Learn about stuff somewhat related to farming, but first here are a few things.
The Potato Planting Party is still scheduled for this Saturday but if the weather forecasting people are correct — arguably unlikely considering past performance — it may be too rainy. If there isn’t any rain and the soil is dry enough we will plant potatoes starting at 1:00 and going until done. If it is too rainy or wet we will postpone it to another time, perhaps as early as Sunday but again if the forecasters are correct the soil would be too wet on Sunday to accommodate our planting needs. I’ll post a quick newsletter prior to 1:00 on Saturday so before coming out, check the website (the newsletter section) to see if we are going forward.
We have just a couple of shares left for this season. Buy soon if you plan to (re)join!
We decided to go with another carton of eggs so we have about 14 dozen left. We would love to sell these so we are hoping to find a few people who would love to buy them. If you are one of these people please order EggShare at your earliest convenience.
Feel free to buy ‘ShroomShare, CoffeeShare, FlowerShare and WinterShare as well.
We are still in need of one more worker. This could be the opportunity of a lifetime for the right person! Learn more about the position here, then apply by sending in your resume to me.
Farm News
Way back in 2002 there was a guy named Donald Rumsfeld, maybe you remember him? Anyway, when talking about the Gulf War he said something along the lines of, and I’m paraphrasing, “There are known knowns, know unknows and unknown unknowns.” In other words, there are the things you know you know. There are the things you know you don’t know. But there are also things you don’t know you don’t know — the unknown unknowns. I hate to be the guy who says, “Wait, there’s more than those three” but that is the kind of guy I am. I’ve noticed I’m finding I have a lot more unknown knowns than I have in the past. These are things you know but don’t know you know — or more likely don’t remember you know. Or maybe these are things that you know but you thought they were well known facts that everyone knows so you just put these things into the well known fact category, which would then make it a total of five categories. This Rumsfeld guy didn’t know what he was talking about.
An easily relatable example of unknown knowns is the TV game show Jeopardy. The people who do great on the show know a lot but also seem to have great recall. They have a lot of known knowns and few unknown knowns. I on the other hand seem to frequently know the answer but just didn’t know I knew the answer. Once the correct answer is given I frequently say to myself, “I knew that!” Seems like the whole show is a bunch of unknown knowns — for me anyway.
This phenomenon became obvious to me when I was sitting through a Zoom session about irrigation for small vegetable farms. I was hoping to learn some new and better ways to irrigate our crops — especially after this past season. But what I learned from this zoom-a-thon was that I knew more than I knew I knew and that I knew more than the person who was the knowledge person on the zoom session. It was a bit disappointing.
But it occurs to me that this may be more of a “me” problem than a general problem. I find I have this same issue when trying to train new workers. I figure the kinds of tasks we do here on the farm are obvious and require little instruction. How hard is it to “get rid of the weeds in these five beds”? What I’ve been told when I ask for feedback is that my instructions are a bit too brief. Maybe I just assume people are smarter than they actually are, which again sounds like a “me” problem. To be fair though, it isn’t their intelligence, it is just my hundred years of doing the same thing year after year and assuming everyone else has that same experience. I seem to have a lot of me problems…
Anyway, the point of all this is that I feel the difference between an expert and someone with a lot of experience is recollection and over-confidence. An expert can recall things quickly and realizes she has a lot of knowledge. A mere experienced person doesn’t recall things as easily but will remember after someone else points them out or is reminded when re-exposed to a the problem. An expert believes he knows more than most. An experienced person probably knows more than the expert but has run into enough problems that he feels he can’t be an expert if he hasn’t solved all the problems yet. Surely an expert would know the solution!
I didn’t learn anything new from the irrigation zoom meeting I didn’t already know I knew unfortunately. I’m sure we will have many of the same problems we had last year and if all goes well I will recall how to resolve most of them. In the mean time do not hesitate to send in your questions, comments, suggestions, jokes, brain teasers or any other amalgam of words and phrases. And here is this week’s joke of the week!
What did the pepper plant say to the sprinkler?
Stop spraying water everywhere, you’re really starting to irrigate me!!