. This will enable us to use the RV and the loft to provide hospitality to visitors and workers and a little more stability to the farm in general.
The bee-keeping project is still a learning experience for us, and hopefully we will be a little more successful next year.

Our Team:
I do not have the words to express how grateful I am to everyone who helped out on the farm this year. I think it was a great year for all our workers, and we got to watch many of them as they moved on to the next stages of their life. I haven't updated the 'our team' section of our website yet; it is horribly out of date because of all the change that has happened and I hope I will get it done before the year is over.
Colette, my steady roommate/RV-mate of many years and my comrade in rugged-living enthusiasm got married to Darrin this July and moved into Ames. She also went back to school for nursing this year and that has taken up a lot of her time. Next year Colette hopes to still come out on Fridays and do a little work and share our community meal time with us.
Chris, one of our founding members, moved to Onion Creek Farm (super-cool good friends of ours) this fall and is both learning from them and starting his own farming business. This is a great opportunity for him and we wish him the best.
Dave finished his Phd this summer and got a job in Maryland helping monitor frog populations and generally aiding our amphibious friends. I miss Dave's ability to identify any bird I saw, his steady and willing work, his good humor and all around solid personality. Nate says he will also miss Dave very much. Hannah also got a new job, with ATTRA down in Des Moines, so we still get to see her, but not as often. Thank goodness Martin hasn't gotten a new job yet!
From all I can tell, Nicholas has been doing well this semester in Mexico. He will be coming back after Christmas and plans to be part of our team next year. It has been hard to get along without him these last few months. He managed to write a grant proposal while he was gone for a research project he hopes to do on the farm next season. Hopefully he will get the go-ahead to be as scientific as his heart desires and we will all learn more about cover crops.
This year we tried for the first time to host strangers who were interested in learning about growing food and living simply. These folks found us through the WWOOFER database, or through Catholic Worker connections. This was really exciting, at times challenging, and hopefully it was good for our visitors. This was how me met Navvab. She came to our farm, after volunteering at a Buddhist monastery and spent a month living with us. Navvab is spunky, creative, caring, and sincere. The extra cold weather didn't treat her well, so she moved to nearby Boone and got a part-time job, but she continued to help out on the farm. She's not sure what next year brings, but I'm hoping for health and happiness. Thanks also to our shorter-term visitors: Rachel, Jonathon, Sara, Ilona, Alice's entire family, and of course, Lee.
We also had a good team of regular, and irregular volunteers. Thanks to Mary Ann for weeding and leading spiritual activities, Lee and Marilyn(our most thorough weeder) for their regular help, Tanya for picking food for the Story City food pantry, Shari for delivering, and all the youth groups and occasional helpers. A special thanks to Nate and Rhiannon. These two have been weekly workers all season. They really seem to enjoy working hard, and they keep me humble and laughing. It's thanks to these two that were able to keep things going this fall when many of our other workers moved on. They have both expressed an interest in being more involved in our core team next year.
Do you want to be on our team? As you can see, we need help next year. Our core team are the ones that want to be involved in planning and decision making. They make an effort to come to the majority of our business meetings (about every other week) and their consensus is needed for important decisions. You could also be a core member that is only interested in a particular project. Like maybe you want to be our bee-keeper, or do a particular project about grape growing, or be an apprentice to some part of our operation. You wouldn't have to be involved with every aspect of the farm, but you would need to be able to follow through with a commitment for the whole season. There is also the opportunity to be a live-on-farm worker. We can provide food and a pretty rugged lifestyle, and a lot of learning.
Do you want to be a regular volunteer? One of our greatest needs is for people who can come once a week at a regular time. You wouldn't need any particular skills do be this kind of volunteer, just willing to learn. We have a variety of work for different abilities. Also, if you want to learn some skills, this would be a good way to do it, but wouldn't give you as thorough of a knowledge as if you were involved in planning.
Do you want to organize a service trip for a group? We love doing this and can provide fun activities and education on such topics as care of creation, simple living, growing food, faith, etc.

peace,
alice mcg