From Urbanites to Country folk... in Just Eight Years

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By then it was time to plan our garden ... but the vegetable patch had not been plowed in 20 years: It had sod a foot deep! As a neighborly gesture, the postmaster lent us his old tractor. However, after several days of struggling with the noisy, smoke-belching contraption, I decided there must be a better way to plow. Then I remembered that my father used real horsepower on his farm, and I thought, why not now? Draft horses were out of the question (our small acreage didn't warrant such big—and costly —creatures), so we opted for a team of ponies.

The acquisition of Chub and Patch has been by far our wisest investment since we've been farmsteading. Friendly old-timers have given us invaluable advice on managing the pair (harnessing, driving, hitching, etc.), and a shoemaker pal has kept our harnesses in good repair in trade for music lessons. The horses break sod (I drive, and Claudia walks—or runs—behind the plow), disk, spring tooth, cultivate, yard wood, and pull the wagon and sleigh. Best of all, it is a joy to work with animals instead of with smelly, gas-eating machinery.

Once the garden was planted, we obviously needed to think about shelter for our workhorses. With the help of a book on constructing pole buildings, we erected a 30' X 30' pole barn of board-and-batten. (The ponies even yarded out all the pine and spruce we needed for the project!) After the stable was completed, we added chickens and two goats to our barnyard family but soon discovered-to our sorrow-that goats were not for us. They tore down fences, broke barn windows, and ate everything that wasn't nailed down. (On top of that, we never did manage to breed them.) Consequently, we sold them and began saving money to buy a nice, gentle cow.

We also fixed up a little greenhouse on one side of an old shed that was still standing on the property ... and had such good luck with the seedlings it produced that we decided to make a bigger structure the next year Similarly, we were delighted with the produce we eventually harvested from that first-year garden (especially since we are vegetarians).

1978

That was a busy year because we had many plans to carry out on the farm place. First we built an 8' X 10' poly greenhouse for raising seedlings and grew so many starts that we were able to sell a few to the country store. We also started the exciting new venture of maple sugaring. We tapped 25 trees, and faithful Patch hauled their sap (on a little skid) to the stove.

Next we built a 10' X 40' addition to our camp house out of vertical spruce logs and chinked it with insulation and small fir saplings. We sought some professional wiring help this time and received the services of a friendly electrician in barter for guitar lessons I gave his son.

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