I am a chef. I am a woodsman. Now I want to be a farmer. That may not seem like a natural next step but let me explain. For the last 10 years I have lived, loved, played and worked in the grand city of Chicago. I was trained there to make beautiful and delicious food out of simple ingredients. I came to love all the different artisanal products that are so integral to cultures around the world and here in America. I love food, making food and feeding people! For generations we have made our food out of simple ingredients that didn’t need to be fortified with this or that vitamin because the vitamins weren’t all processed out of it!
When confronted with certain challenges in the kitchen and on camping trips, I’ve often used the expression “How hard can it be? People have been doing this since the dawn of time.” How can we not excel at these basic skills? And yet, many are lost or dying arts. Who makes sauerkraut, yogurt, or bread except the occasional hobbyist? Now, before there is an uproar, I understand that there are good folks out there doing exactly that, and I salute you! But I think we can agree that this is not the norm. The collective knowledge of generations of pioneers is slowly dying as monoculture replaces diversity and convenience replaces work ethic.
So I’ve moved to West Virginia. I’m going to build a farm. And I’m going to put myself to the challenge that “It can’t be that hard. People have done it for millennia.” My cousin’s husband was gracious enough to offer me the use of 16 acres of wilderness up in the mountains that hasn’t been touched in over 20 years. I’ve got some goals and I’ve got some dreams and we’ll see if I can live up to the challenge. That’s what this whole blog is going to be. A record of one man’s journey back in time to confront the challenges that led to the building of this great nation.
My first goal is to build a cabin. I’ve decided to build out of materials on hand. With all the trees I need to clear to make pasture areas, I’ll have a literal ton of material with which to work. I’ve already cut enough logs to do the building and they’ve been sitting curing over the winter. Come spring I’ll skin em and stack em. I’ll be keeping everybody updated on my progress via this media. If I can build a house out of wilderness land I feel I can tackle just about anything!
My second goal is to create a self sustaining homestead. This means minimal inputs and minimal waste. I’m creating a closed circle system where I manage animals, plants, and soil to maximize their potential and keep everyone involved happy. This is a system where the waste of one production stimulates the next in the cycle, where diverse organisms work in symbiotic relationships just like the natural process but managed with human ingenuity. I want to be able to provide all the needs for that little parcel of land from the land itself. That includes energy, food, drink and the rest! We’re going totally off grid here folks!
The third goal, and this is getting into dream territory, is to create enough overflow of production that I can sell it to family, friends, and neighbors and create a little cash flow. I don’t plan on selling your average farmers market fare. With my background in the culinary field I’m bringing a wealth of knowledge about world cuisine and production models to this little homestead. My plan is to step-by-step add products to production including fresh and aged cheeses, prosciutto style hams, pickled ramp bulbs, and black pepper infused maple syrup, not to mention the unequaled taste of pasture raised chickens. I like to eat well and I plan on making food items that are unrivaled!
So that’s the plan. My work is surely cut out for me and I look forward to the challenge. We will see if one man from the city can work with and manipulate nature to create a sustainable, comfortable and ultimately livable space. We will see if this wilderness can be transformed into an agricultural habitat or if I will break, not able to handle the lack of convenience offered by our modern society. The gauntlet has been thrown down. Well, actually that was my work glove and if I’m gonna get anything done I’d better pick it up and get to it!
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