thanksgiving eve

All the customers have their thanksgiving birds. Despite not taking deposits, or being able to really properly count the birds, I ended up with just the right amount of birds and sizes of birds. All the customers got a bird or birds they were happy with and I had one each for my two pasture landlords and everyone went away happy. Whew! On top of it all, we had a third lamb today!

That's right, we have a skewed lambing season. I dont know why, probably because this pair of ewes I had matured and bred later than I realized. I thought I'd have lambs mid summer but instead I had them in November. The first pair came on Veteran's day. We thought they were going to come the Saturday before that, I got a txt during my kids' violin recital, but that turned out to be a vaginal prolapse. It was her first lambing, it was twins, and they were takin up all the space. The oncall vet was good 'ol Sarah that I photographed caring for Shawna the goat last spring. She said I could pick up a device and tie it to the wool on my own but I decided to spring for her visiting and luckily I did because hair sheep have no wool to tie a "ewe saver" to and she ended up putting in a couple of sutures to hold it in place, which held everything else in place. We had to re-tie it once, and that pretty much lasted until the day she lambed, when she managed to bust it into pieces. So I sent Carrie to get another one and install it, but then I got a call on Veterans day, around 4:30, that it was happening and I better get down there fast. We had reservations at Nick's Cove and Mary was on a walk but Sarah agreed to drive her down there when she got home so I loaded the kids in the minivan and got on down to Rose and Thorn, where I'm leasing some pasture (but I need to get out of there ASAP, its very wet there).

So we got there and Sarah and Elena were watching, and they said they had seen head and hooves but the ewe saver that is not supposed to interfere seemed to get in the way and it all went back in. Decided to phone the vet again, he said to go ahead and take the new ewe saver out, asked should I pull the lamb out and he said yes, should I wash my hands, yes, is purell OK? yes. So Sarah Silva reached in and pulled the lamb out. Boy. Then she had the next one all by herself. Mary arrived between the first and the second one but Jeremy and Madeline got to see both. It was pretty magical. Today, the sister (#4) of the mom of the twins (#5) had a lamb. The new one is a ewe. Sorry meat customers, looks like we are still building our flock :) Since Ram Sam Sam was the dad I guess we'll be breeding the new ewes in about a year to Sammy Jr., or maybe the Katahdin Ram I haven't named yet.
some lamb pics (lighter one is the boy, born first, darker one is the girl, born second):










November 2010 will always be remembered by me as the month of getting stuck in the mud. Lets see if I can remember all the times I've been stuck in the mud...The first time was after the big rain, when I was trying to stay out of the mud and I'd seen Sarah during the big rain drive the path by the forest from the house's rock driveway at Rose and Thorn in the middle of the big rain and we had a bunch of stuff for the pigs in the back so I decided to take it. Natalie was in the passenger seat and when I slipped off the path into the ditch she said "this is exactly where Sarah got stuck yesterday." I have to admit I went bananas on her for not mentioning that little tidbit of knowledge. She defended that since Sarah and I talked often she assumed I knew that already. Well I didn't and speaking up would have been the smart thing to do I still think. I got stuck deep in the ditch by that road that slopes to the ditch and wasted half a day first trying with John's tractor to pull me out and then waiting for AAA to get me out, which they did easily, but then I spent another day getting base rock from Canyon Rock and fixing mess I had made along with the original problem I might add. I also put base rock over the culvert where we normally enter. Which the construction guys that are parking their massive trucks there should have done but they dont seem all that great if you ask me. I'll never hire that guy for sure. He just put regular dirt over that culvert and that was just stupid. First time it rained that created a muddy mess. Which Sarah and I swept up once we had that fixed with base rock. We are conscientious tenants and land stewards...

Second time I got stuck was trying to bring the water trailer home from Salmon Creek Ranch where the layers are, I thought it was dry enough to go all the way in and turn around, but no, I found a muddy spot and got stuck, but was able to dig myself out and put boards down but had to leave the water trailer there. Meanwhile the tanks in the eggmobiles got lower and lower, so finally one day I dedicated to getting the water trailer and the livestock trailer out. Another backstory is that we had big rain in October, 10" in one weekend, and we couldn't get an adequate shelter for the pigs. I was at a strategic planning retreat for City Slicker Farms and texted Sarah that my flatbed trailer still had too much hay on it to move her a-frame and anyway I was not available so she could use my livestock trailer for the hog shelter. But instead of backing it in just to the border she drove it straight into the middle of the hog pasture! When I saw this I had her adjust the fence so that at least the hogs couldn't muddy up the spot in front of the trailer, but still there was no good way out of that pasture with my one livestock trailer that I depended upon to get all my animals out of that floodplain! So the day that was finally 4 or 5 days since rain that I decided Natalie and I would spring the water trailer was also the day we would get the livestock trailer out or die trying. We put several pieces of scrap siding from eggmobile4 in the pickup and 3 big pieces of 1" plywood that had been the deck of the flatbed that became em4. This was November 15th, the day of a Zazu farmer lunch that I had donated a turkey and 2doz eggs to and didn't want to miss. We got the trailer out of the pasture no problem but then we had to go through a narrow path in the forest that had a wet spot on the right side and I thought I could stay left enough but the trailer slid to the right and got buried to its axles. We spent 3 hours digging, putting wood down, backing up, putting wood down, moving forward, putting wood down, getting the mats out of the trailer, putting them down, digging, emptying the trailer of all the pig-shit/straw, putting that down, getting that out of the wheels where it got all seriously stuck, chainsawing blackberry canes into our knuckles and getting constantly whapped in the ass by blackberries, digging, putting wood down, backing up, digging, going forward etc. you get the picture. We fought and sweated and bled for every inch we moved that trailer until we got it free. And we did get it free.

here's Natalie and I with John's mule which got the job done. We were seriously proud. Natalie was a trooper and never complained once about the hell we were going through. I complained incessantly of course:

She and I earned the special sushi lunch we ate that day. But we missed the Zazu lunch by two hours. Oh well. Luckily Mary covered for us for the first 10 minutes of chicken pickup time. Sorry we were late Uni...

OK, so that was the second time I got majorly stuck. The third time was the night before the Thanksgiving Turkey harvest, I tried to drive the truck up to the turkey pen. I had all that wood at Rose and Thorn because of the stock trailer fiasco, and so I thought I could put it down in the one wet spot between road and turkeys and drive right up to them. I had my parents in the truck to help and didn't want to borrow the mule after dark and make noise at the barn that might bother John and Carole. Oops. there was another wet spot and I buried the front wheels of the truck to the axles. So my parents and I went through hell putting boards down, jacking the truck up, digging out huge areas to put the big 1" plywood pieces down, and doing that for all 4 wheels. Sarah Silva had a cold but she came down to help anyway so now I owe her bigtime. Once we got all the wheels on wood (this took hours, there were too many challenges to list) we connected the mule to the back of the truck with the pull chains and I gave the 3-2-1 signal and revved the engine for all it was worth as the mule pulled mightily but nothing happened. Oops, I was in neutral. got it in reverse and we got out of it no problem, re-adjusted the wood for the first wet spot but still managed to get stuck in that spot a second time but getting out only took 15 minutes this time, part of why we got stuck is the chain came unhooked and we lost momentum with the mule pulling. OK, dont drive the truck into the RT pasture. Filling up those holes we dug is still on the todo list.

We move the chickens to their third spot at Salmon Creek Ranch, and I took some pics to put in my power point for the poultry science class at SRJC that Dr. Famini asked me to speak at. Also did some footage for a new TV show re: food that was a neat experience and the people doing it are really cool and good company. Anyway, here's what my layer operation looks like as of Nov 2010...





The last time I got stuck was just last night. I spent all day from 11-5 working on the SRJC processing presentation, actually bringing my processing trailer and 2 turkeys and everything necessary to process and sell 2 turkeys to Dr. Famini to Shone Farm to give the class some exposure to actual poultry processing. It was the only exposure they were going to get, and I love the SRJC ag program (I took IPM and Org. farming classes there) so I had no choice but to oblige. So after the long day of preparing, speaking, then processing the turkeys in the frigid wind I needed to do my evening chicken chores, because Carrie's evening was spent on turkey pickup (I was sad I missed that customer interaction, so many new customers I didn't get to connect with). We had just added another 900 lbs to the feed trailer because Sarah got 3 more wine barrels delivered to her for me from her lovely family, and so I had 2K of layer feed loaded onto the trailer and headed to the chickens at around 7:30 pm in the dark. I almost made it up the hill when the wheels started spinning and I started sliding sideways. So I decided to back up and just drop the trailer, but in backing it off the road it started jack-knifing too much, in trying to correct that I got the front right wheel into a ditch that I couldn't get out of and the jack of the trailer prevented me backing up. Sarah Silva came out and picked me up before milking her goats. I got it out this morning by trailering up my tractor with Robert who was hired to work on 2 pig pens but instead spent half the day getting my truck out and getting my feed up the hill (with the tractor).

So that's my November. I really need my own land with some more gentle slopes, sandy well drained soil and some hard packed roads.

moved to winter pasture

hmm, where does the time go? we finished egg-mobile3 and moved the birds from hoop-tractor1 into it, then we sold the birds from egg-mobile1 and only had to cull 10 of them. We tore out the floor to put the correct size wire in it (that was the first one I'd built), cleaned out the water tanks and put in nipple waterers instead of the plasson bell waterer. We also re-painted to make it as cheerful as em3. Then we moved in the birds from hoop-tractor2. Whew! Now I am working on eggmobile4. And none too soon, the birds have begun to lay already...

Also importantly we filled out all the paperwork to start selling our eggs to Whole Foods. We heard they put a laser thermometer on the eggs when they arrive to make sure they get there at 45 degrees. Kind of cool. I was very impressed with how they wanted to tour my operation before they would agree to sell my eggs. That is very cool. Some friends warned us that our egg price was too low. When I look at the feed bills from Modesto Milling, I am sure that they are right and that we are losing money just on the egg business alone. Next year we will keep good records and find out just how much we are losing and what price we need to be at to break even. For now, I just want to get people in Sonoma County to taste some real pasture fed eggs. Not just eggs from chickens that are let outside to eat, but eggs from chickens that are kept in clean, mobile coops and supplemented with free choice oyster shell, captured rainwater, and modesto milling organic feed. And are as beautiful and well presented as ours.

Plus, in our new winter pasture courtesy of salmon creek ranch, they now have a view...

oops where did June go?

Hi Blog. sorry I neglect you. simple fact is, when I neglect you you don't die or suffer. Maybe I lose readers, but I'm not blogging to have lots of readers. Why am I blogging? who knows...

Anyway, I was back east for a family wedding a few weeks ago and Adele (Mary's sister) gave me grief again for being the worst blogger ever. So here I am, posting again, because I respond well to criticism I guess.

Truth is, I was procrastinating the next post because of the big news, and some unmade decisions. The big news is that we got our first full time employee! Her name is Natalie and she's the one I was waiting so long for. I was so afraid of bringing someone new into the household that I basically just waited until someone fell into my lap, someone who was working on a farm far away but came a couple of times to volunteer for chicken harvest. She was taking the bus and had to stay overnight to do it, so she spent time with the family and I was sure it was going to work out. When she and Jeremy and I hauled all the compost in the wheel barrow for middle field I knew she could handle hard work. When she let Jeremy talk her ear off while she was washing eggs I knew she was going to get along with the kids. Jeremy and Madeline always fought over who got to sit next to her at dinner and still do.

Here's a picture of wonderful Natalie:


what's that in the background you ask? Yup, we have pigs again. I have 3 breeder gilts (2 berkshires and 1 tamworth) and Sarah Silva has 3 breeder Tams (2 gilts and a boar). I also have 4 meat pigs (2 tams, 2 berks) and Sarah has 3 meat pigs in this batch (1 tam and 2 berks). We were fairly disappointed that there weren't more Berkshire market pigs for us but he gave them to someone else because apparently Sarah wasn't clear that we were going to pick them up for sure when she talked to him. We are always going to send a deposit from now on when we commit to animals.

I also mentioned there was a decision I was trying to make. I had picked up these guard dogs that hadn't been kept with livestock like they were supposed to be. They started out as a real pain in the butt. They had no vaccinations, no training, and they were not bonded to sheep like I wanted. The female (I can't use the "b" word though I know I should) liked to chew hoses and I swear she was breaking in the garden and tearing it up just out of spite. She killed one of Sarah's ewe lambs and I felt so bad I had to give up my St. Croix ewe lamb to compensate. Any way, I got rid of her to someone who wanted a pet dog like her, after paying for grooming and all the vaccinations and I gave her away free. Now the male, Leo, is earning his keep protecting the meat chickens from the weasel. We've lost 1 meat bird while he was watching that looked like weasel and in 6 weeks that's not bad. Here's a pic of Leo:


I had taken some other pics, in June when I finished some chicken housing that I'm calling "hoop tractor" for starting pullets until they are ready to lay and move into an "eggmobile" on a trailer. Basically its a way to get them out on grass while they are still small enough for hawks to eat them. I never did get the pics out or make the blog post. It was a busy time. But I want you to know how I protect the birds between week 12 and week 20 when they are laying and ready to replace the prior flock that is getting culled. I move these things by dragging it with a tractor or John's Kawasaki "mule" (he is the landlord of my current farm lease) every 3 days or so.





OK, so that's it for now, can't possibly write about everything. Something you want me to write about? Let me know. As I said, I need more reasons to spend time on this.

Mother Earth confirms pasture-fed eggs are healthier!

A volunteer forwarded me a link to Mother Earth News' information regarding eggs and the benefits of letting the chickens out on fresh pasture (especially by moving them around, they will quickly turn a covered stationary "yard" into conditions similar to a factory farm). I'm going to cut and paste the whole article...

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Relish/Pastured-Eggs-Vitamin-D-Content.aspx

The results from Mother Earth News’ latest round of pastured egg nutrient tests are beginning to come in. So far, pastured egg producers are kicking the commercial industry’s butt — woo hoo, go free range! We’ve invested a lot of time and energy over the last few years in researching the differences between the meat and eggs coming out of the commercial industry and those produced by conscientious farmers who let their animals graze on fresh pastures. In the past, we’ve found that eggs from hens raised on pasture, as compared to those commercially raised factory farm eggs, contain:

• 1⁄3 less cholesterol
• 1⁄4 less saturated fat
• 2⁄3 more vitamin A
• 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids
• 3 times more vitamin E
• 7 times more beta carotene

Now we’re looking at vitamin D, which many of us do not get enough of because we don’t spend any time outdoors, and even when we do we use sunscreen that blocks vitamin D production. (More about that here.) Eggs are one of the few food sources of naturally occurring vitamin D, and we wondered if true free-range eggs might be higher in this important vitamin, too. Our latest tests show that pastured eggs have anywhere between 4 to 6 times as much vitamin D as typical supermarket eggs.

So … (1) Get out there and eat some fresh farm eggs! and (2) Check out our ongoing pastured egg research here

OK, that wasn't in the plan

Got a call from my landlord of the layer chickens today. How ironic that this morning I just posted pics of their nice home next to the forest. Well, some of that forest decided to fall over. A huge ash took out 4 other trees on its way to landing right in between my two chicken coops. Clearly God loves my chickens but likes to keep me busy. I spent the entire afternoon keeping two chainsaws very busy but I did manage to free one of the three sections of fence that was smashed by trees. Not cheap fence, but hopefully I can get there tomorrow in time to free another section before his tree guys come and brutalize it with their chainsaws.

Look at how perfectly those trees came down right in between the two coops. What a miracle!





Not a single chicken was injured. But this kind of thing is why my eggs are the best. This is why markets need to be scheduling phone calls with me when I offer them the privilege of offering my eggs to their customers. This is why there are no bulk discounts! These eggs move to pristine pastures and those places are alive with activity instead of sterile and safe concrete boxes. Sometimes, that activity comes crashing down on me though and I need to drop everything to protect the chickens from that which comes lurking in the night.

egg cartons

Yesterday there was a radio program about bottled water that I heard a snippet of while driving home from my newest lease. When I repositioned eggmobile1 by the way it was tilted wrong and the water overflowed the gutter on the opposite side of the water tank and I wasted all of yesterday's storm without collecting any water :( But the new property they are on is on a creek next to a huge forest, a very beautiful old orchard, lovely forage for the chickens, and full of wildlife (and predators) so its a good test of my electric-net fences. They've been there almost a week and so far so good. All this driving back and forth wears a farmer down, but having small properties is the fact of California so I've gotta make this farming model work. Also, the eggs are better this way. Just when your pathogens and predators think they know the drill...

eggmobile2

eggmobile1

Back to the radio, the speaker was lamenting the recycling of plastic water bottles. They are made from petroleum, and always made fresh. When we recycle water bottles he said, they are almost always shipped across the sea to china and "down-cycled" into carpet batting and other parts of things, but never back into water bottles. Apparently there is one company thinking about building a plant to "close the loop" but this hasn't happened yet.

Enter my egg cartons. They are made from recycled water bottles. OK, its not a water bottle, but its a product being purchased here in the U.S. and its clear PETE plastic containing a food product just like the original water bottle, so its closer to closing the loop than carpet batting. It is labeled with a 1 on the bottom so it can be recycled again. I am not aware if carpet batting gets recycled. I need to look into where these cartons are manufactured, that's the one thing, if its happening in China that's sad. Anyway, I got the clear ones because they display the colorful dozen that is so superior to anything else on the market, but I also knew that providing a market for recycled materials here in the U.S. is a good thing. When we get rid of plastic water bottles, I will stop using plastic cartons from the recycled product.

Weds and Thursday last week I worked back to back 17 hour days acquiring new sheep because of customer demand, so now I can start taking orders for fall lambs because I got 14.5 more sheep in 2 days. All hair sheep (8 are barbados, 5 whethers, 3 ewes, the rest are St. Croix). The half sheep is because Silva Star and I are sharing a St. Croix ram because we got someone's entire flock. I also picked up 2 Italian sheep dogs called "Maremmas" from someone who couldn't keep them anymore. They are a year old and unfortunately aren't yet bonded to sheep like they should be, so its going to take some work, but they are very good with the sheep already, they do not harass the lambs at all. I have been working non-stop every day since then so I haven't taken any pics yet, but I'm going to try to get that done in the next few days.

Lastly but not leastly, poor Madeline was playing on the swing (standing) and fell off forward and broke her arm a little. I say a little because the doctor said its a very small fracture and the cast only needs to be on a week. Still, its uncomfortable for her, and she was very frustrated about it. She seems to be getting used to it now. She wanted me to take this picture of her and Ruby.

May harvests are done

Whew, another month's worth of chicken harvests are done. Now I can finally focus on getting some plants in the ground and moving my chickens to another location again. I just can't use the property they are on now because the semi-dwarf orchard is too modern and the trees are too close together. can't farm chickens in the rows, and I was able to put the eggmobiles on the edge of the orchard and run the nets towards the inside, with the plan of going all around the orchard on the road like that, but now the neighboring orchard has run his disc through it all and it would appear he owns the entire backside up to the treeline, so that is out. Hooray for layer coops on wheels that are road-worthy.

When you are thinking about volunteering for a chicken harvest at Felton Acres, but are a little intimidated that you might not be able to do it, you can reflect on the following photo of a volunteer from this week. We just love our volunteers, they add so much good conversation and fun to every single harvest, and this week was no exception. Thank you very much to all of our past volunteers.