Blog & Reviews
This article first appeared in the November/December issue of Hobby Farms magazine; www.hobbyfarmsmagazine.com.
Seasonal Living
How to draw year-round inspiration from your hobby farm.
By Lisa Kivirist & John Ivanko / Photos by John Ivanko
Before trading our urban corporate scene for life on a hobby farm, the only way we knew the current “season” was by what commercials ran on television and the holiday decorations at the mall. Between arctic air conditioning in summer and buying tasteless supermarket strawberries in January, we lacked a connection to, and appreciation for, the potential joys of seasonal living.
Today, rooted for nearly a decade on our 5.5 acres in rural Wisconsin, Mother Nature inspires our schedule. If the peeper frogs sing full force, it must be spring. Feeling a little overwhelmed by zucchini and Colorado potato beetles? Hello, it›s mid-summer. Craving to catch up on reading around the woodstove and escape the chills? November and the dormancy of winter must be around the corner.
Farms provide a creative palette for seasonal living, an active setting which already supplies a cyclical list of expected activities. Plant in spring. Weed and savor fresh produce in summer. Harvest and “put up” in fall. Sleep more and let blisters heal in winter and finally catch up on those indoor fix-it projects. Seasonal-based living enhances anticipation and appreciation. The thought of the first juicy red, organically-grown June strawberries keeps us weeding and watering in early spring. The flurry of fall farm chores, taking advantage of the last burst of warm weather, makes us grateful for a slower pace during the winter months.
Such a seasonal-based approach to living makes us realize û and appreciate û the benefits of change. With each season, something is changing and evolving, and we embrace the opportunity to do likewise. We rise earlier in the summer to take advantage of cooler temperatures outside. During the blustery winter months, our wind turbine peaks in electricity production and produces more than we need, earning us a credit with our local utility for our summer power needs, when the wind turbine remains mostly calm. We move our living room furniture in late fall to create a seating area right next to the woodstove. In a small but significant way this shifts our household focus to sitting around the glow of the fire and transitions us into a winter pace. It›s easy to get stuck in a rut, a routine of doing things the same old way. Seasonality sparks unremitting newness, which builds on and enhances each other.
This coming year, consider digging a little deeper each season, building on these seasonal farm themes to sprinkle inspiration and creative meaning throughout the various aspects of your life-- food, family rituals and your livelihood. The following are some ideas for each season based on our farm experiences.
Winter
Hibernate, rejuvenate, create. Winter provides a natural dormancy for both humans and land. Stepping back from a busy outdoor routine, we focus on indoor projects. Some winter activities on our farm include:
Catching Up
The flurry of summer chores, fall harvest and food processing always leaves us with a list of projects we never had time to do. So with the onset of winter we try to clean up and catch up. We file the paper piles in the home office so we can see the floor again and give it an overdue vacuum. We catch up on entering receipts and income from our B&B into computer financial records, work through the ironing pile and give the compost pile one last turn. During the winter, we also look to “catch up” on our friendships. There are always some neighbors and local friends we never connected with during the summer that we call and invite over for lingering conversation, and potato leek soup and bread.
Germinating New Ideas
Winter opens up breathing space for new ideas. As the seed catalogs start pouring in to the mailbox, and garden ambition and ideas set in, the losing battle with last season›s cucumber beetles is long forgotten. What about experimenting with growing popcorn that could possibly be sold at a farmers› market or make a great holiday gift? We read up on different approaches to managing those pesky squash bugs. Experiment with new tomato recipes with the frozen harvest. Surf the Internet and research potential road trips for next year.
Living Indoors
Indoor winter living lends itself to activities like catching up on reading, watching last summer›s blockbuster flicks now on video and e-mailing an overdue “life catch up note” to an old friend. This is the time of year we focus on the writing aspect of our livelihood and we send out new article queries and endeavor to get ahead as much as possible on upcoming story deadlines knowing this will be harder to do during the busy spring and summer seasons. Winter indoor time provides ample opportunity for shared projects with our son, including our annual Valentine›s Day card-making marathon.
Relishing the Holidays
Between Thanksgiving, December holidays and New Years, we prioritize our relationships with family and friends by jumping full force into two of our annual holiday traditions: Cookie baking and our holiday card and newsletter. We bake an array of cookies and food gifts that readily ship and make holiday care packages for faraway friends. Our annual holiday card and newsletter chronicles the past year›s farm stories, including our favorite recipes. The baking and card writing take time, but winter holidays provide the open time block to engage in and enjoy these activities.
Traveling
With less daily farm obligations, winter provides the incentive for us to be a bit more footloose and travel. If we can get somewhere warmer, all the better. A break off the farm, immersing ourselves in new experiences and cultures and visiting other farm operations, gives us a needed break and allows us to come back and embrace the upcoming busy spring with renewed gusto.
Using Things Up
One of our favorite winter rituals is our “use it up” pantry game. Every winter, we try to literally “eat through” most of what›s in our pantry: the random wild rice, red lentils and teff flour left over from recipe projects long gone by. This gives us a creative cooking incentive, coming up with new recipes that often become household favorites, and keeps our food budget low for the winter since we›re using what we already have in the pantry combined with preserved garden harvest (see Hobby Farms “Kitchen Garden Food Preservation Primer” Sept/Oct 2005 for our tips). A refreshing perk to our pantry game occurs when spring rolls around and our shelves are open, with space for the upcoming harvest.
Spring
Renew, re-energize, rejoice. After winter›s dormancy, spring jumps in with a zealous burst of fervor, ushering in a fresh beginning, a clean slate on which to start anew. Our energy reigns high and we›re outdoors as much as possible - a bit stiff from winter dormancy, but reinvigorated and ready to get back into the gardening game. Seasonal spring activities include:
Harnessing Spring Energy
Take advantage of spring enthusiasm and get working outdoors. From our experience, if not done, an hour of early spring weeding will equal three hours of weeding in mid-summer, after weeds have rooted and gone to seed.
Eating Our First Greens
Greens are often the first thing up in the garden, from spinach and salad to watercress and dandelion greens. Rich in nutrition, these “first greens” fuel us with anticipation of the garden abundance to come. Our first greens are the garlic chives right outside our back door. As soon as they are just a couple ofinches tall, we cut them back to make our annual “chive pizza” using local havarti cheese and frozen tomato sauce from last year›s garden.
Nuzzling Baby Animals
There is nothing like holding a tender, baby animal to give us all faith in the renewal of spring. If you don›t have baby animals yourself, stop by a neighbors place and observe the calves, kids, lambs or foals.
Summer
Weed, declutter, weed, prioritize and weed some more. Lengthy stretches of daylight parallel lengthy to-do lists. Weed the beans, water the lettuce, mow the lawn, collect eggs, harvest the zucchini. Harvest the zucchini again. Summer brings a rush of activity against a beautiful backdrop of blooms. Summer activities include:
Prioritizing Income Essentials
As with many hobby farms, summer is the time when we earn the majority of our income through our B&B and cabin. It›s also the time to grow the food we eat year-round. We need to keep this idea foremost when planning our daily schedules, prioritizing and focusing first on the essential tasks of the day. Pick and process the Swiss chard before it goes to seed. Prep the bedrooms for the next round of B&B guests. We›ve also learned to work with the weather pattern, focusing on outside work when the weather is pleasant and shifting inside during steamy temperatures or rainy days.
Focusing on a Summer Social Tradition
Despite all the business of summer to-dos, it still remains the perfect time for social fun. Try hosting an annual event, a yearly gathering that both you and your circle of friends anticipate each year. Our local farming friends Nancy and Terry host several musical concerts on their farm. They created a unique outdoor ampitheater-like setting out of the stone foundation of an old dairy barn, affectionately now known as their “piazza.” With an eclectic collection of used chairs, tables and oil lamps, the piazza turns into a magical, candlelit setting under the stars for acoustic concerts. Each event is preceded by a themed potluck dinner and funded by Terry and Nancy›s “passing the hat” and folks chipping in to help pay for high-quality performers.
Combine the Fourth of July and farm life and you get a true slice of the best of Americana, complete with chin-dripping fruits, kids running through the yard and sheep seeking shade. Take advantage of this time of year and create an annual event where you share your farm experience with others.
Fall
Harvest, abundance, gratitude. As the busy growing season winds down, a thankful spirit fills the air. Our hands may be tired from picking pumpkins or processing applesauce, but our hearts are full with a deep-seated appreciation and pride for all the bounty we›ve been blessed with -- from the crates of potatoes now tucked away in the basement to the jars of salsa safely put up. Some ways to celebrate fall abundance include:
Celebrating Family
Each season provides a different, evolving backdrop by which to track our family›s growth and development. There was the time our son, Liam, was still a newborn and Lisa carried him in a sling while harvesting. The year Liam planted his own pumpkins, started collecting eggs and ate the raspberry crop as fast as we could pick it. In our family, we have a number of family birthdays at the end of September and October û which gift us with opportunity for coming together, reminiscing and celebrating.
Indulging One Last Time
Take final advantage of fresh-out-of-the-garden flavor and eat your fill before the first frost. This is the time we savor each last fresh tomato, often eating them three meals a day.
Playing in the Leaves
Fall reminds us to play. With glorious crisp, cool weather and the bulk of summer chores behind us, we give in to lingering at a community harvest festival, stopping by a local corn maze, raking leaves and burying one another in them.
In today›s modern world - even on farm settings - seasonal living entails self-motivation. Sure, we live on a farm, but we, like many folks today, are 15 minutes from a community with a sprawling supermarket open 24 hours a day, where just about anything can be purchased, anytime.
But we›ve realized that, while basing our lifestyle around the seasons takes some planning and commitment, the benefits outweigh any effort or inconvenience. Our hobby farm today û in stark contrast to the cubicle world where we once dwelled û blankets us with a dose of seasonality every day. Want to know what to wear, eat and do today? We just walk out our back door.
John Ivanko and Lisa Kivirist run Inn Serendipity on their Wisconsin hobby farm. They are the authors of Rural Renaissance: Renewing he Quest for the Good Life (New Society).
Sidebar: Tips for Living Seasonally
Keep lists
During the peak of summer activities, ideas always seem to pop into our heads for projects that we don›t nearly have time for then, but would during the slower winter months. Keep a “winter project list” for later in the year. Paint the croquet set. Tile the greenhouse floor. Rewallpaper the bedroom. Likewise, summer ideas bloom during winter dormancy: put up bluebird nestboxes, learn how to fry squash blossoms, reside the run-in shed. Write everything down.
Savor the “firsts”
Every season brings a new crop of “firsts:” first bluebird of spring, first summer firefly, first fall apple, first winter snowflake. Seek these out each year.
Celebrate with food
Each season brings flavorful options to the table. Pick your favorite and celebrate its arrival every year. We always share and eat the first three ripe strawberries together as a family, making a toast by gently “clinking” the berries together, symbolically wishing our family a fruitful harvest.
Keep Records
Start a seasonal journal, keeping brief records of key dates such as first frost, harvest times and amounts. This doesn›t need to be anything fancy or elaborate û brief notes will do and will help put several seasons in context.
Share the Seasons
Every season brings reasons to connect as a community. From sharing cucumber abundance in the summer to applesauce techniques and canning jars in the fall, take advantage of these reasons to connect. Even though our garden provides us with our food needs, we still like to be a part of our local farmers› market. Even though we don›t need to buy anything, we appreciate all the effort that goes into growing produce, complimenting the growers on their beautiful beets and chatting about the weather challenges that season.
Work with Nature
Don›t fight it if your body and routines start changing. Living seasonally becomes a lifestyle. In summer, we naturally find ourselves going to sleep and rising much earlier with the chirping birds and sunlight streaming in the window. Don›t fight the urge to sleep in during the winter. It is our body›s way of telling us to rest.
Sidebar: A Bowl of Winter Warmth: Potato Leek Soup
Soup plays an important seasonal role in our winter menus, focusing on root crops. Many of these root crops, such as leeks, improve in flavor if harvested after a few light frosts. We make a big, double batch of this soup and freeze portions for use later in the winter.
Ingredients:
- 4 large leeks (about 2.5 lbs)
- 2 T. butter
- 1 T. dill weed (or to taste)
- 6 medium potatoes (about 3 lbs)
- 1/2 t. salt
- 3 c. chicken or vegetable stock
- 2 c. milk
Directions:
Trim leeks and cut off root ends and tough green tops. Remove coarse outer leaves. Slice leeks in half lengthwise and rinse out dirt by separating layers under cold water. Slice thinly. Melt butter in large pot over medium heat. Add leeks and dill. Cook, stirring often, until leeks are tender. Add potatoes, salt and stock. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat, cover and simmer about 45 minutes until potatoes are tender. In a food processor, puree soup, a small portion at a time, until smooth. Return soup to pot and stir in milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring often, until soup steams. Top each serving with a spoonful of sour cream. Makes approximately 10 cups.
Sidebar: Seasonal Living Resources
Rural Renaissance: Renewing the Quest for the Good Life, by Lisa Kivirist and John Ivanko (New Society, 2004)
Simply in Season, by Mary Beth Lind and Cathleen Hockman-Wert (Herald Press, 2005)
For more information about Rural Renaissance: Renewing the Quest for the Good Life by Lisa Kivirist and John Ivanko, on which Seasonal Living is based, visit www.ruralrenaissance.org