County Fare

Farm Plan

Sunday, March 7th, 2010 | County Fare Site, Minnesota, Uncategorized | No Comments

Wow there is a lot to be done when planning our little endeavor. Business plans in and of themselves aren’t that difficult to create, but research takes time. Add the needs of small children to the mix and you get an extended time line that’s nearly unacceptable. We are definitely up to the challenge, but it seems just getting there is going to be the hardest part.

On a positive note I had a meeting with our local FSA Rep and it sounds like one of the loans they make available for beginning farmers is going to be the best option for us at this point. Now to research and compile data to come up with some hard numbers for a balance sheet and projected income, write a farm experience narrative and then collect the supporting documentation to complete the application. When I get a clearer idea of our farm plan I’ll lay it all out here. What I will say is that we are taking a LONG look at aquaponics. Nearly year round production in USDA zone 3 sounds interesting.

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 | No Comments

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

What’s Happenin’?

Friday, June 26th, 2009 | County Fare Site | No Comments

OK, it’s been awhile since I’ve been writing for CF. Truth is having a second child is like entering another universe where all of your time is sucked up by the breast milk black hole :^D Having another addition to the family is wonderful and I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea. Our children are fantastic, but time is at a premium now. Between family duties and my new job crafting and growing this little blogging experiment has had to, by necessity, take a back seat. That does not mean it has been abandoned just slowed… to a snails pace. Which I find rather appropriate considering the subject matter and my fondness of everything slow movement. Family First.

Behind the scenes I have been working on a new layout and tighter integration with some of my other web activities. This new layout and integration should make the site more functional as a publication as well as more aesthetically pleasing. I nearly have the information architecture complete and am obsessing over color schemes at the moment. Next, the content strategy will be redefined. I will try to update here a little more frequently in the near future as things come closer to completion. I also have a few things I really need to write about in the mean time as they are very important.

till then,

Dustin

Tags: site, update

Twitter Updates for 2009-04-10

Friday, April 10th, 2009 | County Fare Site | No Comments

• thinking of an actual content strategy for the blog. asking if there are any topics/ideas that anyone feels need to be included? #
• 100 mile challenge. great idea! http://100mile.foodtv.ca/ #

Tags: twitter

County Fare uses BlueHost Web Hosting

Friday, April 10th, 2009 | County Fare Site | No Comments

Blue host has a lot of included services for a fair price. Check it out.

Signup for BlueHost.com

Tags: Add new tag, hosting, web

Takin a break

Thursday, March 5th, 2009 | County Fare Site | No Comments

Hello

As a few of you know my wife and I had our second child a little while ago. This combined with me working on finishing a degree in web design and interactive media leave little time to keep expanding and organizing our little food media experiment County Fare. But fear not many exciting things are happening at this time and we will soon be able to translate them into this blog. In the mean time if you have something to contribute feel free to do so. I have set this up as a community resource for us to exchange information that will help support local food supplies as well as the health that this can translate into in terms of ourselves and our local economies.

Dustin

Tags: break

New members in the Vimeo Group

Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 | County Fare Site | No Comments

A few month ago I started a Vimeo Account to show some of the great homegrown food videos that are there. Not really sure what to expect from the community I was mostly using it a means to bring meaningful content to County Fare in the limited amount of time that I have to do so at this time.

I finally returned to the group to find that there were new members signed up! Very Cool! The worlds foodies will unite!

One member, Emily Ward, posted a video titled Real Food. You can see it here in the Video Feed, see the link at the top of the page, or go to the Vimeo Group page and see it there.

County Fare Vimeo

Tags: group, sharing, video, vimeo

hmmm

Saturday, December 6th, 2008 | County Fare Site | No Comments

Thinking this broccoli pic needs to be changed sooner than later.

Photo

Friday, August 15th, 2008 | County Fare Site | No Comments

Tags: CSA, food, photo