cody creek farm

this text is the response to the inquiry i made to chrisso after i decided not to visit their farm. it made me wish i had been able to visit!

__________________________________

Heya Davis--

making me think! its funny when you are so in it it becomes day to
day, and i don't even answer these questions much. Thanks for that.
Heres some brief thoughts--
volunteers/wwoofers/interns are welcome. they are provided room and
board for roughly 18-25 hours a week of work. some more experienced
workers / field leaders have been lightly compensated.
the owners are old-- they are rad folks with a long history of
farming the land there. they are very progressive and open. Two
summers ago I found them on craigslist and they were willing and open
to let their site be a site for the Non-hierarchical / anarchist
communal homestead I wanted to start. That was Fertile Minds
Collective, and you can still find photos and info at our old
wordpress site, fertilemindscollective.wordpress.(org?com?) actually,
i just looked and couldnt find it...
There is little or no emphasis on composting or beneficial
organisms, compost tea, etc. we are a small scale market farm and work
accordingly, and there is little time left over for progressive
experimentation, espescially until we create some more basic
infrastructure. (for interns) We do compost all the weeds and chicken
manure in large piles, and I recently took a class on Biochar and am
excited to make a biochar cook stove for the outdoor kitchen and maybe
a larger 55 gal drum biochar 'jolly roger'. This is something you
should definitely look into-- i can suggest some links if you want, or
youtube is full of them.
Growing demand? Hard to say. seems to be a quickly growing interest
among young people on the volunteer side of the equation. We have a
unique relationship with a single buyer, a local tennis retreat, and
they get about 90 percent of our produce. Jim (who is head farmer and
landowner) is paid salary by them to farm his own land, and they pay
for all seeds, compost, etc. Jim is payed a consistent wage year
round.
Cody Creek Farm -- codycreekfarm.com

That is answer to your questions--
a basic summary--
the farm is almost entirely human powered, we use no chemicals,
etc. we are farming 4.5 acres on 27 acres of land, and have a communal
grain growing experiment tied to Saugerties Transition Town in which
we are growing wheat and barley, quinoa and rice. we are growing
tobacco. we are growing and selling a full spread of veggies to local
tennis retreat Total Tennis, and have some other relationships with
restaurants.
Our community has usually attracted alot of young farmers and
people who would like to go in that direction. the community is fun
and wild, and kept intentional by frequent checkins . there is much
time for relaxing interspersed in our days, yet the community is
firmly centered on relaxed, non-stressed work.

my own interest in farming goes back to three summers ago, at which
point i was apprenticed on a homestead up in VT. I felt at that point
that I would like to have the skills to be self sufficient, at least
in terms of food (which is very broad) within 5 seasons. I just feel
the way the world is going and I would like to be able to eat in the
future. Also, I have found my path so far to be as a healer and
community builder, trying to support and create communities in which
people can live together and with the earth in a more equal loving
way. I am also pursuing herbalism, but to me the majority or my
healing is on this other scale-- community sized. I feel that
'primitive skills' must be a piece of this puzzle, and tho i know i
cannot do everything, i like to meet people who can do all sorts of
things and hopefully weave the true world wide web a little stronger
around here. i also like to be at least cognizant and aware of ideas,
skills, etc, enough that i can jump in on the variety of interesting
activities and conversations that float through my communal circles.