Finally... back to Wisc

We haven't been to Wisconsin since the end of February. There was still snow on the ground when we were there last!

To say that we are desperate to go, is an understatement. We are leaving tonight.

We meet with an NRCS agent tomorrow morning to walk our farm. We have many concerns that we would like their guidance on: namely our invasives and our water/erosion issues. Several weeks ago, Bill and I sat down with colored pencils and a huge survey of our 20 acres. We plotted out lots of things: new shop location, two pasture areas, orchard, growing fields, new access roads, beehives, woodland revitalization (using permaculture). We sent a copy to the NRCS agent in advance so he could get an idea of what we want to do.

We will spend the rest of Thurs working on the farm. Bill hopes to get the tractor running and I am going to start disassembling the house (pulling down beadboard paneling for re-use, removing cabinets to save for the workshop, before starting demo).

We are also meeting with our farm mentor on Friday to work out the schedule for our mentorship. We are greatly looking forward to talking with him again and seeing his farm. We met him briefly at the MOSES conference.

And on Saturday, we are visiting a worm farm. The Urban Worm Girl worm supplier is not far from us - we are visiting his farm to see his operation.

There's more...

On Monday, we are traveling to Manteno for the 1st CRAFT field day of the season. The topic is hoophouses and it is a work day so we are going to put up a hoophouse. I am so glad Bill is going too - he has lots of experience bending conduit for running electric wires (Chicago city code; wiring must be in a pipe) so I know he will pick this up in no time flat.

I am greatly looking forward to this farm-filled weekend!