Tag Archives: agriculture

Saying Goodbye to Sheep

05 Tuesday Aug 2014

Posted by in Farming

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

flock in pastureToday is the first day in over two years that we’ve woken up without sheep in the pasture.  I still remember the excitement of bringing them home on the 4th of July: the sunny drive to Starkhollow Farm in Huntington, where we loaded two ewes and four lambs into the pickup truck; dodging independence day parades on the way home; unloading them into their new pasture in front of our yurt at Applecheek Farm, where we lived at the time, only to have the sky open up and storm down on us.  After it passed, we found the sheep drenched and eating grass, seemingly un-phased.

I remember moving them to our land that fall, how beautifully they dotted the pasture, bright red and orange foliage framing the field.  I remember our first lambing season, how they all did it themselves, except for Dove, who we got to too late, and her big ram lamb was born dead–how my heart ached for her the next few days as she baaa’d and walked from lamb to lamb, sniffing to see if it was her own until finally her cries calmed as she came to understand he was gone.

And our first fall of harvesting lamb, the tender goodbyes was said as we touched their fleece before driving north to the slaughterhouse–how delicate and delicious the meat was afterward.

Then, of course, were the many hours we spent moving fence, herding the sheep back into their paddocks after escapes, chasing them out of the garden, asking the question why do we have sheep?

That question set hold this spring and grew stronger each day as the sheep demanded we leave the garden and tend to them instead.  But the weeds!  The seeding!  All the work of the garden called for us, too.  After months of questioning, the sheep have all finally left, some for greener pastures, some for the butcher.  Part of me wishes we could have found homes for all of them, but we got into the sheep business to raise meat, and so the last six will serve this final purpose: to feed our family and customers, giving back some of the energy we gave to them.

Some day we’ll bring grazing animals back to the land, but for now I must admit it feels good to have a reprieve, to wake up to a quiet morning and not worry that the sheep are having breakfast in the garden; to hear coyotes at night and not worry if the charge in the electric fence is too low.  I’ll enjoy the extra hours each day to devote to the garden and the many half-finished projects waiting for our attention.  And when we pick up the meat at the butcher, I’ll eat with awareness, my eyes closed in gratitude, thankful for what the sheep gave us.

Looking after the flock

Zucchini and Egg Season

22 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by in Farming

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

We’ve entered zucchini and egg season, by which I mean we only eat zucchinis and eggs due to lack of time to make any other meal.  What else could be so fast as summer squash sauteed in butter, eggs cracked in the pan and yolks broken with a spatula, a sprinkling of salt and pepper, a quick chop of parsley, folding in of some thinly sliced cheddar, and an easy transfer from pan to tortilla?  It takes maybe five minutes.  And we’ve got a lot of zucchini.  The eggs, not as many (60 layers and only our 8 oldest are laying…oh chickens, how much longer can you hold out?), but plenty for the two of us and Waylon, who has also recently discovered scrambled eggs.

I think we had the same meal three times in the same day last week, with perhaps a slight variation from rice tortilla to a romaine leaf wrap when we ran out of the real thing.  It’s high time for succession pulling and planting: the first round of kale, out.  Two rows of lettuce mix and two rows of Asian greens, gone.  Broadfork, compost, rake.  Seed, transplant.  Last night the dill finally went in, though the cilantro still waits in its trays, catching my eyes each time I walk by it, as does the next succession of summer squash.  Soon.  Soon.  If we don’t get it in, what will our quick scrambles turn into?

Despite all the work there is to be done, there are moments of reprieve: a coffee gelato cone, a dunk in the reservoir, a quiet hour after the babe and papa have gone to sleep.  I sink into these moments, these quiet breaths scattered like a trail through the day: this way now, there will be rest soon enough.

In another 6 hours the sun will rise, and we will, too.  Edge will make chai, Waylon will eat a banana, and I’ll turn on the stove to make breakfast of golden yolked eggs and zucchini.

zucchini and summer squash

Grass and Flower Stems

23 Tuesday Aug 2011

Posted by in Farming, Nature/Environment

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Wild geese in the fields

Fox at the edge of the pasture at night

Coyotes laughing in the dark

The farm is surrounded by wildness.

 

Pigeons take flight from the barn roof, swooping downward in one big mass, then flying up again, cresting like a wave that rolls and breaks across the sky.

Seeds left on the ground from last year’s sunflowers took root months ago and now yellow heads on thick stems stand tall in the garden.

Wildflowers bloom along lane ways and against buildings; bull thistle engulfs the south side of the sugarhouse.

The farm intertwines with wildness.

 

Edge walks barefoot all around the farm, grass, dirt and manure rubbing into his skin.  We’ve taken to bathing in the pond rather than walking up to the farmhouse for a shower.  Edge washes off while six-inch long catfish nibble at his toes; I dance in the water, dunking my head fast and picking up my feet to keep the catfish away.

Inside the yurt spiders weave webs to catch any other insect that may find its way in, the dogs curl up on the bed, and simmering soup stock warms our small space.  As the weather cools, dew forms a glittering screen on the glass dome, and we sip hot mugs of homemade chai on crisp mornings.

From my home I hear cows and crows, dogs barking and coyotes howling, chickens clucking and yellow-throats calling witchity-witchity-witchity!  There is no full separation between cultivation and wildness here, and I do not strive to make one.

Mud and dirt, manure and compost, forest and field, people and animals, water and air.  These layers of our lives are stitched together with grass and flower stems.  A continuous woven mosaic.

Working With Land and Paper

23 Thursday Jun 2011

Posted by in Farming, Writing

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

On June 11 I returned home from the Wildbranch Writing Workshop, hosted at Sterling College and co-sponsored by Orion Magazine.  I reveled in the luxury of a week immersed in writing, in being able to wake up everyday and know all I needed to do was write, and though there are certain luxuries in farming that I love, free time is not usually one of them.  Instead of spending three hours every morning with a pen and paper, I spend time walking through fields and feeding animals.  Farming and writing have their own rhythms, and I’m learning to do both at once by carrying a small notepad in my pocket and jotting down details, like the sweetness of tiny corn stalks when I bite and squeeze their syrup onto my tongue as I weed and thin the rows.

And how the heat of the hayloft and the sweet smell of square bales makes me crave banana bread.

 

It is always a balance, and it sometimes feels like a struggle, finding time for writing while farming.  At Wildbranch, I was able to talk with both full-time writers and writers who have other jobs as well, and as I compared the two for myself, I realized how much I’d miss the animals and the soil if I did not work with them.  For me, inspiration comes through action and through integrating myself with the environment, and every once in a while there comes a rainy day, like today, and I sit longer than ten minutes to put pen to paper.

 

 

Applecheek in Spring

07 Tuesday Jun 2011

Posted by in Farming, Sustainable Agriculture

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Somewhere in between milking, setting new pastures, feeding pigs and poultry, working in the garden and waiting out rain storms, I explored Applecheek Farm through my camera lens.  Here is what I found:

 

Dicie the Heifer

 

Elmore Mountain Behind the Potato Field

 

Old Tractor Wheels

 

Nobee in the Cow Field

 

Applecheek From the Pasture

 

Darlena and Ursula

 

On a farm it is easy to feel strapped for time, stressed about the endless tasks that continue to pile onto the daily to-do list, but stepping back behind the camera reminds me one important thing: there are moments of almost stillness that can be caught and held–moments that do not stop but allow you to lay down, sink in and be carried like a raft downriver.  Sometimes all we need to do is change our focus to catch them.

 

 

 

The Luxuries of Farming

01 Wednesday Jun 2011

Posted by in Farming, Sustainable Agriculture

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Today I wake to the sounds of cows mooing for their calves.  It is 6:00 am, and soon the heifers will be brought in from the field to be milked and reunited with their babies.  I’m not on for chores this morning, so I’ve slept in a bit.  Edge left a fresh pot of coffee on the stove and took our dog Nobee for a walk.

Yesterday the sky stayed clear and heat settled in, but now thunder is banging overhead again and rain is falling.  The sky looks light, though, and I’m hoping it will pass quickly.  In the past week we’ve had longer, harder storms than I’ve ever seen.  The rivers swell and rise, flooding more towns.  Last Wednesday the wind started swirling as I was bringing the cows in for evening milking.  I looked to see the northwest sky darken and send down bolts of lighting.  Within minutes it was upon us, and just as the cows turned the corner around the barn, the wind whipped dirt into the air and our eyes.  Edge, who had been doing skid-steer work near the barn, parked next to the tie-stalls and we ran in to take cover.  We spent the next thirty minutes in the milk house waiting for a break in the weather so we could run back to the yurt.  The wind kept up, the rain dumped like a waterfall, and the thunder and lightening struck so close together it was as if they had become one entity.

But the break came, and we sprinted back home.

The next morning brought more rain and news of floods and evacuations in near-by towns.  A few panels had ripped off the barn roof, a chicken house was blown over, and the hay wagons were on their sides in the road, but all the animals were okay.  The rain continued off and on, and until yesterday it felt like it might not let go.

There have been reprieves, though.  Through it all calves have been born, chickens have laid eggs, and grass has grown.  I’ve stumbled into moments of contentment and delight despite the persistent storms:

Pigs sucking up milk, munching food, and letting me scratch their backs;

Calves running up the sawdust pile and looking up with a sawdust mask on their faces;

A bobolink singing in the field while I moved fences;

Barn swallows flying in and out of the llama paddocks to their nest, which I found tucked in a corner beam inside the barn;

Walking out to the fields and seeing mist rising up to a clear sky;

Baking brownies in the yurt while rain sounded on the roof.

Through it all, our soils have drained well, so we have not been flooded here.  I wonder how much more will come, how often we will see the extreme, or if we have even seen the extreme yet.  Vermont feels more secure than other parts of the country right now, but still there are farmers who have not been able to plant because of floods, and others who cannot sell produce for 90 days after a flood because of the debris left on fields from the river.

I have thought before how animals seem to spend each day only working to find food and eat.  I have thought how repetitious that seems, but as a farmer I am reminded that it’s what we all do.  Whether we raise animals, grow vegetables, or work in an office, we eat.  We must eat, and we must work for our food.  The weather, be it rain, drought, tornado or sun, affects us all because it affects our food.  What can we do to work with the weather?  For so long we have fought against the environment, molding it into roads and buildings, asking it to support the luxuries of the western world.

I have changed my ideas of luxury.

Now convenience is going to the garden, not the grocery store.  It is working with the soil and feeling the grit rub into my skin.  It is drinking raw milk from the cows I help tend.  It is paying for food in sweat and understanding the worth of money in this way.  These luxuries may not seem to make life easier to some, but they do make life more meaningful.  When the rain stops, as it just did, I notice the luxuries of beauty and peace that the world offers up for free.

Eat, Farm and Be Dirty: a review of The Dirty Life

05 Saturday Feb 2011

Posted by in Farming, Sustainable Agriculture, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

In 2003, Kristen Kimball drove to State College, PA from New York City to interview a young farmer for a story she was writing.  That farmer, Mark, would eventually become her husband, and the story would be just the first string of words that led to her new book, The Dirty Life. In the book’s prologue, Kimball sets up the scene for city-girl-turned-farmer, writing:

“I’ve slept in this bed for seven winters, and still, sometimes I wonder how I came to be here, someone’s wife, in an old farmhouse in the North Country.  There are still moments when I feel like an actor in a play.  The real me stays out until four, wears heels, and carries a handbag, but this character I’m playing gets up at four, wears Carhartts, and carries a Leatherman, and the other day, doing laundry, a pair of .22 long shells fell out of her pocket, and she was supposed to act like she wasn’t surprised.”

During her transition from Manhattan’s East Side to a 500-acre farm in Essex, New York, there are many surprises Kimball faces, and she shares the trials of the first year with Mark and their farm in four sections: Leaving, Winter, Spring, and Summer.  As much as this book is about farming, it is also about love—finding romance and a relationship with a man and with the land, for it is not just Mark that draws Kimball into the dirty life, but also the small act of hoeing broccoli, the emotional demands of butchering a pig, and the deep rewards of eating a meal she began preparing long before it reached the kitchen.

Each experience Kimball shares is told with fearless honesty and deep love.  She allows the reader to feel the push and pull of dreams and reality as she tells of the quick courtship between her and Mark, and their plunge into a new life.  In the Winter section, she describes returning to Essex Farm for the second time, ready to move in and begin their operation: “During the weeks we were away from it, and in the excitement of moving, the farm had gotten better in our imaginations.  In theory, it was an adventure.  Up close, it was frightening.”  Every step toward their goal of a full-diet CSA that would include meat, grains and maple syrup was a new step for Kimball, who had never even grown a garden before, but her feet moved just as fast as the pages turn in this book, which compels the reader to keep going past each page break and new section.

Despite the hardships, or more rightly because of them, Kimball discovers the peace that comes with working the land, and she offers this bit of insight early on: “Farming takes root in you and crowds out other endeavors, makes them seem paltry.  Your acres become a world.  And maybe you realized that it is beyond those acres or in your distant past, back in the realm of TiVo and cubicles, of take-out food and central heat and air, in the country where discomfort has nearly disappeared, that you were deprived.”  When you read this book, you will see why Kimball is right, and you’ll be waiting for the spring thaw when you can reach your hand into the soil and get dirty.

School Gardens and Social Change

27 Sunday Jun 2010

Posted by in Alaska, Politics, Sustainable Agriculture

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Earlier this spring when I was doing outreach for the EATinG program, I found myself annoyed and disappointed with the language used to encourage students to volunteer.  In each classroom I visited, the main motivation used was the fact that volunteering can be used as a resume booster and a way to put you above others in the competitive world of college and job applications.  It seems as though it isn’t enough to say you can help your community, and as a result volunteering becomes an act only to propel oneself onto something better, rather than an act to better one’s community and environment.

On one hand I wonder, is it so bad to do a good thing for personal gain?  After all, creating a stronger, healthier community does have positive affects on the individual, and perhaps one will go on to enjoy volunteering for reasons other than resume building.  On the other hand I wonder, what it is that creates a society that so often views acts done without the motivation of personal gain as unusual or as something to be put off for when we have more time, which we never seem to have.

As I was growing up, my parents took my brother and I to nursing homes to pass out Christmas presents, involved us in “Green Up Day” every spring, and enrolled us in a school with classes that emphasized community service.  I learned through doing that interacting with my community in a positive way is fun, and a desire to help grew in me because of that.  Now I want to teach my students the importance of serving one’s community and environment, and the value of giving without the expectation of receiving.

On Monday I held a discussion with my student gardeners called “Charity versus Change,” a workshop from the Food Project’s Growing Together, by Greg Gale.  I wrote the words “charity” and “social change” on the blackboard and asked the students to call out words that come to mind for each category.  They had no problem with charity, shouting out things like helping, donating, sharing and giving.  When we switched to social change, they fell silent, with one girl throwing out the word donating again.  I helped them along by explaining how charity is an act done by a person of greater wealth for a person of lesser wealth, and is often a singular event that must be repeated in order to have a lasting effect, whereas social change is altering policies and laws in order to create a community that operates on equality, inclusion, and diversity.  It’s like the saying “give a person a fish and he/she will eat for one day, teach a person to fish and he/she will eat forever.”  Giving a fish is charity, and teaching to fish is change.

I knew this could be a difficult workshop for them—one girl is going into eighth grade while the other four are going into seventh, and I didn’t know what kind of community service experience they have had—but I wanted to challenge them to think about and understand the broad affects of this school garden and their work in it.  Since the garden started in 2009, vandalism at Hunter Elementary has sharply dropped.  Last summer there was only one instance of suspected vandalism, which turned out to be kids catching ladybugs in the garden late at night, and this summer there has been none.  As a result, the sense of community pride has soared.  Everyday passersby stop to compliment the garden, ask what’s growing, or just say hello, and our Thursday farm stand had people lining up before we opened for business this week.  Most importantly, though, this school garden has increased access to local, fresh food while teaching students the values and skills of organic growing, selling produce, and making community connections.

After we defined charity and social change, I asked each student write down their talents and passions and then identify ways they could use these things to create positive change.  As we went around the circle, the girls talked about using the internet to connect with others; drawing flyers to post around neighborhoods to create awareness about an event or issue; writing speeches, stories, or articles; teaching others how to rock climb and learn to interact with the environment in new ways, thus increasing an appreciation for the natural world.

We ended the discussion with a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Everybody can be great.  Because everybody can serve.  You don’t have to have a college degree to serve.  You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve.  You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve.  You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve.  You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve.  You only need a heart full of grace.  A soul generated by love.”

I told the students, “This garden is an incredible thing to have in the community, and you are making it grow.  You could be doing anything this summer, and maybe this is just a way for you to make some money, but despite the reason you chose to be a student gardener, the fact that you are working here is making a difference, and you can feel great about that.”

Maybe they will go on to volunteer later in the summer, after their four weeks of work are up.  Maybe they won’t.  But at least they have heard it from me: their work matters, the food they grow and eat and sell matters, and this small piece of land in Fairbanks has transformed from an unused lot to a place of learning and growing because of them and all the teachers, community members, and Calypso farmers who support it.

Goodbye to the Farm

24 Tuesday Nov 2009

Posted by in Farming, New Zealand, Travel

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

This is my last day on the farm.  We leave for Nelson tomorrow, where I will stay for two nights before saying goodbye to Erin for a while and heading north to Auckland.  Between now and December 14 I will be in Nelson, Wellington, Auckland and Sydney before flying to Tasmania for nine days and flying back to Sydney for a night, and then off to Fiji where I will reunite with Erin for the last four days of this two and a half month adventure.

Already I can feel the quickened pace, so different from this quiet morning, sitting at the kitchen table with oatmeal and tea, listening to the tui birds and looking out the window at the tall grass that engulfs the woodshed and the punga and Tasmanian blackwood trees that rise up behind it.  Rose, Gary and the kids are still asleep.  Erin is upstairs packing.  At this time tomorrow we will already be gone.

Perceptions of time change based on experiences.  When Erin and I first arrived in New Zealand we though a month to travel would be enough to see what we wanted.  In reality we found ourselves cutting out several places from our list because we wanted our pace to be more of a breeze than a whirlwind.  I don’t regret it at all; even though we didn’t make it to Kaikoura, Dunedin, Milford Sound or the Fjordlands, we got to experience more of the towns and cities we did stay in.  When we arrived in Karamea, population 650, we thought these 3 1/2 weeks would move at a turtle’s pace.  The isolation on Rose and Gary’s farm, 20 km away from Market Cross (Karamea’s main streets), contrasts from the easy access to busses, cafes and people we were used to.  Even in Punakaiki, which felt like a private retreat, we could walk to the bus stop in thirty minutes.  But I forgot how fast turtles can swim, and now here I am on the last day and I wonder how it came to an end so quickly.  I know now that by the time I get to Fiji it will feel as though I simply blinked my eyes and arrived.

Having a home to live in these past 3 1/2 weeks has been invaluable.  More than learning about starting an orchard, permaculture design, rock wall construction, companion planting and soil health, I have been to a birthday party and poetry night; met friends and neighbors at the potluck and outdoor movie night Rose and Gary hosted; hiked part of the Heaphy and Wangapeka tracks, and through the bush with Gary, Curnin and Erin; walked along the beach and gotten caught in waves, found sea glass and pua shells; and I have become part of a family, if only for a short while.

My travels thus far have taught me many things, but perhaps the most important thing I’ve learned about myself is how much I value knowing a place.  I guess it makes sense that constant movement would make me appreciate being settled, but I didn’t expect it.  As I come to the final leg of my journey, I am feeling ready to be home for Christmas.  I will not rush through these next three weeks–on the contrary, I will soak them in and stretch in each moment–but when the time comes to board the plane back to the States, I will take my last breath of summer in New Zealand and look forward to my first breath of Winter in Vermont.

Seasons in Reverse

10 Tuesday Nov 2009

Posted by in New Zealand, Seasons, Travel

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

I left Vermont on October 6, just as my body was swinging full into fall mode.  One evening a couple of weeks earlier, as I was wrapping up a day’s work on the farm, I felt the first autumn breeze: crisp and a little bit heavy, bringing with it the scent of changing leaves.  I stopped in front of the barn and breathed in through my nose, filling my lungs with the cool scent, and instantly craved apple cider.  It didn’t take long after that for my taste buds to yearn for squash, pumpkins, apples, cider doughnuts, and all the flavors of fall that swirl around with the foliage.

The week before I left I filled up on Cold Hollow cider, and on my last night home my mom baked pumpkin pie for dessert.  My last taste of Vermont before traveling halfway around the world was a simple sandwich on honey-wheat bread from Northfield with Cabot cheddar cheese, a honey s apple from Grande Isle, Pete’s Greens mesclun mix, and a thick layer of honey mustard from South Burlington, which I took with me on the bus to the Boston Airport.  (Mmm, I crave this as I write, thinking of autumn afternoons in my kitchen at St. Lawrence University with Katie Craig, Jaffe, KO and CQ when we’d made this ame sandwich open-faced, melting the cheese under the broiler).

Now, in the end of New Zealand’s spring, I find myself confused by the reversal of seasons.  As the locals are getting excited for summer, I keep expecting the sun to go down at 6:00, then 5:00, even as it stretches on past 8:00 p.m.  The excitement and lightness that comes after winter is visible in the eyes of the people in Karamea.  The menus boast of asparagus, rhubarb, and whitebait (a small fish whose season lasts six weeks in the spring).  I see calves, buttercups in green fields, unripened strawberries and greens just popping up in the garden as the spring rains water the ground.

This past Sunday we seeded corn and pumpkin; I imagine houses in New England decorated for fall with dried corn husks tied up around porch beams, with mums, gourds and pumpkins lining walkways and framing front doors.  The contrast is so vivid–Karamea in the stage of rebirth and Vermont at the end of harvest that autumn’s death brings–and I am pulled between the place I am in and the place I came from.  It is said that for every time zone you cross, it takes that many days to recover from jet lag.  I’ve been in New Zealand for more than 17 days, and though my sleep schedule is back on track, it will take much more time to adjust to the reversal of seasons.

How does one move in time and still be part of the rhythms of a place?  How long does it take to really be part of a new landscape–a week, a month, a year?  It is hard to know.  I can think of only one answer: Stay put.  Be still.  Listen.