Interwebs On the Farm (Or Not)


I've heard that getting internet in rural areas is difficult and, to be honest, I kind of pushed it to the back of my mind when thinking about the farm. I really take internet for granted. It’s pretty much expected to be fast and available everywhere, so I just assume that it is. Obviously, it's really freakin' important for personal and business reasons to have good internet access. We practically live on the web. Farm research, Skype with families, online shopping. THE BLOG. I even use the voice over IP (VOIP) phone in gmail for phone calls in the apartment. So it probably should have been near the top of the list of our considerations on whether the farm would “work” for us or not, but it wasn't really. Don’t get me wrong, it was on my mind a lot, but I just figured we’d find a way to make it work, even if it was dial-up. The power of denial is strong, and typically not something I’m afflicted with (or am I?), but there's always exceptions I suppose.
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Clean Up Your Creamery (or any building) Design

We may have mentioned this before... We've got a creamery to design! Although a professional may have to step in at some point before we move into construction, we'd like to take it as far as we can ourselves first. It will save money and make us intimately familiar with every nook and cranny of the new creamery as well as the rules regulating its design and function as stated in the PMO (now our bible). It all started a few months ago with a pencil, plastic grid ruler, and some paper. Although they were effective and the tools were enjoyable to work with, the results were decidedly not very professional looking... Maybe if I had a drafters precision, but I don't.
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Putting Our Water Through the Wringer


Image couresy of The Virtual Dime Museum: www.thevirtualdimemuseum.com

We spent some time detailing the importance of water and, more specifically, rainfall in our determination of where to farm. Access to an adequate and clean water supply was also critical. What we haven’t talked about is just what it takes for us to get our water clean. We are on a well with no access to public water. Upon opening the kitchen faucet on our first visit we were nearly floored by the smell the sulfur in the water. For anyone that’s smelled sulfur water you’ll never forget it. Imagine a strong odor of rotten eggs and the shock of a dutch oven. 

After some testing was done last November we learned that the water is highly ferric (lots of iron) and moderately sulfuric. In addition, there’s high levels of many other minerals (magnesium, etc) and the grains of hardness is off the charts at 18-22 grains.
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