Tiny Farm Duluth

01/04/2025

Hanging out with my buddy on this harvest’s eve. He’s the reigning champion in the IPA category at the Minnesota state fair. Blue ribbon! And the current batch, which we sampled beside the St. Louis River, is heading to Nationals. Anyhow, we completed an exquisite circle in our adventures today, concluding with another $600 load of soil mix over in Superior, WI, today, coming within about 50 pounds of maxing out my van’s payload capacity. Great day, and no worries, I’ll be alive and present for tomorrow’s midweek top-up harvest for the restaurants and grocers. I love mixing life with work, and it feels great to have about 90% of the dirt I’ll need for the year ready in the barn.
❤️

22/02/2025

I wasn’t looking forward to planting these three cilantro trays for , but then I realized it was warm enough to do the sowing outside, and that made everything wonderful. Every task must be loved to be done properly.
/outdoor

18/02/2025

I managed to haul in a pallet of seed today, and now have 1500 pounds of beautiful, high-performing organic seed in my storage room that happily doubles as a beer fridge when the weather outside becomes arctic.
Gathering the raw materials this time of year is beyond satisfying. I’ve loaded up on the first of four $500 van loads already, with plans for more, securing the lowest possible wholesale prices before any tariffs against Canadian imports go in effect (where much of this comes from). This keeps prices low for you, and makes me immensely happy.
That bale of dirt sits in front of the door, because it’s gotta thaw out for a couple days before I can sift it for use. Everything is a bit more challenging in sun-zero temps, but we simply slow down and make sure to take care of the essentials, one basic task at a time.
And all these raw materials represent future income, producing gratitude every time I cast an eye of appreciation on them. It felt impossible to locate some of these for a while, so this is really great.

09/01/2025

I finished this book about Ulysses Grant recently. I’ve been a fan of his since receiving the occasional $50 bill at the farmers market, and finally finished this definitive tome after probably 5 years of dipping in and out (roughly the length of the civil war). I believe the author must be America’s greatest living popular historian. Repeatedly, while digesting this page-turner, I found myself grateful for Ulysses’ existence. The U.S. probably would not exist in its current form without the indomitable persistence of U.S. Grant. If current events and anxieties have you tied into knots, I urge you to read history. As for this book, it’s about a regular guy like you or me who was consistently overlooked and passed over. He didn’t have the right pedigree, didn’t preen around with feathers in his cap, and wasn’t physically overbearing or given to amplifying his accomplishments or intelligence. I probably received $1,976 of enjoyment from this book that obviously required years of devotion to produce. Thanks ! Your life and work are valuable to so many regular Americans who will never have opportunity to thank you. I can hardly believe you have another work arriving this spring!
Turning to that little book beside Grant, it’s a riveting read by Julia Grant-Cantacuzene, U.S. Grant’s granddaughter who was born in the White House in 1876 and had vivid memories of her August grandfather, and other folks like Queen Victoria, Mark Twain, Johann Strauss, Tsar Nicholas II, and more! She married a Russian prince who was a descendant of a Byzantine emperor and fled that nation after the Bolshevik revolution with jewels stitched inside her clothing. Julia died in 1975, just 5 months before I was born. Isn’t that krazee????
🌱

04/01/2025

Just returned from a rare two day vacation, for which I basically shut everything down, but had everything planted to come out of germination this afternoon. Yes, yes, cilantro, wasabi, and amaranth aren’t quite ready, but they’ll be out here enjoying the sun in another couple hours. Everything pretty much went according to plan, thanks to small efforts spread out over the past week, which makes me grateful. And, all this sun!☀️ Such a joyful space today.
Also, you may have noticed a 9% price increase. My first increase at the wholesale level ever, after 7 years. Part of keeping things joyfully sustainable.

11/12/2024

Planting indoors can be fun too. Usually I’m outside with jackets, hat, and freezing fingers. This was kinda nice today.

22/11/2024

I met Luke Moravec, host of Northland Morning on my favorite radio station, at the Northeastern MN Book Awards. Shortly b4 he took the stage I cracked open one of the free beers and it foamed up like a volcano to produce a large lake on the floor of the PBS studio at my feet that quickly flooded into the publisher’s foot space, who sat beside me, one minute prior to air time. That’s just how things seem to go for me in fancy spaces.
Anyhow, while pleased with the Honorable Mention award, the handful of meaningful conversations were the real prize. This continued into an interview that aired yesterday morning that felt effortless. Free -flowing and loose. Nothing to lose. Luke tee’d it up with the perfect music beforehand too. It’s a 9-minute spot that dives straight into the gold. There’s a link to it in my story, and by the time that drifts away I’ll have figured out adding it to my profile. Give it a listen. It felt like the real Eddy Gilmore finally stood up.
Another reason this conversation went so smoothly is because, “You can’t always get what you want, but you get what you need.” Figuring out parking, especially paying for it, stresses me out, and refused to sacrifice her morning for the sake of dropping me off, so I biked up the hill to UMD instead and arrived refreshed and full of wonder at the front door instead, having just witnessed a little known neighbor picking up 12 pieces of litter when she thought nobody was looking. There were also birds and trees, a flowing river, and all that other crap too.
🔥

22/11/2024

Enjoyed doing this interview with my favorite station. It finally felt like the real Eddy Gilmore showed up for one of these…

Author Eddy Gilmore talks about his NEMBA Honorable Mention book "Lit Up"

31/10/2024

Let everything we do be done in love, even the most menial aspects of our work. It is impossible to do anything well without our attention and focus, which requires joy. Without that, we cannot serve our neighbors properly, with our whole being, in earnest love, ultimately for our Maker’s enjoyment.
🌱

31/08/2024

My neighbor and carpenter are teaming up to circle Lake Superior in the most epic way: savoring it across 20-odd years atop kayaks in stretches, a hunnerd miles or so at a crack. Our microgreens have joined them for several years now, humbly bumping along in the hull, cooled by the big lake, easily handling the rigors of travel. Being the least important item chosen to fuel incredible memories is pretty darn awesome. Happy to have climbed aboard and !

20/03/2024

I reckon you only learn to market your own work by doing it. Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly, at first.