First Post

We'll this is my first post to the new Blog for Church View Farm. Not at all sure yet where it will lead. I'll lay out a few ideas and some ground rules here. Years ago there was a series in the Washington Post about an organic farm in Southern PA. It was published weekly in the Food section of the Post. I used to look forward to it every week. It described the operations of the farm from week to week, what they were growing and why, the successes and failures. I'd like to do the same thing here for our farm and country living. Its primarily a means to keep in touch with colleagues and customers. I am generally pretty bad about keeping in touch with people. When you get busy during the actual growing season there is very little time to keep in contact or do any marketing. the focus is on producing at that time and not much emphasis on marketing. And I'd rather write than talk on the phone anyway. Many phone calls start with, "Well what's new at the farm?". And I always think that I can't possibly recount it all, or even know where to start since it may have been a while since I have talked to that person the last time. Of course I wish this had been started many years ago, but the tools were just not yet there. Now, blogger.com and other tools, as well as innovation by the likes of Google, Yahoo and many others are providing the required tools. I've tried keeping customer email lists, and there is never enough time to continually update a web site. I'll still email customers if I now of their specific interest. I think web sites are one of two things now. They are either dynamic news feeds, or else they are pretty much static bulletin board type of displays. We'll still keep our web site. But it will just be general info, the ongoing current events information will be posted on this blog. I think people are too busy to go and check too many web sites anyway. I tend to get up early, as I'm a morning person. I like that quiet time to read and think and I usually make coffee and read and study for several hours, and now I'll also write for this blog. I'm sure Ruth will post some items also. My personal interest areas are farming-gardening-sustainable agriculture, building-construction-real estate, nature-environment-ecology-healthy lifestyle and finance-investing-financial markets. My mental energy goes into these areas and I'm interested in the ongoing innovation in all of these areas. All of these subjects sort of come together with a farm. Any farmer locking in his future revenue with a futures contract, while hedging the rest of his production with an option contract is as sophisticated as any stock or bond trader. They just prefer jeans and shorts to suits and ties. Even homeowners now buy their propane, natural gas, phone service, or electricity with a contract for forward delivery. Most don't even know that the cost of the option is just buried in the price. The world is changing fast. I won't discuss personal information here, or ever invade anyones privacy. But as I describe people, places, things, and local events, you'll hopefully get to know us, the farm, and the loacl area just a bit. This will likely be factual-informational and about "things". When someone visits the farm, they are usually full of questions. This blog may answer some of those questions before they arrive. Many people are now much more interested in where their food comes from and a healthier lifestyle with an emphasis on staying healthy. The recent spinach
e coli scare was just the latest news item. Enlightened consumers want to see things for themselves and that is a very favorable thing. The Fresh and Local farm movement is definitely catching on and spreading. I'll cover activities, work, books, web sites, people, tasks, challenges and just about everything that makes up the life of the farm or country living in present day West Virginia. So let's begin.

Steve