{"id":660,"date":"2019-09-20T11:09:36","date_gmt":"2019-09-20T18:09:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bouldersfarm.com\/wordpress\/?p=660"},"modified":"2019-11-17T21:23:11","modified_gmt":"2019-11-18T05:23:11","slug":"660-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bouldersfarm.com\/wordpress\/660-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Hello, Farm Life!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>My name is Mark and, until recently, if you\u2019d told me I\u2019d be living on a farm, I would have said you were crazy. However, that\u2019s exactly what ended up happening. For years, I was a city-dweller, commuting via public transportation to my office job in downtown Portland, Oregon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then one day I put all that behind me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One Sunday, a week before Christmas, I relocated from Portland to Boulder\u2019s Farm in Pedee, Oregon. Later that evening I moved into the newly constructed cabin in our orchard. At the time, my cabin didn&#8217;t have any insulation; just plastic sheets instead of glass covered the window openings. Fortunately, thanks to an extension cord connected to the nearby farmhouse I did have enough electricity to power lights, a small space heater, and an electric blanket. Surprisingly enough, I also had Internet service!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even though I arrived on the farm in the dead of winter, from the moment I arrived it was a flurry of activity. My first morning, we built a pathway from the farmhouse to my cabin. Later, we poured massive amounts of concrete for our barn and even equal amounts of gravel for both our barn and horse track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-gallery alignright columns-1 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bouldersfarm.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/IMG_1514-e1560550736338-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"429\" data-link=\"http:\/\/www.bouldersfarm.com\/wordpress\/img_1514\/\" class=\"wp-image-429\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.bouldersfarm.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/IMG_1514-e1560550736338-768x1024.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.bouldersfarm.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/IMG_1514-e1560550736338-225x300.jpg 225w, http:\/\/www.bouldersfarm.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/IMG_1514-e1560550736338-1600x2133.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><figcaption>30+ years of overgrowth in the orchard<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bouldersfarm.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/IMG_0230-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"379\" data-link=\"http:\/\/www.bouldersfarm.com\/wordpress\/img_0230\/\" class=\"wp-image-379\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.bouldersfarm.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/IMG_0230-1024x768.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.bouldersfarm.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/IMG_0230-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.bouldersfarm.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/IMG_0230-768x576.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.bouldersfarm.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/IMG_0230-1600x1200.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption>Some of the firewood from the thinning<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Up to this point, I\u2019d always worked indoors. So, once I started working outdoors in a rural environment I began to experience firsthand the rhythm of the seasons. I also learned quickly I was surrounded by all kinds of wildlife, including deer, elk, coyotes, wild turkeys (which I find quite comical), and countless varieties of birds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Next up was rehabilitating an orchard that had been abandoned for over 30 years. We thinned out trees, brush, unwanted plant species, and more than a few giant packrat nests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We also ended up with a <em>lot<\/em> of firewood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After being a city dweller for so many years, I had to get used to a few things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One, if you need something from the store, you can\u2019t just walk there or hop in your car for a five-minute drive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Two, with the nearest gas station almost 20 miles away, you better have enough gas in your tank at all times. (Keep in mind that cell phone coverage around here is a bit spotty. If you end up running out of gas you might not be able to just call someone for assistance.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Three, since we&#8217;re so out in the country and therefore kinda isolated, we depend on our neighbors in times of need and visa versa. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My name is Mark and, until recently, if you\u2019d told me I\u2019d be living on a farm, I would have&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marks-view","tag-farm-life"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bouldersfarm.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bouldersfarm.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bouldersfarm.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bouldersfarm.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bouldersfarm.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.bouldersfarm.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":877,"href":"http:\/\/www.bouldersfarm.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660\/revisions\/877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bouldersfarm.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bouldersfarm.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bouldersfarm.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}