Tiny Farm Duluth

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.

19/02/2024

I made something useful for the smallest imaginable niche, dedicated to one person, because he comprised the known audience. While the ebook probably isn’t for you, this post should prove helpful.

https://eddygilmore.com/2024/02/19/the-joy-of-minimalist-accounting-what/

19/01/2024

All these trays, drying after their scrub and sanitizing dip, were turned over yesterday with new ones taking their place in the sun today. Never ceases to amaze me.
During this turnover period I received the sweetest comments from a reader that were so warm and encouraging, somehow the sun’s equal on this bright day that also has us returning from a meeting discussing Shawna’s upcoming art commission that’ll be such a beautiful contribution to the city’s biggest event and party, and yet still not the focus, off to the side encouraging and enjoying, precisely where we love to be. Planted.
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05/01/2024

There’s a nice write-up about my book in the Duluth News Tribune’s A&E section this week. The page included from my handy dandy typewriter seems to have paid off. I screenshot it in the comments.

Best Bets: Jazz at the Lake Superior Railroad Museum returns

Also this week: a new BOLD-choice Theatre production, Sax-Zim Bog BRRRRdathon, Brave Art Youth Exhibition at AICHO, "Steffl in Steffl" at the Duluth Art Institute and a memoir by Eddy Gilmore.

12/12/2023

My main goal for going on the teevee was to do no harm. Better than last time. Room to improve, but it was fun. Baihly Warfield WDIO is a marvelous host who puts a nervous chap at ease.

Career opportunities take many paths, and Eddy Gilmore's wound its way out of corporate America.

28/11/2023

Just had out here to pick up a copy of my new book and get a quick visual of our 3-legged stool, because I’ll be a guest for a 4-minute segment on December 11th. She exudes joy and calm, so the quick visit here was meant to stave off the kind of deer-in-the-headlights moment that happened the last time I did something like this. She’s a gem, so I’m looking forward to it for its own sake and not “results.”
You can pick up a copy of Lit Up today , near the entrance , , or online. Cheers!
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24/11/2023

An advantage of this lifestyle-the meaning of which requires 292 pages to arrive at-is an uncommon relationship with the emotion of thanksgiving, one which bubbles up organically, almost as a consequence of meandering through the rhythm of life. This smallish crop came out of germination yesterday, and will be ready for harvest next Wednesday. I’m pretty sure I planted too much, but we’ll see. Received our check from the , which prints out about every 15 days. The welling of gratitude I receive when this paper check arrives is an order of magnitude beyond what I felt when the direct deposit arrived in the bank account every other Friday from Cubicle Land, which arrived with a sense of entitlement. Almost never gratitude. I think of all of you whilst walking a mile to the bank, and while standing in the drive through lane with our golden doodle who waits patiently for his treat.
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22/11/2023

When you’re circling the drain, emotionally, doing something physical is often the answer. Moving an entire case of books throughout the city, and sensing that box steadily grow lighter until you can just crush the cardboard conveyance, felt pretty good. Combining this with harvest and microgreens deliveries made for a long day, and if you were the fella lingering in the van at that stop sign a bit longer than normal and saw me gesturing/pleading forward motion, just know I was a bit stressed out. I’ve left ample copies of Lit Up (stocked in the produce department cuz it’s freaking fun!), , , , and

19/11/2023

15/11/2023

Shared some details on my blog for ya. Link in comments

14/11/2023

After 8 years, here you go! I still haven’t held a copy in my hands, but it’s available for you right now in paperback and kindle. I have a hundred copies on order, which I’ll be approaching Bob at Zenith Bookstore with, but wanted to make these available right now for out-of-towners.

Lit Up: Out of the cubicle and into the real world

Lit Up: Out of the cubicle and into the real world

09/11/2023

30/09/2023

Twas a momentous day:
1. After crashing through a wall of depression, I finished the final read-through of my next book.
2. Settled on a title and subtitle for the sucker.
3. Shawna can finally move forward with painting the cover image (perhaps early November is realistic).
4. Enjoyed a 4-mile walk/run/walk at a grandfatherly pace without iPhone/Strava/camera. Dandy
5. Joey caught his first steelhead after maybe 200 hours of otherworldly focus.

29/09/2023

Hope springs from the most unlikely places, when you least expect it, and, sometimes, when you need it most.
With so much rain these days, a long lost sunflower seed finally found its purpose. Reach for the stars, little fella, time is short!
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05/09/2023

Yesterday’s harvest/delivery/cleanup and fresh series of plantings began an hour before dawn and ended an hour prior to sunset, so we’ll call it a wash. During that period I walked past our vacant chicken coop about 50 times. Part of the mothballing process involved sowing a cover crop of buckwheat, which emerged as I got started. By the end of the day, when I was 90 minutes late to a picnic dinner with family, the plants had put on a full two inches, though they were barely discernible in the morning.
I made the decision to relocate the hens in the blink of an eye, when it became obvious that they were creating stress for a neighbor, unbeknownst to me. Full neighborhood support is essential, and since they aren’t mission-critical, the decision was simple. Buying eggs, however, is unbelievably lame.
Anyhow, yesterday’s odd harvest day was the last of the weirdness surrounding moving my daughter to the University of Michigan. 3 days away impacts 3 weeks! I planted the crops currently filling out the grocery cases the morning after we returned.
But, Emma loves both plants and people, so I suppose things’ll work out fine, even if things are a whole lot quieter around here as I watch the plants grow.

02/09/2023

Processing transition through writing. Mostly this is through words bashed into a physical page each morning, but today I wanted to share a little somethin…..

The dust storm bore down like something out of the Sahara. Before being swallowed up, I turned my head toward the clear skies in which logging truck was headed at breakneck speed along gravel road,…

30/08/2023

1. While moving her in, because I tend to flush any nearby toilet A LOT, I identified a significant plumbing issue and three maintenance peeps were on the scene in moments. If I still had a resume, this would feature near the top.
2. Ann Arbor has the most amazing community gardens I’ve ever seen. It was the perfect spot for a Trader Joe’s picnic. Thank you Rick in produce for the tip!
3. Target, near a flagship school of 50,000, is a gong show! Thank goodness Emma made such a pretty list.
4. Driving back to our Air BNB the next day, fleeing the HOT dorm room, a tornado touched down somewhere to our left, bearing debris 22,000 feet into the night sky completely unseen, but felt while we trundled down the freeway. Later, it landed earthbound somewhere to our right. Speeding down some frontage road, winds swirled large trees, branches fell and debris was strewn about. I applied the gas like we were in some apocalypse movie. Terrified, we made it back to our basement apartment.
5. Next day, van’s on empty but all gas stations are closed with 650,000 folks across a wide area without power.
6. Time to go, so much unfinished in the banking realm, etc, but it was impossible to assist with much of anything. And then
7. The scope of the entire U Michigan’s internet problem became clearer as school started this week. They’re under some kind of ransom ware attack, and have shut down the internet system-wide. It’s kind of frightening, actually, just how fragile this internet world is.
8. So, I busted out my Smith Corona typewriter and mailed her a letter. Well, ok, now it’s three.
9. I have no pictures of my son in welding school, the other half of our twins, but he’s home and we get to argue about the car to our hearts’ content.
10. I’ve driven over the Mackinac Bridge 5 times this year.

25/07/2023

Attempted an Impromptu photo shoot for an placard tonight. Def doesn’t come naturally to me. I think I’d prefer to use the typewriter for the mugshot, but enough complaining, I’ve got to finish today’s page. It’ll be day 10 of journaling by typewriter. Take a peek at the link in my story.
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23/06/2023

Installing that clothesline on the deck, the first one we’ve had in years, brought me back to pre-farm/post layoff days when I learned to follow eccentricities down the rabbit hole. The farm’s genesis traces back to an obsession with making use of sunshine on our little property. Wrote a little ditty about it on the blog, and please don’t mention to Shawna that I just might have snuck a pair of un**es onto the line in there somewhere. She hates that.
**esonthelinestrategicallyoutofsight

23/06/2023

In many ways, the genesis of this farm traces to an absurd affinity for clotheslines…

Installing that clothesline atop our deck, after arguing over options for 18 months, feels amazing. Our entire household economy depends upon learning to use this space we’re stewarding, a 11…

16/06/2023

The latest thing:

Prognosticating, 18 years ago, I saw this day coming as a lumbering freight train. Impossible to stop. Inbound with a load of depression to feather our nest. Outbound with all our kids. Always in t…

30/05/2023

https://eddygilmore.com/2023/05/30/duluths-duluthiest-entrepreneur-embodies-artistic-success/

Running into this beaver yesterday, in the most unlikely of places, reminds me of Duluth’s answer to Donald Trump: The entrepreneur/property mogul/recording artist quietly goes about his work…

24/05/2023

Rant alert! I created this ad for the school newspaper, for which my daughter serves as editor, because I can’t afford to subsidize a product for a mostly well-to-do population without some form of return. That’s a fact, not a complaint. Emma has shelled out hundreds of dollars of her own money to insure the paper’s survival, because it isn’t valued by the powers that be, though the cost is a fraction of something as insignificant as office supplies.
On the bright side, my hope is this provides an enduring lesson going forward. The system (bureaucracies, etc) cannot be counted on for validation, support, or anything beyond a begrudging allowance of a bit of air to breathe for anyone wielding gifts outside of the realms of all-holy STEM or sport.
Fact is, they’ll never come around. “They” are the ones with the levers at most levels of society. We can remain grateful for their service while simultaneously using our gifts as a generous offering, a contribution to the glorious symphony, all the while understanding that the majority (ever enveloped in bean counting and inevitably losing sight of Forest for the trees) will never understand, appreciate, or endorse. Our task is to press on anyway.

20/05/2023

This week’s harvest required 100+ back-and-forth trips from grow room to walk-in cooler. Two dozen tulips clamped shut in a light rain enchanted me on each leg of the journey, calling to mind Beauty’s balm on the day I lost my job almost nine years ago, along with another crop we’ve been rearing that’s now coming into fruit. Wrote a short blog about it, link in today’s stories, or easily findable on the narcissistic website bearing my name.

20/05/2023

https://eddygilmore.com/2023/05/20/simple-beauty-carries-you/

Harvest day was too damp and cold for Shawna to pack adjacent to the walk-in cooler, forcing me to make a hundred+ back and forth trips. On each journey, hauling cut microgreens in large totes (bac…

03/05/2023

The farm is art.
Art is commerce.
Commerce is community.

It tends to be interesting when the van is employed for hauling. Today’s collision of art and farm involves a large garden box and a 4 foot long painting we had scan through their surprisingly involved process. Our limitations force us to combine such trips, creating fascinating intersections. Also dropped off a painting
To quote Jim Morrison, “Pretty neat. Pretty cool.”

30/04/2023

Also featured, in addition to our 3-legged stool, is access to the outdoors. Ever holding onto our tether….
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22/04/2023

Complementary skill sets.
“This is the way.”
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18/04/2023

Whirring fans are a reminder to home gardeners to consider airflow when planting starts indoors.
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