Blacks, Whites, and a Brown

We got our first shipment of chicks today: egg layers. This feels like a real step of faith, since the 25 or so birds we currently have produce more eggs than we are able to eat or sell. It's the one product we have in excess. But we don't have enough to support ten families plus the Lykoshes, and since it takes five months for layers to get to maturity, we need to start raising chicks well before we actually need eggs.

Isaiah and Joe drove up to the post office to get our box of peeps. Isaiah poked his fingers in the holes and they would peck, which made me laugh and laugh. He opened the edge just a bit so he could see in better, and as we pulled into the driveway, he said, "Oh! One just hopped out!" Little yellow chick on the loose, cheeping, "Let me OUT of there!"

Joel Salatin rotates through three breeds of layers, all with very different appearance. That way, after the two-year-old hens are not laying enough eggs to support their feed, he knows easily which birds to cull. Last year we started getting eggs from Rhode Island Reds; this year we're starting Barred Rocks, and next year we're thinking we'll try Black Astralorps. Red, checkered, black, and then back to red.

But we also know that White Leghorns are the absolutely most productive of the layer breeds. All hens lay about 600 eggs in their lives, but Leghorns lay their 600 in the shortest period (thus consuming the least amount of food, and being the most profitable). That's why white eggs are less expensive: they cost a good bit less to produce.

So Phil and decided to split the order this year: half Leghorns, half Barred Rocks. Our box was a stark contrast of light and dark!

With one freebie chick, that we were excited to see has feathers on his feet! Yippee! It makes me smile just to see him.

We're curious if they'll really do that much better. Leghorns are the chickens you see in the confinement feeding operations: do they do that well outside? On first glance, several of the Leghorns looked ill. As you may be able to see in the photo, the yellow chick in the foreground has slits for eyes; Feathers, in the background, has the healthy, round, beady eyes we like to see. So we spritzed Arnica, and a few hours later, I couldn't see any chicks that appeared ill or stressed. Hopefully they are doing well.

There is a sad coda to this idyllic story of happy boys, parents, and chicks. Four of us were in the trailer, getting the babies set and happy. The chicks were so happy to be out of their box: Whites under the heat lamp, Blacks were zipping around. We didn't think about shuffling slowly, and, in a moment, one of the chicks was trod upon and her tiny body now lies in the compost pile.

This threatened to cast shadows on my whole day. Why can't we keep alive the animals in our care!?

But I had read a missionary biography last week that helped me today. In it, Isobel Kuhn grieved over her separation from her daughter when the girl went to boarding school (a separation that ended up lasting something like six years, due to WWII). After she had spent herself in grief, the Lord gently reprimanded her: "You have exhausted yourself in grief, saddened your husband, and didn't help you daughter. Next time, gird up your loins and be a soldier. Use common sense, and don't indulge in excess grief."

While my little loss today is tiny by comparison, it was helpful to remember. An accidental death of a $2 chick is not the end of the world.

My boys loved holding the chicks; we are hopeful that the rest of the chicks are healthy.

And so I finished my day.

Butch came by to let us know we have a tornado watch. He mentioned that we are in a drought. Within a half hour, rain came down, and poured and drizzled for the rest of the day. Phil had indoor work, and I planted in the greenhouse.

Six hundred tomato and tomatillo seeds went into tiny soil blocks. Fifty more asparagus sprouted yesterday, bringing me to right about 50% germination now. That's quite encouraging.

No More Nightmares

Phil returned yesterday night after a week's absence, working "for pay." I thought I had done a fairly good job holding all together while he was away, but he could see in just a few glances that we were just surviving. From the branch that had fallen across the electric line that's holding in the heifers in the lower pasture, knocking loose the charger, to the uncovered wood chips that became soggy in the rain, I don't even know what to look for. What is second nature to him is invisible to me.

For myself, I think I was more traumatized by the great animal escape than I realized. I woke up near daybreak on Friday after dreaming that the cows and bull had gotten out of their pen and were roaming the orchard, and I somehow had to figure out how to corral them. When I woke up, I tried to do some deep breathing and figure out how I would manage this untenable situation should it prove real. Thankfully it didn't.

Worse, on Saturday, I dreamed that Buttercup knocked down the cattle panel fence, and the five pigs shot out into the forest, where they proceeded to gleefully trample all the forest and compact the soil. Would electric sheep netting corral a determined 300 pound porker? I doubt it.

But Phil came back, and I slept through the night without a dream of emergent animals. I was grateful.

"I wish I never had to leave again."

That makes two of us.

Seeds Are Planted

Phil had been hoping for rain this week, and I woke to a downpour. Happy day! By the time I went out to start chores, though, the rain had stopped, and by 10am, we saw the sun, which had been mostly missing this week. Half an inch, though, over the course of the week, has left the ground spongy.

The boys, cooped up inside since Sunday, bounded out to dig in the well tailings, and Joe came in to the greenhouse to "help" me plant seeds, and to dig ponds and moats in my potting soil. We had a good time.

Asparagus seeds continue to sprout! I'm close to 200 little green bits. Isaiah came in today and helped me seed rhubarb, lettuce, cilantro, and spinach. I made the blocks and he filled them up. (He skipped the miniscule mustard green seeds: they were too tiny for him.)

In other news, Red took notice of Bianca yesterday, and this morning I went out to find them still doing their mating dance: Bianca running away; Red sticking to her side. By lunch time today, I could see that Bianca's resistance was waning. While I made lunch, I watched my first actual mating. At the risk of being vulgar, I had a general idea of how the mechanics would work, but the sight of a bull, up on his hind legs, hopping forward was a feat of athleticism that made me punch the sky in enthusiasm. Incredible strength and grace.

Not so pleasant for Bianca, who almost immediately lay down, and, on standing again, was careful to hold her tail out from her back end.

Worm Blessing

When I was doing chores this morning, I noticed that the water spigot was quite loose. I had figured I could leave the cows where they were for another few days, but looking at the two inches of space opened up on all sides of the spigot, I'm guessing the cows were scratching themselves, and it would be only a matter of time before the pipe snapped off. What a disaster that would be.

So I huffed and I puffed and I ROLLED the two half-eaten bales just inside the open gate. The cows went where they were supposed to go, and most of the sheep did, too. I was interested to see Red staring hungrily at the pigs as they ate their slop: none of the girls have shown the slightest interest, but I could imagine Red thinking, "Could I just step over this little foot high electric line and get some of that nicely fermented grain myself?"

Thankfully, he hasn't tried it yet.

When I went to plant this week's broccoli, I looked at last week's tray and figured they were about ready to go outside. I have no idea why I thought that, other than that rootlets had emerged out the bottom and the weather seems fairly mild (though it may reach freezing again once or twice). But I planted my first little seedling pots, and as I placed the first little mustard greens, a huge night crawler emerged from my bed in greeting.

I stared at him. I don't think I've seen a night crawler on the land before. It has been devoid of much soil life, so I snapped a photo of this underground blessing.

I did mulch the cabbages, broccoli, and greens, and it is possible that they will not survive. The soil felt warm to my touch, though, so I am cautiously hopeful. And the mostly orderly planting of the emergent seedlings was very beautiful to me.

In closing, a photo that warms my heart.

Growing up in southern California, we lived through a minor earthquake or two. After being awakened by an earthquake, my siblings and I no longer wanted to sleep in separate bunks, so instead of four of us evenly split between two bunk beds, all four of us shared the lower bed of one bunk bed: two heads at the head of the bed, and two heads at the feet. We pretended we were on a cruise ship, for some odd reason (perhaps more in line with refugees coming to America than the opulent pleasure cruises of today).

In the photo above, Abraham, Isaiah, and Joe carry on the glorious tradition of sibling comfort in repose.

Cows Join the Sheep

Yesterday morning, after a night without water, I opened the gate to the paddock and all the sheep and goats happily filed in. I made sure to latch the gate securely, and went to slop the pigs when I watched in disbelief as the sheep and goats knelt down and squeezed under the gate. Why they hadn't figured out how to do that the previous couple of weeks, I don't know, but they know now.

The animal issues continue. I went to push a round bale, placed right outside the gate, into the pen. I managed to flip the 1000 pound bale on its edge, but when I tried to maneuver it (single handedly) through the gate, I accidentally pushed it flat, and then, with the slight rain we've had, I couldn't get my feet to stay under me so I could roll the bale again. So there it was, stuck in the opening of the gate, Red the bull blocking further progress, even if I could get enough purchase under foot to move it.

So I left it there, blocking the gate. And, predictably, all the cows soon joined the sheep in the outer area. I strung up an electric line (and electrified it) so the cows and calves don't decide to press their luck with the non-electrified sheep netting (the calves were getting awfully close, and I would rather Beatrice not tear her ear by getting her tag stuck in the netting: once was enough).

As darkness fell, I felt fairly secure that the animals would be fine for the night. But when I went to get some more salt for dinner, I hear gushing water. Somehow the cows had figured out how to raise the handle on the spigot to get water. (If they would walk into their proper pen, they could have water at any time! Argh!) Sadly, they didn't figure out how to turn off the water. I was thankful to hear the water flow so soon after the cows turned it on: a flooded field and a dry well would have most unpleasant to discover tomorrow morning. I hope the cows don't remember how to turn the faucet on!

I planted several thousand onion seeds over the last couple of days. The asparagus is growing again, too: I've had about 30 more little seedlings sprout in the last two days. I pulled one nice asparagus stalk and noticed that there are multiple rootlets reaching the edge of the 2" block. For a little two inch sprout, that's a lot of root! Awesome.

Of the four varieties of peppers I planted last week, almost all the jalapenos have sprouted, but none of the other peppers have.

How to Capture 12 Sheep and 2 Goats

I've had a hard time this last week. So many seed disappointments (ten acres less of grazing land than expected); so many break-downs (the sawmill's belt gave up the ghost, which we weren't really expecting. I don't know why not: farming sometimes seems about equipment and repairs). Things that we expect to be easy (getting the pig to be bred) turn out to be challenging. Little things like making sure all are fed, without convenience foods or a solid plan in advance, become major stressors.

I went to a picnic lunch with ladies from my community group at church yesterday. In response to my tale of woe, one of my friends said something about how the Lord gives us limits, and we should function joyfully in those limits, because God is a good God. And I sat there and realized I had forgotten that. God IS a good God, despite disappointments and set-backs.

Another friend prayed for me, that I would have a sign that the Lord is at work here. That struck me: I would NEVER have asked for a sign. It was such a precious prayer, and I sat in gratitude.

On the way home, I was stopped first by a fallen tree. The pine, fallen across the road four cars ahead of me, presumably just minutes before, had stopped traffic both directions. A sharply dressed young man in a tie got out of the car two up from me with a fancy video camera and began shooting "Rural Virginians Deal With Life." An older man in the car in front of me went to the back, got out his chainsaw, walked up to the tree, and revved it up. The cluster of folks gathered around cleared the branches away, and we all continued on our way. (The pine didn't appear that large at first, but I later realized it was 5" in diameter where it fell across the road, about 40 feet from the roots. How would you push a tree of that size off the road?)

A quarter of a mile farther on, the road was again blocked, this time by the sheriff, who redirected traffic around a ground fire. I could see the flames licking the ground from where I drove (this morning, on our way to church, we passed acres of blackened ground; the fire must have burned hot and fast, since the trees appeared unaffected). I finally reached home thankful for no fire and eager to see what sign the Lord would give.

The Lord has opened his hand and poured out signs upon me. I was reading a book about J.O. Fraser, a missionary to the Lisu, who said, "Flee depression as you flee from sin." That resonated with me, like missionary Joy Ridderhof's exhortation that "Worry is sin, because you're not trusting God." Not that I have stopped worrying (foolish me), but it is helpful to think that I should flee depression. Sometimes I feel like I should embrace it: "This life is hard—why not acknowledge it and sink to the depths?"

Then I read about Fraser's successor, Isobel Kuhn. She wrote that when she first sent her young daughter to boarding school, she wept and carried on for days. In the end, the Lord asked her, "Have you enjoyed indulging in your emotions? Because they did no one any good. You're exhausted and spent from your grief; you daughter went away and was not helped, nor even aware, of your outbursts. Your husband has borne your sadness, but it hasn't been easy for him. Be done!"

This, too, I found very pertinent. How handy that I read that yesterday, for after I brought a bale of hay to the animals, I closed the gate as Phil usually does and went to unload groceries from the car. I watched in horror as a sheep slipped out my just-closed fence, quickly followed by three more. I sprinted down the driveway and closed the gate before more got out, and then raced around, looking for sheep netting. Up the hill! Hurry down, try to contain, set up netting (tangled netting, blast!).

But even as I set one set of netting, I saw a goat escape. How did he get out? I ran for the second set of netting, sobbing, and desperately tried to block that way, but it was too little, too late. Eight sheep and a goat headed up the driveway, leaving four sheep and a goat semi-hemmed in behind peat bales and indifferent netting. They had managed to open the gate entirely. Thankfully, the cows were happily munching the hay bale in the pen and showed no interest in practicing Houdini tricks.

I herded the nine down, but realized I hadn't made a place for them to go to be contained. They were approximately where I wanted, and had I possessed The Force, I could have moved the netting around them without me actually moving. But as I went to get the netting, the nine squirted around me, joined now by their compatriots, who figured out that the peat bales were not monolithic, but had fun paths that permitted escape.

As dusk fell, I stopped trying to do situation remediation. The situation was entirely busted. I briefly indulged in emotional excess, but realized it did neither me, nor the farm, any good. What I needed was a true enclosure that would have a nonthreatening entrance which could be closed off.

Thankful that the 14 were happily grazing the orchard floor and not the orchard TREES, I constructed a netting pen and went to play herd dog.

I was actually fairly good at this, except for a tendency to thwack the animals who chomped my garlic. After all, the little garden has turnip greens and garlic sprouts, and soft soil: the animals kept returning there. Which was better than heading up the driveway and onto the street, but not good enough. The sun had set, and I didn't have much time.

Isaiah came to my aid, blocking the sheep from oozing around the parked van. That little evasive action (play keep away around the van) had driven me to distraction, but with Isaiah to help, we got the sheep corralled in minutes. I could hardly believe it. I did it! One of the more traumatic moments on the farm, and I survived! Truthfully, I'd rather not be tested on whether I really understood the lesson about "excessive emotionalism," but it was helpful to see the training/application is such short succession.

Seeding is going better, too. I noticed today that, for the first time in a week, I have a couple new little asparagus shoots. My plea for understanding non-sprouting lettuce came today from a friend (thanks, Shelly!) who reminded me that lettuce likes to be cool. My 65 degree soil temperature, good for peppers, is probably cooking my lettuce seeds. I'll try seeding them in soil blocks and leaving them in the greenhouse, unheated but by the sun. I expect that will work better.

Better, though, is my cabbage and broccoli. I had read that seeds can either be planted one to a 1.5" block, or three (cabbage) or four (broccoli) to a 2" block. I was curious if it made much difference, so I did a split test on a tray, planting some of each. I am amazed to find that the seeds planted in multiples are outperforming the singletons infinitely much. Not one of the ten broccoli singletons have sprouted, but we have leaves on several of the multiples. (On the left in the photo below.)

And while, maybe, a few singleton cabbage seeds have put out shoots, the cabbages in multiples have grown enough that they are poking up 3/4", into the air!
cabbage
It helps me feel like I can seed now with confidence: the multiple method is the way for me. So seeding is improved.

And, finally, I came home from church today to find a bag of gifts hanging by the door.

When I talked to my neighbor recently, I mentioned that I would eat five grapefruits a day for breakfast in college, and that a mentor said, "I've never met anyone who eats as much fruit as you do." So our dear neighbor to the south had tried our pork chops, and I found a bag of grapefruits on my door. So precious.

So, the signs from the Lord that we're doing what we're supposed to be: blessings from the neighbor, blessings from the church, blessings in the seedlings, blessings in the hardships (since the sheep are contained, after all).

Blessed be the Lord.

So Long, Strangey

Friday evening, Phil and I made a list of "must dos" around the farm. It was 66 line items long, ranging from the simple (stain exterior of beehives) to the time-consuming (erect metal building).

Happily, Phil accomplished three of those tasks in one day. He fixed the sprayer, which we have not had fully functional since we bought it. He finished the chicken pen.

He made runners, so the pen will pull easily, and put hooks into the runners, so he can easily pull the pen.

As you can see, he set nice roosting sticks inside, and the structural members he used for framing are quite snappy.

(At the expense of calling them "dumb clucks," Phil went out after dark to see how the chickens liked their new home. He found them all huddled outside, around the guineas, on the back of the pen, the side their door had been before their other hut collapsed. He moved them around to the door, by twos and threes, laughing at how unobservant and innocent those ladies are.)

I also had Phil kill Strangey the rooster. He had abandoned his ladies in the pen and strutted around the farm. I was concerned for the eyes of my boys, and since a man was killed by a cock-fighting rooster recently, I insisted we put an end to the threat. A happy move, for the spurs on Strangey's legs were a solid inch long, hard as nails.

Like the grizzly bear that was shot five times by Lewis and Clark before finally dying, Strangey died hard. Shot in the left breast, and then the left leg, he finally slowed enough for Phil to catch him and cut his throat. Two bullet holes did leave a shortage of useable meat, but I left Strangey's carcass simmering for tenderizing. Hours later, I went out to check on the bird and realized that the pot had boiled dry, and the half of Strangey NOT punctured with bullet holes had burnt to the bottom of the pan.

The incredibly tender meat didn't really appeal to the boys, who nibbled the white meat and left the dark. The pigs will be happy for Strangey's thighs, I suppose.

After the bird was dead, I had my first opportunity to pluck a chicken. At first I figured I would skin him, feathers and all, but his connective tissues proved stronger than my hands (or maybe I just didn't know what I was doing). I took a handful of his beautiful downy grey feathers around his stomach and was amazed to see them come away easily in my hand.

Such a wonderful tactile sensation: soft, warm. I put them in Ziplocs because I couldn't bear to leave them. Usually the feathers are wet from scalding, but this was dry plucking. His beautiful breast feathers came away, too, downy on the bottom and bronze and white on the top. I don't often wish that hats were in style, but the realization that such finery could adorn a hat: that was a pleasant thought.

His neck feathers refused to come off, and I finally did skin his neck. (I had never noticed how incredibly long his neck was, but thought perhaps his name should have been "Giraffe," because it felt like he had about five more vertebras than the girls.)

For the truly curious, I will say that I believe I found his impregnating parts, inside his body, two egg yolk sized white balls. For his size, they seemed a bit extreme, but I suppose roosters have a challenging job to do, managing many hens.

And finally, his tail. Gorgeous feathers connected to an impossibly small, quarter-sized piece of flesh.

Why Are the Lettuce Seeds Not Growing?

I dreamed last night that our entire garden area was just red Virginia clay in the middle of summer: nothing grew. Nothing lived. Desolate.

And so I started my day.

Buttercup didn't load. Phil actually managed to get her halfway up the ramp, but she backed down again. Perhaps we won't eat her. We don't want to kill her now, because our industrial freezer, purchased used, needs servicing, and besides, we don't need 200 pounds of sausage right now. By the time we might need her for a CSA, our boar will be ready to breed (around the end of May).

We missed an entire litter, then, since she could have bred in December, and certainly in January. That was a very expensive unfortunate series of events.

My seedlings continue to die. The few mustard greens that had sprouted have since all withered. While I won't say I'm panicked, I will say that going into the greenhouse no longer gives me pleasure, but rather a pit in my stomach. If I knew what was wrong, I could fix it, but I'm faced with having no greens, and we are just about desperate for greens at this point in season. And I'm sure any CSA customers would appreciate them, too.

To continue the calamity of errors, Joe and I carefully seeded about 350 sweet pepper seeds. They looked perfect in their flat. My squirt bottle ceased working, and I didn't want to splash water on the little babies and wash them away. So I went to find my Haus watering can with the fine rose on top.

Sadly, the fine rose didn't start out fine, and the gush of water that emerged at first blew away maybe 60 of my little seeds. It's not the entire tray ruined, but enough that it looks damaged and nasty, and a significant portion that are simply vanished.

Eliot Coleman makes it sound like there's nothing easier than growing seeds, but despite praying over them while I plant, and doing all I can think of (I ordered the same potting soil he uses even!), there's just not much good success right now. May my dream of last night not come to pass.

Phil, after dealing with the unpleasant task of working with the books, is working on a new chicken pen. It looks good so far: very sturdy.

After Pigs Fly

Yesterday, the two week mark for the asparagus, showed pretty much an epic fail. Maybe 100 seeds have actually sprouted; of those, maybe 40 are actually sending up stalks. I suspect that they were doing better while still covered with a layer of soil (scrupulously cleared off by me last week, when I read that I shouldn't cover seeds in soil blocks), so I spent time rearranging the seeds and recovered them.

I made myself irritated: it's sort of a waste of time, and I have other things I need to be doing, like dishes or work, or even reading to my boys. But there's a stubborn bit of me that wants to see: will more of these little guys emerge? What is the right way to grow them? And I've spent two weeks trying to coax them out of their safe shells: can I get them to grow, in the end?

In the future: I'll buy starts.

I planted a few broccoli and cabbage for our own use, and a few more lettuce seeds. The ones planted last week have not emerged, and neither seed catalog I perused could tell me what the standard emergence time is for lettuce seeds. Are those ones dead, too? It's enough to shake this writer's confidence!

The ten jalapeno seeds I planted last week, though, have all germinated. I don't think jalapenos with caesar dressing would whet my appetite quite like a salad, but I do like salsa, and I suppose there will be other fantastic uses for jalapenos, and I am pleased to have 100% emerge.

Today I planted about 350 pepper seeds: sweet, jalapeno, spicy. Peppers are so expensive in the stores (especially organic!): the hope of fresh pepper plants appeals to me.

Phil has been hard at work on a variety of tasks.

With the gusty winds recently, he put a latch on the greenhouse so it will stay closed overnight.

Since I have so many seeds growing, and so many more to start, he made me the other half of my growing set up.

We went to get whey to feed our pigs, and he managed to carry 15 gallon buckets of whey (weighing somewhere around 120 pound each), AND hoist them into the back of the TRUCK. (An intern had filled those containers, to the owner's dismay: who is going to be able to move them? It took a couple years, but Phil is able to move them.)

Phil worked yesterday on building a sturdy chute to load Buttercup into the truck. The heavy pallet he used last time we figured was a bit too strange looking, and a solid-bottomed ramp would be more reassuring.

And so began the dance of "load the Buttercup." First, Phil tried to keep four piglets from running up to the ramp to get the slops placed temptingly in sight and smell, only allowing enormous Buttercup up. She went partially up, but when I reached over to move the pot higher, she turned skittish and backed up. Since her body had been blocking the fence, Phil hadn't been able to push her higher up.

After some interminable time of this, he went to get two 16' sections of cattle panel. He carried them into the pen (thankfully not touching the electric fence with them), and somehow managed smoothly to corral the four piglets in one bent panel and Buttercup in the second.

She wasn't too motivated to move forward. He got in and tried to push her. Nothing doing. Since she weighs twice what he does, and has a MUCH lower center of gravity, if she doesn't want to go somewhere, she doesn't.

After another time of waiting, Phil wired all the fencing in place, and left Buttercup alone. If she was uncomfortable enough in the little pen, she would move. Joe had even been tripping up and down the chute and knocked over the slop pot, so it wasn't like she had no olfactory temptations.

She did move. She broke free into the pen with the other piglets, who Phil had let go.

Maybe she needed some leading. So he let the little piglets go to the ramp.

Happily, we know that a solid-bottomed ramp is much less stressful. The piglets led the way without any difficulty. Buttercup warily kept four on the floor.

At one point, three of the piglets were crammed on Phil's ramp.

One escaped over the top: the larger boar. I watched Phil grab the pig and hold on, pig squealing. Phil finally laid on top of the sturdy fellow, to no avail, so let him go. Incredibly, the piglet let Phil walk right up to him and grab him again. The piglet is loosely corralled for the night.

Buttercup remains unloaded. The beautiful ramp, now permanently stained with beet juice and pig trotters, stands idle. Phil plans to try once more tomorrow morning to load Buttercup, and if she won't load (and I don't REALLY blame her), we will regretfully say, "So long!" to our Berkshire raising hopes, and turn her into very expensive sausage. A bummer from where I'm sitting now, but the Lord knows. Maybe two breeds is too much to play with. Tomorrow morning will tell.

We are trying to think through the big picture of how we want the animals to move through the farm. We don't want pigs always in the same place, and we want to keep the cows moving, but so far we've felt like the closest to home was the most expedient, and haven't done much more. Global thoughts can be a bit difficult, so I wouldn't say we've really reached good conclusions.

One conclusion that thrills me to my toes is our feed. On January 4, I wrote the following, then deleted it because it depressed me too much:

We've run the numbers every way we can, and are ready to shift to soy-based feed. There simply isn't the 100% or 200% premium needed to make it worthwhile. Our feed will still be GM-free, which is a hill I'm willing to die on, but soy, well, not so much.

I had no doubt that the taste would change for our eggs and meat. Maybe not much, but it would. I really don't want to support the soy industry, and I DO want to support the local feed company that I think does so much well.

But we need to cut our feed costs in half. And here is where a stray comment from this last weekend helped us. Mark had mentioned that he doesn't feed his animals (much), and so he doesn't get enough fat on his animals to make good sausage, while a normal pig should produce about three quarts of lard. I laughed at this, because our two pigs had given us three gallons of lard, not counting the fat ground into the sausage directly. So we had twice the lard we should have had. No wonder the pigs go through over 200 pounds of feed a week.

Our chickens, too, are "eating" about twice the supposed need of 4-6 ounces of feed per bird per day. "Eating," because they certainly pick at what they prefer and leave what doesn't strike their fancy.

So that's our solution: cut our feeds in half, but still feed them what we love.

Makes me happy.

And, a photo of a tired Joe, who dozed off yesterday at 5pm. Horrified, I woke him when I returned from making dinner ("I tried to wake him!" said Abraham, but Joe can be quite hard to waken if you can't pick him up). He didn't fall asleep until after 11pm. Always a Daddy's boy, I haven't quite seen this sleeping arrangement, though, with Daddy's legs as the cradle, complete with an, um, unusual pillow.

Gusty Winds Narrowly Avoid Squashed Hens

On Monday, while I spent the day sleeping off a 24-hour flu, Phil spent the day remediating the effects of 40 mile an hour gusts.

We used to live at the base of the Rocky Mountains. We dealt with 80mph gusts that took out our fence, and regular gales that made outdoor work unpleasant at best. I had the option to simply stay indoors and wait for more pleasant weather.

Here, though, we have animals and structures that we need to care for. While the mammals survived without difficulty, the chickens were another story.

Phil went out to find their pen tipped over. He set the pen up and, like some of the finds in King Tut's tomb, it disintegrated on contact. Blast!

He set the roof on top of the laying boxes, so the hens would have some protection, and the wind carried the roof out of the pen and away. Now the hens have just the laying boxes.

While no hens were actually injured, they did reduce their production to only 6 eggs, not the standard 16 or so we've been getting.

Today Phil made sure the greenhouse was more capable of withstanding winds (note the extra tensioning cable, or something, there in the corner).

I, weak but no longer feverish, was pleased to find my onions continuing to grow well.

The asparagus, on the whole, has proven so far rather a disappointment. Only about half my seeds have sprouted, and the two week germination period is done tomorrow. The few that have sprouted, though, I appreciate. And, at 13 days since planting, I'm amazed at how similar to an adult the seedlings look!

Outside, the garlic is the only real new growth in the garden. My kale has not come back up; I think December's extreme cold took it out. I miss it.

Phil went to plow the second swale, upslope from the keyline he'd plowed earlier. He had used the garden cart and the tractor to figure out the spacing yesterday, and began to plow today. He didn't quite get the full swale done when he hit a stump. When he tried to get the plow and tractor to pull it up (the diameter wouldn't be terribly large: none of the stumps in the field are), a small bolt on the plow sheared off, and he was done plowing for the day.

Really, it's a good design feature. Rather than ruin the tractor or the plow, a cheap bolt provided a proper cut-off switch. Phil can buy a box of bolts next time he's at the hardware store, and he learned a good lesson about the limits of his equipment.

The boys played outside today in the glorious mid-60s weather. They use the large peat bales (some of which tipped over when set in place) as their obstacle course and maze, their towers and parkour. Through this all, they grew very dirty. C'est la vie.

Twenty-Seven Hours of Instruction

From Friday evening until mid-afternoon today, my parents and AgroForestry expert Mark Shepard visited us (though they slept elsewhere). My Dad had heard Mark at an agriculture conference in December and was impressed with his vision, so he invited Mark to share his insights with my Mom and the Lykosh two. (The boys were good as gold, happily playing most of the weekend without adult supervision, so Phil and I could focus on the land.)

Mark arrived shortly before my parents and said, "I loved that I had no question which was yours: here's a working farm." Since I had been concerned with the appearance of our farm, the thrown-together look of our unconventional dwelling, I was so thankful that his first comment was positive.

My Mom and I took pages of notes, and Phil and I came away feeling so pleased and excited about what we've already done, and eager to keep moving forward. For myself, I came away with specific things that I'm ready to implement.

• Mark suggested we dig up a few of our cherry trees and plant them in rows along the slope of the land, rather than in straight lines aligned with the fence. This made me want to weep for joy: I don't much like to photograph the cherry orchard, because it's just a bit more crooked, or misaligned than the apples, which march in straight rows across their straight slope. It doesn't quite feel right. The idea that I could take these small trees and simply dig them up, hose them off, and replant in a better spots really excites me.


• Phil and I had planned to put our metal building downslope, across from the market garden. Mark wondered why we didn't just put it in among the cherry trees, which aren't spaced very densely: it would be upslope, near the road and the top of the driveway, ready for easy access by customers and delivery men. It would also be close to the hydrant and electric lines. Our current house pad could continue as a house/RV pad. I like this idea so much.


• My apple trees would be well served with a ring of daffodils at the base, then comfrey outside that and a couple of irises between trees. The daffodils repel rodents (yay!) and provide pollen for pollinators three weeks before apple blossoms break; comfrey offers natural mulch, irises provide more beauty and, um, something else good.


• Between the apple tree rows, we want to plant peanuts and potatoes this year, then switch them for next year. These plants should complement the apples, and give us more yield for the area. No more sheep in the orchard, I hope: too much time, too much destruction.


• Rather than planting our garden in straight rows across the slope, Mark laid out the key line for our field. This is a level line, rather like a line of terracing.

Mark and the men laid out the line with flags, and Phil noticed one of the calves nibbling at the flag later in the afternoon. He thought, "I think I should go plow that first line right now," and, since the last time he had a thought like that ("Maybe I should block up the back of the truck so Buttercup can't get out") he ignored it to his sorrow, he went out and plowed the single line.

I was surprised to see how, even in that line, there was a great variation in soil. Red and yellow.

The distressingly hungry soil that looks like a burnished clay pot, next to proper, dark, dull soil.

• Our garden will imitate this line up and down the slope at a spacing suitable for our precise equipment (garden cart, tractor tire spacing). I had been planning my garden beds based on optimum book information, completely neglecting the actual size of the space between our tires. How could that have offered anything but perpetual aggravation?!


• We have a deep dip in the middle of our proposed garden. I had been planning to fill that in somehow, maybe with soil that needed to be moved from our metal building; maybe just hope it wasn't as bad a dip as it appeared. (As you can see below, though, it's about a four-foot dip, with the 18" stock tank at the top for reference.) Mark suggested we just make it a little "pocket pond," dig it out a bit and not use it. How delightful, to have a little pond in the middle of the garden!

• Mark talked a lot about swales, little ditches that serve to stop the rain water and allow it to seep in. Phil had read about them in many books, but now, with the recent acquisition of the plow (below), and the tractor, he can actually make them with ease.

• Pruning: Mark's opinion is that a tree grows branches as it grows roots: in equilibrium. If you trim the tops, you make the roots bottom heavy, so they send out a mass of growth in all directions, which requires the branches to need trimming every year. Mark prefers not to prune, only getting rid of suckers on the bottom and water sprouts (branches that grow straight up) and a few other problem bits. He trains his trees almost to espalier, and lets them be. "Without leaves, a bird should be able to pass through the branches, but you shouldn't be able to throw a cat through."

Now that Buttercup is finally off her little quarter acre, Mark suggested we try to plant maybe some seedling apple trees on the perimeter, and some hazelnut bushes below that. So inspiring!


Perhaps the single most helpful bit of advice was more philosophical for me. I have been struggling lately with how aesthetically ugly we've made the land. It was just a field and a forest before the Lykoshes came, and soon enough came construction trailers and a chintzy metal building, industrial-type debris spread across the land. While greenhouses used to be beautiful glass jewels, today they are aluminum fence frames with plastic on top. It's not sophisticated, but quite, well, ugly.

Mark said, "My wife really didn't want the rain barrels next to the house. But where she might see a large, plastic container, I see self-sufficiency, year-round water availability, using the God-given resource that came to my land. It's just about changing your perspective."

That was so helpful. My construction trailer compound is not trashy living: it's what allowed us to take home equity and dig a well and plant trees. It freed up home repair money for homestead building money. That's beautiful in its own way.

Other highlights: walking the land and seeing (and having Mark identify) trees: a couple black walnuts; the difference between jack pines, yellow pines, and red pines; beech trees; black cherry trees; oaks and maples, hemlock and beech. He taught Phil how to thin for better production, and how to look at the thin baby trees to free up space around the good ones. With almost 40 acres of trees to deal with, this was welcome indeed.

Phil went to bed at about 5pm, he was so wiped out.

What a great time.

And, just for fun: note the pig chasing the guineas. The guineas actually ran back and forth around the pen before they remembered they have wings and flew out. They're not the brightest birds on the roost.

Buttercup's Astounding Leap

Thursday morning, Phil fenced a long stretch along the creek, and spent the afternoon sawyering with Butch. How wonderful, to have Butch use his large equipment to lift large trees onto the sawmill, and both men could lift and set down the larger planks.

Friday morning, Phil got right up and drove to get animal feed. Back home, the truck repair man returned to diagnose our truck.

Buttercup was still in the back of the truck, and when she saw the repair man, she took advantage of the small spot over the tailgate that was not covered with a cattle panel. She poked her head out, then her shoulders, until her whole body flopped up and over the tailgate and onto the ground. Three hundred pounds of pig on the loose!

Phil called me, and there she came, waddling down the driveway. Happily, she is large enough, mellow enough, and, I hope, friendly enough to come when summoned (more or less), and Phil managed, with a bit of help from me, to get her first into the fenced in area, with the cows and sheep, and then into the smaller subset pen where we have the piglets. The boys immediately jumped all over her, while the girls slipped out under the fence and terrorized the sheep, who weren't sure what to do with her. (It would have been a good day to have her bred, I think.)

I'm pretty sure that incredible leap made Buttercup sore, as she laid around most of the rest of the day.

In the continuing saga of the truck: it's a good thing Phil didn't try to keep going with Buttercup in the truck. The repair guy checked Phil's spare tire, and the bolts were loose.

Once at lunch with my family, we were waiting for our meal and noticed a tire bouncing across a neighboring parking lot. It was so incongruous we were all laughing, until we realized a car had stopped on the road. Phil and my brothers went to help the family (even found all four of the lug nuts). Unusual as that event was, I'm extremely thankful that wasn't repeated by Phil, in the dually, with a pig in the back.

There were several other hidden issues with the truck, but hopefully now it is road-worthy.

Third Abortive Trip (but the work goes on)

Phil and I loaded Buttercup on the truck before breakfast. She was extremely recalcitrant, but through extreme pushing (both manually and with a sheet of plywood) and sheer persistence, she finally walked up the heavy pallet and into the truck back. Considering that, when we brought the boys up for processing, that stage took us until about 3pm, we were doing really well! (It helped to have all the fencing already built, and the first trip done already.)

We had planned to have Phil pick up feed on his way back, but I suddenly realized that the farm we'd buy a couple tons from might not have that quantity available at all times. I called, and, sure enough: that wouldn't be possible the same day. If I had known I needed to plan ahead, I would have called, but I am still in my "Costco: vast quantities available at all times" mindset.

In the end, my disappointment didn't matter. Phil got about twenty minutes down the road and called me: "I'm not going anywhere."

Sure enough: for the third time, he had started out and had to turn back for truck problems (first time: bringing the van for routine maintenance; second time: driving out with the trailer to pick up the bull; third time: 300 pound pig in the bed of the truck). Same problem, actually: the death wobble continues.

We remain incredibly grateful that we paid to have someone truck the bull to us. And we're thankful the truck worked well enough long enough to get the greenhouse supplies and do a dump run.

Buttercup remains in the back of our truck. It was hard enough to get her loaded, we're not sure what to do with her now. If that seems cruel, I will simply say that all confinement pigs are held in much smaller quarters their whole lives. Not that we want to do anything like confinement pig operations, but we are at a loss, for the moment.

Phil needed some time to drink a few cups of coffee and to immerse himself in the last of the before he was ready to work on today's project. But, after an hour or so, he had emerged from the pit of despair, and headed down to continue to work on cattle fencing.

I spent the afternoon potting on the yellow onions. I remain amazed that onions planted last Thursday already have rootlets emerging out the bottom of their 3/4 inch blocks. Our neighbor Julie stopped by, right as I was gathering more potting soil. She and her family are building a lovely home on the lot to the south, and it was pleasant to have a visit with a female neighbor. Butch and Phil always have more to talk about, like construction; I had a visit about children and books and college visits.

When I was done with the onions, and the four intrepid leeks that have sprouted, I went to see how Phil was doing.

I headed down and came to the corner where there had been no fencing. Then I walked and walked, and finally came to the end of the fence that had, miraculously, sprung up today. Phil had done, I would guess, at least 20 panels, giving us 320 feet or so of fencing along extremely rough terrain. When I think about last winter, where he would sometimes get only five panels in, I am amazed by how much more stamina he has. Or how much more thawed the ground is.

He is also fencing along the creek, and the lower clearing is coming along well.

So what began in deep frustration ended up having fellowship and infrastructure progress. Great!

Of Peat and Potting On

Monday morning, right around 9am when he'd said he'd arrive, the peat moss driver showed up. He'd picked up the loaded trailer on Friday evening in Canada, and drove it down to us. Sadly, which here, his brakes stopped working, and he had a several hour delay while he waited for new hydraulic lines to arrive. (He's been driving for eight weeks, and has had brake downs three times!) I don't often feel irritated with our cramped quarters, but in such a situation, I wish we had a place for an unexpected guest to relax. Thankfully, he was able to drive up around the corner and pull off the road.

Butch came at 9am, cigar in hand, ready to work. He moved the bales down close to the garden site.

The twenty 8' tall bales, stacked side-by-side, easily overshadowing the greenhouse.

Before Phil can start to plow, we need to move the animals. Before the animals can move, we need more fenced area. The two heifers we'd prefer not to breed yet are in the lower pasture. We need to move them out, so we can move the other animals down. So Phil spent Monday afternoon trying to get new pasture fenced in.

And he got a flat tire on the truck, so took it to Scottsville for repair. Sadly, it was sidewall damage. Happily, he was planning to bring Buttercup up to be bred tomorrow, so he will just drive up with the spare on, then buy new tires at Costco. Trying to find the leak, and the subsequent trip to Costco, took most of his day today.

I spent an hour or so yesterday trying to get soil blocks made. The asparagus had not, actually, sprouted (good thing! if it's supposed to take 14 days and it only takes four, that's a bit too surreal for me). The red onions, though, are coming up well.

After an hour, I quit in frustration, without a single soil block completed. My brand new professional soil block maker (above) was failing me. A little research in the evening showed me that I was working with soil that was much too dry. Rather than the consistency of peanut butter, my soil was more like pie crust, before the final addition of water to make the crumbs cling together.

Today, with sunshine and renewed hope, I had no difficulty making delightful 1.5" blocks. I had been concerned that the little blocks I made last week would crumble as I transplanted them, but they didn't. They were remarkably stable. I was also stunned to find that rootlets were already growing out the bottoms of some of the tiny blocks. I got them potted on in good time.

Many of the gardening books say that "onions greatly dislike having their roots disturbed." I'm curious to see what that means. Will the onions, having been moved to larger quarters, now universally die for spite that I have touched their hidden parts? Will only the unsprouted seeds actually grow?

Time will tell, but for now, I asked the Lord's blessing on this nascent garden.

I also planted 40 parsley seeds and 60 seeds of mixed greens that, apparently, do well in spring (a few lettuces and mustard greens, and a spinach). It still boggles my mind that these little seeds, many of which were stuck to the sticky part of my seed envelopes, will grow large enough to feed my family. How can that be? How can I take ten little lettuce seeds, combined which could sit on top of an apple seed, and expect nine or ten heads of lettuce? Or even a bunch of cut and come again leaves?

Assuming it happens, it's a miracle.

I woke up yesterday and thought, "I need to get Jadon working more, independently." I gave him a list of tasks, and he, being Jadon, diligently works down his list. I asked him to copy a verse in Colossians each day, and I am thrilled to see how well his printing has progressed, even since the beginning of 2011. Wonderful.

Isaiah made his younger brothers robot helmets today. He punched holes in boxes with two nails until he could tear out the cardboard. Very persistent fellow, that Isaiah. Above is Abraham's, with both eye and arm hole. Below is Joe, with a full-face hole.

Abraham says (often very obvious) things in such an enthusiastic voice, it's hard not to smile.

And Joe has become a mimic overnight, repeating whatever he finds funny. His jeans were sagging yesterday, and Phil said, "Droopy drawers!" and Joe walked around saying that, in a deep voice like Phil had used. Then he cracked himself up.

That may be one of the funniest things children do. All the boys have done it, albeit rarely, but when they get a good belly laugh going because of something they themselves said or did: what a jolly time we have.