In the thirteen years prior to purchasing Miolea my wife and I would discuss what the farm would be.  As we talked of the possibilities the one thing that kept coming back into the discussion was "what would you do with the dead animals?" (if we had livestock) no matter what the species, there would be mortality or the need to put a sick animal down. Our biggest problem was that we are city people, we know where our meat comes from, we know how it is raised and processed but we haven't come to the point of over-coming our anthropomorphizing nature from that connection of being the producer of meat.  We couldn't raise pigs because pigs are so smart, or goats or sheep or lamb or cows because they are all so cute.  I knew that disposal of whatever anmial we had was going to fall on my shoulders.  I did not want that responsibility.  In the city the biggest thing you killed was a cockroach and that was pretty gross. 

So we eventually settled with only growing vegetables, fruits and flowers.  We had already been growing organic for years in our garden, so it seemed like a well thought out, reasonable and logical plan.  It took us over eighteen months to finally find the farm that met our needs.  Small, only 55 acres, relatively close to work, close to the train and not too run down and Miolea met our needs. 

Once their, my wife, being the prolific researcher, started digging into the history of the property what she found took us back to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. We purchased the property from the seventh owner and once on the land started to grow organic fruit and vegetables.  Except we decided to take the steps of growing food for sale and to get USDA certified.

We moved into the house and got things started; a house that was first built in 1837, on land purchased from Charles Carroll (the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence) during what is known as Caroll's Great Divide.  A house that saw a civil war skirmish and the building of the railroad and a farm that went from grains to dairy then back to grains.  

The house we purchased was snake and groundhog invested.  On the very first Sunday of living there I got up early to go down and start breakfast.  At the time of the move, I was working six days a week, 16 hour days at my real job.  That Saturday, the day before, my wife had called me in a panick, saying she had seen a small snake in the downstairs bath tube.  I told her to get a bucket and cover it up, I'd be home to get it, but by the time I got back to the farm the snake had vanished.  Okay, coming from the city we were freaked out but we had done plenty of camping and this was an adventure and we were along for the ride.  As I got pans out for breaksfast, I walked over to the refrigerator to get eggs and the edge of the refrigerator moved.  I stopped looked and saw a one foot black snake crawling up the outer edge of the refrigerator door.

We are learning that a farm on rural land has challenges we never anticipated or learned about.  Now our greatest job is learning, no knowledge is automatic or achieved by osmosis, it’s called on the job training.  Sure you know things like you need to till before you plant or fertilizing comes before all of that and soil tests before that.  But, who asks "Are snakes territorial or if you catch them in the house and take them outside do they come back in?"  Or "Will the groundhogs digging under the foundation in the front of your house and the milking shed eventually lead to the collapse of the stone walls?". 

You plan and map out what you know and expect from all the facets of your research, then with all your smarts combined, you find out even on a vegetable farm someone has to be the executioner.

BUY LOCAL: There are people growing food for your health believe it or not.