Fairy-Tale Farm

Even a small working urban farm such as ours needs a way to get essential farm materials brought here. Currently we are a bicycle-only house, although we car share with our neighbors and rent cars whenever we need to go out of town.

When I come back with a rental car, if there is time I like to run a few errands before returning it to the agency. The below videos are a quick view of how I fit three rice straw bales in the back of a Toyota Corolla:

I put a tarp down to cover the rear seat. This is a lesson learned from past experience.  One time I brought back a mini-van that I had filled with seven bales of straw, then did a fair but not perfect sweeping job on it. When I returned it, the rental folks were bent out of shape. I was kind but firm; I didn’t do anything wrong, really, and I offered to clean the car further, especially if they’d lend me the shop vac, but I wasn’t paying any fees.  In the end, it turned out they thought I had laid down a bed of straw to transport farm animals. Sheese!  It’s just some straw, folks.

While I was checking the videos, I found Nancy Day, a woman in Ontario(?), who last year who got thirteen straw bales on her Toyota Corolla. Wow!  However, when I watched how she loaded and strapped them in, I realized I could never get that load home across my city.  She mentions at the end of the second video that she has to drive home via back roads.  There aren’t back roads between my straw sources and Fairy-Tale Farm.  I could get lucky and not be spotted with a huge load, but I’m more likely to get a citation for an unsafe or too-large load.

Next time, though, I’m going to shoot for five straw ebales using some borrowed techniques.

Tags: challenges, city living, how-to, mulch, straw, strawbales, sustainability, video