Saturday, February 2, 2013

Why is it so Hard to Post?

It's not that I don't have anything to say.  I think of things all the time that I could post about - maybe twice a day I write a little blog post title.  But it just never gets to the computer....

Some of the things I'd like to write about are long and involved.  For example, I've been thinking more and more seriously that I'd like to own a farm one day.  Or even just a large and diversified market garden.  However, the reasoning and scheming and dreaming about that hypothetical farm just seem too huge to describe within the laughably small confines of a blog post.  Here are some examples:

  • I've been trying to learn about the business end of farming - marketing, planning, and record-keeping. I've devoured about a dozen books and pamphlets over the last several months.
  • I've considered and dismissed the possibility of interning on a working farm.  Babysitters get paid way more than farm interns, and I don't think I'm willing to wait until my kids are in school.  Maybe.
  • I've been trying to figure out what I could do in my backyard right now, reasoning that I'll learn more by acting than reading and scheming.  I've been considering a rabbit/worm farm.  But I'm starting to think that the reason people can raise rabbits on tiny little suburban lots like mine is because we don't treat rabbits very well.  (Want to read about how to help your rabbit bucks rape your unwilling does?  Cause I can tell you the name of that book.  Complete with illustrations, folks!  Am I just not cut out for raising animals if I think that's unacceptable?)
  • I've created a detailed year-long planting calendar to help me make full use of the available soil in my garden plot.  For each crop I've written in the planting and/or transplanting dates and approximate dates when they'll need to be weeded and harvested.  There are notes about when the beds should be cleared, fertilized, mulched, etc and when trellises should be put up.  I've revised the spring planting plan twice, with the kind of detail that makes it difficult to translate onto paper - each bed contains multiple kinds of plants that will be planted and harvested at different times, other crops coming in to replace them as they're spent in what I hope will be a fairly smooth continuum.  I'm working on data sheets for each crop to help me track when they're actually planted/harvested and provide a quick, central reference for planting and growing instructions.  The calendar should help me keep new transplants ready to go into the garden when needed, keep the soil moist and weed-free, and plan the rest of my life so as to avoid some of the wretched weeks I had last year when the work seemed to all need to be done at once.  
Well, there you have it.  I've managed to blog about four things so that you can see how hard they are to blog about.

1 comment:

  1. I know how hard it is to get the thoughts on the blog sometimes. It's interesting to hear what you're thinking about. Thanks for posting.

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