Oh Poepoen! Here Plume, your steak. Woef, woef!
These are the sounds I hear while I am writing a business plan for the farm. I’m in an apartment in the old center of Crest. After three weeks living in the truck we found this for one month. Luckily, because it was quite cold and humid; washing ourselves in the river Drôme, eating Thai in the truck in the dark while watching a movie on the laptop, sitting in the library to warm up and recharge our computers… The luxury of an apartment is big after that. We live here with the owner Laurent, an artist, a Romanian man, Julian, who is doing a computer course and who eats only chicken and olives, and a “Jip en Janneke” cat and dog.
I think we made a good choice to come here in the Drôme. The region is really beautiful and there are a lot of nice people. We visited Die, in the middle of the mountains and Crest, more near the Rhone valley. In one month we have build already quite a big network. How?
- Going to a farmer’s café an evening, about collective installation, where we met an old sheep farmer. A few days later she gave us a course in homeopathy. And she knows everybody in the valley!
- Following the ADEAR course one day per week with which we visit each time a different farm. We are a nice group of 7 young people with an agricultural project.
- Visiting goat farms by ourselves.
- Making 300 crêpes at a party of the ADEAR. There were a lot of farmers and agricultural related people that day.
- Being open and shouting around that we want to become goat farmers. Not easy for shy people like us 🙂
It gives lots of inspiration to meet all these people. And motivation to start the farm… now! But wait, first, more discussion with our collective to get more clearness. We are with a group so we need to accept that everything goes slower. We are not all in the same mindset and the same phase of life. Not yet…
The more you know about a subject the more questions emerge, the more hesitation. Talking about our agricultural installation with others helps to make clear what questions we need to answer before we are ready. To continue our project we need to be ready, but not pressed.
And then, the start of a serious business plan. We need to transform our ideas of the last months into a good, clear document. In the last ADEAR course we got some tips on what to put in a business plan. And it’s a lot! From a forecast balance sheet to the treasury budget moth per month. Everything very detailed for the next four years. And that without having neither the land nor the definitive project.
Moving around, meeting new people, explaining our project, making plans for the next day, looking for a place to live, talking French, listening French, writing French, everyday again. I’m tired, it’s time to find a kind of rhythm, a job, a house. I wrote to all goat farmers in the region, so maybe…