methane

The Massey coal mine in West Virginia that claimed the lives of 25 plus miners yesterday belches so much methane that even the broken government agency in charge of mine safety thought it should be inspected every five days. It will be interesting to see what gets done about this loss of life by the government and by the people of West Virginia who seem to be pretty much of the opinion that government is the problem. Perhaps it is when it only fines Massey a few hundred thousand for many violations this past year alone. But whose fault is that? Would we have a better government if we invested some effort in demanding it?

This level of methane release by "clean coal" puts grazing cows in the shade, I think.

Jim

spring

It is a curious thing. I keep expecting it to change each year as I grow older. But each year, as the snow melts and the frost leaves the earth, the old feeling is back. It is the welling up of a fierce kind of joy. I need less sleep. I must be out walking on the land and waiting for the next thing. It is as if I want to throw myself into the great awakening that surrounds me and push it forward. There are the seeds to buy or to clean and ready for planting. Each year there is something new to plant and hope for. The machines must be readied. The cattle lean longingly on the lot fence and gaze at the first faint blushes of green over the slopes. Piles of manure must be hauled out and spread for the benefit of the plantings. Ahead stretch long days getting the year started which will then blend into the heat and dust of haying as the sun reaches its zenith and seems to hang there for weeks, holding its breath while we race to catch up.

How is it that I was born so lucky?

spring

I could smell the wet cedar boards as I stepped out on the deck this morning to check the weather. Temp stayed above freezing last night and the entire world smelled like it was warming up. Two geese honked their way across the southern sky and everywhere I look I can see standing water. Nearly half of our pasture acres are covered as well as a goodly number of the cropping acres. The drainage is full and the river towns are worried. Most of the water visible from our house will leave as the water level goes down in the drainage, but the last of it will linger and soak in among the roots of the pasture sward. Staying for a while, it will find cracks and crevices plus earthworm holes and gopher tunnels to help make its way into the subsoil, where it will do the farm some good in the hot months to come as it becomes available to accelerate growth of the perennials that feed our cattle and sows each grazing season. The same water our farming system has kept out of homes in the towns down river will help us and our farm to prosper.

It is not often in life that one can do an unconflicted good. I am not much of a believer in the idea of win-win. But these days, as I stand on our slice of wet prairie sponge watching the water that is taking its time with leaving, I get a chance to feel good about something. That is something to savor.

Jim

snowshoe

It is possible to get a little claustrophobic in a winter like this. The yard on which we do our work has gotten smaller with every snowfall this winter, since we can never push the new snow quite as far back as before. I put on the snowshoes this Saturday afternoon and took a walk to the north through the pig pastures, across last year's hay field to the township road on the north, ostensibly to see whether we had a chance of getting manure out through that approach this early spring, but really for the chance to be out and about.

The snow on the prairie is drifted this winter so that it looks like a white ocean frozen in time. We don't get this very often; I can only remember three winters out of my 62 years where the snow stayed out on the land all winter, and that would be this year, last year and ten years ago. Generally the wind has it immediately stacked up in the groves and tree lines. I sank in a bit walking through the grove, flushing up a group of pheasant which have been staying close to the yard despite the dogs. We have taken to deliberately spilling a little feed regularly to feed them for wild birds have a very tough time with all this snow cover. On the prairie, the snow immediately bore me up and as I looked behind I could sometimes not make out tracks of the snowshoe frames for my own shoes carried me on the hard drifts.

No tracks out there to speak of. The mice and gophers are underneath which would make it tough for the coyotes if it were not for the carcasses of wild things scattered about plus a few pig and calf casulaties. I didn't see one coyote track in my half mile walk, but I will bet there is a well worn trail between the cattail slough and our dead animal compost pile. Coyotes are opportunists. I saw one mink track making it from the growe at an angle toward the drainage ditch, where it probably has a den in the bank. I wondered what it was finding on the yard.

No rabbits either, once I cleared the grove. The air was cold and clear, making the lungs feel young again and very efficient. I walked toward home at an angle so that I came onto the yard on the opposite end from where I began. I walked along a ten year old tree line which we have been trying to expand by starting two more similar lines next to. These winters have been hard on the little trees, bending them over during the spring melt and stripping some of the branches down under the weight. The banks next to the trees offered me a chance to look down about ten or fifteen feet to the tops of the adjacent fence posts which are about five feet tall.

Spring feels a long way off here at Pastures A Plenty on the 27th of February. And when the melt does start, the fear is that the Minnesota will flood. We are kind of hoping for a slow thaw for that reason.

eagle

I saw another bald eagle today. This is unusual, as we have occasionally seen them for a day or two in spring and thought that they are on their way back to the Minnesota River valley for the season, but this is the third of February, a dazzling bright day with the snow reflecting the sun's full power in all directions. Wild things seem to know a tractor is different from a man on foot, for when I got back from feeding cattle and saw the eagle sitting near the top of the cottonwood tree I drove next to, it simply looked down at me watchfully. But when I stopped the machine and got off a few hundred feet further along, it decided I was too close and took off. I watched it fly, those huge wings in a lazy easy motion as it made the thousand feet to the electric transmission line we have on the south side of the farm and perched atop a pole and looked back at me. Somehow, these majestic raptors have made a comeback here in western Minnesota and they are welcome here. And this is a sign of progress, that they are no longer being poisoned by agricultural chemicals.

Sunday Chores

Sunday was my day for chores and it was enjoyable, as it often is, with no other work pushing in and demanding attention. There is something pretty nice about having the time to watch the sows and calves eat their rations. Temperatures were a little warmer, so there was no problem with frozen drinkers and I could make the rounds of the hog feeding groups checking for bedding, pig comfort and health. I ran the tarp up on the north end of the hoop where the biggest group is to help the little breeze clear the steam rising from the bedding out before it encourages pneumonia.

A slow walk through the pasture where the close up and breeding heifers are getting their winter hay showed that the warmer weather pushed their appetite down a little, good news for the hay inventory. We are just done with farrowing this group of sows so the barns are full of pigs suckling and sows eating a lot. Nothing that had to be dealt with. Later, in the evening, I found two calves with their heads stuck in the sheep hay feeder that I use for the youngest calves. I helped them out, closed them and the others into the barn so they didn't panic at some sound during the night, and made a mental note that it is time to move them up to the next hay feeder and put the sheep feeders away until the next batch of little ones arrive. I rolled the tarp back down on the feeding hoop and called it a day. Sometimes a Sunday chores is just as good as a Sunday off.

Jim

After this toughest Fall in memory, winter has settled in for real. We have by now torn up all the hay and straw moving equipment we fixed last summer from the previous winter's damage and must start emergency repairs. The main problem is that it rained most of the Fall and then when the temperature dropped in Winter, everything froze solid to the ground. Farming is, as most people know, not easy.

It is not easy either, to cope with some of the machinations that go with our food system. You should know that we have been notified by the company which makes the non-chemical premix we have just started using for our new sausages that they will cease production as they have been notified by another premix company of its intention to patent the process and the bacteria used. While we are hopeful that the US Patent Office will not participate in such foolishness, we are nevertheless on notice to watch the process unfold as we go back to the drawing board for our sausage recipes. We will keep you posted.

But here's an upper: Our bacon got notice in the Metro magazine! "The winner: Pastures A Plenty's thick cut bacon for its precise balance. It's a textbook example of what bacon is supposed to be." Hooray for our side! Thanks for your support. Stay warm.

Jim Van Der Pol, for
Pastures A Plenty