Why do I stay as a subsistence farmer:

At our farm I still drive the horses although surprisingly horses have an autopilot too especially when heading home. The old tractors, swather and combine are all still manually steered and driven. I do have some rudimentary hydraulics but a lot uses muscle power to get things done.

If I were to do a little critical thinking it does occur to me that humanity will be short of energy in the very near future. Nothing points to an increase in any inexpensive energy source nor business enterprise that does not directly harm the environment. Knowing that our worlds appetite for fossil fuels continues to grow despite the governments intention of reducing fossil fuels is disturbing and for some reason humans do not seem to understand that fossil fuels will only increase in costs and continue polluting the earth. We are unable to be fossil free on our farm despite out self sufficiency but we are working on it because there will be no other choice before long.

I do not pretend to be a genius but as I see it most of us will not have enough energy for heating our homes, driving our cars, cultivating fields with tractors, combining our fields, spending a lot of money on delivery costs, even affording the energy to use our computers, in fact most businesses and residences will be in serious trouble before long. The fact that fossil fuels is a finite resource is rather staggering and does not seem to be well understood by most people. Most people feel there is no alternative to heating homes, hot water, driving a car without fossil fuels and one continues to pay for the food at the grocery store and energy to the multinational companies. Now horses do offer something unusual... their fuel is grown on the farm and from what I see has many soil improvement benefits with their manure with no delivery charge. They actually can reproduce and care for themselves if you just give them a field of grass. As friends and companions they all have very different personalities and thanking them after a days work feels a lot better than thanking my tractor. Working on things like plowing a field is definitely slower than with a tractor but very gratifying with horses.

But what does this have to do with my subsistence farming? We hardly make a living wage if money is ones desire doing this self sufficient farming but we have no debts nor have much in the way of expense. We heat with wood, use our sunflower oil in the tractors instead of diesel if we need them, drive very little since all our food is grown right here on the farm. I do not have to drive to work and only get up when the horses and chickens need attention which is every day at all hours of the day. This brings me to a rather difficult thought to consider that I really do these things to keep physically fit, eat the best food from our farm and do really enjoy watching plants grow as well as spending time with the cats, horses,and cow who seem to appreciate my company. The many wild birds here also are really appreciated as they come back in the springtime.

So we do have a wonderful lifestyle possible while keeping fit and eating healthily, but could I not also drive a fancy tractor or two with a million dollar combine, own a thousand acres , have many employees? I would have to use synthetic fertilizers and herbicides that destroy the soils. Yes I could do modern conventional farming but having a debt so large that my only hope is to sell out before I go broke is this not the reality for me. What do you do if you end up unemployed and there is no money for buying food? Getting old is scary in these times.

One of the things about our way of farming that is so difficult to understand is that you work all of the time. This concept for modern ears may sound harsh because we have grown up with the idea the we get the weekend off and we go for holidays to the warm south each year or skiing out in BC during the winter. When you farm and provide your own food this is your enjoyment. I enjoy it immensely and look forward to all the seasons and tremendous variety of different skills I need to live this life. To farm like we do needs a tremendous amount of life skills from getting our food from the garden preserving it, growing crops of sunflowers, oats ,camelina and pastures for the horses. Knowing when to plant seeds, knowing when to harvest and knowing how to preserve the seeds for things like sunflower oil or spelt flour. Knowing how to mill flour and press oils are skills not easily acquired from the internet. What is most important is having many years of experience in all facets of farm life and through all seasons. And I must not forget the wonderful mulberries and raspberries that grow wild here along with our various berries and fruit trees we have. It is a lot of work picking and preserving everything for the winter.

The most important aspect of farming is knowing your soils which vary greatly from one place to another. Our sandy soil has many advantages one being that we can plant early in the spring. One disadvantage is that the soil will not hold water well but we are changing that by adding as much carbon as possible and leaving a lot of residue for the microbes.

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