A Time for All Things

One of the things I frequently miss about being active duty military is the timing. The consistency of the Hard and Soft timelines, the right place, right time, right uniform mindset. Even the “Hurry up and wait” became a predictable part of everyday life. These absolute whens and wheres give us daily and easy successes that keep us focused, calm and accountable.

In response to these timelines, one develops rules to govern your actions in an effort to maintain sanity and produce the best outcomes. Rules like:

1. Carrying a book with you whenever you go to a hurry up and wait event like the doctors, boards or predeployment readiness events;

2. Showing up 10 minutes early to everything;

3. Have a long-term project you can always be working on and then easily set aside to keep one busy rather than just looking busy (because good NCO’s see right through that crap).

Farming life can be structured in a similar way. There are times to feed, hoe, water, plant, harvest, inspect, and lots of side projects keep one busy. We have been building an agricultural model that we are testing out this year to maximize this timing principle. As such I have begun cataloging how long each task takes and the order things can be done in. The routine has become refreshingly present.

The morning begins with checking the weather report for the next 48 hours, letting the birds out while checking water and feed levels. I check the water levels on the transplants that are hardening and look at weed levels in the current plots that have been planted (potatoes and legumes). I write and work in the office until lunch when all the dew is off the ground and then go weed and hoe for about an hour. Turn some additional soil and prep a new plot for planting that week. In the evening I close the poultry doors and check water levels again before settling in for the night. All of this for a total of about 16 hours a week of outside work. The list will change and get longer as the season progresses and more plots are planted. It is a start at creating hard and soft timelines, and returning to the familiar and daily successes.

To achieve that we planted more potatoes – Russets this time. Built an additional poultry yard for our mixed flock and ripped out an old and half dead BBQ platform to put in additional beds this week. Between all the new we have yet to put in and maintaining the old we should reach about 30 hours a week Urban farm work. I hope you have been developing your own hard and soft timelines so that you too may find success. Deven Little