Introducing the farm (or farm-to-be)

The autumnal equinox is next weekend, but yesterday a smattering of yellow leaves drifted off the birch tree and into my kitchen in an unmistakable sign of fall.  I brushed leaves off the table and went on with my attempts to make a non-baked cheesecake as a birthday surprise for Noah (a whole other story, awaiting the verdict of taste-testing later today).  Before you speculate with envy on what large and airy windows I must have to get a drift of leaves into my kitchen, it’s time to admit our current living situation:  the kitchen is outdoors, a long folding table outfitted with propane camp stove, dishrack, three plastic tubs for washing, and a set of collapsible 5-gallon water jugs.  It sits just outside the door to our living space, the finished room off of a two car garage.  The neighbors whose mother used to own the property said, when we explained where we were sleeping, “Oh, the toolroom.”  And it is a toolroom, about 12 by 30 feet in size, insulated, painted, with framed windows and electricity….and yet, in our vocabulary, we have slipped into consistently referring to it as the toolshed.  We are living in a toolshed, relying on our outdoor kitchen, a dorm fridge, a construction-zone porta potty, and a 2.5 gallon solar shower designed for camping.  I think it’s time to introduce the place.

The Toolshed Kitchen.

We left Oregon for Missoula with the plan of buying some land on which to build (a small house, and base for our not-for-profit organization) and grow (food, animals, community).  We hope a you-pick berry operation will eventually be one of our several income streams, and are intent on growing a large portion of our own food. We knew it would take some creativity in addition to the savings we had.  We researched yurts, anticipating at least a year of potentially off-grid living on whatever property we might be able to find, knowing it would take a while to build house and home.  But even going through various different channels all at once, we weren’t having much luck as we searched over the spring and summer.  We knew it could take a while, and were debating the interim strategy…a yurt on friend’s land, a standard rental house, even (in a low moment) RVs for sale on Craigslist.   In the meantime, though, another option appeared.  Nor for purchase, not to build on yet, not quite matching our initial plan, but with interesting potential. 

Adjacent to a house outside of town where I lived for a year with roommates and good friends, a 5-acre parcel had recently been purchased by someone we were indirectly connected to through old Missoula social circles. It's the sort of place you can fall in love with all too quickly:  a tall old barn with hayloft, small orchard, and irrigation canal bubbling along the edges. We met Anita, the new owner, casually, not directly through our land search.  As we each started describing what we were hoping to do, we all realized that there were some parallel goals in how she envisioned her new land being used, and what we hoped to do with the land we were searching for.  After many meals and conversations, we have landed here, on Sundown Road, a few stone’s throws from the Bitterroot River, just as the days are starting to shorten and the thistle blows its seed.  Our current agreement is a year of seeing how we all work together, and seeing what we can do with the land.  We will make some substantial investments in the place in lieu of paying normal rent, and will work to turn this land back into a farm.

Formal Dining Room, with orchard view.

Currently, while juggling the remains of old jobs and work, launching new work through our own programs, and living with at least half our belongings still in storage, the whole prospect can be overwhelming.  There’s a lot of planning to be done, even before much of the enacting:  how to re-roof and finish off part of a long shed into a good chicken coop (and can there be room for goats, later, at the other end)?  What is the best moveable electric fence, and how much will a solar-powered charger cost?  How large of an area to we need to fence off from deer in order to have a garden that can feed three people and still host feasts for guests?  For concrete progress, every day or two I dig up a few more square feet of the old garden space, liberating it from the thistle patch is become over a few years of fallow time.  

We won’t be in the toolshed the whole year, though—this is just another temporary location.  Within the next month, construction will be done on the main house, Anita will move in there, and we will shuffle out of the toolshed (turning it into a home office and studio), and move our living quarters to the little efficient cottage where Anita is currently living.  But even before we are fully settled, we are beginning to get to know the place, the plants, the soils, the trees.  We may plant our garlic before we even have a real house to live in, but that’s ok.  It’s not a bad order of priorities, really, at all.  

The morning view from the toolshed window is the sun hitting the side of the  hayloft.  This barn surely held horses and other animals once.  Now you can see the pieces of more modern green transport:  Anita's Prius, and our barrels of waste oil waiting to be filtered to fuel the VW Jetta. Our bikes are stabled in the small stall on the left.