Good Life Farm

Ithaca is a really great (small) town. While having a coffee at The Shop we picked up a flyer for the 'Ithaca Free Skool” which listed all kinds of creative and mind-expanding activities delivered for free by community members. To cut a long story short we went along to the “Affordable Housing Forum” (in a park) which turned out to be convened by Matt Gordon – one of only about 5 people I actually have met in the area, who I actually played a couple of shows with last time I was in the area. Nuts. 
During a good discussion on the assigned topic Matt mentioned that he is taking a course on Sustainable Agriculture offered through the Groundswell Centre for Local Food and Farming (by the way, through a work exchange Matt is studying this without any hard currency transaction – awesome). This course, in Matt's impression, was like the perfect theory course to supplement a farm intern or apprentice's training. While you learn a ridiculous amount by just working on a farm you often miss out on important details or broader context and planning theory just because, well, you need to get those beets out of the ground now! So the small cohort that Matt is studying with gets to visit different farms around the area as well as listen to lectures and, presumably workshop ideas.

It was like every half hour or so Ithaca was just showing off how cool it was – upping the ante every time. I was pretty sure I wanted to live there after an hour so and was like “take it easy town, you had me at hello”.

Anyway, I digress. That night we went to a pub in Trumansberg and the only other people there happened to be the course coordinator of said farming course as well as the owners and farmers of the Good Life Farm, Melissa and Garrett. In the end we were invited to tag along with a Groundswell class who were visiting Good Life farm (Interlaken, NY) the next day. Like I said, we had been in the area about 2 days and this is the greatness that was transpiring.

While looking over the pages of frantically scribbled notes I took while at the farm I realise I am sort of holding my breath (breathe in) - I just don't know how to sum up this place in a blog entry. So I'll just add a little disclaimer here that the vision is massive, the processes complex and the ideas often beyond my tiny brain.

“they are like super heroes”

(Mahra describing Melissa and Garrett)

Melissa and part of their asparagus crop

The Good Life farm plan, in their words, "pairs perennial vegetable production with organic orchard management, high quality forage for poultry and horses, season extension and reduced fossil-energy systems. As we grow, our farm becomes more self-reliant and robust". What we got to see, on the tour, is just the tip of the iceberg. These guys are planning decades ahead and have three overarching goals that guide this planning;

1. Prepare for climate change - cultivate plants and animals that can cope with the only certain consequence of climate change -  unpredictable weather.


2. Energy descent - use fewer fossil fuels each year to farm. Initially on the farm there was huge capital investment - which equated to huge energy investment - but these investments were made with careful thought and will allow the rate of fossil fuel energy to steadily decline rather than stagnate or increase each year. A central aspect of GLF is they use horses to farm and produce all of the food for the horses on the farm.


3. Care for community - one way that this is manifested is through sharing resources (both material and immaterial) and in particular, the 'incubation' of another new farmer, who, currently, is Liz. Sharing also means having multiple generations of the farmers' families living on the land as well as knowing, in the first instance, what is being done and grown in the area and meeting what is needed (filling some of those niches - for example, a Spring CSA share).

"Our area has an abundance of good food during the other three seasons of the year, but we’ve noticed that Spring can be a lean time for local food availability.  Spring is a chancy time to predict growth and yield, and guaranteeing a harvest requires a certain amount of additional infrastructure.  While there are still many unknowns involved in growing primarily fresh vegetables for these lean months, we are ready to go for it! 

Our farm site near Cayuga Lake allows us to harvest earlier than many other regional producers.  Thanks to our early-producing site, our greenhouses, perennial crops, and our relationships with other producers, this Spring CSA offers diverse and nutritious food!"  
- from the GLF website

 During the farm tour Melissa shifted seamlessly between scales of consideration. In describing the turkey-forage system in the asparagus bed she touched on general principles of polyculture, ethics of farming with said turkey breed (and related tension and balance between experimentation and output), contrasting forage behaviour of turkeys and chickens and everything in between. This ability to hold multiple scales, theories and experiences in one brain is impressive and a little intimidating. It was a 95 degree day but I don't think that's the only reason my brain felt a little too hot. This is complex stuff and what Melissa and Garret are doing is simultaneously traditional and absolutely cutting edge.

For example...


We were lucky to get a tour of the "ice house" - GLF's approach to preserving fresh food without relying on non-renewable energy. It's a work in progress and it's very exciting. Ice houses, historically, have been a way to store ice and perishable foods over winter and summer months and work on basic principles of airflow and insulation. I say 'basic' though there is a lot to making it work in practice. The ice house that GLF is building makes use of thousands of re-purposed 1.25l plastic soda bottles filled with water to provide the cool-mass in the purpose built basement of the barn. 

It's mad scientist stuff and I am in awe. 

During the whole tour, while listening to Melissa, it became clear that she was acutely aware (and transparent) about what she was proud of and what she wasn't in terms of her decisions on the farm. She also seemed clear about what she was and wasn't willing to concede to. This also reminded me of Evangeline and Paul's "morality list" - deciding what and what could not be compromised in running Sweet Land Farm.


As Melissa explains, conceptions of permaculture typically focus on production on a smaller scale (less than an acre) and often relate to more of a hobby sized garden, rather than a scale that encompasses both sustenance and livelihood (i.e. farm business). 


The scale they are working with means that design is necessarily long-term and will 'pay back' over many years (rather than just in the next season). I hope I can revisit Good Life farm in 10 years to see how their brave and value based planning is panning out. I expect I would see things that will take my breath away and probably make my brain hurt even more.