Life...and death
Mood:  sad

One of the biggest challenges of farming is how frequently death comes up. Before we were so involved with farming, when we dealt with death it was usually something faked on television. It was not so "in your face." 

This weekend something broke into the pen where one of our broody hens had just hatched her chicks. It killed her, and killed all but one of the newly hatched chicks. We were not there but it was clear from all the feathers that the momma hen put up quite a fight. It is inutterably sad...because here's the thing. According to our neighbor the villian is a mama fox feeding her kits. Unlike television with its black hat and white hat to tell bad from good, we are left unsure how to react to the gray of life that is farming.

Thoughts on the new farming

Melissa gave us a great memoir for Christmas: "The Dirty Life: On Farming Food, and Love", by Kristin Kimball. John read it first; I am just now getting around to it. It has been--like all great reads--the right book at the right time. We are often full of doubt about our farm life so to read that someone else has been down this road--made these same choices--is very affirming. I found this particularly so in a passage about the Kimball's vision of farm shares, and the challenges of marketing them, on pages 160-162:

"We were offering a full-diet share--including beef, pork, chicken, eggs, milk, vegetables, flours, grains, and dry beans..... We were pitching a radical all-or-nothing, year-round membership model that was untried, even in the most agriculturally progressive pockets of the country. We were asking people to fork over thousands of dollars for the promise of a return that was by no means guaranteed. At the price we were charging, most people in our community couldn't afford to use our food as a supplement to their usual grocery store haul. They'd have to give up, like I had, that familiar and comforting experience of pushing a cart down an aisle. The central question in the kitchen would change from What do I want? to What is available? The time spent in the kitchen--in planning, in preparing, in cooking--would jump exponentially.

...Maybe most important, farm food itself is totally different from what most people now think of as food: none of those colorful boxed and bagged products, precut, parboiled, ready to eat, and engineered to appeal to our basest desires. We were selling the opposite: naked, unprocessed food, two step from the dirt. 

...We'd be asking people to eat things they couldn't identify and didn't know how to cook. We found, from giving away samples, that the rich, flavorful Jersey milk I loved so much was just too different from the store-bought kind for some palates to accept, especially if they were used to drinking low-fat or skim. Moreover, we couldn't offer the kind of consistency that consumers have come to expect from grocery store food. Could we really expect people to change their habits radically, and pay good money for it?"

 

Like the Kimballs, we also have envisioned a whole-diet model where we would provide meat, eggs, milk, fruit, vegetables, sugar (honey), and oil (olive oil.) We also see the same resistance--in ourselves. Do we really want to eat zucchini for the fourth week in a row just because that is what is now available? Do we want to give up eating what we want even though it is out of season? Are we prepared to eat in an organic way by using what we have instead of what our tastebuds tell us they want? And, do we want to put in the time needed to prepare our foods for storage?

We have been only tentatively answering yes to these questions but knowing we are not alone has strengthened that budding feeling that we are on the right track. As Dottie would say, keep a-going.

The greenhouse is going!
Mood:  incredulous
Thanks to Melissa (who lit a fire under us), there are now plants growing in the greenhouse. Hopefully we will have Roma tomatoes, sunflowers, squashes, and peppers for Melissa, stuff for our own garden, and plants to sell. Dennis has already offered to buy some of our plants. It's coming together. Thanks Melissa!!

Scarcity and Abundance
Mood:  lyrical

Scarcity and abundance. This is what is on my mind these days. In a little over two months, I will go from a job that pays to one that doesn't. I will move from having healthcare coverage to hoping for the best. No longer will I be making more money than I spend--I will be spending more than I make. Terrifying? What do you think?

In my heart I believe in abundance. But my brain--that part of me that has provided a good living for thirty years--begs to differ. So, here I stand on the precipice with the bungee cord tied to my ankle preparing myself for the jump and repeating again and again, I believe in abundance. 

Let it snow! (Ok, how about if it just gets cold.)
Mood:  happy

We finished the greenhouse today. And, we have a plan for the citrus that lives in the topless hothouse. Last winter the rain and wind demolished one end of the hothouse and our poor greenhouse has been topless since we put it here. But, forced into action by the forecast of a week of weather in the low twenties, we got plastic on the greenhouse and found our plan B for keeping the citrus alive one more year. We are feeling pretty happy with what passes for progress to us.

Fall is in the air
Mood:  a-ok

Can you feel it? Can you smell it? Fall is in the air. FINALLY, even though the air is still hot, there is something in the breeze...

I'm back at school and in air conditioning. I struggle to make mathematics relevant. I wrestle with everything else that wants a student's attention. And then I come home to the farm, to the chickens and the cattle and living in the moment and John. Aaah, I can breathe again.

Of pumpkins and other things

Dennis gave us a huge pumpkin that he had grown on his place. Ironic that it did for me what it did for Cinderella--transported me to a bright and shining place. Here's the story.

 If you live nearby, you may have noticed it has been HOT. Not only that, it has also been HUMID. Even sitting on the porch drinking ice tea and rocking in a chair is hot and sweaty work.

This past week in this heat and humidity we have been prepping the land for the coming growth spurt. Now is the time when the citrus, blueberries, and blackberries put on their greenery--the greenery that will hold blossoms in the spring. Therefore, it is important to decrease their competition for nutrients and water. So, we have been busy cutting and pulling weeds. While it feels good to see the plants smile, in this heat the work is taxing. Since we are not using chemicals, all of this work must be done one plant at a time by hand so we have been at it for a while.

Then, like magic, Dennis gave me the pumpkin. Suddenly, I had an excuse to stay in the house. I had a reason to take a break and let me body rest.  Best of all, I got this rest guilt-free because I had to work on that pumpkin. It took four hours to cook, strain, and process that pumpkin. I ended up with 40 cups of pumpkin, seeds saved for next year, slop for the chickens, and pumpkin soup for dinner. (Did I mention that it was HUGE?!)  Today, the bounty (and the break) continues. After morning chores, my mom made pumpkin pie and I made pumpkin bread.

 Because of the welcome break from working in the hot fields, I can see again the beauty that surrounds us, the joy of living close to the earth, the immediacy of the rewards for the work we do. I am Cinderella at the ball.

Summertime, and the living is...

It's July already! Where has the summer gone. It's been a busy, productive season. This summer we added a rear porch/mud room, turned a shed into an office, made an "eggmobile", painted the roofs of several sheds, put in a garden, raised 26 chicks, reinforced fences, planted a row of blackberries, and maintained our blackberries, blueberries, and fruit trees. We've been much luckier this year with rain but of course that means we have also spent more time mowing and weeding.

 It's interesting to me that part of me looks at amazement at what we have accomplished in this heat and humidity but there is also a part that looks at all the things we have yet to accomplish. Daily we remind ourselves to stop and smell the roses along with the manure. We sometimes struggle to remember that we have chosen this way of life.

The other struggle I personally have had is the daily reminder of how little we in this country value the work of farmers. In this country, we have long been blessed with cheap food. The cost of eggs is virtually unchanged in the last 50 years while minimum wage is over 8 times what it was then. (http://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/CT1970p1-06.pdf  Go to page 31.)

This really hit me the last time I went to yoga class where it took two dozen eggs, 4 cups of blueberries, two watermelons, and two dollars to pay for my one yoga class. Since I know how many hours of work all that food represents, to say nothing of the cost of supplies, feed, etc, it is tough not to resent the difference in how we value things. Don't get me wrong--I'm well aware that teaching yoga involves the cost of training, continuing development, travel, and facilities costs.  It is simply that this is one the many examples of how we undervalue farmers.

Buffalo Girl's baby
Mood:  sad

Sad news. Buffalo girl had a beautiful little boy calf. Unfortunately, in the process of saving if from ole thunderfoot (Sukie) who came running across the field to see what she had, Buffalo girl stepped on her calf and killed it. So quickly, life seeped out and was gone.

Of cowbirds and life...
Mood:  quizzical

As I was weeding the blackberries, I was contemplating the state of our farm. First up, the bug situation. This past week, our neighbor to the south put chicken manure on his fields which unleashed a tsunami of bugs since the piles of litter retrieved from chicken houses are bug breeding grounds. Our poor little cows were already being attacked but this simply overwhelmed them.

What we had hoped was that we were getting a handle on the bug situation by letting nature reach equilibrium. The cattle were beginning to understand that the cowbirds were there to eat the bugs and were learning to let the birds land on their backs or walk along side. The chickens were beginning to dig through the cow patties for insect larva--interrupting the life cycle of the bugs. When the dragonflies visited in the evening, nearly every gnat was devoured.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 And then came the neighbors chicken litter so now we wait, again, for the balance of nature. Balance; somedays it's easy and some days not. We had to seek balance with the blackberries. Last year my mom and I went on a campaign to remove the maidencane from the blackberry patch. This involved bending down on our knees and patiently digging out each of the bamboo-like underground tendrils that had woven in among the blackberry roots.  Three months later, the blackberries still hadn't recovered but the maidencane looked happier than ever as it reinvaded the disturbed beds. This year, I pulled some and mowed the rest. The blackberries, though still having to compete, seem happier. Balance.

The thing about farming is that there is ALWAYS something that needs to be done NOW. Because of this, the house and yard are generally the last things that get attention. The growing things must come first. Today it was adding another strand of barbed wire to the fence between us and the Meltons because the fence was designed for 5 foot cattle, not 3-4 foot cattle. Today it was harrowing the earth so we could get the Tif9 seed in the ground since we FINALLY had rain. Today it was taking the chicks on a field trip so they could be exposed to grass and bugs--the diet we want them to have as adults. But I did get a batch of cookies and big pan of lasagna made. Balance.

Which leads to my second thought. We have become so conditioned by marketing campaigns that we seem to have little tolerance for houses and yards that are not the first priority. I often wish we had that beautiful little farmhouse with the lovely cottage garden that I see in my mind. I don't envision bahia grass seed heads and a mobile home. I know I'm not alone. There is something almost suspect about food that is grown on such a farm. We know from the ad campaigns that the best farms have white clapboard farmhouses and picket fences--though of course the reality is cramped and unsanitary stockyards. Intellectually I understand that having a small footprint on the earth means living as we are now--700 square feet of recycled living and grass that is mowed only because I can't stand it any longer. I understand but I struggle to balance that with the vision we have all been fed. I struggle to find my balance.