You Can Never Do Just One Thing

I forget which book I got that line from, but it was almost certainly a book about sustainable agriculture. Every change that we make will have consequences, some anticipated, some completely unforeseen, some pleasant and some unpleasant. I added cats to the farm to keep the rodent population in check, and they do a wonderful job at it. However, they've also become convinced that the haystack is the ideal litter box. This is disgusting and unsanitary, but then again so are mouse droppings in the hay. I think that next year I will need to come up with some sort of basic tying or bailing system to encourage them to find a litter box that is more pleasant for us humans. Perhaps I will also put in a small pit filled with loose, dry organic matter, with a roof to keep the rain off. It could be a self-composting litter box. I will have to ponder this some more.

So Many Choices

Yesterday, I got a catalog from Stark Brothers, a fruit grower, and spent several hours drooling over the different varieties of fruit trees. We plan to get started on our orchard this spring. This is going to get rather complicated, because each of the varieties of apples has certain others that do the best job pollinating it, yet some varieties don't pollinate others at all. I think I need to come up with some sort of a graphical representation of all the different relationships in order to sort out which varieties will be the best for us. Also, black raspberries are supposed to be planted at least 75 feet away from blackberries and red, gold, or purple raspberries. Since all of the wild brambles in our forest are black raspberries, all of the other kinds will need to be planted well away from the forest.

I also need to research planting density requirements for the various species, so I can plan how to arrange all of them. I want to design a permaculture-based layout, mixing up the trees, bushes, brambles, and low-lying fruits in an efficient and visually pleasing manner. I definitely need to check the Permaculture book out from the library again.

Tub of Lard

Or, rather, mason jars of lard. Today I finally got a chance to render down the pig fat that's been sitting in the refrigerator for a week. I've rendered small amounts of duck fat before, and lard is the same process. The fat is cut into small pieces and then simmered with enough water to cover. The water keeps the fat from sticking to the pan and burning while the first grease is rendered out. Eventually, the water evaporates off, but by that point there is enough liquid fat to keep the rest from sticking.

It took me about two hours to dice ten pounds of back fat into small cubes. It took three quarts of water to mostly cover the cubes in the pot. After eight hours of simmering (and lots of stirring), all of the water had evaporated, the fat was liquid, and a nice layer of cracklings had formed. Speaking of cracklings, I really need to get a mesh strainer that is larger than cup-sized. It took about an hour to strain the lard because I had to keep emptying the strainer.

The ten pounds of fat made exactly four quarts of lard. Here are seven of the pints, in my freezer. The eighth one is in the refrigerator to be used. Apparently, lard is supposed to be that golden color, not the white of grocery store lard. The one on the top, far right is the best example of the color. They are all the same, but some look darker because of the angle of the photo.

101 Things, 1001 Days

Yes, it's a meme, but it sounds like a useful one. You're supposed to come up with 101 goals to accomplish within 1001 days. I thought that sounded like a good way to quantify some of our plans for the farm, so here is my list. December 28, 2008 will be the starting date, and September 25, 2011 will be the ending date. There is a countdown widget in the right column of the blog, showing how much time we have left to complete the items.

Legend:
Not started
Started but not finished
Finished

Building Projects

1. Build pickup truck crate.
2. Build up driveway.
3. Put gravel on driveway.
4. Build hoop house (or other permanent house) for poultry.
5. Build hay feeder for goats. (1/30/09)
6. Build second hay stack.
7. Make a hay rake from on-farm wood.
8. Make a snath from on-farm wood.
9. Put water tank up on blocks.
10. Insulate goat water trough.
11. Build insulated battery box.
12. Build rabbit pen.
13. Harness water power from creek for something.
14. Build a barn.
15. Build a sledge.
16. Build a hay wagon.
17. Build a bridge over drainage ditch.
18. Build a monkey bridge over the creek.

Crafts

19. Spin a fleece of wool into yarn.
20. Process flax into fibers.
21. Complete a woven project.
22. Shear a sheep.

Crops

23. Grow open pollinated corn.
24. Grow flax.
25. Plant oats for winter forage.
26. Start apple seedlings.
27. Plant bramble fruits. (12/2009)
28. Produce all necessary hay.
29. Produce half of animals' grain on farm.
30. Plant at least two paw paw trees. (0/2)
    
31. Plant three varieties of eating apples. (0/3)
    
32. Plant three peach trees. (0/3)
33. Establish feasibility of planting blueberries. (1/24/09)
34. Plant at least 16 different herbs/spices in front yard. (0/16)

Culinary

35. Eat a goose.
36. Eat a capon.
37. Bake every bread in The Bread Baker's Apprentice at least once. (0/43)
    
38. Eat a paw paw.

Education

39. Take a welding class.
40. Become certified to compost dead livestock. (1/9/09)
    
41. Visit Polyface Farm.
42. Visit Malabar Farm.
43. Visit The Land Institute.
44. Read Malabar Farm. (3/29/09)
45. Read Agriculture Yearbook from 1924.
46. Read Agriculture Yearbook from 1935.
47. Read Agriculture Yearbook from 1936.
48. Acquire at least five more pre-1940 Agriculture Yearbooks. (1/5)
49. Read Pork Production.
50. Research Jersey cattle lineage.
51. Buy box of Jersey cattle registry books, if still available.
52. Read The New Agriculture and answer chapter questions.
53. Read Horticulture Enterprises and answer chapter questions. (1/21)
    
54. Complete ten field exercises from Horticulture Enterprises. (0/10)
    
55. Read a book on chicken genetics.
56. Establish a breeding plan for free range broilers.
57. Research sheep breeds and choose best. (Icelandics)
58. Attend a sustainable farming class or conference.

Fencing

59. Stretch back fence in main pasture. (4/24/09)
    
60. Hang forest gate.
61. Hang water gate. (4/28/09)
    
62. Plant hedge around pond pasture.
63. Plant hedge in forest along road.

Foraging

64. Pick five gallons of blueberries at Dolly Sods. (2/5)
65. Pick cranberries at Dolly Sods.
66. Pick 30 gallons of black raspberries. (1/30)
67. Pick 10 gallons of wild blackberries. (1/10)

Livestock

68. Buy a milk cow.
69. Buy at least ten female runner ducks. (0/10)
70. Buy a pair of geese. (3/2) (2009)
71. Fill our freezer with homegrown beef.
72. Successfully caponize a rooster.
73. Buy rabbits.
74. Buy turkeys.
75. Buy a sheep flock.
76. Acquire at least one potential ox.
77. Successfully incubate duck eggs.
78. Breed at least two generations towards free range broilers. (0/2)

Marketing

79. Find five regular customers for bread. (0/5)
80. Find ten regular customers for eggs. (2/10)
81. Get retail license.
82. Sell a fattened pig.
83. Sell produce at a farmer's market. (2009)
84. Update farm blog 300 times. (61/300)
85. Write three newsletters for our customers. (1/3)
86. Build a farm website with our own domain.
87. Have an online order form for our customers.
88. Sell 200 broilers. (0/200)

Pasture Management

89. Graze upstream field.
90. Within a growing season, mow entire main pasture at least once.
91. Get scythe for Paul.
92. Clear undergrowth from forest.

Processing

93. Make five gallons of maple syrup. (1/5)
94. Butcher a deer.
95. Buy a meat grinder.
96. Make butter.
97. Make apple cider.

Water Management

98. Dig pond.
99. Install water system in upstream field.
100. Expand drainage ditch to one foot wide entire length.
101. Expand drainage ditch to one foot deep entire length.

Full Freezer

Our pig dressed out at 134 pounds, and we got back about 116 pounds of meat and 10 pounds of fat to render into lard. Now that I've seen the cuts of meat, I'll make a few different decisions next time. For example, we had one of the hams cut in half, and one left whole. A whole ham is huge! I'll definitely get them both cut in half next time. So far, we've only tried the bacon, which was amazing. The pig was partly finished on apples, but I'm not sure how much of the sweet flavor is from that and how much is just the difference between real pork and factory pork. Anyhow, the bacon is very sweet and earthy, and it cooks up perfectly. The fat is crispy and the meat is chewy. I can never get store bacon to do that.

Here is the break down:
Hams, 1 whole and 2 halves, 26 lbs 9 oz total
Bacon, 11 lbs 14 oz
Italian sausage, 10 packages, 13 lbs 7 oz total
Sage sausage, 10 packages, 11 lbs 9 oz total
Pork chops, 11 packages of 4, 19 lbs 14 oz total
Country-style ribs, 4 packages, 12 lbs total
Spare ribs, 4 packages, 5 lbs 11 oz total
Shoulder roasts (2), 9 lbs 9 oz total
Sirloin roasts (2), 6 lbs 8 oz total

This was all frozen at the processor, so we didn't overwork our poor freezer.

Paul also shot a deer a few weeks ago, so we have venison again. It was a little guy, only providing 18 pounds of meat, but the processor threw in a complimentary baloney sausage when he found out we have the same last name, so that brought us up to just about 20 pounds of venison.

In addition, there are still ten chickens left from last summer. I thought there were fewer, but when I was rearranging the freezer to make room for all the pork, I found more stashed on different shelves. I kind of lost track, but I think we slaughtered around 40 chickens last year. I got kind of tired of chicken, because for a while it was just about the only meat we had, so I stopped using it as much. Those 10 chickens will probably last us until we slaughter again next summer. Oh, and there's also a duckling in the freezer, which will be our special Epiphany dinner.

Last, and definitely least, we culled one of our problem goats from the herd. There are two more to cull later, probably after Christmas. The meat is tough, of course, but so far it tastes ok in small amounts. We had goat tacos for dinner last night, and they were reasonably tasty. We figure that if we don't want to eat the goat meat, it will still make a good supplement for the dogs so it won't be wasted. Plus, it's good practice at slaughtering and butchering larger animals ourselves.

Much Easier Than I Expected

We took the pig to the slaughterhouse today. I wanted to build both a ramp and a wooden crate to go in the back of the pickup truck, but I only had time to build the ramp. We figured that the pig would probably fit in our largest dog crate. Paul took the day off from work, because we figured it might be difficult to convince the pig to walk up the ramp and get in a dog crate, and we had to be at the slaughterhouse by 5pm at the absolute latest.

This November and December have been really cold so far, and the ground has been frozen for much of it. Today, however, it was 50 degrees and raining. The entire pig pen was deep, sticky, sucking mud, and my feet weighed about 30 pounds each within moments of stepping in. First, I got the pig used to the dog crate. She was very annoyed because she hadn't been fed yet today, so I sprinkled some grain at the back of the crate and opened the door. I couldn't have kept her out of that crate! Of course she ate up all the grain within a few minutes, and wanted more, but she'd have to wait until the truck was ready for her. Paul had gone to the feed store to pick up some fresh straw, so while I waited for him I enclosed her in a small space with the electric fence.

Paul returned and backed his truck up to the pen gate. We set up the ramp, put a nice layer of straw at the bottom of the crate, and extended the electric fence to keep her from escaping out next to the truck and gate. The crate was positioned at the top of the ramp with a bowl full of grain at the back of it, and then we were ready to let her at it.

The pig didn't even think twice before hauling herself up the ramp and into the crate. It took a bit of prodding to get her big pig butt far enough into the crate to be able to close the door, but she wasn't interested in going anywhere. We couldn't believe how easy it had been. I had expected to need to coax the pig up the ramp with more grain, since she'd never seen one before, but she knew that the dog crate was full of good things and there was no way she was going to miss out on them.

Paul did have a lot of trouble getting out of the farm with all that slippery mud and an extra 200 or so pounds in the back, but he managed. However, the driveway is now thoroughly torn up and there are a couple of big holes going up the slope from where he got stuck temporarily, so all of that will need to be dealt with before I'll be able to take my car down there again, even in warm, dry weather.

It was about a 45 minute drive to the slaughterhouse, but once the pig finished her meal, she decided that the straw made a nice bed and she slept the whole way there. Actually, she was so comfortable that she refused to leave the crate at the slaughterhouse. Even when dumped halfway out, she scrambled back in and braced her legs against the sides. We ended up lifting the crate entirely off of her before she finally decided to stand up and wander down the aisle.

Our meat will be ready on the 20th. I'm really looking forward to real, fresh bacon, hams, pork chops and sausage. And it will be really nice to have that pig off of our feed bill.

A Downside to Free Range Chickens

Finding eggs in the haystack.



I've changed the way the chickens are handled. I had been using electric netting to contain them in a section of the pasture, and then moving the pen once or twice a week to a fresh spot. This involved getting all the chickens into the movable house, locking them in, tearing down the fence, moving them to a new spot, setting up the fence, and herding the ducks into the new location. It was just getting to be too much with all the other chores I have out there.

So now I'm going with a modified free range/Balfour method. The Balfour method is basically a pen with a deep layer of straw or other dry vegetable matter. The chickens scratch it up and turn it into compost, and find lots of bugs under it. They spend the night and at least half the day in the pen, in order to confine the eggs to a small area, and then they are let out to free range over the full pasture until evening.

This has been working well, and the birds have learned the routine and are eager to come back to the pen at night. In fact, one day I had choir practice until after dark, and when I came back to the farm to put the birds away, they had all already put themselves to bed. All I had to do was shut the gate.

Now, the bantams can fly over the fence, so that's why I find clutches of eggs in weird spots around the pasture. I don't mind, though. They were free and their eggs are too small to sell, so it's just a happy bonus to find a batch of eggs from them.

Steam Thresher Reunion Festival

Several weekends ago, we went to the Stumptown Steam Thresher Reunion in New Athens, Ohio. It was fascinating to see the steam powered machinery, including a complete sawmill. I took a bunch of pictures and some video.





Even though it wasn't steam powered, the display I found the most interesting belonged to a washing machine collector. He had a bunch of old gas or hand powered washing machines set up. The most gorgeous one was this hand powered one. The gear action was incredible. Inside the barrel was a wooden arm with spokes that spun and moved the clothes through the water.

The owner said that all of the metal parts on this washing machine were cast, not machined. The craftsman is completely unknown.







Some of the "newer" washing machines came with butter churn or meat grinder attachments, so that the motor could be used for multiple tasks. Most also had a place to attach a belt, so that anything with a drive shaft could be run off of the same motor.




I also took video of the sawmill operating, but uncompressed it is around 200 MB so I'll need to compress it a bit before uploading.

Foraging for Wild Foods...

...in the Sears parking lot.

We found an apple tree planted alongside Sears while walking back to pick up my car after its oil change. It had been pruned in such a way that all of the apples were within the leaves, but I recognized it by the windfalls on the ground. The tree had died some years ago, but four trunks had grown up from the rootstock. We grabbed several apples for dessert, and gathered all of the windfalls for the pig.

Beyond the immediate value of the apples, I was very interested to find this tree because it demonstrates the result of coppicing in apple trees. Coppicing is the practice of cutting a tree down and allowing shoots to grow back from the stump. It is a traditional woodland management tool that has been used for centuries. Trees are harvested every twelve years, and the stumps can produce for hundreds of years.

I had recently read an article about own-root apple tree coppicing, where alternating rows of apple trees are cut down each year to provide additional sun to the remaining trees.

"Coppice-ability is also the basis of our "Coppice Orchard". This consists of OR trees planted in rows running north-south. When the canopy of the orchard closes, a north - south row will be coppiced and the land in the row used for light demanding crops, e.g. vegetables on a no-dig system, while the trees regrow. The trees either side of the glade will have higher light levels on their sides and produce more fruit buds. The next year another north - south row is cut but not the immediate neighbours as these will have the extra buds, so the next row for coppicing will be next-door-but-one. In other words this will be Alternate Row Coppicing. This process is repeated every year, creating a series of parallel , sheltered glades. Eventually the rows of trees forming the avenues between the glades will also be coppiced in turn, but by then the ‘glade’ trees will have regrown to form the avenues. As the trees regrow there will be glades at all stages of regrowth until the cycle repeats itself, and niches for plants suited to full light, semi-shade or heavy shade, creating opportunities for different types of land use."

I'm very interested in the genetic diversity of growing apples from seed, so this was a fascinating concept to me. The tree at Sears gave me a good idea of what to expect from coppicing apple trees.

Now, we don't really have the space to establish the sort of full-sized orchard that is mentioned in the article, but I was thinking of planting apples along some or all of the fence rows. I've been collecting seeds from as many diverse sources as I can, in order to have the greatest genetic diversity amongst my trees. Most of the fruit probably won't be that great for eating, but it will be fine for cider and for feeding to the pig. I understand that apple finished pork is extremely delicious.

Disaster Narrowly Averted

At about midnight I went out to check on the chicks before going to bed. Before I had even gotten out of the garage door, I could tell that something was wrong. There was no orange glow of the heat lamp through the greenhouse plastic roof. I guess the bulb burned out. I don't know how long the heat had been off, but all of the chicks were still alive, huddled against one edge of the draft guard. They're now safe in a cardboard box in the house, with a grow lamp for warmth. If I had been thinking more clearly, I could have put the grow lamp bulb in the brooder, but they're all settled now. The adrenaline is fading, but I'm still a little bit on edge.

New Chicks

We're trying out a new system this year. Instead of buying replacement layer chicks in early spring, we've decided to try buying them in late summer. Older birds can forage for much of their feed needs during the growing seasons, but regardless of forage, the chicks need a good growing diet to reach their full potential. So it makes sense to me to have the heavy feeding occur during the fall and winter, when the birds would need to get most of their food provided anyway.

Mid-September is a bit later than I'd like, though. Next year, I will try for early August instead. For this batch of chicks, I decided to try out the Black Australorp, since they are supposed to lay well during hot weather. We had a significant drop in production during the hot months this summer, so they should help even out our production.

I had originally ordered them to ship September 8, but since I ordered 50 of them it was pushed back to September 15. Boy, I'm sure glad they were, since last weekend there was a really bad windstorm that collapsed the roof of the brooder. Hopefully the weather will remain nice at least until they get some feathers on them.

Frantically Cutting Hay

It's been a very rainy spring/early summer this year. Since mid-May, there hasn't been more than two or three days of dry weather at a time. I got some hay cut in May, but none since then. The old grain field is very weedy, so I've been cutting that down, but because of the constant rain I've just been composting the cut vegetation.

Finally, I seem to be getting a break. There's not supposed to be any rain until Sunday, so I spent several hours today cutting. Most of it is crownvetch, which gets very tangled, so it's hard work. Luckily, goats love crownvetch, and since it is a legume it probably has a decent protein content. It's not very palatable to cattle or horses, but goats think it's wonderful, especially when it's made into hay.

I plan to try to get out to the farm early tomorrow morning and cut some more before it gets too hot. As the week progresses, I'll transition from cutting to tedding to gathering to storing.

Chicken Chasing

I did a bad thing today. I let all the poultry out of their pen into the main pasture to forage (because I needed to spend my time cutting hay, not moving their pen). I expected that it would be easy to lure them back in with a scoop of grain, but that was not the case. Little heads popped up all over the field when I called them, but they immediately went back to foraging.

The Rhode Island Reds probably would have come back to the house after sunset, but the others are pretty flighty. Besides, I was very tired and didn't want to wait that long. So I stationed Cerra at the gate and told her to open it whenever I herded a chicken her way. The ducks were easy; I got them into the pen in a single flock and they were so traumatized that they didn't try to come out again (ducks are such nervous creatures). Chickens tend to scatter more than flock, so I was pretty resigned to chasing each of them individually.

Paul showed up when I was about halfway through and helped me round up the stragglers. I don't think I'll be letting them all out again any time soon.

Barn Beginnings

Well, really more of a shed. Paul's parents are taking down the wood fence in their yard, and they've given us the panels and posts. The panels are approximately 6' X 8'. I plan to use the first four panels as the walls in a three stall barn. The back of the barn will be hog panels and the front will open out onto three separate paddocks. I plan to put a pole frame around the fence panels to support the roof. This will give me winter housing for up to three flocks of goats (yearling does, breeding does plus buck, and any kids or goats that need special treatment). For the winter, I would stack straw bales against the wire end of the barn to make it three-sided instead of two.

There will be more wood panels coming, so I'll either add more stalls or come up with something else to use them for.

Habits

Gosh, it's easy to lose the habit of blogging (mostly) every day. I lost the use of my computer for one weekend a few weeks ago (dead power supply), and I haven't posted anything since.

I have a few things to write about, but I'll put them in different posts.

Generous Kitty

In the last week I've found a dead field mouse and a dead mole right next to where I park my car. I think Banshee is tithing. Also, I haven't seen any mice skittering about the compost pile since we got her, whereas before I'd usually see them every day. She's doing a great job.

Silly Pig

Porkchop has an interesting method of getting to her food bowl. She won't be able to pull this off for much longer.

Worthless Crook

I recently bought a crook from Premier Supplies based on their glowing description.

Most functional and satisfying neck crook we've used. Lightweight, strong and quick in the hand. Top is molded from very tough plastic--so it will never lose its original shape and almost never breaks. Shaft is coated fiberglass. We love everything about it. When given a choice, we always grab this one.

At $39, it was also the most expensive crook that they carried, but I wanted one that would last.

I decided to try it out and do some hoof trimming today. Things were going great, but on the third goat I caught, the top broke right off! I was so disgusted. I've had nothing but good experiences with Premier and their products, so I hope that they will give me a refund when I call them on Monday. I might try out the leg crook instead, which is made of solid aluminum. Presumably that will hold up better with strong goats.

Speaking of hoof trimming, this time I used a homemade rope halter (based on this design) to tie each goat to a tree while I trimmed her hooves. Tally decided to take a nap and enjoy her pedicure. She was stretched flat out on the ground, completely relaxed. I was actually a little bit worried, because that is not normal behavior for a goat, but she got right up once I untied her and gave a little tug on the halter. None of the rest were as cooperative.

Pork Chop

I was all set to drive to Barnesville today and buy a pig at the auction. However, last night I finally found a source for feeder pigs that was only a few miles away. It was a bit more than I would have paid at the auction, but when you figure in the cost of gas, the waste of an entire day, and the pig's potential exposure to disease at the auction...I was more than willing to pay what they wanted.

They delivered the pig to us this evening, but I still had to hook up the charger for the electric fence. I didn't realize that the opposite end of the fence was touching the woven wire and was grounding out, so the pig escaped into the garden. She was NOT amused at being caught, and squealed like, well, a stuck pig. Paul finally figured out the problem with the fence, and we put her back in the pen. She promptly got zapped on the nose (squeal!), and then she went over to the place where she'd gotten out before. Zap! Squeal! Zap! Squeal! Escape! Wait, that part wasn't supposed to happen. She charged through and was still small enough to fit through the fence, despite being zapped. Again I caught her and put her back in the pen, this time guarding the end that she liked to escape through.

After one final zap and squeal, she sat down and regarded the fence with a thoroughly bewildered expression on her face. Over the next few hours she napped and then rooted around a bit, but did no further escaping. I hope that when I check tomorrow morning, I'll find her still in her pen. Pigs are smart enough that electric fence is supposed to be extremely effective with them, so I hope she's figured it out by now.

The people who brought the pig were very interested in the electric netting. They'd never seen it before, but they could immediately imagine the possibilities.

Maybe It's Wishful Thinking...

...but some of the goats are looking a bit bulgy at the sides. I think they might actually be pregnant. I noticed this just before turning them in to a new paddock, so I don't think I was seeing full rumens. I remember that last fall they all looked pregant because their rumens were so big, even though none of them were.

Number 7 looked particularly round, and was one of the ones that I saw in heat in January. If she got bred then, she would be due around June 19th! None of them look quite that far along (comparing to the one that kidded last year), but I understand that it can be hard to tell with goats.