Month: April 2014

Weathering the Storms

Here in the mountain valleys of southern Utah the weather works hard to destroy anything that we plant. Our job as small farmers and gardeners is to keep working against that weather to get a harvest of some sort. Yesterday was an epic battle that we only barely won.

Because of our elevation and micro-climate weather patterns unexpected freezes are common throughout the year. The USDA zone maps say that we are in a zone 5 or 6 depending on the version. My calculations show that we are actually in a zone 4, the same as Missoula Montana. The only reliable way to harvest a crop here is the use of greenhouses and hoop-houses. Unfortunately many hoop-houses cannot withstand the wind we occasionally have here.

With gusts over 70 miles per hour (MPH) in the late afternoon, we were very afraid that our greenhouse would blow down or be crushed by the wind. I spent a few frantic hours adding inside bracing and extra tie downs to keep it in place. Even with these efforts there is still some minor frame damage that will have to be repaired.

The basic structure of our greenhouse is 1” electrical conduit bent into half hoops and joined in the center. The ends are solid walls, and three purlins run the entire length connecting the hoops. During storms the frame has some bend and flex as it moves gently with the wind. I ran a series of engineering calculations when I designed the greenhouse which show that the frame should be strong enough to withstand 60 mile per hour winds. With gusts well over 70 yesterday it was a bit dicey, but its still standing this morning.IMG1957

When I installed the covers on the greenhouse early this January we used some prototype poly hold down clamps that I had developed and wanted to test. Unfortunately the clamps failed and the covers blew off while we were away in town. After a month of repairs and installation of commercial clamps we got the covers back installed. So far this project has been one big learning experience after another.

Inside the greenhouse are our fish ponds and hydroponic grow beds. If the frame had buckled or collapsed the damage to those would have been significant even though they are still under construction. Our garden starts would have also suffered. The loss of protected growing for the season however would have set our project back almost a year as the most critical time for our farm is right now as out starts are getting ready to go in the field.

The moral to this story is that weather is very often your nemesis as a farmer or gardener. If the government and university studies show that you only need to plan for X of something… add 20% or more to compensate for those outlying events that threaten your very survival in this business. If you think that you only need to prepare for temperatures of 10 degrees, build and plant for -10. If the local weather station says that the worst winds that you need to worry about are 70 MPH, plan for 85-90 MPH.

Nowhere in your planning is this more important than in finance. It is always important to over estimate your costs, and underestimate your income. A 20% factor is useful there too. If your business only makes a profit on veggies that are priced the highest that you have seen them in 10 years, then you may want to rethink something. Your business needs to make money even if your costs go up and your sales go down. Unfortunately far too many small business owners in every industry arrange their business so that they barely break even in the best of times and crash and burn if things move against them.

You cannot survive as a small farm owner if you have no financial depth. Planning your costs and expenses appropriately is one of the most important factors in building a business that can last through stormy economic times. While I would have been upset if my greenhouse had blown down yesterday, I would have repaired, rebuilt and moved forward. Make sure that your business has the ability to weather these storms by getting your finances in order from the beginning. If not from the beginning, then start today.

Until next time, hang in there. You can do this!

Sarah Jane

I hate late night phone calls. The ones I hate the most are the ones from close family and friends with bad news. A little over a year ago a call at 2:30 in the morning announced that my older brother had died. Last night it was news of the passing of my niece that has been fighting an unknown illness. I have been trying to stay informed about her situation and how she had been doing, but little information was available to anyone due to the unknown nature of her illness.

A few weeks ago I got a call at just after 4 in the morning. It was a friend asking if I could drive his route that morning. I am normally up by 5 each morning, but this extra early awakening was rather upsetting. When the ringing started, I rolled over to look at the number, and seeing that it was local but not recognizing it, I instinctively answered it fearing what bad news I would hear on the other end. That time I dodged the metaphorical bullet. Not this week though. This week my sister and her family are going through one of the hardest things that could ever be asked of any parent.

The loss of a child is tragic and traumatic to those that experience it. My youngest son died unexpectedly at 10 days old. There is nothing that can prepare someone for that kind of loss. The loss of a sibling, parent, spouse, or loved one is not the same. There is something about the loss of perfect innocence that touches us, and rends out hearts when our little ones pass away. Unfortunately far too many of our little ones leave this life before their first birthday. This is the third infant death in my family in the last several years.

“No parent should have to bury their child”
– from Lord of the Rings

A friend of mine that is a holistic doctor lost a child some two decades ago, and when my son died he gave us the following advice. It was both timely and timeless, and bears sharing now.

“There are only three things that you need to do at this time, and you need to do them in this order. Everything else is optional.
1. You have to breathe.
2. You have to sleep.
3. You have to eat.

You don’t have to eat a lot, but you do have to eat something every day. You have to let your body work things out by sleeping. It doesn’t mean that you are broken if you want to sleep all the time. It actually means that you are healing.

There will be times that just breathing will seem like the largest effort you have ever made. Just take it one breath at a time. If you cannot eat, then sleep. If you cannot sleep, then just breathe until you feel like sleep.

Every day, breathe, eat, sleep. Repeat. Everything else will happen in time.” (credit to Dr Jeffery Wright M.D.)

At the time I did not understand how profound that advice was, and now almost four years later there are still times when I have to revert back to that same formula. Moments of flashbacks where I have to just breathe one breath at a time until I can handle something else. The thing is, the pain never goes away. It seems like over time the pain may be less, but I think that comes from the strength that is built up from carrying that heavy emotional burden all that time.

For my sister and her family… I know what you are going through. I have been there too. Your parents also have buried children. In the days and weeks to come, we will once again come together to cherish the memories of those we love and to lend love and support. This is not the first time, nor will it be the last. In this moment however none of that matters. What matters now is this moment. The next moment will matter when it gets here, but not until then. Right now there is only this breath, this discussion, this step. Nothing else matters, and that is as it should be.

“For those that understand, no explanation is necessary.
For those who do not, no explanation is possible”
– Author unknown