When Google+ came out, I figured oh cool, now I can drop twitter, facebook, and the blog and just use Google+ for everything. But if Google+ is being used by more than a handful of people around where I live then its news to me. It just isn't taking over the other services as I'd hoped, even though it would be much better for all of us if the other less functional sites would just go away. (facebook and twitter, how about just throwing it in?) They seem to have reached critical mass, where like Ebay, the other sites are just never gonna get there because the biggest one is the only place most people care to be. Crappy or no, they seem to have traction and critical mass and I am stuck dealing with the mishmash SM stuff to spend my dark-outside time on.
I return to the blog for a simple reason: I have something on my mind. Its food of course: is the food we sustainably produce too expensive? Is it worth the blood, sweat, and tears to create this food if my friends can't afford to feed it to their kids? Isn't that why I started farming, to make better tasting, more nutritious, better for the planet and our community food for my friends to feed to their kids?
But what is "can't afford?" I know people who drive Lexus' and BMW's who don't buy local food because they think it is over priced. People who have read Omnivore's Dilemma, and have plenty of money, just can't see spending twice the price of Rosie when she's organic fed after all. I also have among my customers people who are clearly making every penny count but wouldn't buy a Rosie if their dinner depended upon it. Yet for everyone, food IS a large part of the monthly budget (even if its a smaller part in the USA than it is in every other developed country) and is everyone ready to double that? Then do it again? What if they are already having a hard time saving up a nest egg and nourishing the 401-K? Dont those 2 need to be prioritized over eggs with less cholesterol and more vitamin D? I mean, you don't DIE from eating a $1.50 dozen of eggs, but you could easily croak if you dont have health insurance and you get sick, at least if the tea-party gets to take over you are dead.
How can we prioritize something as indirect as our topsoil and our ocean and our atmosphere when these things are so vast that any major damage we do to them will only really manifest itself in our children or grandchildren's lifetimes? Paying for college and gas for the commute and the rent is so RIGHT NOW. Plus, these are the commons, and without everyone having a crystal ball isn't it a little silly to make financial sacrifices yourself when everyone else is just gonna go for what's cheapest? And as for the welfare of animals, well, what's more important, animals or people? Vegans you are not spared, your vegetable mono-crops come at the expense of wildlife from huge to microscopic, both on the farm and very very far away. It is shipping our topsoil off to the ocean. It is messing up the climate, terrestrial hydrology, and polluting non-stop.
A Kurt Vonnegut quote comes to mind. I can't remember what it was exactly but it was something along the lines of "I smoke because I'm too cowardly to commit suicide all at once." We can't see the future, these changes are happening slowly and the effects are absorbed by the vastness of the systems involved (the solution to pollution is dilution). A few people have put some money into getting some data that shows us that sustainably produced food is actually better for our bodies. Focus groups have shown that people won't really pay more for the environment but they will pay more if they think its better for their health. But there isn't much out there proving that conventionally farmed food is actually bad for our bodies. There is a lot of unexplained illness and disease we didn't used to have (heart failure, cancer) but this could be environmental too, or social issues like more stressful lives. So we are back to why pay $8 for something you can get for $1.50?
Why can you get it for $1.50 anyway? How did that happen? Developing systems that reduced risk, minimized labor, and maximized efficiency. What are the costs and who pays? Animal suffering=not me, environmental degradation=not me, human exploitation(cheap labor)=not me. Also governmental corruption subsidizing any farming that is cheaper than the others makes this uber-cheap food possible. Modern marketing further allows for pushing food that isn't really food at all and for changing traditional nourishment strategies into modern ones. How in the hell have we convinced people of the complete oxymoron that food should be cheap and illegal immigration is just a bunch of criminals ruining our country? Media/marketing of course.
People will say that markets determine all of this. Cheap food exists because there is a market for it, and sustainable will take over only if and when the market demands it. Alas markets are not truly free of outside forces and thus dont work in reality as well as they should in theory. We behave irrationally for a variety of reasons. But most importantly I think that the corrupting power of money has so much control over policy that we have the markets we do in a large part because super wealthy people think its better for them this way. I disagree, I think the current economic system as deployed since Reagan of dismantling the New Deal is weakening the middle class, the true big spenders of our economy, which actually hurts the wealthy, who's wealth is invested in markets which crash when the middle class has no more money to spend. Robert Reich just nails this one: first we sent women to work, then we worked longer hours, then we borrowed like no tomorrow, and now there's just nothing left for the middle class to do for themselves to increase their spending power. Their bosses just have to increase their pay at this point for their wealth to grow. And that ain't happening you communist america hater. As long as we can be convinced that the reason our local governments are so broke is because of teacher, police, and fire-fighter pensions then we aren't going to make any progress strengthening the middle class. And of course, its gotta go way beyond the public sector, the middle class needs more wealth across the board. The wealth is right there in Warren Buffet's bank account. He's one of the good guys, but the point is, the super rich are richer and more numerous and powerful because the middle class is dwindling, and educational quality has been dropping for a while now, and we are all plugged into a media that can convince anyone that which is bad for them is actually good and vice-versa. I'm not convinced there is really such a thing as wealth creation. I think its a vast closed system, like the atmosphere, and it all sorta sloshes around. You add to this pile by removing some from that one.
So maybe the question isn't why should we pay more for food when we have so little money to go around and should instead be why is there so little money to go around? Its basically the force behind the Occupy protests, why do I have enough free time to Occupy this place instead of working? Because I have no job. Because the old contract with our society, that if I'm willing to work hard for a lifetime I get to have kids and a place to live and a good education for them and a comfortable old age has been chucked out the window.
We live in THIS place, at THIS time, with THIS system. A local farmer once admonished a bunch of us: "we farm in the economy we have, not the one we want" and surely the same is true for the consumer. So what can we do?
-pray, work, and advocate for change towards a more just society
-vote
-buy direct from a local farm so they can farm sustainably and you can afford it since there isn't a middle man with his margin
-plant a garden
-get skilled in your kitchen
-heck if I know
I wish I really knew the answer and could figure out how to produce wholesome food for less right here in Sonoma county, without cheating the land, our employees, or our livestock. They after all give their last measure of devotion to become immortalized as part of our children.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
lets try this again
OK, its been a few months again. the longer it gets the more daunting the post ultimately becomes, thus forming a vicious cycle. To break this, I'm going to resort to posting pics of the various farm babies and other iphone pictures of interest since February. It seems as soon as the goat kids and piglets popped out I knew I had to post their pics but just haven't found the time. Well, here goes.
Jeremy with a new barbados lamb back in December.
me scratching monster's belly. he's a bottle baby, his mom had too small a pelvic bone for birth and he had to be pulled with an obstetrical snare. we lost the rest of his litter and his mom had to take up residence in our freezer. but out of the bottle feeding we got the nicest baby pig you could wish for. He has been a cute little honker to have around.
Our egg operation in full glory just after moving down from the spot behind the photographer. It was in the middle of the pasture 2 weeks before that, where you can see the bare spot near where one of the coops were. That's what chickens do to the grass around their coop where they hang out all day and why you have to move the coop if you want to have superior eggs. you either have to move the coops or pray that the "local" movement will help sell your eggs since they aren't much better than a CAFO.
Eggmobile2 after its retrofit. Chicken farmers have to replace their flocks at 2 years when their laying tapers off and they eat more money in feed than they make in eggs. That gives me a perfect opportunity to fix the things I didn't like about my 2nd coop. It got new water tanks, and nipples inside and out, which are much more sanitary and less failure prone than the gravity based waterers.
Tamworth litter. Only one gilt though, the rest were barrows. We learned how to fix them, not nearly as bad as I'd thought. I sold the gilt for a weaner price to a nice lady who wanted to breed her. Next litter I will have the confidence to sell the best ones for a higher price as breeding stock.
Cinnamon's twins: sugar and nutmeg, still wet from being born. We had 9 kids out of 4 does and it never got boring. I guess we are doing something right.
Meat chickens on pasture. More water nipples. These things are a labor saver and the consistent water that never fails is a plus for consistent bird size and good growth throughout.
Between brooder room and eggmobile we grow out pullets in these things I call "hoop tractors" of my own design. I have to move them with a tractor. This eggmobile2 replacement flock had some nice birds in it, this RI Red climbed me while I was moving their shelter.
She knows the best place to ride. Thank God for coffee btw. Just noticed it and thought I'd mention how much I love it.
OK blog. Sorry about the neglect. I think your problem is that you aren't a living thing, those have to take priority over you, simply a bunch of typed words and linked images.
Jeremy with a new barbados lamb back in December.
me scratching monster's belly. he's a bottle baby, his mom had too small a pelvic bone for birth and he had to be pulled with an obstetrical snare. we lost the rest of his litter and his mom had to take up residence in our freezer. but out of the bottle feeding we got the nicest baby pig you could wish for. He has been a cute little honker to have around.
Our egg operation in full glory just after moving down from the spot behind the photographer. It was in the middle of the pasture 2 weeks before that, where you can see the bare spot near where one of the coops were. That's what chickens do to the grass around their coop where they hang out all day and why you have to move the coop if you want to have superior eggs. you either have to move the coops or pray that the "local" movement will help sell your eggs since they aren't much better than a CAFO.
Eggmobile2 after its retrofit. Chicken farmers have to replace their flocks at 2 years when their laying tapers off and they eat more money in feed than they make in eggs. That gives me a perfect opportunity to fix the things I didn't like about my 2nd coop. It got new water tanks, and nipples inside and out, which are much more sanitary and less failure prone than the gravity based waterers.
Tamworth litter. Only one gilt though, the rest were barrows. We learned how to fix them, not nearly as bad as I'd thought. I sold the gilt for a weaner price to a nice lady who wanted to breed her. Next litter I will have the confidence to sell the best ones for a higher price as breeding stock.
Cinnamon's twins: sugar and nutmeg, still wet from being born. We had 9 kids out of 4 does and it never got boring. I guess we are doing something right.
Meat chickens on pasture. More water nipples. These things are a labor saver and the consistent water that never fails is a plus for consistent bird size and good growth throughout.
Between brooder room and eggmobile we grow out pullets in these things I call "hoop tractors" of my own design. I have to move them with a tractor. This eggmobile2 replacement flock had some nice birds in it, this RI Red climbed me while I was moving their shelter.
She knows the best place to ride. Thank God for coffee btw. Just noticed it and thought I'd mention how much I love it.
OK blog. Sorry about the neglect. I think your problem is that you aren't a living thing, those have to take priority over you, simply a bunch of typed words and linked images.
Monday, February 28, 2011
2011 chicken season email
Dear Customers and Friends,
I am pleased to announce the schedule for my pasture fed chicken
program this year. I know many of you are hooked on our high standards
and I apologize for making you wait so long for this announcement.
We've been busy! We now have a new farm in Sebastopol with excellent
soil (but no driveway, water, or power yet :) and we'll be farming our
chickens on that good grass starting in just a few weeks. Now our
investments in topsoil through careful ecosystem management will
permanently benefit our own programs.
Because we supplement the natural forage diet with the highest quality
USA grown organic grains from Modesto Milling, we need to raise our
price slightly to $5.50/lb this year to ensure the viability of this
program.
Chickens will be available on the following dates:
4/10 & 4/17
5/8 & 5/15
6/5 & 6/12
7/3 & 7/10
8/7 & 8/14
9/4 & 9/11
10/2 & 10/9
11/6 & 11/13
12/4 & 12/11
Those are all Sundays, but customers will also be able to pick their
chicken from that harvest up on Monday for convenience. After that
self-pickup out of the walk-in is arrangeable for emergencies but is
discouraged.
If you like a smaller chicken 3.5 - 4 lbs then try to order from the
first week. The second week birds tend to be a little bit larger,
4-4.5. But there are always larger ones in the first harvest and
smaller ones in the second so don't worry too much about this
guideline.
In other news, I have a few lambs available that will be harvested
next month. My sheep are hair sheep, they shed out their wool when the
weather warms up, so they do not have the strong lamb/lanolin flavor
that some people when they've tried lamb have decided they do not
like. Give mine a try in that case, the flavor is out of this world
and you will broaden your cooking horizons as you seek recipes for the
various cuts you will receive. I only sell whole live lambs so they
can be harvested onsite for minimum stress. The price is still $3/lb
on the live weight so its around $7-8/lb once all the butchering is
done and paid for. I ask for a $40 deposit to reserve your lamb.
It is with great pleasure and excitement that I make this announcement
to open the 2011 chicken. Now, let the hard (but rewarding) work
commence!
sincerely,
-marc
p.s. if you want to be removed from my mailing list please reply to this
email with some words to that effect and I will make it happen. alternately,
if you know people who like local high quality food, I have expanded my efforts
this year and would welcome new customers. thanks!
I am pleased to announce the schedule for my pasture fed chicken
program this year. I know many of you are hooked on our high standards
and I apologize for making you wait so long for this announcement.
We've been busy! We now have a new farm in Sebastopol with excellent
soil (but no driveway, water, or power yet :) and we'll be farming our
chickens on that good grass starting in just a few weeks. Now our
investments in topsoil through careful ecosystem management will
permanently benefit our own programs.
Because we supplement the natural forage diet with the highest quality
USA grown organic grains from Modesto Milling, we need to raise our
price slightly to $5.50/lb this year to ensure the viability of this
program.
Chickens will be available on the following dates:
4/10 & 4/17
5/8 & 5/15
6/5 & 6/12
7/3 & 7/10
8/7 & 8/14
9/4 & 9/11
10/2 & 10/9
11/6 & 11/13
12/4 & 12/11
Those are all Sundays, but customers will also be able to pick their
chicken from that harvest up on Monday for convenience. After that
self-pickup out of the walk-in is arrangeable for emergencies but is
discouraged.
If you like a smaller chicken 3.5 - 4 lbs then try to order from the
first week. The second week birds tend to be a little bit larger,
4-4.5. But there are always larger ones in the first harvest and
smaller ones in the second so don't worry too much about this
guideline.
In other news, I have a few lambs available that will be harvested
next month. My sheep are hair sheep, they shed out their wool when the
weather warms up, so they do not have the strong lamb/lanolin flavor
that some people when they've tried lamb have decided they do not
like. Give mine a try in that case, the flavor is out of this world
and you will broaden your cooking horizons as you seek recipes for the
various cuts you will receive. I only sell whole live lambs so they
can be harvested onsite for minimum stress. The price is still $3/lb
on the live weight so its around $7-8/lb once all the butchering is
done and paid for. I ask for a $40 deposit to reserve your lamb.
It is with great pleasure and excitement that I make this announcement
to open the 2011 chicken. Now, let the hard (but rewarding) work
commence!
sincerely,
-marc
p.s. if you want to be removed from my mailing list please reply to this
email with some words to that effect and I will make it happen. alternately,
if you know people who like local high quality food, I have expanded my efforts
this year and would welcome new customers. thanks!
Thursday, February 17, 2011
harvested today
We had a goat and lamb harvest today. I was quite pleased with the sizes, most lambs broke the 60 lb barrier which is what I'm shooting for in the hair sheep. You might wonder why I farm such small lambs, when wool breeds easily get 80 lbs or more? Well, some people really dont like that strong lamb/lanolin flavor, and my hair sheep don't have it. So most of my lamb customers can't believe the mild and delicious flavor and they come back for more.
Sorry for the squeamish about this pic, but this is how a stress-free lamb graduation ceremony looks when its done on farm. They get to meet their maker with a minimum of fear.
Here's a pic of Nate the other day doing one of his favorite things. I'm looking forward to the help of this farm hand:
for now though, this is pretty good Nate and Daddy time:
Sorry for the squeamish about this pic, but this is how a stress-free lamb graduation ceremony looks when its done on farm. They get to meet their maker with a minimum of fear.
Here's a pic of Nate the other day doing one of his favorite things. I'm looking forward to the help of this farm hand:
for now though, this is pretty good Nate and Daddy time:
Saturday, February 5, 2011
its been a while
Here's us in the middle of moving the eggmobiles on the new farm. All but eggmobile2 are moved to their new location. Eggmopbile4 is red (youngest birds) Em1 is yellow (second youngest) Em3 is blue (second oldest), Em 2 is green (oldest), with the tractor connected in foreground. Em2's replacement birds are on pasture in the hoop tractors in the deep background which have been depicted in previous blog posts.
Carrie is grabbing a feeder in the old pasture. We have adjusted the space we give each flock, the old birds need less pasture and the young birds more, you can see the pasture degrading as it fades into the background.
Jeremy turned 7. We had his birthday in conjunction with another kid in his class so as to help minimize the amount of birdthay parties for the class this year...
And finally, they got hold of the entire bottle of bubble bath. Yup, daddy checks his email for one second and this is what happens:
Carrie is grabbing a feeder in the old pasture. We have adjusted the space we give each flock, the old birds need less pasture and the young birds more, you can see the pasture degrading as it fades into the background.
Jeremy turned 7. We had his birthday in conjunction with another kid in his class so as to help minimize the amount of birdthay parties for the class this year...
And finally, they got hold of the entire bottle of bubble bath. Yup, daddy checks his email for one second and this is what happens:
Sunday, December 12, 2010
dreams of my daughter
I was sitting at my computer, poking around on the website. I had posted a new testimonial, updated some pics, responded to a comment on the blog, and I heard from upstairs little feet get out of bed and run towards mommy and daddy's room. Since I was up, I intercepted to preserve mommy's sleep.
"What's a matter Maddie?"
"I had a really bad dream"
"oh what was it about?"
"there was a so scary bird with a really long beak. It was so scary. And there were so many chickens, everywhere"
oh dear, what have I done?
"What's a matter Maddie?"
"I had a really bad dream"
"oh what was it about?"
"there was a so scary bird with a really long beak. It was so scary. And there were so many chickens, everywhere"
oh dear, what have I done?
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
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.
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.
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