Checking things off before the snow flies

We arrived on Saturday to the old farm to find this lone sunflower. Seemed a fitting way for the field to say goodbye. My parents joined John and me there, and we dug up all the perennials: rhubarb, day lilies, cone flower, lady’s mantle, comfrey, chives and oregano. This will be their final move. Excited to see them flourish at the new farm.

And so, farewell farm. Lots of laughter, blood, sweat and tears went into that place. Our CSA members, and family, rallied behind us creating such a strong community that we are so grateful for.

Onward!

— Heather-Marie Bloom, September 2020

This weekend, we sat at the dining room table in our new home and had a “farm meeting,” going through all the sheets of paper where we have jotted down the tasks we had hoped to accomplish this summer. We created those lists (there were four pages of them) sometime back in late May or June when we were living in an Airbnb in the city of Duluth, plotting our next move.

We were both surprised by the number of items we could cross off the list. It felt quite satisfying to go down the line:

• Pull up more than 50, 14- and 16–foot wooden fence posts using nothing but a jack and our own hands. Check.
• Dismantle and move a high tunnel with the help of family and friends. Check.
• Transport more than a decade’s worth of farming equipment (and, let’s be honest here, some junk) from the land we had been leasing to the new farm we now own in the township of Barnum, Minnesota. Check!

Since we returned to the United States from Vietnam in late spring, we’ve gone from wondering where we would live and what we’d do next, to having a new home, a new farm and a chance to realize a dream.

It goes without saying that none of that happened on our own. We can never repay our family and our friends (both old ones and new) for their support and their sweat as they helped us to move into the farmstead that was first established by the Johnson family in the late 1800s.

When we purchased our new farm, it’s almost as though a member of the Johnson family came with the deal (we hope he doesn’t regret that). Ed Johnson was born on this land and lives just down the road. He knows what every switch in the house turns on. He knows where every rock in the field is located (though the family spent much of the past century pulling off most of those rocks into tidy piles along its perimeter).

When we told Ed we’d be looking for help both moving all of our equipment and getting our field tilled and ready for planting, his response was short and to the point. “We’ll see if we can work something out.”

Last week, Ed and one of his John Deere tractors worked their way back and forth across our field, pulling a cultivator that dug into sod, tearing up the earth and taking the first steps toward preparing the land for our first season.

When he was done, we looked out across the tilled up soil.

“No turning back now,” John said to Ed.

“Nope,” he replied.

The week before, longtime farmer David Abazs had come out to walk the land with us and review the results of the soil test we had done. David and his wife, Lise, operate Round River Farm, which they began carving out of the forested hillsides above the shore of Lake Superior near Finland, Minnesota, in 1988 on land that was more than inhospitable. We had asked for his advice because we respect the vision they have for their land and the kind of sustainable farming they have done over the years. Their farm’s logo reads: “The life of the soil is a round river. Emerging and returning back into itself.”

He was encouraging but candid.

Don’t expect too much right away, he told us. The soil wasn’t perfect, but it was good. With some amendments to adjust the pH and improve the soil quality, we’d be in good shape. But, he added, for the first few years, the land, which has served primarily as pasture and hayfield for the past hundred years, is “going to fight you.”

Our goal is to not just grow vegetables, but to grow our soil, slowly improving it so that it will provide for us for years to come. The soil test we got back included a daunting set of numbers, charts and measurements that left our heads spinning.

Abazs, who is also executive director of the University of Minnesota Extension Northeast Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships, walked us through those numbers; however, he also cautioned that improving soil is only part science. It’s also art, driven by the understanding that soil is alive.

“It’s this community of organisms living together,” he said. “It’s really a story.”

For us, the dream of owning a farm goes beyond producing organically grown vegetables. We also hope to be good stewards of this rolling, 40-acre parcel of land.

To help us explore the possibilities, we got a visit from Alyssa Alness, a conservation technician from the Carlton Soil and Water Conservation District. She walked the entire perimeter of our property with us and helped to brainstorm ideas. We talked about a rain garden fed by the water draining off the cement slab by our house. She told us how we could transform our hayfield into a field of native prairie grasses. She also pointed out some of the invasive plants that we were going to have to keep from taking over our farm if we weren’t careful (reed canary grass and buckthorn, for starters).

Back at our dining room table looking over our lists, we realized that for each item we crossed off our lists, there were two or three more to add. We took a moment to reflect on all we’d done but it wasn’t long before our conversation came back to trying to figure out how much more we could accomplish before the first snowfall.

Our lists are no longer just on pieces of paper. Now, they are on a blackboard next to the entrance to our mudroom. And, each day, we do our best to cross something off, while at the same time balancing our jobs, our lives and our mental health.

Meanwhile, the days grow shorter and the sun drops lower and lower in the southern sky. Sometime soon, the first snow will fall. The ground will grow hard and we will either be done with what we set out to do this fall. Or we won’t be.

But one thing is for certain. We will sleep well at night.