A Salute to Dad Rote

He taught me how to tie my shoes.

How to work with a positive mindset.

How to embrace excellence in my work ethic.

How to run.

How to ride a bike.

How to throw a football.

How to keep my head up through adversity.

How to be humble.

How to do mental math.

How to play pretty much every sport I ever learned how to play.

How to cast a fishing line.

How to take a joke.

He taught me a lot of things that require instruction. He,  being my dad. Dad's teach us a ton of really important life skills in life, like the ones I mentioned above. But I want to call my Dad out. Not for something bad though. Usually, when someone calls someone else out, it's for a transgression.Today, it's for exemplary behavior. While my father taught me many good things, it's what he showed me that's more important. He showed me how to be a man.

Many times, when you read about fathers and sons, you hear about a father teaching his son how to be a man. Like it's a step by step process.  But I don't think that's how it works. Or how it's supposed to at least. The best Dad's, the ones like mine, show how to be a man. They don't point to where the path of manhood is, and instruct their sons to walk along that path. They walk the path of manhood themselves, and ask their sons to follow.  That's what dad did for me.

He tied his shoes, and showed me how to do the same.

He worked beside me, and showed me how to stay positive in the middle of a job.

He performed excellently in everything he did, and gave me the tools to do the same if I chose to.

He ran, and asked me to follow him.

He threw a football, and showed me how to do the same.

He experienced adversity, and became my example for how to survive it.

Showed me active humility.

Did insane amounts of multiplication tables in his head, and demanded I do the same. I hated him for it then, but LOVE him for it now, and my employers, past and present are, at the very least, subconsciously grateful to him for my skills and many other things.

Point is, my dad is a hero to me. Not some superhero, superman character, either.


He's the kind of man I want to grow up to be. Smart, knowledgeable, wise, proficient in mathematical skills, kind to a fault, and most of all, faithful to his family and loved ones.

I know I don't show it often enough, but if I grew up and turned out exactly like my Dad, I wouldn't be disappointed, because he's a pretty swell guy.

Dad, if you are reading this, I love you. Happy father's day. I can't thank you enough for being such a great role model. I wish I could give you more than this silly post, but 'till I make my million's, or at least my thousands, this will have to do.

How your CSA came into the world.

I remember when I was a kid, and it was my birthday, my mom would come into my room, and always tell me the same story. My birth story. It always started, "8 (or however many it happened to be at the time) years ago today. . . "  It always finished with her telling the story about how they counted my fingers and toes, " and we counted five fingers on your right hand, and five fingers on your left hand, and five tiny toes on your right foot, and five tiny toes on your left, and you were a beautiful baby boy, and we named you Ben." It always reinforced who I was. I knew where I came from. I knew how I came to be, or at least knew all I cared to about the subject. I knew that I was Ben, and the son of Kyle and Mary Lynne. It made me appreciate life, and my parents more. It helped form my identity. 

Every now and then, Delta Sol is lucky enough to have volunteers come out and help. They are genuinely selfless with their donation of time and energy and in turn get to live a day in the life. But with a few exceptions, not many people who we see around town know really what they do. They see the muddy truck, and sunburnt face, and frayed straw cap, and register farmer,  but they don't know how it is that Brandon and I turn seeds into food. Today, I hope you'll read a little about how we do what we do. I think it will give you an appreciation for the food you get this week, and hopefully give that chard in your CSA bag a bit of a backstory. Along the way, you'll find a lot to be thankful for, and a lot of people to be thankful for beyond just Brandon, Lauren, our volunteers, and me. Enjoy. 

Last year, probably around May, seed farmers across the world were watching as their chard, spinach, lettuce, and collards bolted, or in common vernacular, went to flower and seed.  As those plants flowered and put out their seeds, those farmers collected the seeds carefully over a period of days and weeks. After collection, they sent those seeds to a larger company that they are likely under contract with, like "Johnny's Selected Seeds," or "High Mowing Seed Co."   In order for those farmers to get their plants to seed, don't forget that they too have to have good luck in eluding drought conditions, and pest problems. Without those seed farmers, there would be no vegetable farmers. Be thankful for seed farmers. 

Don't think that those farmers hand deliver the seeds either. They stick them in the post just like any other company. So, if a delivery man along the way forgets to turn on the A/C in his truck's trailer, and those seeds spend half a week baking away at 145 degrees fahrenheit, the seeds might have a much lower germination rate than they would otherwise, ruining the farmer's potential crop. However, if things go as planned, the trucker remembers to plug in his A/C, and the seeds come to the doorstep of some large seed company to be sorted out, packaged, and then sent to small farms like Delta Sol. Be thankful for good delivery men. 

After the seeds get to Delta Sol, Brandon and I have to be diligent in taking care of our seeds just like the trucker did. No super high temperatures. No super low temperatures. The humidity can't be too high. And, in some cases, it can't be too low. 

Then, we take plastic trays that are used to incubate our seeds into seedlings. Each of the plastic trays holds either 72, or 128 cells of soil that are about an inch wide, and an inch and a half deep. We take our seeds, and place them carefully inside each of the plastic cells, one at a time. The seeds range in size, from about the size of the ball on the end of the ball-point pen when it comes to flowers like celosia and some leafy vegetables in the brassica family, to about the size of the pencil eraser when dealing with seeds like beets or sunflowers. Keep in mind, to supply 60 people with lettuce, that's going to be a hair under 800 seeds to plant. Every two weeks. And, keep in mind that we don't just sell lettuce. That means that kale, radishes, beets, squash, sunflowers, onions, and tomatoes aren't included within that 800 seed figure. 

After those trays of lettuce (and whatever else) are seeded, they take between 0 and 2 months to completely germinate, and grow to a size that will allow them to survive when transplanted into the field or high tunnel.  In order for those seedlings to survive those first months, they have to be closely monitored in the greenhouse. The soil in their cells can't get too dry, so the greenhouse has to be checked and watered several times daily to ensure they don't dry out and die. Remember, they're planted into cubes of soil not much larger than an ice cube. They can dry out and die quickly. If the soil does dry out and the seedlings do die, the farmers (Brandon and I) are MINIMUM 2 weeks behind the planting schedule, and maybe as much as a month or two behind. 

When the seedlings survive about a month in the greenhouse, they have to survive another test: being brought outside. There, they are accosted my different weather conditions which, depending upon the time of the year, could either be near freezing cold, or near boiling hot. Then, there are pests. Aphids, grasshoppers, caterpillars, nematodes, fungi, and viruses, oh my. Any of them could be the downfall for an entire crop of vegetables. Thats if the weather isn't too rainy, because if it is, we can't plant seeds. And, hopefully the weather won't be too dry, because then we'll be able to plant, but the seedlings we get in the ground won't survive, and somehow the weeds will. 

As soon as we do get the seedlings in the ground, and growing, and irrigated, the pest problem is still there. it doesn't go away until the season ends. It can take half a day for any number of pests to wreak havoc on a single crop. By the time the crop is half destroyed, you have to spend the money on expensive organic pesticides, and spend the time in applying them when you have 27 CSA shares to get ready, and the lambs are out, and it would be great if we could kill that pig this afternoon, because she's at slaughter weight, and each day we put that off costs us money in feed, and each dollar that we spend on feed could go to another high tunnel, or more seeds, or maybe a better fence in the north pasture, and you always have to make sure you have enough to pay those you employ, and enough to buy yourself food, and gas to get to market, and diesel for the tractor. 

Once the seedlings are growing you can take a deep breath, but only half of one. Because then you have to harvest the produce you have that's ready to be picked and sell it to a vendor, or someone at the market, but if you work faster, faster, faster, you can get  enough done today that you can have the time to take the other half of that deep breath tomorrow, and we still haven't slaughtered that pig, so this afternoon, we can either save that kale, or stop bleeding from the pocket book and maybe kill the pig. Then in two weeks, the seedlings you planted a month ago will be ready to go to market, but damn if the nematodes aren't getting the kale, and a fungus is getting the lettuce, and you're left with chard and beets and pea shoots to give the CSA, and you can take some green garlic from the field, but not too much, because you need the rest for full heads of garlic later in the season.  

In the afternoon, you weed the beds in the hi-tunnel after putting the pig in the freezer. Your mind races with plans for the future. Then, you bring yourself back to earth. It's only Monday. There are plenty of things left on the to-do list. But, really now, it wouldn't be THAT bad to have a milk cow...

Whether you believe in Jesus, or Buddha, or Allah, or Auras, or the alignment of the stars, or beauty of the Cosmos and the flying spaghetti monster, the next time you eat a meal be thankful for, and believe in your local farmer. 

Starting a Farm: A Thought Experiment

One of the many blessings about this internship is that it allows me to be geographically closer to my family. My parents live about 45 minutes away, so that gives me the chance to be able to see them 1 or 2 times a week in between work obligations. During one of those visits, my mom brought up the topic of being able to lease a piece of land from family friends, and it made me realize I didn't have even a rudimentary business plan. Sure, it's nice to be able to spend my days working the land, and hanging out with animals, but if I really want to do that long term, and make money doing that, I have to map ALL of my expenses.

There are some things, for instance, that I will only have to buy once, or at worst, every 5 years. Things on this list are electric fencing, some sort of tractor, or very good walk behind tiller, parts for a chicken tractor or three, feeding troughs for goats and chickens and pigs, coolers for storing meat, and many others.

Then there are yearly costs. several tons of locally sourced grain and supplements for the animals. 1-200 cornish cross hen chicks, hay, seeds, some fertilizer, packaging for my produce, market fees, pigs (if I don't breed my own), and lots of other stuff I have written down frenetically and late at night.

It's a very sobering, but fun process, to be able to imagine and create something from scratch in an imaginary reality, and it's very funny how problems pop up in daydreams like they do in life. I can be neck deep in a daydream where I've been enjoying a pastoral life with all of its perks when all the sudden, a potato blight pops up, or my sheep get eaten by coyotes.  Maybe that's a compensatory measure our brains take for us, to prepare us for adverse times ahead.

Either way, it will be fun in the next several months to decide whether I want to pursue other internship opportunities, or just jump in neck deep to see what happens when a greenhorn goes into the business of being green.