Sunday, July 26, 2015
Driveway
Today the cattle go on the driveway. For the last three years, we have been grazing the driveway, which is essentially a quarter mile long two acre grass paddock, in regular rotation with the rest of the pasture. Sundays should work best for this activity, for on Sunday we have few customers driving onto the yard. However, it has been an eyeopener how very often while grazing we must let ourselves off the driveway, or drop the gate at the end to drive back on. I thought we lived at home more! Still, just mowing all that grass is wasteful, making grazing worth the effort.
Saturday, July 25, 2015
management
Everyday management is the art of not being surprised. It is harder than it looks. For the conventional crops farmer it is what is happening when the machines are all pulled out of storage in the spring, serviced, lubed and lined up ready for the first dry field. For the diversified crop and livestock farmer, it is what happens every day all year around, for there is always the next thing to be ready for.
Often enough, too often for this old fellow, surprise happens anyway. Farming is like that.
Today, we have the complex cover crop lying in thick green swaths, wilting. The combine is busy in the winter rye, another experiment, this one in weed control and a bit disappointing. The sows needed to be fed this morning, the farrowing house checked and serviced with feed and bedding and all the feeding groups seen. The cattle will need to be moved to new grass this afternoon, tomorrow they go on the driveway paddock and then over north. Time to cut the thistles when they move. The grain auger needed to be put up to store the rye.
In addition, we got a tire remounted on one hayrack, making it ready with its two mates to haul the wet cover crop bales to the wrapper on Monday after the baler rolls them up. We hope it's ready to bale then. We spent time in the shop also this morning straightening and rewelding the hayfork, necessary to carry bales to the hayracks, and then spent what extra time we had getting an old sprayer ready to spray a mixture of trace elements on the hayfield next week to boost it for last cutting.
Tomorrow is Sunday and we hope for a quiet one. Monday we will need to land running. Cover crop baling, straw baling and moving, sows to be fed, fence repair to start new sow fence and feeders to plan and hopefully just a bit of family time at the lake. Now we will see what the weather has to say about our plans! Heat predicted. Rain?
Often enough, too often for this old fellow, surprise happens anyway. Farming is like that.
Today, we have the complex cover crop lying in thick green swaths, wilting. The combine is busy in the winter rye, another experiment, this one in weed control and a bit disappointing. The sows needed to be fed this morning, the farrowing house checked and serviced with feed and bedding and all the feeding groups seen. The cattle will need to be moved to new grass this afternoon, tomorrow they go on the driveway paddock and then over north. Time to cut the thistles when they move. The grain auger needed to be put up to store the rye.
In addition, we got a tire remounted on one hayrack, making it ready with its two mates to haul the wet cover crop bales to the wrapper on Monday after the baler rolls them up. We hope it's ready to bale then. We spent time in the shop also this morning straightening and rewelding the hayfork, necessary to carry bales to the hayracks, and then spent what extra time we had getting an old sprayer ready to spray a mixture of trace elements on the hayfield next week to boost it for last cutting.
Tomorrow is Sunday and we hope for a quiet one. Monday we will need to land running. Cover crop baling, straw baling and moving, sows to be fed, fence repair to start new sow fence and feeders to plan and hopefully just a bit of family time at the lake. Now we will see what the weather has to say about our plans! Heat predicted. Rain?
annual hay
Yesterday we cut the complex cover crop on thirty acres. It was seeded on June 6 and had reached a height of about four feet. It was lush, thick as the hair on the proverbial dog, with several weed species joining the soybeans, spring peas, annual ryegrass, sorghum-sudan grass, oats, crimson and red clovers, and a rape/turnip hybrid. By the time we finished, the haybine was covered with green juice.
The idea for the complex seed mix came from work being done by farmers in North Dakota. They are planting mixes of seed and generally grazing them after something approaching a full season. They talk of the benefits of that complex system of roots for the soil in terms of controlling erosion and building microbial life in the soil, as well as water holding capacity, and we wanted to see for ourselves. The idea of cutting the crop only seven weeks after seeding is ours, driven by our need to produce a higher energy hay for maintaining gains on our grass fed cattle in winter, as well as a forage supplement for our sow herd.
The sorghum-sudan, the rape/turnip, the clovers and the ryegrass will come back after the cutting and provide another harvest or a nice window of grazing in September. The rape/turnip should give an opportunity for grazing right to, and perhaps beyond Thanksgiving as it takes a very hard freeze to stop growth. The ryegrass will maintain quality late too, so we will see about that.
This is all part of our endless searching here at Pastures for a different and perhaps better way of doing crops, pastures and livestock. It is what makes farming worth doing. We fail to believe that farming is a "mature" industry, choosing rather to think it is a wide open one.
The idea for the complex seed mix came from work being done by farmers in North Dakota. They are planting mixes of seed and generally grazing them after something approaching a full season. They talk of the benefits of that complex system of roots for the soil in terms of controlling erosion and building microbial life in the soil, as well as water holding capacity, and we wanted to see for ourselves. The idea of cutting the crop only seven weeks after seeding is ours, driven by our need to produce a higher energy hay for maintaining gains on our grass fed cattle in winter, as well as a forage supplement for our sow herd.
The sorghum-sudan, the rape/turnip, the clovers and the ryegrass will come back after the cutting and provide another harvest or a nice window of grazing in September. The rape/turnip should give an opportunity for grazing right to, and perhaps beyond Thanksgiving as it takes a very hard freeze to stop growth. The ryegrass will maintain quality late too, so we will see about that.
This is all part of our endless searching here at Pastures for a different and perhaps better way of doing crops, pastures and livestock. It is what makes farming worth doing. We fail to believe that farming is a "mature" industry, choosing rather to think it is a wide open one.
Monday, July 13, 2015
seasonal
Today we are 22 days after the summer solstice. That means that 22 days ago, the days ceased lengthening and began to shrink with each sunset. It also means that the psychology changes, at least on the kind of farm that links fairly closely with nature. A daily universe of opportunity that was expanding is now shrinking and a competent human mind takes that into account. This is a description of a human life on earth, of course, but is also a metaphor for the living of that life and the doing of that work.
When things go wrong and we say that today is not the day and tomorrow doesn't look good either, we recognize this fact. Some of the very difficult and nasty things that it takes to operate a farm, or even some of the hard long jobs, jobs that will be satisfying when done, simply work better at some times than others. A farmer can conserve strength by learning to read and recognize the signs and trying to flow with them instead of always swimming upstream.
Perhaps it is as simple as the recognition that with the onrushing approach of harvest and then winter, we are going to need more sleep and that there are some jobs that will have to be postponed until the sun expands again. The human body, if it does not have its life totally in a man made environment; if it lives somewhat in Creation, knows this instinctively.
Jim
When things go wrong and we say that today is not the day and tomorrow doesn't look good either, we recognize this fact. Some of the very difficult and nasty things that it takes to operate a farm, or even some of the hard long jobs, jobs that will be satisfying when done, simply work better at some times than others. A farmer can conserve strength by learning to read and recognize the signs and trying to flow with them instead of always swimming upstream.
Perhaps it is as simple as the recognition that with the onrushing approach of harvest and then winter, we are going to need more sleep and that there are some jobs that will have to be postponed until the sun expands again. The human body, if it does not have its life totally in a man made environment; if it lives somewhat in Creation, knows this instinctively.
Jim
Monday, June 29, 2015
wild birds
Isn't it time for a rethink? This week the DNR said that having only found one wild bird dead of the flu, it now planned to redouble its efforts. So what now, it hopes to find two? Or three? When are we going to seriously entertain the thought that it is the confined turkey and chicken flocks that are the vectors of the disease and the wild ducks and other birds the victims? This is an idea that should have occurred early on. Logically the epidemic must always contain the source. The occasional dead wild bird is the result of the virus running wild in the domestic population. But we are so accustomed to the usual approach which is to blame the domestic, or backyard flocks for whatever problems the confined birds are having that we have become unable to think clearly.
What might be the result if we did think? We might begin to ask what the environment and feeding regimen for the confinement flocks has to do with their impaired immune system. Obviously, the strong immune system of the wild birds is largely responsible for the minimal impacts of the flu there. No one is vaccinating the wild ducks. If we asked these questions of our very much abnormal confinement livestock systems, might we get to the point where we could question some of the usual solutions for viruses running wild in the human population? How much of it has to do with weakened response due to childhood trauma? Do we know how much more susceptible primitive populations are to all kind of disease due to the constant warfare and terrorism to which they are subjected? What about poverty and nutrition? And what about nutrition and depleted soils?
If we ever start thinking, we have much to consider. We have been wrong about many things.
What might be the result if we did think? We might begin to ask what the environment and feeding regimen for the confinement flocks has to do with their impaired immune system. Obviously, the strong immune system of the wild birds is largely responsible for the minimal impacts of the flu there. No one is vaccinating the wild ducks. If we asked these questions of our very much abnormal confinement livestock systems, might we get to the point where we could question some of the usual solutions for viruses running wild in the human population? How much of it has to do with weakened response due to childhood trauma? Do we know how much more susceptible primitive populations are to all kind of disease due to the constant warfare and terrorism to which they are subjected? What about poverty and nutrition? And what about nutrition and depleted soils?
If we ever start thinking, we have much to consider. We have been wrong about many things.
Thursday, June 25, 2015
money vs people
As the recent trade agreement kabuki show in Congress demonstrates, when many people pit themselves against big money, they generally lose. Why should that happen in a democracy? Political corruption is the easy immediate answer and it is not wise to discount that. But what makes the corruption so apt to win?
One way of looking at the last four or five decades in America is in terms of the victory of extreme individualism over community. Unions have failed miserably. Churches, especially Protestant ones have splintered with the traditional denominations suffering while the newer more evangelical types pursue their vision of individual salvation while the community and indeed the earth itself deteriorates. There no longer seems to be any commitment to a strong system of public education available to all. Our sports playpens built with huge dollops of taxpayer money, bear the names of whatever corporation donated the last few dollars.
We do not draft to fight our wars. Killing (and dying) is now a profession. In our small towns, it gets to be harder and harder to run the necessary public services such as fire fighting and ambulance. We all spend more and more time at our keyboards and less time visiting with neighbors. Consequently, we do not look out for each other. A failed Facebook friend can be replaced by another. But we do not recognize a failed relationship with a physical neighbor as the burden and tragedy it is. And the difficulty is that without this firm grounding in a community, we are apt to "forget", to have our minds so overloaded by one or another of our own individual circumstances, that we will not make good on our current resolve to turn the fools who are selling us out, out of Congress. We need that group, that grounding.
Those of us who are trying to move into a different and better way of farming have found that the community and communitarian impulse formerly so common are something we cannot do without. Starting with the basic and central fact that we need the people who have decided to make a difference by how they spend their food dollars, we find that in order to supply that demand, we must rely on others, be they processing companies, independent haulers, or like minded farmers who can help fill holes in supply and so forth. We rely on activists to try to make the way clear for us legislatively, and also people who will hear and understand our arguments about how the health of food is more linked with its production even than with its handling.
We really all are in this together and it looks as if we will need to do without our government for awhile. But while we get that fixed and functioning again, we dare not give up our efforts to closely link farmers with eaters, consumption with production. There really is no going back. We have come too far. And it is more important than anything happening in DC.
Jim
One way of looking at the last four or five decades in America is in terms of the victory of extreme individualism over community. Unions have failed miserably. Churches, especially Protestant ones have splintered with the traditional denominations suffering while the newer more evangelical types pursue their vision of individual salvation while the community and indeed the earth itself deteriorates. There no longer seems to be any commitment to a strong system of public education available to all. Our sports playpens built with huge dollops of taxpayer money, bear the names of whatever corporation donated the last few dollars.
We do not draft to fight our wars. Killing (and dying) is now a profession. In our small towns, it gets to be harder and harder to run the necessary public services such as fire fighting and ambulance. We all spend more and more time at our keyboards and less time visiting with neighbors. Consequently, we do not look out for each other. A failed Facebook friend can be replaced by another. But we do not recognize a failed relationship with a physical neighbor as the burden and tragedy it is. And the difficulty is that without this firm grounding in a community, we are apt to "forget", to have our minds so overloaded by one or another of our own individual circumstances, that we will not make good on our current resolve to turn the fools who are selling us out, out of Congress. We need that group, that grounding.
Those of us who are trying to move into a different and better way of farming have found that the community and communitarian impulse formerly so common are something we cannot do without. Starting with the basic and central fact that we need the people who have decided to make a difference by how they spend their food dollars, we find that in order to supply that demand, we must rely on others, be they processing companies, independent haulers, or like minded farmers who can help fill holes in supply and so forth. We rely on activists to try to make the way clear for us legislatively, and also people who will hear and understand our arguments about how the health of food is more linked with its production even than with its handling.
We really all are in this together and it looks as if we will need to do without our government for awhile. But while we get that fixed and functioning again, we dare not give up our efforts to closely link farmers with eaters, consumption with production. There really is no going back. We have come too far. And it is more important than anything happening in DC.
Jim
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Congress
News yesterday is that our "representatives" in Congress sold us out on the TPP "trade" agreement. This treaty, which by our constitution should have been carefully and extensively debated by the representatives of the people is now fast tracked, which means that it will be presented to Congress as a secret deal on which they can either vote yes or no. Thomas Jefferson, who thought the Congress to be the central organ of our government, must be turning over in his grave.
Our sovereign government has once again been sold to the likes of Monsanto, which can now sue us if we act to label gmo products for what they are. I do wonder why the right wing, which gets so exercised over the United Nations, which is a nearly totally ineffective body, will stand still for the sale of our sovereignty to the corporates, which do know how to use it against us. Witness the international lawsuit over COOL (country of origin labeling) which caused our normally incompetent Congress to immediately produce legislation nullifying the law. So much for us always winning trade disputes.
In the absence of a functioning government, it becomes ever more critical that all of us live as we know we ought, and keep faith with one another. One of our contributions to that here at Pastures is to use non-gmo products in our hog feeds, paying a premium for the corn and soy we must buy, simply because we and our customers want it that way. Unlike our government, Monsanto does not own us, at any rate.
Jim
Our sovereign government has once again been sold to the likes of Monsanto, which can now sue us if we act to label gmo products for what they are. I do wonder why the right wing, which gets so exercised over the United Nations, which is a nearly totally ineffective body, will stand still for the sale of our sovereignty to the corporates, which do know how to use it against us. Witness the international lawsuit over COOL (country of origin labeling) which caused our normally incompetent Congress to immediately produce legislation nullifying the law. So much for us always winning trade disputes.
In the absence of a functioning government, it becomes ever more critical that all of us live as we know we ought, and keep faith with one another. One of our contributions to that here at Pastures is to use non-gmo products in our hog feeds, paying a premium for the corn and soy we must buy, simply because we and our customers want it that way. Unlike our government, Monsanto does not own us, at any rate.
Jim
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