Who is this guy?

And what's he going to do next?

There are just certain times of the year when it seems as if everything wants to happen at once. And it just so happens that the past couple of weeks have been that sort of time for Tammy and I. We’ve reached some sort of nexus where our time is attracting so many opportunities, tasks and responsibilities that we sometimes find ourselves double, triple and quadruple booked for the same time slot.

For example, the Iowa legislature just finished going through the “funnel” where they determine which bills will be considered in the House and Senate this session. As a result, there are many organizations that do what they can to make their wishes known - often by having “lobby days.” Tammy took Social Work students to Des Moines on Tuesday while I… um… did not attend the Iowa Farmers Lobby Day on Wednesday. But, I did work very hard on some Iowa legislative issues the past few weeks.

My non-attendance is just one of those things that happens when the time crunch happens and everything must be “right now.” Some things just can’t happen. And, in this case, it was a first-come, first-served situation. The lobby day was the fifth thing that tried to fit itself into the same slot on my schedule. I said yes to the first thing, no to the second and rescheduled the third and fourth things. Now, if the lobby day had been the last thing asking for this chunk of my time, it would be a good story. But, I was given the opportunity to say “no” one more time after that.

Lucky me.

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Swiss Army Rob?

I used to be very fond of a Swiss Army knife that was given to me just before I started fifth grade. Like all such knives it had several tools that could periodically be useful to me and some others that were never going to be much use. But, of course, there were two that were most commonly used - the larger blade and the standard head screwdriver.

You could almost think of me as a Swiss Army Rob. I am useful for all sorts of tasks, but there are some that I am much better at than others. For example, it seems that I am decent at presentations and I occasionally write a pretty good article that people enjoy. On the other hand, I don’t see myself as a community organizer and I rarely, if ever, volunteer to make phone calls. All of these tools are there, I just don’t utilize them all equally. And it’s not always because some of the tools are less effective than others.

Though, I will admit that I do have some “skills” that might be worth moving on from. Kind of like the flimsy tweezers on my old knife.

In any event, perhaps it’s my status as a Swiss Army Rob that I have been collecting so many things to do? Whether that’s true or not, I’ve been feeling like I’ve had to pull out all of the tools and do my best to make them work.

As far as Tammy is concerned, I’ll let her speak for herself. I happen to think she’s good at all the things she does. But she seems especially good at attracting meetings - and they seem to all like to land in the same spot. Of course, that’s not entirely true. But her calendar does get pretty packed.

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Time for a farmer update!

I wrote that whole introduction (that was an introduction?!?) so I could answer a question that has come up a few times lately. Apparently, some people were wondering how we are doing and what we are up to at the Genuine Faux Farm. When someone asks me this sort of question in a face-to-face interaction, I usually have no idea where to start.

In fact, I often have the urge to say “Lemme explain…. No, there is too much. Lemme sum up!”

Let me start by saying this: The farmers are regaining a taste for trying new things on the farm, which is a good indicator that maybe we are recovering from <Rob gestures at everything>.

I don’t think any further explanation is needed.

Many of our new experiments will fit well with what we already know and do. Most of them are logical progressions to things that we have been working towards for years. For example, we will be trying Rossa di Milano onions as a replacement for our long-standing variety of choice, Redwing. You see, we love our Redwing onions. They always do very well for us. But, we’ve been trying to identify a set of open pollinated onion varieties that consistently produce well on our farm. Redwing is an F1-hybrid, not an open pollinated variety.

We’ve got our white onions (Gladstone) and our yellow onions (New York Early) and our sweet onion (Ailsa Craig). But we have yet to identify our open pollinated red onion. That’s where Rossa di Milano comes in.

There are a few other veggie varieties we are either going to try for the first time or return to after a long hiatus. I’ve missed growing Moon and Stars watermelon, so I’m giving myself permission to grow a few this year. And we’re going to give Empress green beans a shot in our high tunnel for the first time since we had a successful trial in.. oh… was it 2013?

I think we are finally allowing ourselves a bit of the freedom that comes from no longer having to fill CSA shares every week. And it feels like some of the joy of growing is coming back to us.

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Farm experimentation returns to the Genuine Faux Farm

It may be a part of Farmer Delusional Syndrome that we are allowing ourselves to dream of doing all of these neat trials. And, I may regret all of this as the Hamster Wheel starts turning. But I do believe many of these ideas are going to stick this year because the energy is different than it has been for some time.

For example, we are going to try a couple of new laying hen varieties. We KNOW that this is going to happen because we’ve ordered the chicks. We are looking at the Delaware and Sapphire Gem (an Andalusian) breeds to see which fit our operation best. We know that neither of these will produce as well as the ISA Brown layers that have made up a significant portion of our flocks for years now. But, we’re looking at identifying a breed that will allow us to start raising some of our own chicks and maintain our own flock.

If we think we’re going to do that in the future, we need to have an idea as to how these breeds act and how well they will do at our farm. It’s actually a very safe way to start the process, rather than jumping all the way in!

We are also considering a couple of Practical Farmers of Iowa trials this year. We tried to do one in 2021, but then I had a kidney removed and that kind of squashed that one. We signed up for one in 2022, but Tammy had the Achilles surgery. And, we did start one in 2023, but the seeds didn’t germinate and then the deer and rabbits ate the rest.

So, why not do one this year?! Makes perfect sense, right?

Well, this time around, the experiments we are looking at are much shorter time commitments, which removes some of the opportunity for circumstances to stop us. Sounds like a plan, right?

Look. Just nod and agree with me. You don’t have to look at me with that sad, pitying look. We’ll be fine.

Really.

I hope.

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Exciting trials for our own learning

Tammy and I are both naturally curious people. We like learning. And we like asking questions that lead us to seeking answers.

For example, we have always wanted to plant a Fall succession of snow peas. But, the time to do that is at a point during the growing season when we typically have had no energy to even think about doing it.

Well, with the freedom that comes with selling or donating what you have successfully grown, rather than fulfilling contracts, we can afford to give ourselves permission to seek a few answers. Answers to questions like: What’s the best time and method to get some snow peas in the fall?

Or, how will one of those grow bags do in our high tunnels? We’ve got a small batch of them (assuming I can find them again) that we ordered some years ago because we were curious. But, we never gave ourselves permission to follow up and try it. We don’t really expect anything much to come of it because we don’t like the addition of plastic to the operation. But, still, we want to have the experience of seeing how it might work or fail to work with our systems.

Besides, if I’m going to criticize or praise a particular growing method, I want to have some experience with it.

But, the most exciting question Tammy and I have that we hope to answer is this:

Can we make irrigation ollas work in our high tunnels?

I don’t know. And that’s part of what is going to bring me joy this growing season. We’re going to do some learning as we grow good food.

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The PAN job continues to evolve

It has gotten to the point that you can’t talk about my farm job without recognizing the communications job with Pesticide Action Network that is about to enter it’s fourth year in April. Part of the reason I was hired for this job is because of my farming experience and connections. And the only reason I took this job in the first place was because of our consistent exposure to pesticides simply because we work outside, in the country, in Iowa.

Some folks might know that I went through a period of time last year where I was trying to hold the fort by covering two jobs at PAN. While that was an extremely difficult task that wore on me, I came away with a much better overall picture of what needs to be done. I guess if you spend some time spinning around doing your best to catch all the balls being thrown at you, you get better at recognizing them - even if you drop them or they bounce off your head a few times.

Aside from doing a fair amount of writing, I’ve been involved in some webinars and was even featured in a Smokey Hills PBS show titled the Pesticide Puzzle with one of my amazing co-workers, Marcia Ishii. And, I recently joined Jill Beebout in presenting two webinars for Practical Farmers of Iowa. One of them is now out on Youtube here and the other will likely be out soon.

I recently celebrated a good piece of news that came with a recent court case that revoked the use of dicamba herbicides on soybeans. This court case started when I first joined PAN and I wrote a declaration outlining our losses since the time this use was first allowed in 2016. While there are many reasons we started scaling down our farm and moved away from the CSA farm shares, dicamba was a major factor. This herbicide made it increasingly difficult for us to raise the wide variety of produce we needed to continue at our farm.

The other thing I am doing more often than I used to is working to create “actions” that are easy for you (and anyone) to take to let legislators or other decision-makers know how we feel about things. In Iowa, we have an action telling the Senate to not pass a law that would give lawsuit immunity to pesticide companies. In Minnesota, we’re trying to promote laws that would restrict the use of neonicotinoid pesticides that are harmful to pollinators. And we’ve got a new action that’s trying to get the EPA to ban chlorpyrifos, which is known to harm brain development in children.

Yes, it’s a full-blown job that has me looking at a wide range of things.

I guess that’s why they call it job. But, at least I can say it has some meaning for me.

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And everything else

Of course, it’s not all just farm, PAN job, and Tammy’s job. There’s plenty else that is going on with us. We’re continuing to slowly make progress on farmhouse renovation. Tammy is looking forward to more trips on the water with her kayak and I’m looking forward to more walks in the woods in the not too distant future. And, yes, there is this silliness that is writing.

The transition to Substack and Medium is continuing. Thus far, I have to admit that I’ve put more effort into Substack and I am seeing some rewards for the effort. It feels as if more people who WANT to see what I am writing are actually getting the chance to see it. But, the transition has not been a simple or easy process.

I’ve been writing a blog since 2008/2009 and had thousands of entries for the GFF blog and hundreds for Postal History Sunday. That means I have had to change writing habits as well as writing tools. No matter what they say, it isn’t easy to change patterns of work after that many repetitions.

As always, there is more to it than what you read here. Just as there is always more to each and every life than we see with just a snapshot. But maybe, just maybe, this was still enough detail to satisfy those who asked:

“So, what’s going on with you and the farm?”