Diary of a Young Farmer: Zoe dances for rain - Forget money, let's talk water
Zoë Bradbury left her urban job in Portland to start farming on the south coast of Oregon. She's blogging here about her experiences. Below is her sixth entry in Diary of a Young Farmer.
THE DANCE FOR RAIN
You’re probably all wondering what happened to me. Two plus weeks of silence since my last cliff-hanger dispatch about the cash flow crisis. Did she go belly-up? Bankrupt? Are they auctioning off her pickup, her $100 Earthway seeder, and the steel ribs from her greenhouse (now valued at a whopping $380 per ton for scrap metal!)?
Not yet.
I’m hanging in there, but facing some major shortages. Money, yes, but there’s something that’s become even more critical right now: water.
Mother Nature must hate me. Two weeks ago it was “gripe, gripe” about all this rain, the cold, the never-ending winter. I couldn’t get out into the field to plant. I was over a month behind in getting my perennial rootstock into the ground and dealing with marginal soil conditions for doing any kind of tractor work.
Now I’m doing frantic little rain dances in hopes that the forecast, which predicts only a 20% chance of showers in the next few days, will deliver up some H20. I’ve got plants in the ground and no way to water them. After five days of sun and wind and warm afternoons, the soil moisture is dwindling and I’m racing the clock to finish an irrigation system that has been delayed all month.
As the rain poured down during the month of April, I was busy lining things up for my irrigation system (consisting of about a half-mile of buried PVC mainline feeding 18 underground valve boxes, powered by an electric pump that pulls water out of the river). I hit one setback after another. Our local irrigation supplier got pneumonia and had to check out for a while, the parts I needed had to be special-ordered, and then the whopper: the discovery that I had to have an entire new electric service dropped to power my pump, at a price tag of about $6,000. Ouch.
Finally, the pieces started to come together two weeks ago: The power company came and installed the new service, and the electrician came and wired it all up. I took out a many-thousand-dollar indirect loan via my mom’s credit line. A huge bundle of pipe and a pile of fittings were delivered to the field. I rented a riding Ditch Witch and spent a day sawing a two-foot-deep trench down the edge of my field. Meanwhile, it drizzled and spat — my beets germinated, and my strawberries put on a new set of leaves.
And then, to the great pleasure of most rain-weary Oregonians last week, the sun came out. The only problem is that the sun has stayed out, and I’m not done frying my brain cells on PVC glue. There’s a heap of pipe to glue and valves that haven’t arrived and two new plantings of carrots and lettuce that are begging me for water that I can’t give them.
A friend at the watershed council showed up this week to help save the day, toting a little four stroke portable Honda motor that pumps water out of the creek, through a hose, up the riverbank and out onto my field. The only problem is, it waters about 50 feet at a time – which is a quarter of one bed. I have about 25 beds planted. Kind of like trying to put out a forest fire with a squirt gun.
Nevertheless, in the last two days it’s saved thousands of baby carrot lives, but also probably driven our neighbors across the creek to the brink. The thing sounds like a motorbike running at full throttle. I’m going to owe them a lot of strawberries.
I’m not sure when I’ll have this whole project buttoned up, but until I do there’s no end to the 14 hour days. But I can promise this: when I finally turn that valve and the water comes gushing out of the pipe, I am going to drop to my knees. There is no better way to deepen your appreciation for something than by not having it.
Comments
I'm enjoying reading your posts Zoe. But I gotta say (I'm really gonna sound like a jerk here) it doesn't sound like you've prepared very well for your new business. Having a cash crisis so soon and no irrigation system in place? I don't get it. Seems like these are prerequisites to having a working farm. I mean the irrigation system seemingly could have been installed well before now and you could have saved some cash before you got started. It makes me think that perhaps you started all this on a whim rather than doing some real research on what it would take to have a successful farm business. On the other hand, nothing wrong by learning by fire; that is, if you can keep from getting burned. Good luck, Matt F
Posted by: Matt F | May 15, 2008 11:25 AM
Hi Matt,
Some thoughts on your comments. In addition to the five years I spent farming for other people (and learning a lot), the farm has been in the works for about two years. It all began with research, saving money, and endless excel spreadsheets. I worked up a three year business plan complete with cash flow statements, profit & loss statements, etc. I took financial classes and enrolled in an IDA matched savings program. I lived on the cheap and saved all the money I could as a graduate student and non-profit employee. Because of that planning, I knew my cash flow crisis was imminent. The hitch came when I couldn't get money from the sources I thought I'd be able to get it from (USDA). You're right, I should have done that research sooner to find out the limitations of that loan program, but such is the reality of juggling a lot of balls at once.
As for my farm infrastructure, I started developing it over a year ago - starting with a mile-long, $3000 deer fence that encircles the farm. Since then, while finishing grad school and working my job at Ecotrust, I built a greenhouse and acquired a lot of equipment. Irrigation was the last big project on the list - and as you all know, it came down to the wire.
And all this on family land! What I mean by this is that any new farmer just starting out on leased, non-family land would be even more squeezed to get all their systems in place before the season starts up. I had the ability to start putting permanent improvements in place an entire year in advance, without paying rent during that year. Anyone not in that situation might be hard-pressed to afford leasing ground for a whole year of non-production in order to buy time to get their irrigation, etc. in place.
What I'm saying is that often starting up a farm business is even more of a wild ride than I'm experiencing, and this is a pretty wild ride - even with all the planning and prep I did and my good fortune at being able to lease family land.
Hope that helps paint a fuller picture!
Posted by: Zoe Bradbury | May 29, 2008 9:16 AM
Let me just back up what Zoe has said there by saying that I've worked on a few farms, already established farms, and there are always major projects that get done just after the last second, many major projects. Part of it is the ambition, part of it is lack of planning, but most of it is just the overwhelming complexity of the enterprise coupled with limited resources and low returns.
Congratulations Zoe and keep up the great posts.
Posted by: Josh Volk | May 31, 2008 5:07 PM