TL;DR

The effects of cold temperatures are really arrived. Frozen hoses, frost damaged crops, slippery slicks of water on the ground…and tonight is predicted to dip into the 20s. So naturally we harvested lettuce, beets, carrots and kale, then put an extra layer of row cover down in the high tunnel.

Working Around Frozen Hoses

We use water for many things on the farm, most notably for animals, irrigation, and cleaning. I didn’t realize that it was going to dip down to freezing temperatures last night so I didn’t bring the garage hose in yesterday afternoon, thus it was frozen when I went to use it for animal chores first thing this morning. I also had to get ready for harvest which is kind of impossible unless there’s flowing water outside. So I took a few minutes to bend the hose throughout its length, cracking the ice inside a bit then turned the water on low while I went to feed the pigs and chickens.

When I got back up to the garage, the hose was still frozen but leaking a little in places so I knew the water pressure was making progress. I then turned the water on full and worked the hose a bit more until chunks started spewing out the end and eventually water finally flowed. It reminded me of one of my earliest memories of helping my great uncle bring gallon jugs of water to his beagle shed in the depths of winter, breaking the ice on the top of the water bowls and the sound of the water filling the bowls as my nose began to drip from the cold.

When Computer Work Freezes

For all the decades I was in front of a computer screen building things that ultimately didn’t matter, I was missing the simple joys of working with my hands and the outdoors. I don’t think I could have paid for the family life over the past 15 years in Massachusetts being a farmer because it is a profession that power and money commodify…though they shouldn’t.

I was economically fortunate to be in a tech career by the 2003 and by 2013 was making six figures. I doubled that with another 10 years until perceptions about how to do really hard work became a commodity. I didn’t realize how much the industry’s garage hose had frozen in those years until leadership water stopped flowing, but I had the sense by 2021 that it was headed for the disaster cliff it is facing now with AI bubble-burst.

The Cold Is Part of a Cycle

The cold is a part of the cycle of life on a New England farm. If I lived in Florida, it would be flooding and hurricanes, searing heat and blanching sunlight, crocodiles and mosquitoes. This is why we re-plant every year and in that way, it gives us a job to do. The cold is a reminder that we have to work hard not only to thrive, but firstly and simply to survive..

I am working out in the cold every day, on the farm and on my computer. I am building a plan to augment my farm salary in order to fully support my family again without having to take a solitary big (and thus risky) paycheck from an employer. I am not targeting a greedy amount simply because an industry will pay me a lot of money to do something that is not good.

Soil Sampling

I am digging…in the field for soil samples…and in the digital world with classes and research…to know where to focus efforts next year. With soil sampling, we take representative samples from each field to understand the health of the soil and make informed decisions about crop rotation and fertilization. When I’m in the soil, I’m happy. When I’m in the cold mud, I’m less so. When I’m ankle deep in pig shit, I’m even less so. But it all still feels like happy work to me.

Because of the decades of computer work, screens are not exactly this. When I am on the computer now, I take very calculated time to investigate specific topics that I’ve prioritized or are part of the current course work so that I spend as little time staring at a screen as possible. It is good for mental and physical health to limit this kind of time spend because I can’t ever get it back. Fortunately, the work of my own doesn’t feel like the corporate pig shit that I used to have to do, so I’m happy to do it now within reason.

AI Summary from Field Notes

At some point this winter, I need to figure out why these summaries convolute the type of work being done (such as harvesting, weeding, cleaning) and the target of the work (beets, spinach, leeks). Today and this week are pressed for time, so no way do I have the deep work chunk it would take to do that now. It is crossed out for future reference.

Summary