The title of this post was a recent subject line in an email to my wife Danette. I was emailing her more details of a rant I’d started yelling across several rooms of the house this morning.
It’s about moving back (for me) to the Ithaca area. Not that we’d never, ever neglect the powder. We’d be back Rob Rowley style for months at a time. Baby Ellie needs to learn to turn Alta style. At any rate, enjoy…
On moving back to central NY..
Can’t trust the machine. Rotten food consumed by helpless babies with families that can’t afford to pay for anymore than the big grocery store brands. Time to farm it up. Be sustainable. Don’t rely on semi-trailers hauling rotten spinach and meat 2000 miles to make you sick, or die.
We’re going to farm it up and big time. Here is a preliminary 3-year plan. This outlines our migration to the heartland of my youth. A place with forests and lakes.
Year 1:
- Potatoes & tomatoes galore to get the soil conditioned
- Install coup and bring 12 Hens on board, with one Rooster
- Prune legacy fruit trees and berry bushes
- Get annual herb garden in the ground
- Dig root cellar for Potato stock
- Fence in 1-3 acres for livestock
- Establish relationship with local food co-op
- Register booths at ALL market’s within two hour drive
Year 2:
- Purchase rootsy flat bed truck for market trips
- Embrace more heirloom varieties in garden
- Bring sheeps and goats on board in fenced acreage
- Expand free range chicken farm for co-op
- Build outdoor clay oven
- Sing to fruit trees and berry bushes with Ellie
- Harvest first season of sheepwool and goat milk
Year 3:
- All of the above, plus add annual summer trip to Alaska, where I’ll return with 65 lbs of smoked and frozen wild Salmon
ETC.
