A good friend once told me that, “Riding your bike around the world, is not about riding your bike around the world. It is about opening yourself up to new ideas.” In that vein, yes, we are going to ride our bikes all over the world, we are just not going to do it all at once.

In addition to many smaller trips around the Northeast United States, Kate and I completed a 5,500 mile bicycle ride from New York City, to Seattle, to San Diego. We rode across the United States from East to West, then North to South. Instead of going abroad right away, we have made other plans. We spent the 2012 growing season working on an organic farm in Woodstock, CT.

With a lot of hard work, and a bit more luck, we will be traveling by bike, by foot, and whatever means we can find all over the world for the rest of our lives. We will always be doing something “out of the ordinary” no matter where we land.

When forced to create a “5 Year Plan” this is what we came up with:

2012:
Start Farm Marketing Solutions (FMS)
Apprentice at Devon Point Farm in Woodstock, CT
Develop Products for FMS/Develop Garden Ed. lesson plans/Continue working on books
Market FMS Products Over Winter/Develop Garden Ed. lesson plans/Continue working on books

2013:

• Launch the Growing Farms Podcast
• Moved to New Milford Connecticut
• Find farmland to rent/lease
• Start a Chicken and Herb CSA, 50 members
• Document Starting a Farm
• Baby Due July 12th
• Continue to grow Farm Marketing Solutions
• Sells Herbs at Farmers’ Market for extra income and to market CSA

2014:

• Take stock of successes and failures of 2013
• Grow Chicken to CSA
• Continue with Herbs
• Grow Farm Marketing Solutions to continue to help other farmers

2015:

• Uh oh, we need to figure this out.

2016:

• Same for this year.