Farming & Family with Maude Hélène Desroches & J M Fortier

So we're here in Kiel and I'm with Jean Martin, Fortier. Cheers. Nice meeting you. And we've just been listening to Jean Martin and his wife Marlene talk about running their farm, but also the personal life and actually today's video. I don't want to talk about farming. I want to talk about life and some of these other things. So we've been talking over lunch a bit about how season's gone and for me it's been really hard year. I think those of you following us have seen that it's been an interesting process with the drought we've been through, but it's also been an exhausting process. And we're in a space to totally redefine where we go with our farm in certain ways that I've talked about on the channel. And it was interesting to talk to these guys as a couple and as farmers and as public people too. And today it was the first time you've done a sort of public presentation with your wife. And. Yeah, I wondered how you feel about that and how it is to come out and work together in a public way.

Well, you know, first of all, I was very emotional just seeing her and listening to her and tell our story, but from a different. She tells it differently. It's like more feminine. I don't want to say more real, but just more. Less. Yeah, just like more. More deep. Yeah. And for me, you know, I cry and I'm happy for her because, you know, also what happens, I think is that, you know, I took on a lot of things because I, you know, I wasn't taking care of the kids so much and now my kid's just a bit older and now she gets to do some of that that I did. And I think I'm just happ for her. And I know that I think in the room people liked her a lot more than me. So I think it's awesome.

No, I think it's really awesome way to approach it. And it's a subject that's really like both, like constantly on my mind but heavy on my heart, you know, having worked so hard for five years at our farm. And I was describing at lunch how we, you know, I just feel like I lifted my head out the water for the first time in five years. And you were being quite reassuring that like, you know, that's, that's you can relate to and everyone relates to and it's. But I think it's something not talked about enough, like how to create work life balance, how to create, how to work with your partner, that's a major step for, you know, it's hard enough. It's hard enough having a family, having a child together, but it's hard enough running a business, let alone a farming business together. And so I was really excited to hear a bit of your perspectives of how you create balance. And actually I think a great format for this video is I had an idea of interviewing Modelen and Jean Martin together about this. But we're late in the evening now after the day's events and you guys are off to Denmark. So I thought I would take some clips from the actual talk because Mardellin's conversation was all about this subject and I think she's spot on with it.

Yeah.

Cool.

So we'll play some clips of that more the lens talk will more focus on the role of people in that kind of agricultural system. Because, I mean, we also talked about that before.

It's also important to know how are.

People involved in this kind of agricultural production system. So that's going to be the part.

For the remaining one hour we have.

So just to put you into context, I'll be sharing some of our family story. Very personal. So the idea of having kids and farming can be tricky, but I think it's tricky to have kids. It's just like being a professional in any domain. But it ended up that we started farming at the same time as we started our family. And it's a good thing that we had planned to have our baby that would be born in winter, so we would have some months to be with the baby. So that's also part of good planning, how important it is. So we started the farm with a four month old baby, as Ramatin said, living in a teepee for the six summer months, we can say, and did it all, you know, like started earning csa, starting a new farmer's market, building infrastructures, putting up greenhouses, having the baby on my shoulders all the time, nursing at night, never sleeping. So it was hard time for Jean Martin and I even we were like pumping. It was high energy. And so it took us five years before thinking, oh, maybe we recovered and we can have another baby. So that was quite long just because we were still super tired from this. And when our second baby arrived again in winter, We thought we would do things differently. And we decided that, well, by that time we had bought the new property, so our house was about finished building, but yet it was still expanding like more buildings for welcoming the employees. And Jean Martin had started writing a book and there was many more projects like going on more greenhouses to build and all. And yet we decided to do it differently. So I would spend the morning with the baby and he would be farming in the afternoon. We would switch. And so for me, it was really important to stay involved in the work on the farm because I love that and also wanted to keep working, not be full time dad. So we decided to share and it was really beneficial to us. And also as for our first baby, the second year of his life, we would send our young kid to daycare, like progressively for the first year, like would be three days a week and four days a week. And once the kid was five, it was full time daycare. But yet we could go get our kid early. So because we stay home, you know, it offers flexibility. So life balance. So work in tune with your values. These are like, this is the core. If you want to have a good life balance, to have work that you love, that makes sense to you and keep asking yourself, does it still make sense? And that can be every six months, every year, you know, just keep being flexible with your idea of how your farm is designed. Does it still fulfill, like the sense that I need so for a good life balance, for sure, a good planning, making sure your project is financially viable with really great mission. It's not enough. Just you need money. And it's really stressful in the family when money is not there. So we cannot say it enough. Don't go into farming if it doesn't work on paper. If it doesn't balance out. Find a way to balance it out on paper. Just don't say it's going to be all right. So that needs to be a solid plan and that would help us a lot because Charles plan is better with numbers. And I was all very insecure the first years because we would spend like crazies, like, you know, buying greenhouses and building our house, like on our credit cards. And it was like really hectic at first. But we had the business plan. And Jean Martin would always refer to the business plan. It was like, okay, it will work out. So they remember to smooth things out. Again, the schedule, like from eight to five for us, it just made sense since we have a little boy from the beginning. At 5, it was clear we were stopping. We needed to prepare dinner, we needed to be there. And same for the morning, a little family time. It was really in that way that we started with the schedule, with the tight schedule. And that's been really beneficial to us. And also Sundays and always been like, you know, in the old Days people would go to church. Like for us it was time off and that was really important and it still is. So no compromise on that. And so the idea of like saving your own life, your own life and like maybe being a good business person as well. And also don't hesitate to go get help if you need more help. Like be it in the field, in the house with the babies, like employees, you know, there's many ways to get help parents. But it's important to surround yourself properly, not to work too much. So this whole idea of rhythm to be at the center of your business and so your business is serving you instead of you serving the business. So again, just common sense, keep it healthy and have fun. So the two things are important. So if you're not going to sleep, it's for a good reason, it's because it's a really good party. But otherwise like stay fit. And so I'll share some psychology and one on one some tricks we've learned through the years. Take time for yourself, for your beloved and for your lovely kids. So the time for yourself is the one we were not necessarily taught to take and the opportunity to write down and really think seriously on the things that you want to accomplish in life and that you like, that you want to do. So this is a really important point in, in one's life, be it farming or not. But if we're going to live together, we need to honor first ourselves. We want to live in harmony with the others. So setting personal goals to be happy about. I need my personal goals to be happy about my life. And I think it's a really good exercise to just sit and write down what is it I want? It can be three things and you can reassess those three things every week, every month, every year but really focus on those things to make sure they happen. And once you know what you want, take care of fulfilling your needs because you're the only person that's aware of your needs. So that's the important part, taking care of fulfilling your needs. Something that really helped us in there with the non violent communication. It's a way, I thought it was a way to really understand what our needs in life. So and to just in any situation in life like if you feel uncomfortable it's because there's something that's not being some need that's not being responded. So I invite you to read some of this author's non violent communication. I think it's Rosebend Rosenbert. Thank you. So again, cultivating joy can help and the letting go also of the things that you don't like, not focusing so much on those things. So thinking of the things that you like instead, be it, you know, with your partner, with your kids. And the more you focus on the things that you don't like, the more those things manifest in your life. So it's really important to change the focus on what is it that you want to see happening time for your beloved outside work time. So farming can be a tricky business because you work full time with your partner and so taking some time outside the work. And know that it's really important to put this into your schedule because love does not just happen by magic. You need to put energy into it. And sometimes it can feel foamy. But the most you will put energy into loving the more it comes. So it's the strange way to talk about love, but it's important to frame it into like, let's take time, let's take time to cultivate love. And the special time with your little ones is one that can really change it all. Because having some harmony with the kids really helps alleviate like all aspects of life. If it's really hard with the kids at home, it can really make it difficult in the whole, whole spectrum of life. So a book that really helped, that came on My Way, a friend just like left at home at some point. And it was a really amazing book written by, I think it's a child specialist psychologist. And the one message that resonates the most in this book is make sure that you let your kids know that they are the most important things that happens in your life and that they have never any doubt about that. And sometimes we take it for granted for sure. My kid knows I like him and you tell him I like it. I know, don't I like you. I like you. I like you, my kid. But it's like you really need to feel it and share it. A special way to do it is just to ask your children, like, I would be really honored if we could spend some time together. What is it that we could do? And often the kid would just like have an idea. And if you can spend 20 minutes just to be super fun, focused on just being together with your children one at a time is better. This can just like settle the information in your kid's being that he feels loved. And it's really subtle, but a lot of kids feel unloved and they kind of play with this idea and they test you just to make sure, like, just to make sure that they are not and sometimes they really try to go really far in this idea. So when they try to go too far, just remember you are the origin, the protector of the magic being. So women and men in power. I like the idea of working together and honoring our differences and the power in uniting. And this whole idea I framed because of this suggestion I have the woman in power. How is it like to be a woman in power? I don't like this idea of dichotomy, like married woman. I really like this idea of working together. So I framed it in three ways. The be confident, make of your partner, your will partner and be a good leader. The be confident part would be just like believe in yourself and believe in the working together and just feel.

Like.

Honored to be able to share a workspace with your partner. And just be confident in your value and the work that you provide, in your ideas, believe in yourself. And if you don't work on can be some of the points that you work on it. When you're on your own, it will happen. Be real partners. So make of your partner. A real partner means to share vision and to keep the dialogue open. Because these things change all the time. What are the vision? What are the needs? So keep talking about that and share responsibilities to try to do everything like side by side all the time. You know, we all need space to be creative, to decide how we would do that. When Jean Martin worked at the farm, you know, I would have like all of my responsibilities and Jean Martin would have his own. And once in a while we could change, but there was. We could make suggestions sometimes to the other one, but it was not super welcome, you know, so it was like, everyone has his department of expertise and it's fun to change those responsibilities once in a while. So important to be humble and say, I'm sorry I was wrong, or you know, and support your partner in fulfilling his or her dreams. So meaning that you're there, you're there to, to help your partner do what he dreams on doing and vice versa. And the last one is be a good leader because we are leaders in our family, in our farm, we have staff working with us in our community. And so a good leader for me is a person that cares for the others and for the earth and listens well before talking. So that's like, yeah, really important to not only have to say what you have to say, but be aware of the vibe around you. Support, encourage and create. Create what you want, what you want to manifest. So be a good example and do your best in life so Always do your best. Even if you're sick one day, you do your best and just keep the vision. The question is how the dynamic changed by the time we worked together and now that Jean Martin is involved on the other farm. And it's been scary at first for me, I was just thinking of those plastics we needed to change on the greenhouse. And I was like, oh. And I was nervous about me being more at home with the kids, you know, coming, like more on my shoulders. And in the end, you know, we just decided to go on with this idea. And it was. It's been good because we used to fight over like, those beats shouldn't be read it now or whatever, you know, like ridiculous arguments. And that was like, that was often, you know, and these things don't happen anymore because we don't work. I think it's been good. Like, we've been great partners. We worked together for more than 10 years, 12 years, and we've managed to have a good time. And there's been challenges because we're humans and it's been pretty good overall. And I think we are grateful for what's on going going on now too, that we can like, each express our ideas on our farms and talk about it. And it's challenging.

I bring my own salad mix from.

My farm and we compare.

Yeah, for me, for me it was a bit different because for Modelani was about her taking over the farm by herself. And for me it was about being able to start something else. So it was kind of a different dynamic. But I'm really grateful that she kind of allowed it in a way for me to keep growing and start something different, something new, and invest my whole being into something new. So I was very grateful. And what I've seen is that the fact that I was not there allowed her also to own the project and really take full credit and responsibility for it. Like, what used to happen was that people would come up to us and say, oh, Jean Martin, your farm is so wonderful. And she's just airs behind.

It's not that. It's because you were like, you were there, happy to share with the visitors. And I was not into welcoming visitors, get the job done. And like, I was not into that. And I've changed my idea now.

You even give presentations now.

I was really touched that you like willing to share that stuff openly together and just in conversation too. I think it's a subject that's not talked about enough and something that's really personally true for me. I'd love to hear from our viewers. I know many of you have found for decades as a family, as a couple that I'd love to hear your strategies for working through the ups and downs and the challenges of running a business and spending a lot of time together, raising kids together in an intensive, often isolated way. I'd really love to hear other people share tales of that and have exposed some of that with some of our past students that I've interviewed recently too. So I really like to share in that way. And yeah, I found this stuff really touching, particularly at the moment. And so I'd love to hear your thoughts about it too. And we've got an interesting and exciting announcement to make. I'm really keen to have JM come over to do a longer term training on farm where we've got all the tools, all the crops, all the animals, kind of like we did this summer with Curtis. And I know a lot of people are excited to to have JM over here. So we've been talking about what we're.

Talking about late, late summer workshop, your place, Sweden. Yeah.

And late July, early August time when the weather's still good so we can host a nice place group there and all the productions are in full ramp in production and something like 3, 4, 5 day something like this. We haven't ironed out any details, but try and get JM over here to really address the up and coming market garden scene that's really taken off in Europe.

And I just got his book so I'm gonna go through that, check it out and then. Yeah, I'm excited.

Yeah, great.

I'm really excited.

So we'll announce something later in the winter as we clarify more details. We're both pretty busy and so ironing out the details will take a little time, but really excited. If you're interested to attend such an event and have any thoughts or comments, please leave them in the comments below. And JM can see them wherever he is and I'll be taking note of them as well. Thanks so much for watching folks. Hope you enjoyed today's video. See you in the next one.