The Mommy
sitting on her brood
The Daddy aka Bon Jovi the Polish Crested Rooster
Hurray for broody chickens! I get the new chickens without having to raise them in my house!
Rookie Adventures in Poultry Raising
This is going to be a photo heavy post and a prequel to a post I am developing that has tips for newbie or rookie poultry folks like myself.
The Mommy
sitting on her brood
The Daddy aka Bon Jovi the Polish Crested Rooster
First there were three. You will notice that there is one blueish egg in the mix. This will be an Araucana mix that was somehow laid in the group.
Now there are nine!
Hurray for broody chickens! I get the new chickens without having to raise them in my house!
The Mommy
sitting on her brood
The Daddy aka Bon Jovi the Polish Crested Rooster
Hurray for broody chickens! I get the new chickens without having to raise them in my house!
Growing Sustainable Agriculture Community
I've been thinking, nearly obsessively, about some of the responses and conversation that have ensued since I pitched my Nicole's Farm Project to the folks in my community who organize themselves in a group called One One Straw Society and I've decided to proceed as such I will be making my best effort to make it to their AGM on the 29th January (childcare is always an issue at this point) and I submitted my expression of interest to participate on the Agri Advisory Board at the Sunshine Coast Regional District. With those decisions I have also been tossing around the following thoughts:
1. Conventional media and marketing methods are not going to access a wide enough customer base...Coast Reporter, Coast Cable, etc. It just doesn't resonate with folks anymore. Furthermore, it doesn't matter how many times folks see an ad, if they're taking their kids to soccer games on saturday morning and they are too tired after work on Wednesday evenings, they just aren't going to go to the markets...until it becomes the sexy thing to do.
2. We can not begin to build an economically prosperous local food region without a vision. A clear, progressive, action oriented vision with targets and milestones and it has to resonate with folks who don't want dirt under their nails except for trimming some non edible landscaping hedges and calling it a day in the garden. To see what my vision is:
I'm sure these conversational have already taken place locally in the past. But they need to be brought up to date and expanded on. I'll leave you all with some thoughts on sales and marketing that registered with me from some online content I was reading by Seth Godin last night.
Points of reference:
Only way to get sales is to get talked about
We need to work on communicating emotion
Long term players are the ones that will deliver real value
Learning Scarcity from Seth Godin
I've come into a difficult place with my project development. A lull as it were. My crowdfunding campaign has not taken off as quickly as I had naively hoped and I'm severely sleep deprived as my youngest daughter is waking up every two hours and i can't bring myself to change the cycle. So, i am in a rut. Stuck being my own worst enemy. After a weekend of utter melancolie, nursing a bruised ego, and trying to purge the emotional albatross so that I could begin to see clearly and resume targeted goal setting, I seem to have emerged on the other side of the abyss.
So rather than spiral down. I will move forward and on that note, to anyone reading this I am sending much love and fortune your way. just because.
And i will end with a couple points taken from Seth Godin's blog post on Scarcity
Principle 1: Use the internet to form a queue. If you have a scarce product, you almost certainly know it's scarce in advance. Instead of taxing customers by wasting their time, reward the early shoppers by taking orders online. A month before sale date, for example, tell them it's coming. If you sell out before ship date, that's great, because next time people will be even quicker to order when they hear about what you've got. (And you can do this in the real world, too--postcards with numbers or even playing cards work just fine.)
A hot band that regularly sells out on the road, for example, could put a VIP serial number inside every CD or t-shirt they sell. Use that to pre-order your tix.
Principle 2: Give the early adopters a reward. In the case of Apple, I would have made the first 100,000 phones a different color. Then, instead of the buyer being a hero for ten seconds, he gets to be a hero for a year.
Principle 3: Treat different customers differently. Apple, for example, knows how to contact every single existing customer. Why not offer VIP status to big spenders? Or to those that make a lot of calls? Let them cut the line. It's not fair? What's fair mean? I can't think of anything more fair than treating the people who treat you well, better.
Principle 4: When things happen in real time, you're way more likely to screw up. One of the giant advantages of the Net is that you can fix things before the whole world notices. Try to do your rollout in small sections, so you can fix mistakes before you hurt the very people you're trying to embrace.
Principle 5: Give your early adopters a forum to celebrate. A place to brag or demonstrate or show off or share insights and ideas. Amplify the heroes, which is far better than amplifying the pain of standing in line.
I completed things today that were utterly necessary for our construction company. I ordered some swag over the weekend so that i can start getting the visual identification of my brand into the hands of local folks who will be purchasing my products and i have really addressed where the weak points in my campaign are. I need to continue to hustle relentlessly and not fear the backlash or haters that are starting to come out of the woodwork.This weekend I was greeted by a bunch of emails from the old guard of local growers and purchasers in my community telling me how my model won't work and how non of them can get the sales they are looking for. Realizing I'm going to have to build the system from the ground up while trying to bring people's skill sets together rather than continue this counter culture of mildly accessed local food.
So rather than spiral down. I will move forward and on that note, to anyone reading this I am sending much love and fortune your way. just because.
And i will end with a couple points taken from Seth Godin's blog post on Scarcity
Principle 1: Use the internet to form a queue. If you have a scarce product, you almost certainly know it's scarce in advance. Instead of taxing customers by wasting their time, reward the early shoppers by taking orders online. A month before sale date, for example, tell them it's coming. If you sell out before ship date, that's great, because next time people will be even quicker to order when they hear about what you've got. (And you can do this in the real world, too--postcards with numbers or even playing cards work just fine.)
A hot band that regularly sells out on the road, for example, could put a VIP serial number inside every CD or t-shirt they sell. Use that to pre-order your tix.
Principle 2: Give the early adopters a reward. In the case of Apple, I would have made the first 100,000 phones a different color. Then, instead of the buyer being a hero for ten seconds, he gets to be a hero for a year.
Principle 3: Treat different customers differently. Apple, for example, knows how to contact every single existing customer. Why not offer VIP status to big spenders? Or to those that make a lot of calls? Let them cut the line. It's not fair? What's fair mean? I can't think of anything more fair than treating the people who treat you well, better.
Principle 4: When things happen in real time, you're way more likely to screw up. One of the giant advantages of the Net is that you can fix things before the whole world notices. Try to do your rollout in small sections, so you can fix mistakes before you hurt the very people you're trying to embrace.
Principle 5: Give your early adopters a forum to celebrate. A place to brag or demonstrate or show off or share insights and ideas. Amplify the heroes, which is far better than amplifying the pain of standing in line.
Some links on method
I received an email today from an experienced local gardener who, though supportive of my project had some doubts as to the revenue projections i have used as assumptions on which to base my business model. So, I have decided to post some background information on the SPIN farming movement. For those interested in knowing what type of farm practices I will be implementing on each Nicole's Farm acre in order to meet my goal of two living wage jobs per farm please peruse the following links!
SPIN farming
List of Other Farms in North America using SPIN farm practices
Article in Tree Hugger regarding SPIN Farming
Article from Rodale Institute regarding SPIN Farming
Wally - One of the founding SPIN Farmers
Somerton Tanks Farm - Proving the revenue projections
SPIN Farming Feasibility Study - Proving the revenue projections
Here are some farms I picked out of the list above because:
a) they are BC based or,
b) I follow them on twitter or facebook.
Carrot Creek Urban Farm
Freshroots
Healthy Harvest: "Did you know…in one year, you could harvest up to 2800Kg of food from a garden space of 400m2! One person eats about 200kg of fruit and veg annually so that’s enough food for 14 people!"
Leaf and Lyre
SPIN farming
List of Other Farms in North America using SPIN farm practices
Article in Tree Hugger regarding SPIN Farming
Article from Rodale Institute regarding SPIN Farming
Wally - One of the founding SPIN Farmers
Somerton Tanks Farm - Proving the revenue projections
SPIN Farming Feasibility Study - Proving the revenue projections
Here are some farms I picked out of the list above because:
a) they are BC based or,
b) I follow them on twitter or facebook.
Carrot Creek Urban Farm
Freshroots
Healthy Harvest: "Did you know…in one year, you could harvest up to 2800Kg of food from a garden space of 400m2! One person eats about 200kg of fruit and veg annually so that’s enough food for 14 people!"
Leaf and Lyre
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