Farming
We’re sustainable gangsters
Where are you farming now?
That’s a question I hear a lot from friends. In part, it’s the nature of managing a farm vs owning one. And even with the Oregon farm, it was three years from when we purchased it to when we decided to sell.
Jenn and I have managed farms in 6 states (including a misadventure in Hawaii) plus Canada.
Our current farm is 106.7 acres. The .7 is all Jenn. She likes to be accurate. We have a small orchard near the road that pruning has brought back to life. There are two full-sized greenhouses, including one with propane, four smaller hoop houses, and what’s referred to as the whale skeleton (a hoop house we’ve converted for trellising. We sell certified organic vegetables to several local restaurants and we have a robust CSA. Jenn’s a bit of rock star.
My role on the farm is give tours and provide coffee and pastries to the crew. Occasionally they let me on the zero turn to mow.
Farmer Jenn at MOHAI
Part of farming is educating and participating in the local community. When Farmer Jenn was invited to present to Boeing Executives on STEM farming applications at MOHAI, she couldn't pass it up.
Coffee in Kawaii
Kawaii was one of the most beautiful places we've ever farmed. It also was a nightmare from a logistics standpoint. At the time kona was the best coffee you could get on the island. So we shipped in coffee from the mainland. In the photo is a 5lb bag from Giv Coffee and if you look in the background you can see one of the two main fields on the farm.
One Degree of Kevin Bacon
We've had some cool encounters while farming. One of those was having Kevin Bacon compliment Farmer Jenn's organic broccoli. The above photo is from his Instagram, where he repeated the question he asked her, "Any suggestions on how to cook this?"