A day in the life of Lucinda.

I don't wear a watch, and for good reason. If I did, I would probably obsessively look at it and freak out over the time I waste on the random dramatic bits of my life. However, with my cell phone call log, email log, and all these other time trackers I will attempt to piece together my day so far.

5:30.. get up and make coffee, eat, shower, and get dressed.

6:30 Call from Cole (my baby brother) that went something like this:

Cole: When you had your old phone, did you download a bunch of stuff from easyedge?

me: What is easy edge?

Cole: a place to download games, the cell phone bill (we all have our phones on the same plan) had $200 worth of downloads.

Me: Weird, I lost that phone.. maybe it was actually stolen. What kind of games?

Cole: Need for Speed, swimsuit challenge, pacman, and a bunch of other stuff

Me: Yeah, because I am the kind of person that would download swimsuit challenge. (scoff) I will call US Cellular as in a few hours. Where is the bill?

Cole: Jody has it.

Me: ok, bye.

6:30 ish to 10:30ish... watch sunrise while responding to a gazillion emails (OK, there weren't that many, but it sure felt like it). Check facebook, write blog entry, read other blogs I follow, read news sites.

10:30ish... talk to Jody, tell her to bring bill... plan to go pick up seeds.

10:45ish... call from Jody.. tells me farm truck caught on fire, and she needs me to come get her in the tractor or on 4-wheeler.

I attempt to pull start 4-wheeler. Unsuccessful. Wonder why we have a 4-wheeler that needs to be pull started.

Get new hooker boots covered in mud. Make a mental note to buy more appropriate footwear.

Get in tractor, realize how utterly ridiculous it is for me to try and learn to drive a 70k dollar tractor on the fly. Make a mental note to ask if there is full coverage insurance on the thing.

10:55 ish... Call from Jody.. Amy is coming to get her. I have a sigh of relief...

11:00ish... leave for Quincy

12:00... stop and get latte while in Quincy.

12:15 ish .. Get to seed store. Impress older lady behind the counter at my ability to check the weather on my phone. Buy seeds. So happy to support a local place.

1:00ish... find a random number on bill that was called from my phone during the time I thought it was lost, and before I replaced it. Call said number. Thus, begins tracking down of cell phone thief.

1:15ish... Buy pink mud boots from Farm and Home.

1:30ish... food.

2:15ish... go to US Cellular store, sort out bill drama and get serial number for old phone.

3:15 ish... return to farmtown, and confront phone thief. Explain that he can own up to stealing it, and pay back the $200.00 at a dollar a month and bygones will be bygones. He cooks up some story about a random kid on the streets of town selling stolen cell phones, and that he bought it from this kid for $10.00. (Laughable in town of 600) especially since phone thief was in the same building as I was when I thought I lost the phone. Word to the wise... don't steal something in a small town. Everybody knows everybody and the truth always comes out. Sheriff gets involved and Jody and I head back to the farm.

5:00... return missed calls, respond to more emails, and wave at hired hand.

6:00... visit with grandma and grandpa about upcoming trip to St. Louis, new mud boots, high tunnels, and cell phone thief (word spreads fast in small town and they already knew about it). Grandpa gives me an article to research about high tunnels.

Currently: updating blog before food, wearing pink mud boots that have no mud on them, sitting under electric blanket, and watching the horses out the window.

Later: Call Cole to get farm report from Bridgecreek location.

much later: return more emails, read chapters of my book, and sleep....

I love farmtown.

After I go vegan, I'm going to eat the ducks.

When I was 10 years old, I started a list containing the things I wanted to do in my life. I titled it the "to experience" list. I occasionally add items to it ensuring that it is never ending.

Some items were on the list because I knew they were inevitable. If nothing good came of them, I could at least get the satisfaction of crossing them off my list. Such was the case with heartbreak and sorrow. Other items I thought would take some sort of planned effort, but instead happened rather randomly (like being on television or riding in a private plane). There are items that have taken effort, such as reading the entire Encyclopedia Britanica set.

At any rate, one of the items on my list is to be a vegan for a month. I know what you are thinking- I have a farm and its financial success depends partly on people eating meat. That is true, and I most definitely love meat. Pork, Beef, Lamb, Goat, and if my tender hearted brother wasn't so adamantly against it, I would eat the ducks my friend Janel gave us.

However, it is not the lack of meat that has me hesitant about crossing this item off my list, for I am a snobbish meat eater. I am used to/ and prefer good meat from animals given a life worthy of their sacrifice. I assure you there is a taste difference. Thus, when I travel I usually avoid eating meat.

The problem I am having with the idea of being a vegan is my dairy consumption. I am avid coffee drinker, and coffee just isn't right without a heavy dose of cream in it. Therefore, being a vegan would mean giving up coffee, which is not something I can do without dedication.

With all of that said, I am not one to shy away from something just because it takes sacrifice or seems too difficult. When I set my mind to something with a desire to devout my passion to it, I rarely fail.

With a few health issues, I have realized that a vegan diet may kill two birds with one stone. I can cross it off my list and have the possible side effect of better health. So.. here comes my passion.

I recognize that I can't be a vegan overnight, but I do have a plan. For the rest of March I will be taking a closer look at my meat and dairy consumption so I know where I stand. I will also be slowly switching to decaf coffee. In the month of April I will switch to herbal tea and eat no meat. Then, in May I will be completely vegan. During the month of June I might do the raw foods thing just for kicks.

After I have accomplished all of this, as the calender turns to July, for a reward I am going to eat the ducks no matter what my brother has to say about it.

This should be an interesting journey, and I will be sure to keep you all posted.

We are the family farm. Stand with us.

We don't want government subsidies, but we do want an even playing field on which to compete, so please don't allow them to be given to corporate giants.

On average, if you added up our working hours, we make less than minimum wage, so please don't haggle us on price.

We are walking wikipedias on the topics of our trade, so please don't think us intellectually inferior.

If we cease to exist then you would be dependent on companies that are "too big to fail" for your food supply, and we all know that nothing is ever to big to fail so please oppose legislation that makes it harder for us to do what we do.

Who are we?

We are the family farm, and as such we ask you to stand with us.

Stand with us as we fight to keep our land out of the hands of those who attempt to swindle us into less diversification in the name of efficiency, by purchasing products from farms produced in a bio-dynamic way.

Stand with us so we can have the freedom to plant non GMO crops and save our seeds without fear of retaliation from companies like Monsanto, by choosing organic and opposing laws that allow companies to patent life and then sue us in the name of copyright infringement.

Stand with us against those that would have us raise animals in concentration camps for the sake of a dollar, by refusing to buy meat from feedlots or confinement buildings.

You are our customers, our neighbors, our countrymen, and above all else you are our fellow humans. All of us, together, can create a foundation that the next generation is proud to stand on. Together we can be keep our food system pure, and together we can leave this land better than we found it.

Cheers and Happy Eats!

Lucinda

Organics - a matter of ebb, flow, & logistics.

In our world, as we know it, everything works in tandem. For every action there is a reaction, for every cause there is an effect, and every ebb has a flow.

The choosing of organics keeps these natural processes in harmony and balance. This is because organic agriculture at its core, seeks to work with the natural occurring elements of nature. It is not reliant on synthetics, created by man in a lab, which although they may increase per acre production of crops, they also have hazardous effects on microbiology of the soil, our water supply, our health, and wildlife.

As humans at the top of the food chain we have a responsibility to keep from damaging or depleting the bottom of the food chain. Otherwise, our cockiness with be our downfall.

By choosing organics we can stop running around fixing problems we, ourselves, created.

We can stop creating chemicals to kill things whose purpose we don't completely grasp only to turn around, after we have removed them from existence, and realize their use, to create a new chemical to take their place.

By choosing organics we can support an agriculture system that seeks to work in tandem with nature to keep our resources free from mutilation and our families fed.

In my opinion, our food supply issues in the world are not a matter of per acre production but rather a logistics issue. So instead of wasting such great intellectual talent on creating chemicals in a lab, let’s better utilize that talent by putting people to work on logistical issues such as:

1. Putting unused acres into production

2. Shortening the farm to table miles so we don't have food wasted in transport

3. Creating markets for farmers who choose to produce food consumable in its natural state rather than government subsidized markets created for field corn which must be altered before we consume it

4. Teaching farmers to farm organically

5. Getting the surplus that, if we put all of our unused acres into production, we most definitely will have to those in need.

That's my two cents on why organic is superior.

Cheers and Happy Eats!

Lucinda

Peach trees don't grow on the beach.

It's a long dramatic story as to why, but today I took a purposeful trip down memory lane.

To aid in this en devour I imported my email from the past 8 years, and have been viewing picture books of my life over the years. While doing such, I stumbled on pictures of when I used to live on the beach in Florida.. out my door, around the corner and bam- on the beach! I also found emails I sent to my friends describing my apartment in D.C. In my basement was a bookstore, coffee shop, grocery store, and the metro - meaning I was not required to get out in the weather except by my own choosing.

I thought about all of this when I had to hike from the end of the driveway to the house because the snow makes it impossible to get in or out, and when I was putting wood in the fire that needs constant attention to keep from going out.

Of course the randomness of this post is not to wallow in the "used to be" or go on and on about how much this cold weather and snow is annoying me (as tempting as it may be). On the contrary, I just wanted to say thank you. .

Thank you to my brothers and the hired hand that allow me to "play" farmer and take all the credit while they do all the grunt work in this undesirable weather.

Thank you to all the farmers that don't have brothers or hired hands.

Thank you to the person that shoveled my gran's steps so I have a clear path to walk on when I visit her.

Thank you John Goode for having a green house full of beautiful herbs so I can have warm tea next to the fire.

And last but not least... thank you blogspot for allowing me to document this so in the summer when I am sitting under a shade tree eating a fresh peach I can remember to take the good with the bad and that peach trees don't grow on the beach or in the basement of a high rise!