Does anybody else keep a farm/garden journal?

[schmije]

I started a new journal when we bought our property just over a year ago. I write whatever is on my mind. Sometimes it's a significant weather event, the latest garden harvest, an attack on our chickens, or an update on a home improvement project. Other times it's a funny story that happened on the farm - we seem to have a lot of those. I also use it to keep up with things like trapping the coons that keep eating our chickens (we've caught 13 to date!), and the drought that we're currently in.

I intend to someday organize these thoughts on the computer, but for now it's just a hand-written notebook. I recently went through some entries from last year, and I enjoyed reminiscing about things that I'd mostly forgotten. This encouraged me to write more often and include more stories from my farm.

Do you keep a journal? What do you write about?

 

[baymule]

No, I don't keep a journal, but what a great idea! I will have to do that!!

 

[so lucky]

I started a garden journal last spring on my computer. I also add interesting events of family, weather, chickens, etc. I am not regular about writing in it, and it seems I always forget to note exactly when I plant or begin harvesting something. It's just "the first week of June" or something like that. But it is interesting to go back through. I should write more frequently.

 

[vfem]

Maybe its because I'm a graduate in Tech, or maybe its because my booty is in this computer chair just as much as I'm in the garden.... but I keep my blog as my journal. Some of the things I forgot to post about in previous years, but most of it is there all the way back to 2008. If I forget when I planted something, or harvested something, I just dig back through my blog and there is the story and pictures to remind me.

Sometimes I would like a beautiful leather bound journal, where I can stuff sketches and drawings of my garden I've done over the years along with my notes. Something I can pass down through the generations in case my daughter or grandkids have gardening questions when I'm gone. I fantasize about having one from my grandparents who are no longer with me. But.... I'm too slack, and I'd probably lose it in the piles of junk in my office... so OH WELL!

 

[lesa]

I think that is a lovely idea! I have a "garden" journal- but I use it infrequently and mostly just for dates of planting, etc. If I get my "someday" farm, I will definitely do it! I have a wonderful friend who is in his 70's and has been a farmer all his life. I keep telling him he should write a book. The knowledge he has is amazing. It is sad to think of if not carrying on...

 

[schmije]

I will admit that some of my journal lives on Facebook in pictures and descriptions that I've shared with family and friends. One day I hope to fill in the blanks of my written journal with this extra info. I'd love to eventually write a book about how a suburban girl and a city boy made their life on a farm. I'm not sure whether many people would be interested in reading it, but I think it's a great story.

I don't really see my farm as a final product, but rather as a never ending work in progress. It's much more important to remember the experience of getting there. That's where the great stories come from. I like to think of my current farm as my "someday" farm - I just haven't made it to someday yet.

Wow, that's pretty deep. Maybe I should add it to my signature.