With regard to last years fire, we are finally making in-roads. We fought tooth and nail almost daily to get our hempcrete house design approved and last week, we received our permits and broke ground. Not only is it exciting in itself to start building a house but we're amazed at the interest in the build and hempcrete as a material. Somehow we find people joining us and supporting us as we push forward with the house. However, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. We thought we had made some victories with our insurance company, but they are causing some issues again. There's a point where you have to throw caution to the wind and just start building. We have missed an entire farming season this year, we CANNOT afford to miss next year because we are still waiting to build. So it's on, we are starting a build that we now don't know will be fully covered by the insurance money. We're nothing if not dramatic! And it's just us. You know when you hear people say "oh, I'm building a house" when what they mean is "I'm sitting in my kitchen giving instructions to a contractor"? Yeah, well, that's not our reality. It's me and Ian sweating at the bottom of the foundations we dug in the blazing sun. And of course, Ian's type-A syndrome has kicked in with him declaring that "there is not another person on the planet who is accurate enough to frame his house". Sweeping generalizations and insults to the global carpentry industry aside, with or without a decent insurance payout, there won't be enough money to pay other people to build it.
The farm without farming has been has been like a party without wine this summer! We've kept the animals going and another farmer has used our land for a few crops. But most of the growing soils that we worked so hard to build and nourish, lie empty or covered in weeds. We had a couple of events just to keep breathing life back into the place but Laurica Farm has been a quiet shell of it's former self. No crowds, no new growth and no farmer burn out, tantrums or break downs! It's almost become cliché to say it's been a time of reflection. Reflection suggests something quite and peaceful but we have a gun to our heads as we choose our pathway. And so it goes on...new plans, new relationships and renewed vigour. 2018 will be our 'do or die' year.
Next February will see us merge with our friends at True Grit Farm. Ashlee founded True Grit this year and mainly grows microgreens for restaurant supply as well as CSA shares for the local community. Check out this story though, it's almost as daft as ours. Ashlee met Devin at the end of 2016. Devin has been so blown away by farming and inspired by the farming community that he is going to give up his well-paying job to become a farmer. Ha! Where have you heard that before?! Every time I look at him, it is with either pity or amusement, I can't quite figure out which emotion is stronger. But in all seriousness, you can teach anyone to farm, but you can't teach values. Devin is hard working and has innate farming values, he just doesn't know it yet.
So, Ian will be at the farm full-time for the first time since we moved here. He will farm mainly with Ashlee, who will teach us about microgreens and share her areas of expertize. Devin is chatty and confident so he will look after the customers. I will head up the events, which will see you strengthen an existing partnership with The Watershed Arts Café, and the rental of the tree house. And there it is! Not a complex master plan, but a plan nonetheless. A plan to keep going, a plan to address the burn out, a plan to pool our resources and aid the mutual growth of two awesome farms. A plan to make a living and reclaim a lifestyle during 2018 and if not, call it a day. It seems the last year has certainly made us fragile, but not fragile like a flower. Fragile like a bomb.
