Hello friends, family, neighbors! And a special hello to those who have been following our blog since day 1 and have been wondering where we vanished to for the past 7 months! To be honest, we are wondering the same thing! Where did that time go?! To help us process that very question, and to update all who are interested, we will be publishing a weekly blog post about the farm projects (and ideas) which have been brewin’ over the past several months.
The Race to Winter
I think that we had a similar blog title last year (Oh, yes, we did The Hustle And Bustle While the Leaves Still Rustle LOL) and I assume that this will become a yearly tradition as New Yorkian farmers, bustling around during the 5 warm months of the year to finish projects that we can’t (or would really rather not) do when the snow comes around!
This year, the hustle has a special anticipation. As the past 2 years have progressed since the farm was born, all of our thoughts have been culminating towards a singular dream: opening a farm store. “A farm store, like a feed and tack store?” you might ask. Not to disappoint the local farmers, but… not that. Instead, we are envisioning a Mom-and-Pop store of sorts, a small general store with a community focus. What exactly will it contain? We have our ideas but we will be working hard to figure all of that out! Stay tuned to the blog and catch up on some of our past posts (here, here, and here).
Before we start daydreaming about the possibilities, we have a lot of manual labor to do. With the Phase 0 already complete (demolition) we have been working on Phase 1 of building the frame into a functional store. Here are some of the projects we have been working to complete before winter rolls in.
#1. Closing off the Commercial Kitchen. As you can see below, we are closing in the one-stall garage which juts off from the back of the store. In addition to walling it off, we also raised the inside floor. This new “room” is going to be our commercial kitchen, which will start off very simple with the basic legal necessities like a 3-base sink. Having a commercial kitchen will allow us to sell prepared foods at our store like baked good, coffee, smoothies, etc!
#2. The Porch. As with every project, there is bare-minimum we want to complete and a lofty goal to shoot for. So far we have the bare-minimum porch completed with steps leading up to the new kitchen (see below).
The lofty goal is to purchase and install a front door and ice cream window at the front of the store. Then, next year, we will work on building that porch.
#3. Some plumbing and heating. Our family had an outdoor wood-burning furnace installed 2 years ago. You wouldn’t think an outdoor furnace piping hot water under the ground would be very efficient, but this is the age of technology we live in! Right now, the furnace heats both of our houses, and next it will heat the store. To connect the store to the heat, we need to connect heating lines from our house’s basement to the store. First, Casey dug down and chiseled holes in the concrete foundations (literally, chiseled). In the process of digging, we found the well and got someone to come and look at it. We needed a new water pump, so we got that…
The next step (whenever the weather decides to hold out) is to have Uncle Scott come with his backhoe and dig a trench for the water lines. Here is he digging up our yard 2 years ago. Having fun, Uncle Scott?
#4. The Roof? We put a question mark here because this is not an absolute must-do before the winter, but it sure would be nice to knock off of our spring to-do list. (IF the store is going to open next summer. . .) We recently had some estimates made for getting the roof re-shingled but they were less than satisfying! Instead, we are going to do it ourselves, but to make things a whole lot easier we are installing a tin roof. Can you guess what color the roof is going to be???
And there we have Phase 1.0. Please pray for weather and energy to complete these tasks before heading to Phase 2! Also, pray pray pray for God’s wisdom in guiding our ideas and efforts this winter.
As of this morning, it looks like winter has already beat us here, but still, we keep the forward charge….
We will keep you updated. 🙂 May He bless you and keep you in His strength!