Hear the Music

I read once that a great classical composer was asked how much time they dedicated to writing music every day. They answered between 2-4 hours, however, they also insisted that how they spent the remaining hours of the day were as important as the hours actually spent writing the music. It was the time they spent not writing and wandering the garden, or admiring the birds, which brings inspiration.

I am not yet a great composer.

Nevertheless I think I can feel what the composer was describing. Or at least I can feel the otherside of that coin. My days are packed to the brim with the adventures of running the farm, solving problems and being present for my family. As I sit and still my mind to find the words to share this week, I am aware of the swirling energy that has kept me going, and at the same time makes it difficult to hear the music.

Racey asked me today at lunch if I looked forward to writing each week. A difficult question for me to answer on the spot, and I realize that on a busy week it often feels crazy to take a few hours to write. But these hours of reflection are important to me. In the exercise of writing, reflecting and thinking I learn about myself; I grow a little with each word. At the same time, in the process of sharing my journey as a farmer, business owner and human, I hope to build the connection between those of us who eat food and the place, people and process that bring us nourishment. 

Thank you for reading, thank you for listening, and thank you for all the kind words and feedback.

My whirlwind week

With the big freezer up and running Tully and I spent Tuesday doing “the great freezer shuffle” which involved bringing 8 pallets of frozen chicken inventory back from storage at the Hub On The Hill. Chad’s truck is on blocks in the barn, with all the gears to the rear differential organized on various scraps of cardboard, so Tully brought his truck and flatbed. 

The plan was simple: bring the truck and trailer to the Hub, use our pallet jack to bring each pallet to the door of the freezer, borrow the skid steer from Essex Farm to load the pallets (Thank you Mark and Kristen!!) onto the trailer. …Then reality set in.

I dropped Tully off at the skid steer and drove up to the Hub to get the first pallet ready. I maneuvered the pallet jack under the first pallet, lifted the pallet and went to pull the pallet out to the door and the pallet did not move, instead I slid backwards. Like a cartoon demonstrating Newton’s 3rd law of Action and Reaction. Here I was, without friction to help me, trying to move a block of chicken that probably outweighed me by 10 times. 

Normally I am able to take advantage of the friction between my feet and the ground and low rolling resistance of the pallet jack. And yet I looked more like a silly animation flailing about. Tully arrived with the skid steer and together we were able to push and shove the pallet to the door. Our antics even included me lying on the floor to brace my feet against the wall of the freezer and then I was able to push the pallet of chicken with my hands.

Getting the pallets out of the freezer was more like a creative cross-fit training than the afternoon of moving pallets with a machine I had planned. We got the pallets all home on the trailer and started rolling them into the new freezer. Tully has a saying that I have adopted with enthusiasm: “precision agriculture.” The phrase pokes fun at how we sometimes have a precise plan, and often it gets messy. And it also highlights the obsession both of us have to get things just right, which often leads to chaos when we miss.

We brought new meaning to this phrase when we rolled the first pallet into the aisle down the center of the freezer, which Tully helped me build the shelves for and I meticulously repeated the 23 ½” measurement for the shelves. Sure enough the pallets fit, but with about 1” of room to spare on each side! Now that is precision agriculture. On our second to last pallet the pallet jack wheels broke through the makeshift plywood ramp I had fashioned. This abrupt departure from the pallets expected course, caused a stack of crates to tumble to the floor. 

A few broken packages of chicken thighs were the only casualty and we will gladly enjoy them for dinner. A second piece of plywood did the trick and we loaded the freezer full!

Over the next two days Race, Kirsten and Healey pulled out each pallet and sorted the crates into their new storage locations.This is an exciting and important step for our inventory system. We will soon have all of our inventory sorted and easily accessible. Packing orders will be faster and more efficient when we do not have to go looking for a missing product. Inventory management will be more accurate when we can look at a stack of crates and know they are all the same product and be able to visually compare inventory count to keep our online offerings accurate. 

I will admit that I was optimistic about storage space. We have two smaller walk-in freezers that I thought we would sell when we got the big one up and running. However, as we sorted all the crates of chicken and began filling up the other freezers, it was clear to me that every cubic inch of freezer storage space was needed.

With everything seeming to be running smoothly, one more hiccup was in the works. With the freezer fully loaded with all our pallets from storage, I noticed the freezer was not cooling as quickly back down to 0 F as I would have expected. In fact, it was not able to go below 25 degrees. Uh oh.

I did some detective work and found that the evaporator, which is the box with fans inside the freezer that blows the cold air, was completely covered in frost. More detective work and I learned that the defrost mechanism was not working. For about 36 hours I had to manually defrost the evaporator with heaters to keep the freezer cooling properly. Then my friend Stacy the freezer technician returned for the third time and fixed the problem and now the freezer is working like a dream!

Thank you Racey, Kirsten, Healey and Tully for your time and effort into getting everything from freezer storage to back on the farm.