Wake up, set the fire, brew coffee, boil water for tea, fold butter into flour, sugar, cheese and kale, cut scones to bake. Mornings on the farm are early ones. Before the sun, even before the first trills of songbirds returning to our northern corner of Oregon, we are up greeting the day with stretches and intentions.
In a culture full of routine: the 8-5, Monday through Friday, commute to work, follow the schedule—farm life remains quite contrary. Seasons change and we flow along with it. We plant different crops to reflect the temperature and hours of sunlight. Each week we plan our breakfast menus to utilize these new crops. The farmers might be turning on heat pads for baby tomato plants or otherwise rolling up the sides of the hoop houses to let air flow if it's warm enough. Within this seasonal, yearly cycle of growth, bloom, decay and rest, we experience more frequent change. Each day there is something new and different to work on. Earlier this week we began installing the new permaculture gardens around the farmhouse, yesterday we harvested crops down on the 2 acre farm plot, today we are baking bread and greeting customers at the farm store, tomorrow we will host an Easter brunch for a houseful of community members, and coming up this week is the construction of a new cob oven for pizza parties to come!
Living on a small-scale farm we are constantly listening and watching. We let the plants, the bees, the birds, and the rains tell us when it’s time to get going, to start the next phase of work, or to slow down. And there are always surprises, outcomes we couldn’t have predicted and little glimpses of magic, as when fuzzy-feathered chicks appear under a mama hen after weeks of dedicated sitting or the moment a cherry tree opens all its pale pink buds to the sun.
At North Fork 53, we invite you to share in these experiences, this day-to-day hopscotch and seasonal rhythm. And through this weekly blog, we hope to scoop you up into the fold so you can watch our little farm bed and breakfast grow. While you’re watching and listening to your home environment, we welcome you to also follow us in the seemingly chaotic life of the farmer, where every day is different, each a droplet of water adding to the cycle from river to ocean to sky and back again.
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