The turning calendar sparks reflection. This year it’s the turning of a decade as well as a new year, so we look back a bit further. Ten years ago, Beth and I were still working at corporate jobs, she with Arthur Andersen and I with Accenture consulting – on a long term project for Allstate Insurance. Richard, our oldest, was a baby and we’d just moved into our first home – life was good and comfortable. The general upward trend of the late nineties seemed like it would go on and on. Life on a farm hadn’t entered our thoughts, yet.

Of course, the tech bubble burst and consulting firms laid-off thousands – I landed a position at Allstate. Then, just as Beth went on maternity leave for the birth of Duncan, the Enron bubble burst and blew up the once revered firm of Arthur Andersen.  Bookending this personal turmoil was the 9/11 attacks and subsequent war.  In the spring of 2002, we visited my parents for Mother’s Day. Over dinner my folks explained that they had decided not to sell the farm they had had on the market and would be renting out the farmhouse soon.  Also, my mom very pointedly said, “It would sure be nice to have you kids closer.”  Well, it was quite a conversation as we drove back to Des Plaines.

We listed our duplex in June.  Beth’s job at Andersen ended in July, and I gave notice at Allstate. We closed on our house sale and were moved into the farmhouse by early August. Beth went to work teaching junior high special education at the end of August, and I became a CSA vegetable farmer and a stay at home dad. We moved fast and jumped in with both feet.

Our decisiveness was exhilarating. Had we known the steepness of the learning curve or the mountains of work involved, we might have hesitated. We delivered 20 weeks of shares to 50+ members our first two seasons, but we were feeling burnt out and isolated. As the first CSA (vegetable or otherwise) in our county, our farm was a small island of vegetables in a sea of mono-crop corn. We had thoughts of quitting, but community kept us in the game.  The summer of 2004, we met Larry O’Toole and the folks from Growing Home Farm who had just started their own CSA. We traveled to Michigan for a CSA conference that fall and met another couple starting a veggie CSA just a few miles north of us. Suddenly, we had an archipelago of sustainability – and folks to celebrate and commiserate with us

 We came home from our conference energized and smarter. Our vegetable CSA roster shrank as we concentrated on local members. This pullback let us expand our livestock enterprises and begin selling at farmers markets.  In mid-summer of 2005, we began attending the bi-weekly Logan Square farmers and gained confidence selling in the big city.

In 2006, our CSA grew back to its original level with us selling at and delivering shares to two markets a week – one locally in Ottawa and the Logan Square site.  We began selling our meat at the Logan Square market that fall. Also, Beth delivered our third boy, Jack that spring and resigned her teaching position to stay at home and farm full-time as well.

That’s all there is time for right now… the animals are expecting afternoon chores to get done, and I’ll need to help Beth get loaded for tonight’s delivery.  Check back in a few days for the rest of the story!