County Fare

Friends Neighbors Countrymen lend me your ear (or your farm beginnings info)

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 | County Fare Site, Food Activism, Food Writing, Health, Minnesota

It may seem that this little food media experiment has bit the dust. I assure you it has not. In fact things are looking pretty exciting for the next year.

First, a little about the extended hiatus. Last summer as I excitedly worked my first real job in over three years at a reputable advertising agency here in Minneapolis my youngest daughter developed eczema as a result of some nasty FOOD ALLERGIES. At the same time the eldest daughter became violently ill with Lyme’s Disease. It took six weeks and five doctor visits to find this out. AND THEN I came down with shingles! Uber stress I guess. So I decided I was going to stay home for awhile and get things in order. Shingles and Lyme’s are treatable and were nipped in the butt within a couple of weeks. Food allergies on the other hand are a real nightmare. 9 months later we are still adjusting our family diet and have found an herbal remedy that has helped immensely with her aczema, at the recommendation of our acupuncturist. We still don’t get much sleep at night with the poor little girl, now 1yr, rolling around and itching at all hours; but things are greatly improved from the days when her skin literally bled day and night.

Instead of pursuing my working career at full steam I’ve opted to enroll in graduate school. Something I’ve always wanted but thought was a few years down the road, oh well. In hope that my wife could stay home with the kids we have been brainstorming ideas for extra income. A few have come and gone but one lingers nagging us on. Starting a small farm. After some research we have found that there is an abundance of help for people who wish to start farming. And get this, a lot of it is from the good ole USDA! WOW! Beginning farm loans! Business planning resources! Classes! Everywhere we look this is a positive for us, the planet, and profit. We are truly  amazed and are excitedly attempting to start a business plan. Tough with only a couple weary hours of production time available. We’ll get there.

So it seems this will be our contribution to County Fare. We will document as much of the process as possible and post it for the community as a resource. Hopefully it will be useful.

If anyone has relevant information please post it here. I’m currently looking for current accurate data regarding sales prices for berries and mushrooms (these are my lead crop contenders). I have a meeting with our local FSA person in a few days and hope to get some of this data for my region.

Sorry about the sloppy post and writing. What can you expect with an average of 4 hours of sleep for months. This ship will only get tighter as time goes on. I’m very much looking forward to it.

Dustin

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