Seasonality

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Satisfying My Inner Weird

I took a vacation day yesterday to finish getting our chick brooder ready and cut some firewood for next year. I also took care of a few odds and ends around the farm. Finally, the thaw and rain have caused a little flooding so the cows had to be moved to higher ground. Thank God I still have stockpiled forages up high! I haven’t been writing much lately because that’s just how the days have been. I get up, I work. I finish working, I go to bed. I try to make time in there to just hang out with the kids which means I am not writing. 

A friend at work asked me if I had fun on my vacation day. “Yup. I did. I cut a bunch of firewood! I’m really sore today too!”

She replied, “That doesn’t sound like fun.”

My inner weird showed up again in an email to a friend. I have convinced him that he needs a couple of pigs to boost fertility in his yard and garden and help cycle resources that otherwise go underutilized. I said, “If you haven’t met me, I’m all in favor of boiling something down to its essence. You might call it “oversimplificaiton”. Further, I don’t scare easily. And I’m willing to endure significant pain to get the desired result. Let me give you an example. I could save 70% of each paycheck if I just had a modest home in the suburbs. That money could be invested in any of several index funds. With all my free time, I could write books about homeschooling or family government. But instead I’m pouring all of my money and time into a farm, driving 3 hours/day and fighting to keep animals alive so I can kill them in the dream that farming will at least prove to be a wash financially.”

That’s a frightfully honest assessment of my situation. Maybe cynical…but still…not dishonest.

I wish I could write more. Lots of neat things are happening around the farm and I would love to show them to you. This morning there were small, green blades of grass behind where the cows have grazed! You should see the manure the cows put down in the pasture as we strip grazed through the snow! But then, there’s that inner weird again.

StripGrazing

We have lived in the suburbs…within distance of pizza delivery. I have cut the grass and washed the car. That’s a sweet gig. I have chatted with neighbors over the fence and discussed our favorite sports teams and ribbed each other’s joking inadequacies. It was fun but I was bored. Unfulfilled. It was like I was waiting for something to happen. Try as I might, I couldn’t make it work. My inner weird was always lurking…ready to shock the world. “I was thinking of pulling out the burning bush and replacing them with blueberries. They would still be pretty but would also give us fruit.” Somehow (and I really don’t understand why) that was just the wrong thing to say. For reasons I still can’t fathom, food can’t come from people’s yards.

So here we are. Too busy to tell you about it. Still as weird as ever but with a 60 acre yard and lots of food.

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Sleeping Pastures

Wake Up!

There is a goofy Disney movie called Rocketman. In one scene, because of an accident, the main character doesn’t go into “hyper-sleep” with his crew mates and is isolated and alone on the ship for eight months. He does everything he can think of to pass the time. He makes a chain of paper dolls, paints the ceiling and goes bananas screaming comically for his fellow crew members to wake up. Wake up! Wake Up! WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP!

I was thinking about this recently as I stood in my pasture.

SnowGrazing

I’m killing time.

Waiting.

I look out over my fields, feeling helpless against the endless snow pack. I live in a desert of ice. The cows are grazing through the snow pack but we still supplement with hay …and the hay pile is running low. The wood pile is running low. Propane is crazy-expensive. I’m ready for winter to end.

IceWater

How many more months to go? How long before the world comes back to life?

Wake up! Come on! I’m ready already! Let’s butcher some chickens! Let’s build some fence while fighting mosquitoes and dodging poison ivy! Bring on the milk cows slapping us in the face with a manure-covered tail. ..and the flies, oh! the endless, beautiful clouds of flies! At least let it warm up enough to tap the trees!

It can’t happen fast enough.

And when it does I’ll be ready for winter again.

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Parts and Patterns

Julie bought me the book Holostic Management 5 or more years ago. We took a stab at reading it at the time but really couldn’t get through the meat. We had a conceptual understanding of grazing but no real hands-on experience…and experience was needed. So we put the book aside.

I am overdue for another stab at the book and as I read it again I am fascinated. This time I seem to be getting it…or, at least, getting more of it. And that’s good since I sent a copy of it to dad’s friend Marty…and I know he’ll breeze through the book.

Chapter 3 kicks off a discussion of Jans Christian Smuts’ book Holism and Evolution, presenting the concept that, though we tend to break things down into individual parts, we need to look at wholes. In a recent post I discussed the loss of native diversity because in our local oak/hickory forests, Yellow Lady’s Slipper orchids are a part of the whole. Remove that part and the whole is diminished by the loss…the remainder becomes increasingly fragile.

The book gives several examples of ecological degradation caused by predator removal. If I trap out the minks I will open a void in predation. Minks eat mice. Extra mice may be a benefit to other predators but the loss of the mink makes our farm slightly more fragile. What happens when I kill the mink and disease removes the coyotes and foxes? Can the owls pick up that much slack?

But who cares about mice and minks and owls? We are farmers. We grow cows and pigs and chickens. And minks eat chickens. And owls eat chickens. So why not just kill the minks and scare off the owls and raise chickens in greater security?

Because of the whole interconnected web occurring on the farm. Owls also eat skunks. If there are no owls what will eat skunks? Maybe I could get a big dog? But that won’t eat large numbers of mice. So…barn cats? But those will eat song birds too. I could keep searching for substitutions to force my will on the land but it is not hard to imagine that I would be better off nestling, rather than imposing, my farm into the countryside. To make my farm an enhancement of the natural order rather than a replacement of the natural order. I need to find a pattern of farming that compliments the patterns of the landscape.

So I have to manage for diversity. And that includes making room for my enemy, the mink.

But I also need to recognize and enhance patterns. Hackberry trees grow alongside walnut trees. Gooseberry grows in their shade. Opossums eat gooseberries. Squirrels eat and plant walnuts, acorns and hickory nuts. Hawks eat Squirrels. All of them add manure.

The wildlife can’t begin to eat the gooseberry, nut and squirrel crop. I happen to like gooseberries, hickory nuts and squirrel. I have to find ways to fit myself into the landscape without diminishing the whole. Further, I have to fit cows, pigs and chickens into the landscape while retaining and respecting coyotes, foxes, mink, mice, squirrels, owls, hawks, deer, raccoons, groundhogs, skunks, opossums, rabbits, gooseberries, walnuts, hickory nuts, acorns and Yellow Lady’s Slipper orchids.

There are patterns holding this abundance of life together and my job, as a farmer, is to weave myself into the pattern, not to unravel it.

That only scratches the surface of the chapter but it is enough for today’s posting.

How are you weaving yourself into the patterns you observe?

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Diary of the Winter Stockpile: Day 72

November 1 we were grazing the cows in our yard. I had successfully delayed mowing to the point that the yard functioned as a stockpiled pasture. November 12 the cows were grazing their way around the barnyard. We cut several cuttings of hay in the barn yard each year and the grasses had recovered sufficiently that I thought they should be eaten by cattle rather than smashed by a tractor. By Nov. 16th we felt the alfalfa was ready to graze (or nearly so) so we walked the cows to the alfalfa field.

GrazingStockpile5We started the cows on the fescue and clovers that had regrown since the last hay cutting then, over the course of several days, moved them into the alfalfa field. The first week or so of grazing was not pure alfalfa…it had grasses mixed in. Bloat is a real concern and rapidly changing forages can be problematic so this was when we started feeding a bale of hay each morning. Giving them dry matter early in the day, then moving the cows around noon (after the frost had dried) eased everybody’s worries.

So around Nov. 20 we fed the first bale of hay. The idea is to feed 30 days worth of hay over the course of five months. That way the cows are still eating fresh green forage (which they seem to enjoy) but with a little bit of supplement to make sure they are getting just what they need while also spreading their own manure across the farm. This was inspired by my conversation with David Hall. Early on we were asking 11 cows to share one 60 pound square bale. When the snow got heavy we would split out two bales. The balance of their daily dietary needs was provided by the stockpiled forages. Anyway, enough theory. Let’s look at some more pictures.

GrazingStockpile3The remaining stockpile is looking pretty brown. Fortunately, when the severe cold weather hit last week, the grasses were insulated by a layer of snow. It may not look like much but the cows really seem to appreciate it.

GrazingStockpile4The wilted turnip greens, the turnips themselves, the fescue and other grasses along with a few fallen leaves and the cows are doing quite well. Each day we give them a little more ground (you just get a feel for how much to give them by looking at standing forage, previous day’s utilization and gut fill) and we use that ground as a clean plate for feeding them the day’s hay. I try to feed hay on high ground if I can. If they look hungry we give a bale of grass hay in the afternoon and I try to do better estimating the next day’s pasture. Each night the cows find some reasonably clean sheets and go to bed, often under a tree.

GrazingStockpile2As the pasture freezes and thaws the cows can really cause soil disturbance…disruption…they can really make mud pies. So we try to move the mineral feeder and the water trough regularly, spreading that impact over a greater area. I’m not against mud pies. They will recover before summer. I’m against cows slipping on ice around the water trough. For the most part, though, the pasture is staying in very good condition. We had an inch of rain on Friday on top of 8-10″ of melting snow. The pasture is no worse for the wear.

As always, this is more “how-we” than “how-to” but managing grazing through the winter has, to this point, been a positive experience for us. It really is no big deal to build a little fence and haul a bale out to them each morning. Far, FAR better than the chores required for the short period of time they were in the barn.

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How we Start a Fire on the First Try

Every morning I light the fire. It is my job…somehow. I have searched high and low for ways to succeed on the first match and I would like to share one thing that seems to work well. Stick bundles. This goes in the firebox above a wad of newspaper and below the split kindling.

Every fallen limb in our yard is regularly gathered up by the kids (mostly maple) and dragged into the house where they cut it to about 10″ lengths, bundle it with others into a 2″ log.

Bundle1I like these better than pine cones for lighting the fire. Not only does a bundle light quickly, it also burns hot and leaves a nice pile of charcoals behind to encourage the remaining wood to burn. And it gives the kids something productive to do with a few minutes of their morning while utilizing more of the wood our farm generates…not to mention the endless sisal twine.

Bundle2So an hour’s worth of work by the kids and we get a week’s worth of easy-to-light fires. I appreciate their contribution both in collecting twigs from the yard and in making the bundles. They appreciate standing behind the warm wood stove on a cold morning. Everybody wins.

Please let me know if you have any other tips to help me light the fire on the first match.

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In and Out of the Moo Cow Hotel

When the bad weather hit Saturday afternoon we moved the cows to the barn. We have been grazing stockpile but with wind chills near -40 F we thought it would be best to have them out of the wind and in a convenient place. Convenient for us…not necessary for them. Really, the cows would have been fine standing together on the leeward side of a hill sheltered by a tree. It really was an issue of convenience for us.

Each morning I would clear the manure from a stretch by the fence and put out bales there. I don’t have a feeder in this lot…something I’ll have to address going forward. I would split the bales in a couple of different locations. Each morning and each evening I would offer a square bale of alfalfa and a square bale of grass. While the cows were busy grazing I would put two or three bales of straw down for fresh bedding after cleaning up big, obvious messes.

FeedLot1

Then I would pull the hose out of the barn loft and refill the water trough, breaking out the ice along the way.

IcyTrough

I have mixed feelings about this entire setup. First, since I don’t have feed bunks I didn’t feel that the cows had a clean plate to eat from each day. It reached a point where there was so much frozen urine and manure I just had to do my best…and my best was barely enough. When the cows are on pasture they get a little more ground each day. That new ground is like a totally clean plate and is a great place to feed them each morning. Then they can graze their day away.

Second, I just don’t think the cows were happy. They just sort of moped about. Like they were a little stir crazy…or had as much cabin fever as the kids did. This was more completely expressed Thursday morning when we led the cows back to pasture. They ate their hay then went running, kicking and bucking through the pasture. They seemed to enjoy stretching their legs for the first time in 5 days.

SnowCows

The cows are not out of their fence. The previous day’s fence posts were frozen in place and could not be removed. The cows bent them all. Stinkers.

So I’m glad, for my own sake, that I have the option to shut up the cows in the barn lot. But I can see that it’s maybe not the best for the cows. Next year I’ll have the entire feedlot for my own use complete with feed bunks. I’ll design my pasture usage to preserve and stockpile the pasture near the feedlot so I can, if needed, allow the cows access to shelter and feed in a bunk but still give them access to the larger pasture area. They will be able to go where they like while still allowing me to feed with relative ease. I’ll just have to make sure I don’t get lazy and feed them in the bunk all winter as I want their nutrients on pasture, not in the feed lot.

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Winter Phosphorus Needs

We put out the Free Choice Enterprises mineral feeder in mid-December. I’m amazed how much phosphorus the cows are eating. I filled three holes with phosphorus and they have eaten 2/3 of it. These pictures were taken on January 1.

The cows have nearly finished the phosphorus in this slot:
Phosphorus1Below you can see (from left) kelp, redmond salt and phosphorus. I would have to find my way across Hoth to see what is in the last slot on the right. Sorry. The cows don’t seem to want the kelp. The salt has seen very little action and wasn’t full to begin with. The phosphorus on this end is about 50%.

Phosphorus2

On the other side I have another slot dedicated to phosphorus. On the left is unknown. Again, I’ll have to wander into the frozen tundra to see it now. Next is iodine then phosphorus. To the right is sulphur.

Phosphorus3Keep in mind that every slot was full to the top when we started out. A fair amount of iodine, a little trace mineral, a little sulphur. But the cows have basically emptied two phosphorus slots. My understanding is that this is because phosphorus is hard to come by in stored forages. Once we green up again in the spring we should see much less of a need for phosphorus. But I didn’t anticipate this level of need. Basically, 10 cows are going through a bag of phosphorus ($28) every week. Wow! So…back to the budget we go.

The other surprise for me here was that the cows turned their back on kelp. They have absolutely consumed kelp all year up till now. My Fertrell dealer suggested they were using the kelp heavily in the spring to meet their magnesium needs and he suggested I put out some epsom salts. Next year I don’t think I’ll have to guess what they need. I’ll just watch the mineral box and see what goes down.

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Battening the Hatches

We are in for a few days of cold, snow and wind. The forecast is suggesting double-digit negative low temperatures for Sunday and Monday. Monday’s high won’t even reach zero and winds are expected from 20-30 mph. Finally, depending on when you check the forecast they are suggesting anywhere from 1-12 inches of snow. You may think that sounds mild. I think it sounds like I need to get ready.

Snow

Forecast by wunderground.com

Cows are no big deal. I’ll just walk them up to the barn and lock them in the lot Saturday evening. They should be warm and out of the wind in the open bay of the barn. Chores will be much easier with them there. We’ll just toss down a few bales of straw for bedding and ride this thing out. I’ll have to get the skin on my new greenhouse Saturday morning so I can move the chickens in there. Not sure why I waited so long to build that greenhouse. Lazy I guess. I’ll also have to build roost space in the greenhouse and mount the nest boxes within. We’ll put the rabbits and ducks in the other greenhouse. I don’t think the ducks care either way but management will be easier with them there. The remaining pigs should be fine in their deep bedding.

That leaves the house. I need to bring in oak I can split easily, hedge that will burn hot, some larger hackberry logs that will burn for a long time and I need to make some stick bundles to help start the fire easily. Beyond that? I’ll make sure the Burkey is full and we have some broth on the wood stove. Maybe Julie can bake a loaf or two of bread…a rare treat! The kids and I have a few board games we need to spend some time with. Agricola has proven difficult.

Hopefully this will just last a couple of days and we’ll be back to our normal winter schedule. Looks like 30s and more snow and ice all next week. That will really test the cow’s ability to dig through deep snow to find grass. But who knows how the forecast will change in the next 7 days.

Wild times. Doing our best to deal with what comes our way. Hope you are prepared.

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Christmas at Grandma’s

As a kid I thought it was odd but now…I don’t know…I think it’s kind of sweet. My grandparents were married on Christmas. If my dates are correct, today would be their 67th anniversary. (I originally posted that grandma and grandpa were married on Christmas eve. That will teach me to trust my memory. It took two weeks for anyone to correct me though…)

I have misplaced the newspaper clipping announcing their 50th anniversary. Here they are in the early 50’s. My grandpa in this picture is younger than I am now. That’s my mom in my grandma’s arms.

ChismFamilyManhood was thrust on my grandfather at an early age and he wore it well. Look at him. I don’ t measure up. I miss my grandparents.

I think everybody arrived earlier and earlier each year – in part for the fellowship, in part because there was some competition between an aunt and an uncle for favorite tender morsels. There was always mistletoe hanging in the house and Grandma loved to kiss us. The whole family would set up tables and squeeze into the back room for Christmas dinner. Dad would carve the meat, the buffet would be set out. Basically the same food every year. I got a slice or two of ham, at least two crescent rolls my aunt made, some frozen fruit salad my grandma always made and a slice of the squash pie my great aunt Marion still makes with a dob of cool whip.

I sat at the “kids table” in the SE corner of the room. Each year several of us conspired to unroll the youngest cousin’s crescent roll at dinner. Then we would race to pick our favorite spot in the living room and wait to open presents. A favorite cousin and I would sit by the fake fireplace, waiting with increasing impatience while somebody cleaned tables, washed dishes and otherwise added to our frustration.

Grandma and Grandpa would take their places in their recliners. The rest of the family would squeeze into the living room. Somebody would pass out presents and…well, manners were forgotten. Paper went flying. One older cousin would gather the paper as it flew his direction and stuff it behind the green couch. I mean, what else are we going to do with it? Every year was the same. Pajamas, bathrobe and socks.

Christmas

This must be around 1994 or 1995. My sister made me that Animaniacs/Marvin the Martian blanket I’m holding. My kids still use it.

Then all the grandkids would put on their jammies and stand in front of the Christmas tree for pictures. If not jammies, the girls got Christmas dresses. Maybe we would pose in the back room. Whatever the case, family pictures were a must. After that it’s all a blur. Toys, Grandma’s oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, hugs all around. Aunts and uncles and cousins leaving if the weather allowed. We usually stayed the night at grandma’s. Sister would sleep on the green couch, I would sleep on the vinyl couch with several blankets topped by a thin red quilt (Wow. I haven’t thought about that quilt in 20 years). The clock on the mantle would tick away the minutes until I fell asleep. I woke up when grandma would wind the clock in the morning.

Jammies

I must have been unhappy that grandma made me a clown doll. Or just tired. Who knows.

That was basically every Christmas of my life. There were small changes over time. Cousins started bringing friends, then dates…later spouses…then great-grandchildren in numbers beyond counting. I was no longer allowed to sit at the kids table. Somehow the house still fit us all. Somehow grandma made enough cookies. Somehow the septic tank couldn’t manage.

Family

The unwritten rule of Christmas is that you go to your grandmother’s house. Now my mother is grandma. My aunt is grandma. The next generation of first cousins play together at their respective grandma’s. I can only hope somebody brings crescent rolls. Julie makes my grandma’s cookies and has found a way to make them even better by adding peppermint oil. Out. Of. This. World!

Grandma wrote this recipe but she didn’t use a recipe. I have added notes for the way we bake these so they turn out more like hers. These were always in her freezer in quart bags. Get yourself a glass of milk and a whole bag of cookies and find a quiet place. Julie adds a few drops of (Vendor name censored by the FDA) peppermint oil as a final step.

OatmealCookies

The house has changed though. It’s not my grandma’s house anymore. I’m sorry to say it has lost some of that…that…feeling. Grandma’s furnishings and decorations are properly disbursed among the family. Her paintings, her painted saw blades, the buffet in the dining room, the mantle clock . It’s still grandma’s house but with my stuff in it. It’s not the same somehow…like our stuff doesn’t fit the house because it’s not grandma’s. We’ll figure it out. And like my grandparents we have four children. I look forward to seeing my grandchildren unrolling each other’s crescent rolls and hiding wrapping paper behind the couch and posing for pictures in their new jammies.

Dresses

So many things have changed. So many people are gone now. But my grandparents gave us a family culture, a set of our own traditions and love. My mom is helping deliver Christmas dresses to the great-granddaughters today. I don’t know if this sounds corny or if it sounds boring. I hope it sounds consistent. Consistency is what I got from my grandparents. Every time I saw them. Every visit to their house. Always the same. Always loved. No matter what.

No matter what.

(Updated to add a few extra pictures I found at mom’s house.)

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Living in the Light

The days are pretty short in December. We don’t trust our solar charger to stay charged. The chickens are laying few eggs as we don’t provide artificial light, preferring to just let them have a little time off each winter. Before long they’ll be laying eggs again. It’s just part of the annual cycle.

Another part of the cycle, for me, is depression. Right now, I get up around 5, get a little housework done then head to work. Sometimes the sun peeks at me while I drive but not enough to make an impact. I sit in an office all day (well, not an office…a cubicle. Well, not a cubicle, a shared work space.) Anyway. I sit inside all day and pack my lunch most days. I don’t get out. I don’t see the sun for days on end and it gets me down.

Let me describe what a week looks like for me right now. We’ll start on Saturday. Saturday morning I reluctantly get out of bed and begin doing chores outside. Then I find place to cut some firewood or some other irregular outdoor chore to occupy my day and end up staying outside all day long. By the end of the day I feel …recharged! energetic! Sunday I often realize I overdid it on Saturday but spend a significant amount of time outside again. On Monday I get into the office feeling good but lose a little of that energy. Tuesday I’m still functional. Wednesday is the third day of living in the dark and I begin to get snippy with the children. By Friday I only talk to my co-workers, only when I have to and only because I am paid to. Everyone else needs to leave me alone.

5 days in the dark and I’m a wreck.

You know those voices in your head that compete for your attention? Picture the little angel on one shoulder saying, “You can do it!” starts losing to the devil on the other saying “You are a loser!” By Friday I can only hear the little devil and I’m ready to sell the farm, move to town and do something crazy like register to vote. That’s right. I said it. By 10:00 on Saturday I’m “me” again.

Sunrise

I am not made to live in the dark. I have to take specific action for my health to prevent this from happening. And, really, I believe the light specifically has to shine on my eyes, not just my skin.

It is Sunday and I have categorized this with the rare “Sunday Devotional” category so let me bring this around. All of that stuff above addresses my physical needs. But I am an eternal creature. I will only have physical needs for another 40 or 50 years at most. The eternal me has needs as well. And that “eternal me” is the real “me”. So what do I really need?

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”

I need to see and follow that light. On a daily basis. I can’t walk for 6 days in spiritual darkness.

By February I’ll be back into healthy day length cycles. Between now and then I have to make it a point to see the sun for physical and mental health. My spiritual self has similar needs but less seasonality. Church is entirely optional. Voluntary. Not only do I have to get myself there, I have to study daily on my own. I have to get the light in my eyes. I have to walk in the light. I have to BE the light. If not, I walk in darkness. And I don’t like what happens to me there.

From Ephesians 5:

8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10 and find out what pleases the Lord. 11 Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. 13 But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. 14 This is why it is said:

“Wake up, sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”