During the last few years I've been thinking that doing most of my work in front of a computer is not healthy or happy and perhaps it isn't even the most productive routine.
I think that I need a mix of physical labour and brain work. The physical labour would keep me happy and strong, and the intellectual work would keep me sharp and entertained. And treadmill desks seem ridiculous.
Having a vegetable garden or living in a small farm and working in it in the morning, then working on programming and other Matrushka tasks would seem ideal; get some fresh air, get a dose of endorphins, produce tasty veggies and have some time to think.
So... We're going to test it! Fernanda (my partner and also Matrushka co-founder) and I are moving to a house just outside of Guadalajara where we'll have enough room to have a large vegetable garden, perhaps some hens or other small animals (bees?) and try what would seem a richer mix of work types.
This stream will (hopefully) be a mixed bag of farm-ish pictures, insights on our hybrid lifestyle and on managing a young opinionated web dev company and a micro-farm together.
Just last week, construction workers started tearing down walls, repairing roofs and doing all kinds of work to prepare our new home to become the Dev Farm.
[soon] :)
I'm reading (or rather, listening to) the book Folks, this ain't normal, it's an interesting read.
The author, Joel Salantin, talks about how abnormal our relationship with food production is, and how far removed from the origins or our food we are.
A friend of ours has a IoT related project, a product that would help people take care of their gardens.
A farm with developers would be a good place to test tech for farms, I guess.
It has been two months and a half since I last wrote here. A lot has happened since, the most important event being that construction work concluded and we finally moved to the house.
As moving always does, this has required a ton of effort and for a while made us stop other projects but now we started working on fixing stuff around the house.
We are confirming it: starting the day with vigorous physical work (digging trenches, turning the compost, loosening soil) is a great way to boost the mood. It just feels more natural to have a day of mixed activities: some on the computer, some outside.
The dogs are loving it, too. I don't see myself giving up the mixed work any time soon.
Smelling soil, getting dirty, watching seeds sprout, watering plants, etc. is a great bunch of stimuli that you just don't get from an office space :)
I think that big companies should start adding farms next to (or on top of) office buildings. Gardening instead of (or in addition to) foosball tables!