We're very excited, and it's going very well so far.

Jackie has gotten some of the equipment we need, from fiber-active friends who took a brief interest in flax and linen. (We have an improvised hackle, for example.) My main concern is retting—where are we going to let a whole field of plants soak in water for long enough that the vegetable matter rots away?

But it's really all an experiment anyway. If it doesn't work out, our actual loss will be very small—a few dollars for seeds, a few more for whatever equipment we end up needing to buy, a few hours of working the soil (which we'd have had to spend anyway, no matter what we planted).