What’s life like on a farm?
I’m blogging for My Farmers’ Market and I had the opportunity to interview Ashley from Food Ethos Farm last month. It was super interesting to learn all about what life is like on a farm – I am such a city girl (and more specifically, a center-of-the-city girl), so I loved getting a glimpse of a totally different lifestyle than mine.
I thought some of you might be as curious as me about it, so here’s some of the interview:
1) What made you decide to start farming?
There were a number of reasons we got into farming. Curtis got diagnosed with Crohn’s disease and shortly after that we went to Asia where he thought he would have trouble with all the food being spicy. Turns out it was the best he had been in a long time due to the fact that all the food is fresh! That is when we figured out his trouble was more about processed foods; whole foods, he was great with. We changed the way we look at health, starting with what we put in our bodies.
A friend had told me to try a Manitoba Farm Mentorship internship and I tried my hand at working on a farm for a season. We like being outside and growing things and had a family farm to go back to, so we just went for it and have never looked back.
How cute are these guys?!
2) Why is growing your own food important to you?
Growing our own food is important to us because it means we will never be hungry. This is our way to ensure we have lots of healthy good quality food all the time. We found something we love, and by farming and selling food we have found a way to make a living and a job out of it.
3) What have been some of your biggest challenges in farming?
Some of our biggest challenges in farming have been finding employees; you get to the point where you can’t work more, and there are not enough hours in a day to get in everything that needs to be done. There are not a lot of people who want to do this work! Another big challenge has been finding a work-life balance which goes hand-in-hand with the amount of work it takes to run a farm. This is something I think most farmers struggle with, as farming is a lifestyle and work and life blend together.
Nice! If you have not seen this, as the kids say, Highly Recommend.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/691644
Ooh thanks!
Id love love love to live on a farm.
for a while anyway 🙂
I feel much the same way. I’d like to spend maybe three days living on a farm. And then return to the middle of a very large city. 😀