THE PEOPLE WHO PUT THEIR HAND UP
The report he could read at the table
By Sam Marwood
Post 8 of 19
The retired farmer spread one page on his kitchen table and read the month in the form he already knew.
He asked the couple to put the month in the form he already used on his own place. The page said how the cows were going and what feed was in front of them. The work due before the month turned sat at the bottom, in words he would use on his own place.
The couple farmed the place, and he was one of the locals the farm reported to. The page came to his table so he could follow the farm from home, rather than by living in the shed.
He started at the top, the way he would start his own notes. The cows were told as a herd he could picture, the feed was told as paddocks, and the jobs sat where a farmer looked for them.
It was a community owned farm, where locals own the farm together, with a farming family running it, and this page was how a local stayed with the work. He did not have to learn a new way of talking about cows in order to know how the month went.
He knew the paddocks the feed line meant, because they were paddocks in his own district. When the page said where the cows were going next, he could see the track without anyone drawing it for him.
Calving was on the page the way he would mention it himself, as how the herd was getting on. He read that part twice, not because it was hard, but because it was the part of the month he most wanted to be sure of.
The couple put the month down in the order a season actually happened, cows then feed then the work ahead. He could move through it at his own table and not lose the farm on the way.
He ran a finger down the jobs and found them in the order the month would ask for them. Nothing on the page needed a second person in the room to translate it, and when he finished a line he knew which part of the farm it belonged to.
Once a year they wrote the farm plan with the board, and each quarter they looked at the numbers together. A mentor was on the phone in between, so it wasn't sink or swim, and the page sat in that rhythm.
He came to the quarterly table having already read the months, so the talk could be about the farm. The numbers were in the form he asked for, which was why he could sit with them.
When the couple wanted a second view on the feed, they rang the mentor, and then they got on with the day. He was not on that call, and his part remained the page in front of him.
He left the page on the table when he was finished, and the month was still an ordinary one of cows, feed and the work ahead. He could follow it from his own kitchen, which was what he asked them to make possible.
This is an illustration of how it could unfold when it goes right. The district and the people in it aren't any one place or person.
Community Owned Farms is free at cultivatefarms.com/resources.