Portage River Farm

This has been an investment year for us on the farm. We have sunk considerable funds into the purchasing of the tractor and the building of the coop. Lesser amounts of money have gone to restock the apiary, purchase seeds and sprinklers for the garden, buy chicken feed and maple sugaring equipment. Even in this lean year we have taken these expenses in stride and considered them as necessary investments for the future.

The original vision of remaking our lives on this beautiful little farm was centered around the idea of a self-sustaining lifestyle. We dreamed of doing for ourselves as much as possible, raising our own food and eventually providing our own power as well. Over the past half year, that vision has been augmented as we have begun to realize that there is also the potential to share the products of our labors with others around us and potentially supplement our income and offset some of the costs in the process.

During the summer months, as the ripe vegetables piled up around us, we tried with little success to find people interested in buying or at least taking some of our excess. The very idea of being able to sell what we were growing seemed remote. Of course, we hadn't found the time to try the farmer's market and that would have likely helped. Instead we ate what we could, canned even more, stuffed our freezers full, chopped some up to feed to the chickens and left the rest to rot into compost.

Quite unexpectedly in the past two weeks the whole situation changed. A few of my coworkers began to express interest in our produce and I managed to sell several grocery sacks full of a selection of the few things we had left. It felt wonderful to have people taking home our vegetables to feed their families, especially when they subsequently told us how much they enjoyed them. I received a number of glowing reports about how much better things had tasted fresh from the farm when compared to the grocery store.

The hens have really been ramping up their production of eggs to at least eight per day and full cartons began to stack up in the refrigerator. We gave a few away to family and friends but soon it was clear that we were either going to have to find some customers to buy them or simply begin throwing them out.

I made up a little flier at work to post on the bulletin boards and within 24 hours enough calls had come in to alleviate any further fears that we would have to let them go to waste. Instead, I am now happily delivering eggs to grateful customers each day that we have a full dozen and at least the next week's production has already been sold!

In addition to lifting my feelings about our prospects considerably, the popularity of the eggs has created an opportunity for me to build a base of customers to offer our fresh produce to as soon as it is ready to harvest next spring. While I have my doubts that we will ever make enough from these sales to recoup our investments in our little farm, the ability to provide something that our friends value and enjoy is a wonderful validation of all of the hard work that has been going into this little hobby of ours.