Back On Dry Land

Sept. 10, 2008 6:00 AM Cloudy, 42° F
Warm this morning. Yesterday, Sep. 9, we had our first frost. It was light, and only in the low areas, but a frost nonetheless. Winter is coming… Actually that’s pretty much always the case here in Minnesota. Winter is on the way. It comes around so often, and stays so long, that it really dominates the other seasons.
Of course, during winter its all one can think of, just trying to survive. When the one or two weeks of spring finally roll around, most of us are so distrusting of winter, we don’t fully enjoy the change; always looking over our shoulders, wondering if this will be the year we get another May blizzard.
When wonderful Minnesota summer finally arrives somewhere around the 4th of July, most of us are so excited to use the 19 hours of sunlight to its best advantage growing food in our gardens and feed for our livestock, we really don’t take much of it in. Oh, we’ll get a couple of dips in the river about then, only to be reminded by the frigid water that we are still within the reach of ol’ man winter. This year, we were wearing winter clothes in June and in August, so we didn’t even bother to put them away. My winter chore-coat is hanging today in the same spot where I put it when I last used it on June 10th, ready to become my standard outfit outside.
Fall arrives in September, just as the days really begin to shorten. I need a flashlight now for most of my morning chores, and a heavy sweatshirt or jacket. With the first frost comes another all-too-common reminder that winter is literally around the corner. Snow could strike at any time, and in most places, that’s a good definition of the onset of winter. Here, we call it “fall.” We’ll have about 2 weeks of beautiful fall colors, and then the trees will be barren; the stage set for a blanket of snow to complete the winter backdrop for the next 5-6 months. Last year we had snow on the ground here for 183 consecutive days. Since then, I’ve often thought, “Well, we just survived one of the toughest winters on record, the next one can’t be that bad.” Sure enough, I’ve heard from many that the “Farmer’s Almanac” is predicting a bad one here and in most of the country. I haven’t verified that by checking it out myself, nor do I plan to…

Sep. 12, 2008 6:58 AM, Foggy, 49°

Cool and damp this morning. It rained off and on most of the day yesterday, which makes for a soggy day today. We’ll take the rain, however, whenever it comes, because more often than not, its too dry around here.

I took a chain saw in for repair yesterday. I love going to this guy’s shop. Its spotless. I mean it is so clean: everything in its place and a place for everything; very much unlike my shop here. I’m pretty much just trying to find dry places for all the tools and parts. Someday…

We have a Jersey dairy steer that is just over 3 months old. He’s been on momma’s milk the whole time. In fact, for a while he was nursing 2 momma’s. Needless to say, he’s a big boy and ready to be turned out to pasture. He’s going to have to learn to get all his nutrition from grass alone.

Most farmers who raise calves will tell you that you HAVE to give grain to a calf that is being weaned from its mother. They will say this often not knowing why that is the conventional wisdom. The reason it is considered almost required is that in order for a ruminant animal (beef, dairy, goat, sheep) to get enough food in its belly to survive on grass alone, it has to eat LOTS of grass. With grain in the diet, the total volume of food required goes down. For a small calf, whose stomach is very small, it can be a challenge to consume enough grass to sustain itself. So, over the years farmers have resorted to starting calves with grain, and then the practice just became de rigueur over time.

We’ve raised several here without resorting to grain. Bear in mind that tiny bits of grain are not particularly harmful to the animal, and in fact, when eating grass at this time of year, they are all getting some grain when they consume the seed heads on the grass. Certainly, we’ll have to keep an eye on this guy, and if he seems to step back a bit in his growth, we can bring him back to momma, or give him a bottle.

Since we really cannot handle all the milk from this good producing cow, we’d like to get another baby calf on her and possibly raise another yet this fall/winter. Now if I can just locate a dairy farmer looking to rid himself of a bull calf.

Sept 11, 2008, 5:44 AM Cloudy, 58°

We don’t have much in the way of fancy, (or un-fancy) gates, corrals, pens, etc… We have our animals outside on pasture and until we get our business expanded further, our set up will be somewhat temporary and labor intensive.
So, loading beef cattle can be a daunting task at times. Yesterday, we needed to get 2 of these monsters on the trailer. We’ve set up a temporary corral using some wire cattle panels. These panels are 16’ by 54” made of thick wire about the size of a pencil. We put a couple of steel posts in the ground and attach these panels to the posts using a piece of electric fence wire. It makes a decent temporary fence, but it’s not really strong. If the animals are cooperative, it works pretty well.
Heifer #1 walked right into the corral, and when we opened the trailer door, she hopped in so nice, it kind of made me sad we need to take her in, kind of.
Heifer #2, well, that was interesting. She entered the corral nicely enough on her own without any chasing on our part. Then when we opened the trailer door, and tried to “coax” her into the trailer, she decided she’d rather stick around for a while. If you’ve ever seen a deer jumping over a fence, or running through a field leaping gracefully, you have probably marveled at the power, speed and beauty. Well imagine standing next to a 1200 pound animal, solid T-bone, and watching as, from a dead stop, she elevates her front half, leaps up, and clears a 54” high fence hardly touching it as she pulls her back feet over. Once she was over the fence, she turned around and looked at me as if to say, “You thought you could keep me in with THAT?!”
It was about supper time, so we decided that we better let her calm down before trying this again. I put some sirloin steaks on the grill, and while they were grilling, I thought I’d put a salt lick in the trailer to see if I could lure our little girl back in. Once I got out there, she was practically in the trailer already all by herself! Of course upon seeing me, she promptly left. However, the salt lick was irresistible, and soon she was putting her dainty little feet in the trailer to try and reach it with her dainty little nose. Somehow, I snuck up behind her and closed the trailer door such that she had no choice but to pull her back feet up into the trailer. Success!
Suddenly, I remembered the steaks. Lisa was there, and I asked her to flip them while I was securing the trailer and the corral, when we got the trailer into the yard, the steaks were done. Almost perfect, and wonderful, considering what was going on…

Today, I’ll deliver those beeves to the processor, drop a chain saw off for repair, continue stacking firewood, pick up some corn for the pigs and fill their feeder (boy are they eating now!), I’m also going to be discussing suckling pig with a chef who is interested in trying some. We’ll be butchering a few suckling pigs here soon, to give some folks a chance to try this delicacy that appears to be making a comeback.

Monday, March 24, 2008, 5:55 AM, Dark, 10°F
Despite the 10° temp reading this morning, spring is here!  Oh, yes, we had some snow yesterday on Resurrection Sunday, but the calendar says spring, so we are calling it spring…

Spring birthing has started here now in earnest.  We’ve had the piglets for a few weeks now, and last night, we had a goat give birth to 2 bucklings.  There are a couple of other goats which should be kidding soon, and the sheep will start in about 3-4 weeks.  We are timing our calving, kidding and lambing seasons a bit later here than many other farmers. Seems like most farmers I know; in this area, are birthing their livestock in Jan. and Feb.  I think the idea there is to get a bigger offspring by fall.  Certainly, we’d like the biggest lambs we can get by Oct. 1st. However, as grass farmers, we really like to have those babies born just as the grass is coming on after the spring thaw, and the mothers can use that fresh grass to make milk for the babies.  We find the growth rates of lambs are a bit faster when they are born in the warmer weather.  They seem to get off to a faster start than those hitting the snow first.  For our purposes, the later season results in just as big a lamb/calf/kid as we’d have otherwise, so we take it easy on ourselves and the animals by birthing later in the year.  This goat that came in last night was really a bit early, but the buck jumped out of his pen last fall, and that was that…

We have also started shearing the sheep.  Yes, I thought it was too early for that too, but after talking with other sheep producers, I think we are right on time.  A few considerations:
•    We have shelter for them if they get cold.
•    Even at 10° this morning, we are 40° warmer than the dead of winter.
•    Highs in the 40’s this week.
•    I’m still learning how to shear, which means they have plenty of wool left!!

Actually, the last point is one which has me thinking.  Shearing sheep is a real skill which I have yet to master.  We didn’t shear last fall, and I wish we had.  We need to get them cleaned up before lambing for a couple of reasons.  First off, we sheared a few after lambing last year, and afterwards, the lambs didn’t recognize their mommas. (sheep are not smart animals, remember).  Secondly, if you wait too long, till the weather gets warm, then all the wool on the backside of the sheep gets matted down with manure (which tends to be a little runny sometimes in the spring on fresh grass), and that attracts flies, which can really lead to problems if they lay eggs in the wool.

I get them cleaned up in the spring to the point where the wool will not interfere with lambing, and they will be clean when the flies come out.  But  let’s just say they are pretty ugly right now.  We have been looking into getting a market started for the wool, but have held off while I perfect my shearing technique, in hopes of getting better fleeces.  After getting started on shearing this spring, it is obvious that I need a class of some kind if I’m going to do this the right way.

I don’t know if it’s my technique, of if I don’t have the clippers set up right, or if it’s the heavy wool of the Icelandic sheep, but the results are nothing like what you see the professionals doing…

I think we’ve already decided to hire someone really good to do the fall shearing.  It’s the fall wool that is best for marketing to spinners and felters.  It is clean and relatively free from obstructions like hay particles, etc…

Saturday, March 22, 2008, Pre Dawn, Snow, 20°F

Do we really need another farming blogger to post about how winter is dragging on?  No, but it is certainly at the top of our minds here, so that’s what comes out.  We had about 6 inches of snow in the past 4 days.  Not rare actually for this part of the world, but it comes at the end of a long, relatively cold and hard winter.  We had snow before Thanksgiving here and we’ll have snow on Easter with no complete melting in between.

However, spring is springing in all sorts of little ways.  We have 22 baby piglets, about 10-12 of which we’ll feed out for the summer and have as meat hogs this fall.  Our dog has had puppies (more on that later).  The cattle and sheep have found bits of pasture with no snow and have been trying to eat any little green growth they can find.  Our goats will start to give birth in a few days, and the sheep in about 3 weeks.  We’ve had some daytime temps in the 40’s, which has felt just wonderful.

The nice thing about getting snow this late in the season is that you know it won’t last long.  It can’t!! It’s like Old Man Winter is still throwing his angry darts, but none of them are sticking.  The end is near, and we can put up with just about anything at this point.  We are too close to spring to get depressed about winter.

We are going to be getting a dairy cow.  Sometime this week, we are going to pick up a Jersey cow from a farm in southern Minnesota.  There hasn’t been a milk cow on this farm in nearly 40 years, and we are all very excited about this.  We are looking forward to fresh milk for us, and along with that of course, we have butter, cream, ice cream, etc…  In addition to the milk for us, however, we are looking to use some of our excess milk, buttermilk and whey to feed to pigs and chickens.  We feel that we can offset some of our pork production costs using milk and milk byproducts.  Hopefully, this will allow us to continue to offer pork to our customers with little or no increase in price.

The cow is due to calve in June.  If we have a heifer, I guess we’ll be in the dairy business!  If it’s a bull calf (which seems to be the case often for us!), then we’ll have some extra beef around here.  Either way, we’ll take it!

Monday, Jan. 17, 2008, 10:00 AM Cloudy, 30F

We just spent the weekend at the North Dakota Homeschool Convention.  We were invited to speak about incorporating farm-based material into a homeschool curriculum.  We also had a booth where we offered our videos and other resources to the other folks there.

The presentation went well, and was followed by an question and answer session.  Just as we were about to finish, a man in the group expressed his opinion (rather strongly) that I was using fear of the industrial food system to encourage people to purchase organic food.

We were literally out of time, and were unable to address his concerns.  He did however visit our booth and continue the discussion in a relatively calm manner.  As it turned out, he is a conventional grain farmer from ND.  His perspective is one I have encountered many times actually.  To be truthful, I have had the exact same view at one point in my life.  My wife graciously encouraged me to see the other side long ago.

I had been working for a large Agri-Chemical firm and made my living telling one side of the story with regard to bio-technology and industrial agriculture.  It is amazing how easy it is to get yourself locked into a single perspective on this issue.

Sadly, many conventional farmers and others in the industrial food sector look upon “authentic” food production and distribution as a threat. As those of us who make healthy, life-giving food our choice daily, this seems to be a matter of choice.  We all make choices, and farmers make choices as to how to produce their product.  Consumers choose what products they will buy and how they will obtain them.

I’m grateful for those folks who exercise their choice daily and I’m thankful that we all still have this choice.  Authentic food is local food, and may we all keep this segment of the food economy viable!

JM

Tuesday, March 11, 2008, Pre Dawn, Dark, 25°

There is only so much daylight.  Changing the portion of the 24 hour clock in which it shines doesn’t change the amount of sunshine.  For a morning person like me, Daylight Saving Time (DST) is of no real benefit.  I’m not complaining, but personally, I’d rather have the sun up earlier rather than later.  I enjoy the progression of daylight length as we come out of the long winter here.  At the low point, late December and on into January, the sun really doesn’t light the day up until 8AM or later.  These long, cold nights of winter are a real reminder of the cycles and seasons we experience here on earth.  With afternoon darkness prevailing from 4:30 PM on, I’m sometimes doing chores by flashlight both morning AND night.

It’s funny how our routine changes around here as the amount of sunlight changes.  In winter, we are trying to make the most use of every ray of sunshine we get.  Evening chores get moved up to make use of the warmer temps and light.  Breakfast is eaten before sunrise, supper, after.  As the winter wanes like this time of year, supper is moving later and later.  Last night, with our friend DST, we finished eating at 8:00!  We discussed at the table that at some point, we’ll have to move supper up to 4 or 5, so we can have our evening work time outside…  Seems like the garden gets its attention most from 6-9 PM in the summer.  Its cooler and the big jobs are done for the day. Hopefully…

I met with a new meat processor last night.  It’s going to be a bit more expensive than previously to get our animals processed, but in the long run, I think its going to work out fine.  I’m taking a few pigs over tonight, (if we get them loaded), and we’ll give them a try.

It is getting harder and harder to find meat processors.  Smaller processors are finding it harder and harder to keep up with the increased costs associated with the business.  Regulations are a big part of that.  When the USDA has major meat recalls like what we’ve seen recently, a new regulation generally follows.  Problem is, the small processors are rarely the problem, it’s the big guys who generally cause these major meat recalls, and yet the new regs will affect everyone.  So, smaller processors just go out of business.

A revitalized local rural economy would have a butcher in every town, just like there was in the 60s and 70s.  That would require more people to buy from local farms, CSAs and the like, and that is starting to happen.  It’s both a difficult and exciting time to be farming.

Friday, March 8, 2008 6:40 AM, Sunrise, Clear, -20F

Having completed the morning chores in record time due to what we hope is the final bite of winter, I’m settling down to a few minutes of quiet before the day. The farm dog, a 2 year old purebred golden retriever named Heidi, has made a rare appearance in the kitchen this morning. Normally she is outside, in all weather. I had sympathy today however, as she is great with puppy; the product of a brief, illicit affair with a love-em-and-leave-em neighbor dog. Six or 7 weeks ago, we brought her a nice, respectable, attractive fellow golden, one of her own kind, so to speak. She wanted nothing to do with him, and a day later, fell for a common, simple vagabond, whose identity will likely be revealed in a couple of weeks.

Despite the cold, the sheep slept outside last night. They know to watch for me in the morning, and as soon as I step out the door, they declare their hunger. Their wool is extremely thick, and I had planned on shearing them before they started lambing in April. I’ve not shorn a pregnant ewe before, and am loathe to attempt it. However, last spring we waited until the lambs were born, and then some of them had trouble finding their mommas after they were shorn, so this year, we decided to do it early. It would be best, I’m told, if we could shear a month before lambing. That means we really need to shear in about 10 days. We will need a major turn in the weather if that is to happen.

Speaking of weather, we are all ready here for spring to begin. Well, actually yes and no. On the one hand, we’d welcome the warmer weather, but on the other, that means mud, rain and lots of spring field work. I guess what I’m really saying is that I’m ready for summer. If we could skip the rain and mud…

I have made numerous attempts at blogging. Each time, I start with a flourish, and then struggle to keep going. No guarantees that this will be any different. However, we will pursue it, I do enjoy it, and there are very rare instances of successful full-time farmers maintaining a well-written blog. At the outset, I’ll make a deal with the readers. I will try to write frequently, and post when I can. Our internet connection so slow that it would be easiest for me to write several entries, and post them all at once, maybe once or twice a week. Folks are more than welcome to comment on the blog. Debate is welcome, and encouraged. Negative, hacking commentary or bitter attacks will not pass my approval, life is too short to engage in argument. I will simply not have time to respond to all comments. I may try to reply in summary occasionally.

Here we go!

Yes, folks, Authentic Agriculture is still online! Wind chills of 45-50 degrees below zero have made life here on the farm a bit more “Authentic” than we had planned… Much of the time these days are spent making sure the ancient farm set up we have here doesn’t freeze and we have to move to town until April! We are fine, however, and encouraged by the continued interest in Authentic Agriculture.

Yesterday, I received my monthly copy of “Acres USA” magazine, which included a letter to the editor I wrote several months ago. I had given up on them publishing it, but was pleasantly surprised to see it included in the Feb. edition. I will reprint it here:

The terms “organic,” “sustainable” and even “natural” and “local” have been co-opted by the system of so-called experts to the point where the have lost their authenticity. Land-grant extension programs and government conservation staff are touting the benefits of farming in the original to growing audiences as though they knew it would work all along. Big Ag and Big Food have already made Big Organic.

“Organic farming” is simply farming as everyone in the world did since creation until the mid 20th century. Many (including me) who are farming organically or even “beyond organic” don’t want to pay a government-endorsed inspector simply to verify they are farming the way everyone farmed for thousands of years.

The answer to this reflects the promise of a truly honest, rewarding, healthy agriculture and one that will not be taken over by Extension Agents, NRCS and the ever-expanding political correctness of the business sector. We must begin to acknowledge the Source of sustainability, the Origin of organics and the Naissance of natural. Do so, and the powers that be will run away for fear of somehow endorsing a religion; and we’ll be left to run our own movement, serve our own customers, and in the process renew and restore agriculture.

Authentic Agriculture™ is food and food production that honors the system put in place by the Creator and First Farmer. Connecting producers and consumers in interdependence, and acknowledging the source of our bounty enhances community, faith and trust.

An agriculture that produces unhealthy food, damages the environment and drives individual farmers to the poorhouse is not what was intended… It is not authentic.

For more information about Authentic Agriculture, and to join our growing movement, go to: www.authenticagriculture.com . You will find resources, encouragement and a community of like-hearted agriculturalists.

Needless to say, interest in our approach is growing. AuthenticAgriculture.com is growing as well, and we hope to announce the availabilitly of a logo sticker that members can use to identify their own products soon. Stay tuned!!

Wisdom in Creation

There is detailed wisdom and order within creation.  It is really obvious to any astute observer of our world.  Every aspect of our universe is bound by rules and laws which were put in place at the moment of creation, and are maintained to this day by the omniscient, wise and caring Creator.

The book of Proverbs says, “The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding He established the heavens.” (3:19)

For example, items in our universe such as: atoms, dust, marbles, books, people, rocks, cars, buildings, oceans, and planets all are required to follow the laws of physics.  Gravity, friction, time, mass, energy, heat, light all follow very predictable, consistent rules of behavior which help to define our existence here.  Cars do not fly in to the air at random.  Gravity doesn’t choose where to apply itself and in what degree, it is in place all over the universe; and its impact on the universe is predictable and can be calculated.  The light shone from a flashlight doesn’t decide to change directions or stop at 5 feet away.  The light itself must obey the boundaries that have been established for it.

There are consequences to any creature or society that does not take into consideration these fundamental laws of creation.  If you decide you want to defy gravity by jumping off a tall building, or if you determine that you can change your mass in an instant and step in front of a speeding train to stop it, you’ll feel the effect of your misinformation quickly.  [And, from personal experience, if you leave water in a water line in the winter in Minnesota, it will freeze, and you’ll spend most of a day thawing it out…]  If a society (or a planet) disproportionately builds its entire economy and culture on the consumption of fossil fuels to make life easy and efficient, there will be negative effects.

The same is true for agriculture and food production.  If animals are crowded into confinement buildings, they WILL get sick.  If animals are forced to eat a diet they were not created to eat, they WILL get sick. We can keep the animals alive for a while in these situations by feeding them or injecting them with a synthetic antibiotic.  However, that action initiates a reaction from creation.  Antibiotic-laden animals will produce meat and milk that will make US sick!

In the production of crops, the same holds true.  There is only so much productivity a given piece of land can generate.  Productivity is more than just yield, it is quality as well.  If we apply a synthetic chemical to the plants in a field in hopes of killing weeds, we WILL have an effect on the crop.  Quality will go down, even as total yield may go up.  More fertilizer is added, weeds grow better, more chemical is added, some weeds become resistant, new chemical is added, etc…  In the end we have initiated a series of actions and reactions which have their end result in the decline of our health.  This leads to the same action/reaction cycle in terms of human health, but that’s for another day.

Aligning our personal lives, habits, and food production and consumption with the laws of order established at Creation, will result in healing and refreshment to a world and a people that are growing tired of action and reaction.