11 Oct Sun 2009
Keep Your Lawn Short Or
THINGS I'VE RUN OVER BY ACCIDENT
So we moved onto an old farm. Six generation of families have lived here before us. Six generations of buying tools and loosing them to the outdoors. Working on a tractor you get done and the crow bar was left on the side. As you read on I know I am not going to look good. But in the interest of true life I've decided to be fourth coming about some of the more boneheaded things I've done while mowing and tilling.
I have no one to blame but myself, yet I don't. You know the part about making mistakes and not repeating them. All that goes out the window when I talk about sitting on the mower or the tractor.
At least with tilling I have a very good excuse. I mean the stuff is underground, at least 99.9 precent has been anyway. When I hit something with the tiller I stop, dig it up and place it in my "stuff I've tilled" pile. It is just like my "stuff I've mowed" pile but it's a much smaller pile defying all logic. Although the area I till is greater than the area I mow I somehow seem to do more damage with the five foot mower deck than the six foot tiller. Actually, I do more damage to the five foot mower deck.
Yet of all the things I've run over I do not think I'm actually all that responsible, completely. really. I mean, I am driving the mower each time and I can honestly say I have never run over anything on purpose. I mean who purposely hits an iron cap to the clean-out pipe? And then its plastic replacement.
The land around our house has a lot of stone out-croppings. I've taken a sledge hammer to the ones that where deceptively low or I guess their deceptively high. You only have to hit a rock once to remember where it was. But, then again there was three acres of lawn.
I've estimated that I've spent eight hours on my back untwisting things stuck in the mower blades. Things that other people have left on the ground or have not put away, well mostly others. I've spent six hours replacing blades and five hours replacing belts. The mower itself has only 233 total hours of run time. I know the numbers are not in my favor but what can I say. I try not to cut the lawn but sometimes we can't find the barn and I don't have a choice.
So I begrudgingly get on the mower and start mowing around the gardens, orchards, water tanks, trellises and out-buildings. While this is happening I'm looking up front to see if there is anything in the way. Grant it I'm looking for chickens, rabbits, frogs, cats, stones, boulders, wood or any of the myriad of other things in the grass. I can be candid and say I’ve never run over a chicken, baby rabbit or any living creater. So in the interest of full discloser below is a list of things that I've found with the lawn mower;
metal wire 3/8th inch 59 ft long with tensioner;
Three strand electric fence 60 ft long
6 ft wide black landscape fabric 10 ft; long
Chicken wire - 6 feet by 10 feet I was quick on stopping the PTO that time.
1 light post; 1 garden hose 25 ft long
Various wood planks, pallet edges and boulders
Steel drain pipe cap; plastic drain pipe cap (different years though)
Black walnuts, ok, they are on purpose how else can you get the meat out of them?
Does top soil count?
Tilling the ground has its own perils but I can't take credit for any of it with the exception of the chicken wire. When we put our first garden in I encased it in chicken wire. I buried about a foot and had five feet sticking out of the ground. It works great for keeping the critters out and protecting the vegetables. We had the fence up for three years. Each end was open so I could get the tiller in and closed once we were done.
One fall day I was preparing the bed for its winter cover and got too close to the side of the fence. Before I knew it the tiller got a piece of the fence and the fence starting coming at me like a rocket. Before I could kill the PTO, the tiller tines had wrapped about fifty feet of the fence around themselves. As it was wrapping around the tines the fence was compacting. Six feet by five feet compressed into about three inches wide. Getting that out took about five hours but knock on wood it was the first and only time.
So, I make mistakes but I really try not to run over things, especially those that wrap around the blades and spindles. Getting them out is not easy and serves to be the greatest motivator when avoiding trouble. My advice to all, keep your lawns short.
Buy Local - From a farmer not a chain hard selling the fact.
16 Sep Wed 2009
The House
The farm house we live in was built in 1837 by David and Richard Specht. David was the original owner. He bought the land from Charles Caroll a signer of the Declartion of Independance. They built the house with clay bricks they made by hand from materials dug on the property.
The floor joists are solid trees with the bark still attached. On the second floor one room has the ceiling exposed to the roof. When you look up you see they used wooden dowls to secure the wood in place for the attic floor joists. The wood itself has hand honed marks on it where you can see they smoothed it out.
Each room has its own fireplace which are very shallow. We were told that's how coal fireplaces were designed. The rooms themselves have ten foot ceilings. The walls are covered in horse hair plaster, no lattice work just plaster slapped up against the brick interieror of the house. The house exterior itself is made three bricks deep and has widows sills that are almost a foot and a half deep.
My wife started researching the history behind the house and found that among other things that the brothers Specht had a run in with Union soldiers. It seems when the Union was getting ready to attack the Confederate Army at Point of Rocks, Maryland they tour down fences in case they needed to retreat. Well the Specht brothers didn't like having their fences down and their cows running free so they built them up.
As it turned out the Union did have to beat a retreat from Point of Rocks and when they came upon the Specht property they did not like that the fences were restored. In his book The History of Carrollton Manor, 1928, William Jarboe Grove surmizes that had the Union had any ammunition left the brothers would not have lived to tell about it.
Another little bit of written history was the demise of David Specht himself. It was written that he went out during a bad storm to check on the house when a brick fell and hit him in the head. Since Mr. Specht there have only been six owners of the farm house.
So when it came time to renovate the house we were advised that the cheapest and quickest way to accomplish what we wanted to do was to tear the house down and build it from scratch. Knowing what we knew about the house we just could not bring ourselves to make that decision. It did cost more and it did take longer to fix. But, you can't replace history, you can't replace the kind of hand craftsmanship that was put into this house and you'll never replace the hopes and dreams that first built this house.
We are mere stewards, keeping the place up so that hopefully generations from now, someone else will read the history and decide that the house is to precious to tear down and build from scratch and will want to preserve it for as yet unknown generations.
Buy local - from a farmer not from a chain advertising "Local"
06 Sep Sun 2009
Green Manure and other nitrogen fixers
We use field rotation and cover crops as a way of resting and building our soils' nutrients and tilth. It is also a way to cut down on our weeds. Some plants like "Morning Glory" are invasive species and seeds can be viable for up to fifty years. It has become one of my goals to eradicate them. The Federal Government categorizes Morning Glory as a noxious weed. It has a beautiful flower and we suspect was used around outhouses in the days before modern plumbing because it is so prevalent here. In order to get that flower, the vines of the morning glory wrap around anything that is vertical. The vine climbs and squeezes its host; usually corn, tomatoes, peppers; you get the picture. As the host plant grows so too does the vine until the vine chokes out its host.
Sort of a parasitic relationship when you look at the whole process. Then to have the seeds viable for so long it has become the scourge of our farm. I can be doing something totally unrelated to weeding and see one and it will draw my attention. I'm sure there is something clinical about this behavior but I figure due diligence is a must with this weed.
We use a farm practice that is frowned upon but we do it because it works and we can eliminate run off. The growing ecological trend is to disturb the soil the least amount possible. In order to plant, farmers use what is called a drill press planter. It is referred to as No-Till planting. With No-till practices managing weeds takes on two varied methods. If you are conventional then weeds are sprayed. On the organic side cover crops are used for their ability to be rolled over and flattened and stay flat enough for the planted seed to germinate. This works well along with cover cropping in general.
What we do is till, but we till on flat land so run off doesn't exist. If done incorrectly, tilling soil leads to erosion, run-off, and depletion of nutrients and loss of topsoil. It is one of the factors that created the Great Dust Bowl in the 1930's. The areas that we own that are sloped are put in pasture and cover cropping. Cover cropping is a way to keep weeds down while adding natural nitrogen back to the soil. We have a multi-tiered approach to weed control and yes heat is one aspect (see Are We Done Planting...)
Depending on the use of the land, we will do the following; starting in early spring as soon as the ground temperature reaches forty degrees we will do a deep till then let the land sit. We'll wait for the weeds to come up and fill the tilled area. I'll then do a shallow till between two-three inches deep. It is important to note that you do not want to wait for the weeds to get seed heads. The reason you want the weeds to grow is to expend the seeds in the ground. Letting the weeds mature to seed heads defeats the purpose.
After the shallow till we will plant with grasses and nitrogen-fixing legumes. If the chickens are going on the land we will plant rye and hairy vetch (a legume). Once the seeds have germinated and grass is established we move the chickens on to feast. They eat the bugs, the grasses and leave behind fertilizer. They get moved periodically so that manure is evenly distributed in the field but more importantly for the chickens' health.
The next season’s production gardens are treated differently. First they've been rested for a year with just green manure on them. In the spring of the second year they are tilled and planted as described above. For the spring, summer, fall and winter the chickens stay on them. The difference is after the first six months of the second year the chickens are moved to another production garden and we till the area and plant grasses. The rotation on the next year's production garden is such that we have seeded fields, fields ready to mature and mature fields. That way the chickens always have fresh grass to be moved onto when the current plot has been used up. The chickens are moved every three days onto a new patch of grass and this dance takes place all year long. In the spring of the production year the area is deep tilled and left for weed seeds to grow. It is tilled one last time and planted with production vegetables and cover crops.
This practice is great for the birds, the land and the vegetables that inevitably benefit. The birds are out in the open and get fresh air and grass and clean space. This practice eliminates respiratory ailments, the need for anti-biotic because they are not standing ankle deep in their own waste and cuts down on the spread of a disease. Think about it, the first thing we want to do when cooped up for long periods of time is to get outside and take a deep breath. We all crave it at some point in time. That is one of the underlining factors for us as an ecologically sensitive operation that uses sustainable practices.
Buy Local - from a farmer not from a chain that advertises "Local"
02 Sep Wed 2009
To wash or not to wash?
When a chicken lays an egg the shell is covered with a protein outer covering known as the "bloom". The bloom quickly dries and seals the egg from pathogens from the outside world. This is a good thing especially if the egg is going to be incubated or remain fresh. Because the egg is sealed nothing penetrates the shell and gets into the inner part. However, before you sell them you must wash the bloom off.
The logical question that comes to mind is why do we have to wash the egg's protection off creating a permeable shell? If the bloom keeps pathogens out of the albumen (white) and yolk why would we remove that protected coating? Not only does it keep things out it also does not allow the inside to dry out, keeping the egg fresher longer. A commercial egg left in the refrigerator will slowly dry from the inside. It will also absorb the odors that are in the ice box too.
An egg that has not been washed can remain unrefrigerated for up to three months. Wash the bloom off and the egg cannot last a day with temperatures above 45 degrees before it starts to develop salmonella and other bacteria harmful to the digestive tract.
There has been a fight to get egg producers to date stamp individual eggs, this is required in the UK but not herein the US. I saw a news show awhile back that did an expose on egg producers recycling old unsold eggs back into the food chain. If you've ever bought a carton of eggs and get them home and crack one open and the white is very cloudy you've probably gotten one.
When you buy a fresh egg the albumen should be clear with the exception of the chalaza. The chalaza is the strand that anchors the egg to the shell. This strand will be solid white. The yolk should be standing tall and proud. The yolk color from a free range or organic egg will be dark orange, hence the high beta carotene content. Its commercial counter part will look yellow to pale yellow if it has been recycled. Because the shell is permeable the egg white can be smaller do to shrinkage and the egg can take on the properties of what it has absorbed.
If eggs were individually date stamped then they couldn't get recycled the way they are doing now, creating a safer egg supply. Let’s get this straight; people get sick because of bad food in the industrial food supply. Other people point this out, document the abuses and lobby their leaders for change. What happens is people with more money hire insiders or just give money directly to campaigns and our leaders end up doing nothing. Sure there are counter arguments that they will point to and the will of the people is of utmost consideration, they'll say. Yet this is the same group that says we must wash eggs before we sell them.
Why? Because we as consumers can't be trusted to safely handle the eggs and we'll contaminate ourselves. In the interest of objectivity an egg does come from the chicken's vent. The vent is used to expel everything from the chicken. So the outer shell of the egg is contaminated when it comes out. This is important to note, the outer shell is contaminated not the inner shell or the albumen or the yolk.
Sometimes our eggs do have particulate matter on them but because of the bloom it does not come in contact with the inside of the egg. Can an unwashed egg make some one sick if not handled correctly? YES, it can. Will it make us sick if it is handled properly, NO. Is it hard to safely handle an unwashed egg, no. Wash the egg and your hands before use and your fine. Chicken itself can cause more cross contamination and illness than a dirty egg but I digress.
I'm sure I'll wrap my head around this someday but until then I'll keep raising chickens for their eggs. For the record we are a registered egg producer and all the eggs we sell are washed per regulations. The eggs we keep for ourselves are not.
Eat safe fresh vegetables purchased from a local farmer, not a chain hard selling that fact.
26 Aug Wed 2009
Why doesn't everyone else know?
We have been at this farmer's market for about six weeks. There is a mix of vegetable growers and other stands that make up the total market. Foot traffic is good, not great but good. There is a grower a couple of stalls down that is young and sells mainly corn, tomatoes and melons. I don't pay much attention to the other vendors because I read my insect book or am taking care of customers.
The day was beautiful, sunshine, light breeze, low humidity and we were seeing more and more repeat customers. One told us that the jam she purchased last week was the best she had ever tasted. At the same time another repeat customer was buying two more jars of jam based on his last purchase. We said thank you and I slowly patted my wife on her back. It was her idea. labor and her mom's recipe. It was turning out to be a good day.
We were selling organic eggs, our carrots had started to come in, the string beans bounced back and our raspberry plants started producing. So our offerings were diversified and plentiful. At one point in time I spotted a customer coming back to us with a box of our eggs. My stomach dropped because the look on her face was not pleasant. I was dealing with a customer so I got my wife’s attention and motioned for her to check out and see what the customer wanted. She had gone home, went to put the eggs away and realized she had only received nine. Of all the mistakes we make and have made, this one was the most embarrassing. Once I realized what had happened I excused myself from the other customer and immediately started asking her what she liked that we had. At the same time my wife was getting her more eggs. I asked about a couple vegetables and got to the potatoes. She said she didn't have potatoes so I gave her a pound of the German Butter Ball and apologized profusely. She left, hopefully satisfied and maybe to return.
Then at closing the young farmer from a couple stalls down came up to look at what we had. He asked about the German Queen tomatoes, we were selling. These things are huge weighing between 1.25-1.75 lbs each. They are by far the biggest we've grown. The skin is thin, seed pod small and flesh is sweet. As I'm telling him this I'm looking into his eyes and seeing sadness. We all look tired and worn down, that is part of the job. It is physically and mentally challenging. Your mind is always ready to give up before your body is but you know this and go on to the next chore.
I use the term heart-wrenching a lot when describing things on the farm because those words invoke a visceral reaction. We all know what heart break is in all its forms. But to use those words makes one understand the physical and emotional toll taking place within the person. What I was seeing and hearing from this young man was heart-wrenching.
He is at his cross roads. He works full time on a dairy farm; he grows five acres of vegetables in his spare time. He is having trouble making ends meet. He doesn't know if he'll be able to pay off all his bills by the end of the growing season. As he was standing there telling me his young wife came up and put her arm around him. I asked, "How’d it go today?" He started to grouse but his wife pulled his arm and he shifted some and kicked the dirt and said "not that bad". A customer came up to their stand and his wife went to take care of them.
I had stopped tearing down and was just talking to him. I could tell he was in despair and was looking for some sort of guidance or a kind word or words of encouragement. He told me that other people he talked to told him to stay in it that things would change. I didn't tell him they were right or wrong. I just said that this is an incredibly hard thing to do and not many people really understand the sacrifice and toll it takes on us. That he wasn't alone in his doubt and his struggles. The last time I stopped breaking down and talked to someone my wife got livid, at least at that time we had help. This time it was just her and I was torn. Should I cut him off and help her or should I do what many have done for me in the past and that was to lend a sympathetic ear and maybe some advice and encouragement.
She could hear the conversation and knew the plight of the young vegetable farmer. I empathized with him and told him about the MD Small Farm Co-op. I told him by joining he would meet people like us who pull our resources and are able to buy in bulk thus cutting down on overall costs. I gave him my name and number and told him if he had any questions to call. This all seemed woefully inadequate but it was the best I could do. For my wife's part she continued breaking down and when he left I helped finish up. She didn't say a word. We packed up and headed home. What should have been a pleasant trip after a good day selling was just silent. It seemed both of us were thinking about the young man and his wife.
It was a good day for us but when you see the pain, self-doubt and struggle that someone like you is going through you can't help but question why is this so hard and why doesn't everyone else know?
PLEASE-buy local, find a farmer around you, go visit them, try what they have for sale. If you don't like what you got tell them that and tell them why. Vegetable farmers live on feedback. If there is something you'd like them to grow, tell them. It can only help with their future plans. The more sustainable farmers we keep in business the healthier the environment and all of us will be in the long run.
24 Aug Mon 2009
What Nature Brings
We have a hen that has taken to, let me see, how to say this so I keep a "G" rating. We have a hen that has taken to being the rooster. I kid you not. She has taken on the roll of the fertilizer or pretend fertilizer. I've said before we've only been raisng hens for three years going on four. So I might think I've seen it all, but apperantly that's not true. My wife read a book that said hens can change gender but we never took it seriously.
We thought it was one of those things, except we have this chicken that doesn't really fight the other hens as much as she gets on their backs. A rooster when he is in procreation mode will grab a hen by the back of her neck holding her down so he can do what a rooster does. My wife said she thought she saw this behavior in one of our hens, but me being me, I wouldn't believe it until I saw the event for myself.
We were all eating lunch one day sitting outside in the shade and enjoying a slight breeze. I was facing the pen of the second generation hens. Their numbers have dwindled due to a neighbor's errent dog, but the ones that survived have rebounded and they are pretty good layers. It was a Saturday and we had picked corn for taste testing. We feed our help most times and its always a good time when breaking bread with them. No matter what I cook they always seem to like it. Of course when you work on an organic vegetable farm you tend to work up a big appetite. Male or female they can all put food away. So I cooked the corn for everyone and we were sitting there enjoying the sweet taste and the respite.
If the hens start fighting or going crazy I usually yell at them which startles them and is enought to return the flock to some sort of harmony. I heard a commotion and looked up to see a hen on top of another hen biting and holding her down while seemingly girating like the rooster does. I looked at my wife; she gave me a look and just shrugged. I yelled, then got up to get closer and yelled again. That broke the hovering hen's concentration and her captive scurried away. So, once again I think I've seen it all.
We kid ourselves by thinking we've got a handle on things. Then we discover that the learning curve just seems to keep bending upward. But, these are things that nature brings.
Buy Local - from a farmer, not from a chain that advertises "Local"
19 Aug Wed 2009
Good times are not always around the corner
It’s the third week of August and flock three of our Rhode Island Reds have just started to lay eggs. They are so small you can hold half a dozen in your hand. This is a big day for us, a day we've been looking forward to ever since March 19th, 2009. They have made it this far healthy, happy and vigorous. The one rooster we got (by accident) has grown to be quite the leader. His problem is he is too big and the hens are smaller, thinner and faster.
Here they are at a day old.
You spend a lot of time with them making sure they are ok, that they don't get Coccidiosis, that their pen is clean and water free of foreign objects. If you look closely at this picture you will notice that the feed trough does not have bird droppings in it. That was an anomaly; as soon as they got enough strength the crap hit the fan.
They are energetic, inquisitive and love tomatoes. We have them outside and they can't resist flying the coop and raiding the garden. We know this not because we caught them but we started noticing peck marks on the reddest tomatoes. We have these huge German Queen heirlooms. They weigh in about 1.5 to 1.75 pounds each. These are bigger than the Mortgage Buster we had a couple of years ago and they are tasty. So the new chickens have found out too.
We finally figured it out when we saw an egg sitting in one of the rows between tomatoes plants. We packed up the electric fence and moved the house out behind the barn so they wouldn't be tempted, for all the hard work seeing a picture of them at a day old and seeing them now full grown you can't help but feel a sort of elation at the accomplishment. .
I am by nature a pessimist with a type A personality, I'm ok with that. But it is times like these that make me a laid back optimist. To have nurtured them to this point is time to celebrate the good fortune. But being a farm you don't want to crow too much because good times are not always around the corner.
Buy Local - from a farmer not from a chain that advertises "Local"
12 Aug Wed 2009
Broody is broody again
We are learning, we have learned and we will continue to learn. Our knowledge comes from reading, talking to others, working and observing. Like on Saturday we observed that Broody was back sitting in her nesting box. Then we observed on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday the same thing.
This is a natural occurance for chickens sometimes they go broody. We've only been raising hens for three years so we don't have a lot of experience. However, we have faced broodiness before so we sorta know what we are doing. In all the books that we've read I don't remember if they talked about a broody hen going broody twice in the same year.
I did observe something I hadn't noticed before. When a chicken is broody the last thing you want to do is let her sit on an egg. Everything that we've read says to take eggs from her. You don't want to encourage the behavior so taking the eggs gives her nothing to hatch.
Chickens will lay one egg every 25 hours, give or take, on Sunday we took the egg from under her. Monday when we checked she was in the same nesting box but there were two eggs. I took them, my glimer of hope was the two eggs in the box. She had laid one (broody chickens do not) and she was out of the box long enough for another chicken to lay her egg.
Getting a broody chicken out of our nesting box is pretty hard due to the design of the nest and access to it. So, we put off getting her out until we were sure she really was broody. Tuesday when we checked she had three eggs under her and we took them. She was still in the same box though. Wednesday morning I looked in the box for eggs and saw two under Broody and one in the middle box. Broody was still nesting in the third box farthest from the opening. I thought once again she had laid, gotten out of the box and another hen laid her own egg. I went about the day's chores and kept the chicken pen within site. The day progressed with no sight of Broody. By late afternoon I had decided to check the nesting boxes again.
I looked in and Broody was still in the third nest facing the back. Yet, she had another two eggs under her and it dawned on me. She wasn't laying and she wasn't getting out of the nest. The other chickens must know she is broody. They are nesting in her box and laying their eggs for her to hatch. Four eggs on Wednesday and three the day before that. She hadn't left the nest at all and she wasn't laying. There is no way a chicken can move an egg in our nesting boxes. The floor is on a decline from front to back, with a back wall high enough to let the egg roll underneath and in a holding area. These were all under her front wings.
We decided that it was time to get her out of the nesting box and into the barn. This is not a stress free process for the bird or us. I eventualy got her out and headed for the barn. While we were walking I took the liberty to feel her abdomen and lower fluff by the vent. No hard object or abnormal feeling of the large intenstines. She was just broody again. Broody is in he barn digging holes for nests and sitting on non-existant eggs. She's got plenty of fresh water and mash to eat. So far she's still in the barn, day seven and counting. We'll let you know how it goes.
Buy Local - From a farmer not a chain that advertises "local"
06 Aug Thu 2009
Where else would you rather be
When we first started to talk to our family and friends about buying a farm the reactions were mixed but predominately quizzical. Why? As if something was wrong with us. How come? As if there was some force pushing us into something we weren't ready for. Are you sure? As if we hadn't spent enough time debating and talking about the move. Then there was the big one. What are you going to do with a farm? As if the question didn't already have the answer in it, FARM.
We are city folks, my family is third generation urbanites. Our friends were of the same ilk. So it wasn't too surprising that we were met with their concerns, doubts and skepticisms. I guess all of them thought that gardening was fine but large scale gardening was border line psychotic. I know they liked our tomatoes, peppers and herbs but we wanted to try other things, lots of other things.
Besides, I never told anyone what my childhood dreams were. To do that would jeopardize the possibility of achieving them. So no one knew that I wanted land, horses, a big garden and a pool and they probably thought that it was something that we just started talking about. But when word got around that we had placed a contract on a farm everyone weighed in with thoughtful words of caution, limited encouragement and counseling referrals.
When you come from the city, gardening on a large scale is for people established in the farming community. In the city you're supposed to grow a couple vegetables as a hobby, you certainly don't make a living at it and you'll live in relative obscurity if you try. They all made perfect sense- farms have been on the decline ever since we've been alive. Farm-Aide started when we were teens, and the scenes depicted of families losing everything, having to stand by at auctions and watch their possessions sold off was heart-breaking. It was real and it was tragic. People don't choose to be farmers; they are born into it, at least that was the prevailing feeling we got. You don't invest money and time in a declining industry. Yet we were on the precipice of doing just that.
So while all the concern was being directed at us we were slowly moving towards purchasing the farm house and the property. The house was built in 1837 on land once owned by a historic figure. As part of the purchase we had the house inspected by a family friend.
Before he was done he took both of us aside and flat out said you don't want this house. It would cost us more to fix it up than the structure was worth. We'd be better off tearing it down and building from scratch. When he was done he had over eighteen pages of notes and things wrong with the house, barn and milking shed.
We had twenty four hours to decide to back out or continue forward. My wife and I are very deliberate logical people, fiscally and environmentally conservative and socially liberal. We are not the fix-it-up types. There were so many factors telling us not to buy and move on that it seemed like a no brainer to anyone looking at all the facts.
There was just something about the place, I think had we'd known we would pull 68 black snakes out of the house maybe we would have went in the opposite direction. As it turned out we didn't and there has been something akin to a spiritual journey taking place ever since. We are religious people, we believe in a higher calling and that we are on this earth to help make a difference no matter how insignificant it may be.
The first six months in the house were arduous and filled with snake encounters. My wife called it luxury camping. We added living in the house as part of our prayer routine. During that time we had what I call our fetal position moments: we cried, we had great doubts and we had buyers' remorse. But we kept praying not really asking for anything but the strength to continue. One day a cat showed up at our door, I scared it away but we'd see it again and again. We found that it was living in our barn which was fine with me but my wife wanted to bring it inside. I resisted and gave a cogent argument as to why not. "It's feral," I said, it turned out not to be and was already spayed. After a two foot snow fall the barn cat was introduced to her new home. She was aptly named BC and she was the first cat to adopt us.
The snow thawed and with spring came snakes. Except these snakes were showing up dead. We were finding them all over the place. It didn't take long for us to realize that BC was the one killing the snakes. She was the answer to our prayers. BC could care less for mice. I saw her once watch a mouse eating out of her food bowl. She was sitting by the woodstove and just watched as the mouse ate away. She didn't flinch, but if it was a snake that was a different story. We could tell when she had spotted one as she never moved but waited for her chance at the slithery creature.
That was the start of the turn-around for us. We are now part of something bigger than what we had expected. There was a time when it was just meat making people sick and being recalled. Recently, more stories of vegetables like spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, peppers and even peanut butter have been contaminated. We are part of a greater community of people that are providing safe, fresh and tasty food to our neighbors and friends. As bad as the past has been moving here,doing what we have been doing seems right.
Before every game legendary coach Marv Levy, of the Buffalo Bills, said to his team "At this moment in time, where else would you rather be, than right here, right now?" I would not want it any other way.
15 Jul Wed 2009
Growing Pains
It’s the middle of July, we've lost most of our lentils, and something is killing the squash and zucchini. The basil has holes and does not look good enough to sell, the cucumbers are fighting off fusarium wilteven though they are supposed be a resistant variety. The weeds grow best of all and are almost taking over. We are down to the last 2,000 gallons in our rain water collection system and there doesn't seem to be rain in sight. The twenty-five new birds are eating about two hundred pounds of organic starter mash a month but we only purchased one hundred and fifty pounds. This caused us to scramble and ask the farmer down the road for some to hold us until the next shipment. We've upped the shipment to two hundred pounds which should hold them until they go on layer mash. The Japanese Beatles are coming out and landing on the grape vines, Colorado Potato Beatles have found our German Butter Ball potatoes. Oh yeah we are down one worker so we started looking for help and have to go through the interview process again (see “Who in Their Right Mind”...).
So, these are the current problems. I'm sure there are more but why dwell, we'll learn about them soon enough. On the good side the corn looks strong and each stalk has two ears, the tomatoes are coming in and the Roma’s are starting to turn red. The chickens look good and are laying at a rate of 80 percent. On any given day we have about two to three not earning room and board. We know one never lays, we think the others are joining in sympathy. Chickens lay one egg every twenty-five hours at their peak, after about three years they start to decline. They eventually stop laying and can live to twelve years of age. This does cause us great concern.
We say we are a humane farm. Yes there are specific denotations of what humane farm means, to us it is keeping the animal free of negative stress. This is where the philosophical meets the practical. Take out all perspectives, PETA, HSUS, SPCA and others. Animal meat is food; it is protein and essential minerals. Can we survive without meat? There is evidence to suggest we can. There is evidence that the vitamins and minerals from beef, chicken and pork are beneficial to the human diet, too.
We are struggling; we've had the first flock for three years now. The tenant was one of the first six and we decided to keep her. Now the first six will begin to decline in laying and we need to look at production versus feed cost. They have led a happy stress free life so far, plenty of fresh grass and different varieties planted every six months. They have also been prolific layers. Three of the six have names, there is Palely (AKA Broody 1), and she is the tenant and the runt of the group. Next is Gladys Kravitz, from "Bewitched," she looks mean and is always butting in on the others’ doings. Last is Roaster.She is huge.They all started out roughly the same size but Roaster out weighs them all. She is almost too big to fit through the door.
Some people may think you can't be a humane farm and kill animals. We started out not wanting to process chickens and so far we have continued with that standing. But, chicken meat goes for 3.50/lb in our neck of the woods. The potential revenue stream is very viable because of pent up demand and the relatively low cost of production. I have not eaten commercial chicken for over four years. Thanks in part to Joel Salatin but mainly because of how confinement chickens are raised and processed. Joel just happened to write about it and had a pathogen analysis done between his chickens and store bought chickens. Even though he processes his chickens in an open air facility his chickens had tens of thousands parts per million less bacteria than the store bought. That’s all I'm going to say on the matter, Joel has an excellent book that goes into great detail.
So, we are considering meat birds versus layers.Eventually layers stop laying and can live up to ten more years naturally. They eat about two tenths of a pound of feed a day, multiple that by 365 then by 6 (for the first six). 50 pounds of organic food cost $22 a bag. When the math is all said and done we lose money if the chickens are not processed. Even if we take them off organic feed and feed them cheap mash we will lose money. No one stays afloat losing money.
Our decisions are not governed by the profit motive but we do need to make money in order to meet IRS requirements. As altruistic as we've been these past seven years now the rubber is starting to meet the road. After buying the farm this decision is one of the most agonizing we've had to face. No matter how you grow there are going to be pains.
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08 Jul Wed 2009
Lay broody Lay
We have brown eggs to sell. My wife says I spend too much time writing and not enough time selling, that I should write about our products and how good they are and what we have to sell. So because she is my wife and intelligent and I love her and our anniversary is coming up I've decided to take her advice and sell. So we have certified organic free range brown eggs to sell.
The chickens on the other hand don't see it that way, at least one of them doesn't we're now calling her "Broody". When a chicken goes "broody" it means that the chicken thinks it is time to start hatching eggs. It doesn't matter that we don't have a rooster and her eggs are not fertilized, she is still sitting on eggs in the nest (which makes it hard for us to sell them). This happened to us last year and as with every other aspect of farm life we researched what was going on and how to deal with it and we called more experienced people to discuss our options. There are allot of reasons that a chicken can go broody, I've read one is hormonal another is temperament and yet another is age. Given what I've learned on the job I'd have to say hormonal is the more likely cause. Now, I know what some of you are thinking, he's male of course he'd blame the problem on hormones, but it is not like that.
When we first noticed broody in the nest we left her for a day or two. We did have experience from last year so we were hoping that she might just break it herself. Last year we ended up taking the broody one out of the box and placing her in the barn, it was the only way to keep her out of the nesting box. Our main concern was that she wasn't eating and drinking enough. We'd get her out of the nest and leave her outside with the others and before we finished the next chore she was back in the nest.
So this year we let the new broody sit in the nest, the weather has been cool and breezy with lots of rain but we kept an eye on her. Every so often we'd notice that she would be outside but not long. Then she started to go into a prolonged sitting stage and she wasn't budging from the nest and she was pecking people when they tried to harvest eggs. I stuck my hand in underneath her to try and get her to get up and out of the box and she felt hot to me. I went to see how hot the others felt and they all seemed relatively cool. The heat leads me to think hormones might play a role. Although we suspected broodiness we had to make sure there wasn't some other problem that we just weren't seeing. This meant we had to give her a physical, check her eyes, nostrils and beak for discharges, her wings, feathers and legs for signs of mites or liaisons, the comb and waddle and the crown jewel was checking to see if she had an egg stuck. A chicken has what is called a vent; the vent is the only outlet that a chicken has, so with out getting too graphic everything that a chicken expels goes through the vent including the egg.
Checking for a stuck egg has to be done very carefully and with the utmost tenderness. At best if a stuck egg breaks inside it can severely injure the chicken and at worst the chicken can die. We prepared and drew straws; my wife got the task of holding the bird (I got to figure out how to cheat in that game next time). At first broody was all squawk but we shushed her and she calmed down. That’s another thing we do from day one is to pick them up and shush them to calm them down.
This serves two purposes, one is to get them use to human contact the other is their just so cute you want to pet them. It works on into adulthood; some will run from us, most will just squat down and let us pick them up. All of them though will calm down and relax when we shush them, you can hear it and feel it in their bodies. Their muscles go limp, the body slumps and they go along for the ride.
My wife is holding Broody, we got her calmed down and I start the exam. I did everything first, saving the vent for last. She has no outward signs of problems, pests or injuries, I check the skin, feathers everything, her belly and between her legs to see if I feel a lump, nothing jumps out. Last up is to feel inside the vent to see if there is a blockage. I expose the vent, it looks pink and healthy, and I take my surgical gloved hand that is now covered with lubricant and gently insert my finger to feel around, Broody moved a little but didn't squawk. She did squeeze her vent closed which scared the hell out of me; in an instant I 'm pulling my finger out and seeing a newspaper headline, "Local Farmer Loses Finger in Chicken Vent". Now I'm the one squawking. To their credit both my wife and broody are perfectly calm, I know it doesn't seem like much but it scared me, so now I got to calm down and go in for a second look. I got collected and went in once again to gently probe for an obstruction and to our relief find nothing.
We left her in the barn in the stall with a roost, nest, plenty of water and food. She was there three days and on the fourth day we opened the barn door and left it open. She didn't come out. Day five we open the barn door again and left it open. This time she came out found her flock and jumped into the pen with her group. She is no longer brooding but her name will forever be "broody". Broody started laying about a week later which was a great sign because did I mention, we have eggs to sell.
01 Jul Wed 2009
Honey there is a turkey at the door
If you ever want a true juxtaposition that starkly shows the difference between city and rural life rent "Michael Clayton". At one point they show Tom Wilkinson as Arthur Edens in the middle of Times Square, they have a 360 degree pan of him just standing there among the cacophony of noise and neon flashing lights, large screen TV's and it is just sensory overload.
In a split second the shot is of a white house with black trim and the sounds of wind blowing gusts of heavy snow. You can hear the snow hitting surfaces. The camera slowly pans towards a red barn, the snow coming in blankets. The two scenes couldn't be starker, yet it’s not the scenes as much as it is the feeling I get that is generated from that contrast. One second and its Times Square in New York City, half a second later it’s a rural setting in the mid-west. I know it’s me but I get a visceral reaction to the two screen shots and my bet is I'm not the only one. Allot of people have moved to rural areas for the serenity that was depicted in that second scene. Not all have taken up the mantle of growing local and/or organic but enough are to make it a full fledge movement.
As I said, I grew up in the city and my dream was to own land in the country. It’s a feeling allot of us have to move to a house where we can grow and life is some what simpler. Its not really, it is constant work and infinitely complex and there are no vacations. You see and learn things everyday, because where you live is governed by nature, not by man as in a city. Sometimes you can actually hear no man made sounds sort of a silence, the birds might be chirping and flying around but that’s it. It doesn't happen often but it gives you an idea of what generations before us heard. On Sundays we get to hear the local church bell ring calling people to service.
Its a life style choice, which is why we live with chickens, skunks, groundhogs, raccoons, deer, possums, snakes, more bugs than I'm able to identify, hundreds of bird species from cardinals to blue jays, a little yellow breasted bird that looks like a canary and of course their offspring. We had a turkey family a couple of years ago; they hung around the front of the house and lived in the trees on the top lot. There was a mother, father and four little ones. We haven't seen them since 2004 because they do migrate a little. But it is this kind of happening that reminds you that the city is pretty far away and you’re in close to a natural habitat.
Last Sunday we were getting ready to start the day and my wife heard what she thought was slight tapping at the sliding glass door. She went to investigate and found that we had a wild turkey pecking at the door. She called me and said a turkey is knocking at our door. So I asked the only question I knew; is it dressed? If you don't understand please read "Look Honey they have dressed rabbits" from a previous blog.
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29 Jun Mon 2009
Are we done planting yet?
We started a spring garden this year, growing lettuces, kale, and collards and, of course, the strawberries. We've been planting ever since.If it is not actual plants then it’s seeds, but we've planted every weekend since late March.
We planted the rest of the cucumbers this past weekend. At least I think we are done planting. I'd have to check with the boss to really see, but I see no plants and I'm not looking for seeds. Why tempt fate and I'm certainly not going to ask, as a matter of fact I'm not going to let my wife edit this particular blog. What she doesn't know I can't plant. So now comes weeding, watering and watching, the three w's of organic growing and producing. Weeding is broken into the three H's, hoeing hands, heat and spraying.Okay spraying doesn't fit but we do control weeds by spraying concentrated vinegar, lemon juice, clove oil and lecithin. The spray has a pleasant fragrance that I like but is not for everyone. You can only use the spray if it is really hot out and it is not going to rain for awhile nor should it have rained for awhile, which doesn't make it the most ideal weed control but we use it when we can.
My most favorite way to weed is heat. The heat is easier than the other methods but it does have its draw backs, I may have gotten a reputation for starting fires but it is not on purpose and I am very careful despite what my wife says. I did set an old abandoned concrete silo on fire once by mistake and you never hear the end of it. Please let me explain before you judge me.
The silo was made of concrete block and had no roof and was loaded with old wood from the previous owners. My weeding tool is a propane tank with a hose and torch attached.You turn it on, rub the flint for a spark and you have about 25,000 BTU to kill weeds. I had been using the torch for over a year before the day the silo caught fire and I was pretty successful not burning things down except for weeds and maybe carrots. I knew the silo was loaded with wood and in essence was a tinder box, so I was careful whenever I was around it with the flame.
It was late in a long day of work and I wanted to get the weeding done; I started around the silo then went around the barn and to the grape vines. From the grape vines I went to the production garden and started doing the perimeter. Out of the corner of my eye I see my wife running towards the silo. I knew immediately why she was running; I turned to see flames licking out of the top of the silo.When I got closer I could hear popping sounds and then clinks on the tin roof of the barn. The pargeing from inside the silo was heating up and exploding out hitting the roof. I took everything off and went to the barn to get the water pump. I pulled the pump ou,t hooked up the hoses to the water tank and pulled to start the pump engine. Of course, it doesn't start.After three pulls it coughs to life and water starts to come out at the other end. Once the water was flowing I was able to cool the fire down and eventually put the fire out. It took about five hundred gallons of rain water to accomplish that feat but we did get it out.
My wife was standing there eyes wide open, heart pounding and shell shocked. What could I say, I had a torch, the silo caught fire and I was in the area, there was no wiggle room, none. I think we were both in shock at the time so we put the pump and hoses back, I stowed the pump and we called it a day. I look back and see how lucky we were, how things fell into place, the pump worked and we actually had water in the collection tank, Any one of those things not happening and we might have lost the barn. So I still weed with heat but my wife prefers the hoe and hand method best. I can laugh about it, but my wife is to the point were she can grin and shake her head but not quite laugh. On second thought maybe I should stick to just planting.
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23 Jun Tue 2009
The tip of the iceberg
We are asked all the time to explain the difference between organic and non-organic. It’s hard to sum up such that the person you are talking to doesn't regret asking the question.
It is such a basic question yet the answer can go from the scientific to the metaphysical and everything in between. Sometimes I will give a one word answer, TASTE, then there are the studies that point to the twenty-five percent increase in vitamins and minerals when compared to there counterparts in the conventional field (see University of California-Davis study). But, you will find counter arguments to those studies, then there are the cost comparisons, why is organic so much more expensive and is it worth it? As I was writing this blog CNN Health came out with what I thought was a good article at http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/16/best.organic.produce/index.html
Not everything was right in the article, especially about the start of Organics. The father of modern day organic techniques comes from a man named J.I. Rodale and the Rodale Institute that was founded in Kutztown Pennsylvania in 1947. The studies done at the Rodale Institute are the longest recorded studies on the subject, "Our Farming Systems Trial®, the longest-running U.S. study comparing organic and conventional farming techniques, is the basis for our practical training to thousands of farmers in Africa, Asia and the Americas." Copy Right Rodale Institute.
Most people look at organic as the end result but it is just one variable in the whole sustainability model when talking about growing. At Miolea we've been saying we are beyond organics for awhile, because organics speaks to how vegetables, poultry and meats are grown and handled. It does not address all aspects of sustainability on a farm. When we first started growing professionally I looked at sustainability as making enough money to be able to live and produce in the next year. Until you start to make money you can not support the operation unless you have capital or some sort of financial backing, which is why 90+ percent of all small farms have income from off farm activities, i.e. another job. This is from the 2002 USDA census. However large or small money is the other part that cannot be ignored is environmental which are air, water, soil quality and treatment of animals. The whole sustainability model as professed and proven by Joel Salatin of "Polyface Farm." in Swoop, Virginia looks at the farm as a whole with intricate parts woven together in a concert mimicking what Mother Nature does on her own.
Because of farm practices that emphasize environmental consciousness, soil and nutrient replenishments, water resource conservation and protection of scarce resources the sustainable model re-enforces what is right and wrong with today's farming practices. In Michael Pollan's book "The Omnivores Dilemma," Joel Salatin points out the difference between a farm that does one thing only, like growing corn or just beef and that of a farm that uses the sustainable model. Paraphrasing Joel he said look at a corn field and look at a field that has been left alone to Mother Nature. What do you see in a conventional corn field? You will find one species of plant life, the corn and maybe an insect if it was away when the insecticide was sprayed. Looking at the other field you see Mother Nature’s diversity, you will see thousands of insects and plant varieties in that field and that is what the sustainable model is designed to accomplish. How do these plants in the field get nutrition from year to year as opposed to the corn field that gets sprayed with fertilizer and insecticides?
Simplistically stated, plants, trees, insects and animals get nutrients through a complex dance of decay, replacement and rejuvenation. Much like rotating and resting fields planted with green manure and nitrogen rich grasses and legumes, then letting your animals graze on those grasses to keep it down. You don't let the animals eat the grasses until the grass can't replenish itself, you let them eat enough to maintain the stability of the grasses in the field and then you move them on. Management intensive grazing is a sustainable practice that uses the grass but not enough to abuse the grass. An example would be to bring cows onto land, let them eat some and move them off to the next section of field. Next you would move chickens in the grass that the cows have left behind. Cows like higher grass heights while chickens like grass to be between two and three inches. When all is said and done what is left behind is incorporated into the composition of the field replenishing nutrients and minerals naturally, you get to see the complete cycle of life in this field. Grass is eaten, the cow gets nutrients and gains weight, it leaves behind manure, enough to attract bugs, that lay eggs and then the chickens get a crack at the grass and bugs which helps them they lay eggs high in Omega-3's. The chickens through pecking and scratching have aerated the soil leaving enough manure behind to feed the flora and fauna. This dance takes place such that a cow and chicken are never on a previous field until that field has fully become reestablished (usually in 8-12 months). Our production gardens get rested and fertilized this way. Although we don't have cows we keep moving the chickens from space to space in order to evenly fertilize the whole garden.
What is organic? In my own mind it is the tip of the iceberg.