late summer

Late summer is dry.  And since the spring/early summer was wet and cold, the corn crop is still thirty days from mature.  Warm weather all the way to mid October with no frost is a long shot, but such is farming.  Our parents/grandparents lost their entire corn crop in 1974 due to a Labor Day weekend freeze.  And no crop insurance to speak of at that time.  Such is farming!

On the plus side, though, the animals look prosperous around here, even after coping with the excessive heat in late August.  That may have taken more out of the farmers, which were Josh and Cindy at the time, as LeeAnn and I were vacationing.  Thankful for a partnership!

Jim

getting ready

Getting past the summer solstice on June 21st each year on a farm like ours tends to turn the mind toward winter.  Thoughts about winter provision crowd in to the mix of summer enjoyment, vacations, fairs, growing crops and pastured animals.  Hay was terribly high priced last year and it looks like this year will be a repeat.  Corn is easing in price and it is difficult to see why, with the wet cool spring holding back the crop. 

Changes need to happen with the lots and buildings, some of the older buildings are badly in need of repair.  The days shorten.  However, I tend to think the best season is fall, with the somewhat cooler temps, the beautiful colors and the wild things as full of life and fat as the livestock.  It would be foolish to let worry crowd out the appreciation for these things.  "Behold the lilies of the field," it is said, "they toil not, neither do they spin. . ."  Wisdom indeed!

Jim

New litters just farrowed in our new barn

Photos by Cindy.  Many of the prior photos in the blog are by LeeAnn.  We at Pastures are lucky to have several good photographers.  New pigs are beautiful and I never get tired of seeing it.  Notice the difference in colors brought about by our attempts to search for the perfect genetics for our farm and for your table.  Notice also how placid and content the sows are with their new pens and their new babies.

damage

Once again this year, a drive up through the southeastern part of the state showed the sickening effects of too much rain on too much bare soil.  Some of the academic types who were so quick to collude with industry in the destruction of the small dairy farms that kept at least some perennial crops on the land are having second thoughts, I hope.  Not so much hope for the Washington types who seem willing to push more corn no matter what.

Here in western Minnesota, our soil is different; more clay, less silt loam, less slope, less erodible.  But we are not immune.  Farmers know what the soil surrounding those tile intakes show after a heavy rain and erosion is sometimes obvious from the road here too.  Everywhere the need is for more diversity.  A greater variety of plants on the land feeding a more diverse group of animals and humans.  More people doing different things to create a local economy.  More real wealth for the support of the rural community without increases in commodity production and the resulting hard use of the land.

You all help with that when you buy local.  Thank you!

Jim

uphill

Sometimes the way we farm seems very much uphill.  We use neither GMO seeds nor crop chemicals, so spring plantings during wet seasons are a weed problem.  We practice a very conservation friendly six year rotation, so that means we do mostly without the heavy government income guarantees.  We use straw for bedding the hogs instead of liquid manure systems, pastures for feeding the cattle and sows, and much more indoor space per animal for winter confinement of hogs.  All of this may sound like a complaint, but the fact is, we do these things willingly because it seems right to us.  Just as your buying from us seems right to you.  And thank you for it!  The truth of it is, of course, that anything worth doing, is worth doing well. 

Spring

Spring is finally here at Pastures, just in time for summer.  Lilacs are coming to full bloom more than a week after Memorial Day, the mourning doves greet me every morning with their "who-who-who", the grazing is well started with two groups of cattle and two of sows out there.  LeeAnn's father's name appeared for the first time on the list of honored dead read each Memorial Day at Sacred Heart.  And a special joy, we have a high school graduation this spring and all the excitement that goes with it.  Jake is our oldest son/grandchild.  How did we get this far so fast?  Prom and baseball and graduation all came so fast it became a kind of blur.  It is what life is, and if we have any sense, we will figure out a way to be there for it, and to be grateful for the chance.

geothermal

As I wrote last time, we hope to control the sow's behavior in her pen in our new farrowing house by varying the temperature of the floor.  We started by installing plastic pipes on urethane insulation under the concrete.  As you can see in the first two pictures fourteen of these "loops" were installed under what would be the center of the pen, from about four feet inward from the gutter end to eight and one half feet, a total span of about four and one half feet.  This is where we expect the sow to nest up and have her piglets, with the guard rails adjacent and the water cup and dunging area in the four feet next to the gutter end, and the feed bowl and piglet creep area in the three feet at the pen's front.  See the pen pictures in the last post.  Through these fourteen loops of pipe we will pump cool water in summer and warm water in winter.  You can also see in these pipe pictures that we have installed a curving set of four pipes right near the very front of the pen.  These pipes will circulate warm water all year long, to tempt the piglets away from the sow to the warmer parts of the floor.

We have dug a geothermal supply trench west of the barn to a depth of twelve feet(see picture)  This was deep enough so that we got water in the bottom even in the very dry fall of 2012.  This trench was dug out five hundred feet from the barn at twelve feet and then those five supply pipes were folded back and run back toward the barn at a depth of eight feet.  This gives about 1000 feet of total collection area.  Now ground temperature at those depths is going to hover around 45 or 50 degrees winter and summer.  By pumping water through those pipes, we can chill it to that temperature in summer and then pump it through the cooling grid of under floor pipes to bring the sow a cooling effect and make her comfortable enough to want to lay quietly with her piglets.  Then in winter, plans are to run warm water through the same pipes to increase her comfort in that area while we keep the remainder of the building quite cool.  For now plans are to use a gas fired boiler to provide hot water for the floor under the sow in winter and under the piglets year around.  Very soon we plan to tie a good solar thermal panel into that system to minimize the amount of gas needed.

Meanwhile, in winter, we will continue to use the geo thermal trench, but now we will use the temperature which may be at 50 or 55 degrees at start of winter, to preheat the intake ventilation air so that the heating needs in the building will be minimized.  We do not have this part of the system settled in our minds yet and it will be some time before we have it in use.  The final picture is to give an idea of how we have tied the new building into the existing barn, getting a good second use out of the barn for a utilities and prep area, plus bedding and feed storage.