Monthly Archives: July 2012

Going Rogue

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Going Rogue

Saturday morning: With no warning the steer turned in open field and charged head on at Cindy and her horse. It hit her Morgan squarely in the chest, throwing her backwards. Cindy went flying, making a rough landing on her back and neck. Stiff and sore all week, she was reminded why she wears a helmet.

The young steer, just 425 pounds, turned and ran down the hill, leapt a fence and disappeared into the woods. Cindy returned to the barn and took off the saddle. I put away the tack and returned Oksana to the field. We left the steer behind, wherever he had gone.

The night before: We had bought him, along with four other steers, the previous day. The farmer 20 miles to the south, with a large acreage devoted to purebred Angus. The old man introduced himself as “the “M” in L&M Motors” (a local auto dealership). He had a dozen or so calves to select from for our needs. We bought five of similar weight. While loading, one steer was spinning around, in mad desperation trying to escape. We gave it little thought.

We hauled the trailer back to our farm, and I backed it up to the outer corral. The outer corral is fenced with barbed wire, while the inner corral is oak slats. Cindy hopped out of the truck and opened the gates and the door to the trailer. The steers ran out. I pulled away and parked the trailer.

We typically leave new livestock up for a few days to make sure they settle down and have no health issues before releasing them onto pasture. As we walked back out to inspect our new steers, Cindy said, “I thought we bought five.” In the 15 minutes it had taken to close the gates and park and unhook the trailer, one steer had leapt the fence and was nowhere to be seen.

After watering and feeding the steers, we spent a few fruitless hours looking for the steer. He was not to be found anywhere on the property, pastures or woods. If he didn’t show up it would be a heavy financial loss.

Saturday morning. The next morning when we headed out to feed, the calf had reappeared in the upper pasture with the older steers. Cindy saddled Oksana and went to move the partial herd down to the barn with the new steers. The older steers turned toward the barn. The young steer threw his head back and ran for the woods.

Cindy took followed on horseback moving the steer along the fence. Cue the aggressive turn and the aforementioned collision.

We have dealt with many frightened cattle before. But this was the first truly aggressive, belligerent and dangerous one. When he knocked Cindy off the horse, leapt the fence and disappeared, we wished him Godspeed to the next county. We went ahead and let the other steers out to join the primary herd.

Sunday morning. Sunday dawned and I did the morning chores, once again counting an extra steer in the herd on the hill. He’s back. Cindy wanted him gone from the property. I, not having witnessed the previous day’s assault, was inclined to let him settle down. After all, we had had wild livestock before that had grown docile.

Cindy was adamant. Later in the day I noticed a group of steers heading to the barn… The rogue steer was among them. We closed the gate to the inner corral. With Cindy at the gate, I began to move the other steers out. Cindy would swing the gate open and closed as needed. Meanwhile I kept a close eye on the crazy one. He was running wildly around the corral, head thrown back, tail swishing, looking for a way to escape. The other steers were docile and filed out, leaving him alone. I exited the inner corral.

Even though the wooden corral fence was high, we were both concerned he would go back over and once again take to the hills. So when he ran into the barn, I swung the gate closed quickly behind him. Snorting like a bull in the matador arena, he turned on a dime and charged full force at me, bouncing off the metal gate. I instantly became a believer: away with him to the stockyard.

But how to load the little bugger? We dropped a water trough over the gate and I began filling it. It only agitated him more, and he began to charge at everything in his vision–the floor-to-ceiling metal barn door, the walls, and the trough. I gave him some hay, thinking that might calm him down. He swished his tail, looked me in the eye and resumed the charge.

About this time friends arrived for dinner, on their way back from a sustainable farming conference in North Carolina, headed to their farm outside of Nashville. We showed them the rogue steer–he greeted them by climbing the walls.

Monday morning. Monday morning broke, Cindy went off to work, and I worked from home on the computer. As soon as Cindy got home, she called the stockyard in Athens. They were taking cattle until 8 in the evening for the Tuesday noon sale. I was still hoping the steer would magically disappear. She insisted we try to load him.

It took only a few minutes to hitch up the trailer and back it to the corral gate. By now it was dark. The steer thundered around in the barn. We turned the corral and barn lights on and began to set up the corral panels, interlocking 16-foot metal panels used to create a chute to drive docile animals into the trailer.

Nerve wracking it was to have him snorting and charging up the chute, and then back to the barn, only the panels separating us, but after about five runs, he finally ran into the trailer. Cindy, who had been in the barn, on the opposite side of a gate, waving her arms trying to move him out, sprinted to the trailer at my hoarse yelling of “HE’S IN, HE’S IN!” and slid the trailer door closed. Surprisingly, the whole operation went fairly smooth. We were both nonetheless sweating.

We made good time to the stockyard, ran the gauntlet of pin hookers. A pin hooker is an old-fashioned term for men who buy cattle at cut-rate prices. The name was given to Yankees after the Civil War who came down and preyed on a defeated country, offering low prices to people who had no other recourse but to sell. It is still used for people who buy and sell on the cheap. As I drove the trailer up to the gates, they gathered on both sides.

“What do you want him for him?” “What do think he will bring?” “I hear you, but what do you really want to get for him?” “Well, you won’t get that much. I’ll take him right now.” “What do you think he weighs, and how much per pound do you want? I’ll give you $200.”

Cindy and I resisted their not-so-enticing offers and put him in the auction for the following day. The check came in the mail on Friday, and we barely made back the money we’d put into him. Last night we walked up among our peaceful herd, grazing and paying us no mind.

As it should be….

10 Tips on Farming

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Farming tips:

1. Anytime you are in a hardware store buy a selection of the cheap crescent wrenches, vise-grips and a variety of screwdrivers that always seem to be located near the counter. Go home and place a selection in the barn, in the workshop, in the house, under the tractor seat or simply toss them at random around the barnyard. Because, experience has taught us that little trolls steal them each night. Spending money on the best is a waste of time.

2. Another trick is to spray the handles red on small tools. Once you’ve dropped your favorite pair of fence pliers in the pig muck you will value the neon color sprayed on the handles.

3. Raise your pigs next to the garden. One man’s rotten tomato is a pig’s idea of lunch.

4. When taking down a barbed wire fence. Roll up segments in 6-10ft loops. Place those loops at random around the farm on top of t-posts. That way they are always handy for emergency fence repairs after the cattle have gotten out.

5. Mow in long narrow rectangles. It saves time because you have less travel time at the end of each headland. And, it makes your fields look neat. Remember that William Cobbett said that the moral heart of a man is to be judged by the appearance of his fields, garden and home.

6. Always plant a Rose of Sharon. Late summer you will be glad to see the spring colors.

7. Make sure to plant jonquils for the same reason in late winter.

8. Use old hay as bedding material. Your cattle and hogs love to sleep in it. And, because they generate tons of manure it is turned into compost. Spread it on your hayfield in late March.

9. Walk your fence lines once a month. Every windstorm drops a branch or a tree and usually on your fence.

10. How to take down a barn in one easy step. Chop a hole in the roof and wait ten years.

Stewards of the Decline

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Legs perched on handlebars, hands dangling by his sides; he steers by graceful childhood joy into the parking lot of Paul’s Market, as my truck moves past. Not for him any concern of past or future, no awareness of shuttered glances between parents and eloquent silences. These come later, in half remembered visions if he is lucky, or not at all if he is not.

For now, I wonder, does he have that unfocused pleasure in being young; a Tom Sawyer seeing Pirates and treasure among the general decline?

Who would spoil those few years by contributing to a flood of unwanted, un-blockable data: streams of image destroying commercials, internet porn, and mom’s new “Dad”? Is he able to construct a fort of fabrication, holding off barbarian hordes with dirt clods and sling shots. Or, are his friends already “cool”? Are there any gentle pleasures for him these last days of summer? Or, is his sister showing off her new tattoo?

I wish him a cone of oblivion to the present: A pig-wallow of false innocence to keep away the burning sunlight.

Out of sight from the rear view mirror, he has blended into the past. Already, he is too distant to benefit from the man he will become. No amount of rooftop shouting will reach his ear; all pleas to stand still and resist the flow of time are only whispers that sound like spokes rattling on his bicycle wheels.

There is Mr. Junior waving as I round the bend. Does he at 94 voicelessly shout to me, poised, as in the middle I am, to heed his advice and warnings of the road ahead?

The road winds on into the town of Sweetwater, avoiding the interstate, I travel Oakland Rd to downtown. Past the Farmer’s Co-op fertilizer storage, past the used car-lot, the old post-office, the three block downtown area revitalized with antiques shops selling a past we cannot have.

The closed textile mills, one with new life promising that we can “sell it for you on E-Bay”, a promise of deceit for a culture of conspicuous consumption that the crap bought today will bring riches tomorrow. And, I wonder do I hear a voice shouting from a rooftop?

I pass Richesin’s Feed and Seed: closed after 75 years by people who can’t be bothered to rearrange their shopping hours. The same people navigating by siren calls will close Archer’s Pharmacy in the next year as they ground in the breakwater at Walgreens.

And I hear the whispers as my wheels turn.

I leave town and pass a new home, two stories, incomplete, gradually falling in on its self. Outlasting as a ruin the relationship it now mirrors.

Pulling back onto our farm I survey all we have done in knowledge that all the work is as temporary as our tenure on this place. I hear Junior call from six miles away, “We are only stewards of the decline”.

Summer Nights

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There is a particular pleasure in basing dinner on ingredients available from the garden. We had a recent dinner in our backyard with local friends to honor a sister’s visit. Everyone brought dishes inspired by the production of their gardens. Jars of homemade kraut and kimchee, and dishes of crepes with fresh squash, blackberry cobbler, fresh peach pie, raspberry daiquiris, roast pork and a crowder pea salad covered the table. After the daiquiris made an exit a gallon of blackberry wine helped wash down the massive plates of food.

The crowder pea salad was my contribution and worth fixing. You can use any crowder, black-eye or cowpea variety for the base: Texas Creams were my choice, a delicious variety grown to excess last year.

Ingredients:
• 1/4 or more cup fresh lime juice
• 1 cup chopped parsley
• 1 cup canola
• 5 cups cooked crowders
• 1 Vidalia onion chopped
• 1 bell pepper chopped
• 1 tomato chopped
• 1 cucumber chopped
• 1 Poblano and 1 Hatch pepper seeded and chopped
• Kosher salt and black pepper to taste
This is the basic outline. You can substitute the quantities on any of the ingredients based on what you have available. Mix the parsley and lime juice together and whisk in the oil. Add all the other ingredients and toss together. Put in the fridge for at least an hour to cool. Eat.

And we did, sitting outside eating and talking until long after the late spring sun had gone to bed. Then some of us arose from the table and moseyed up to the top of the hill. There our friend Sara impressed us with her knowledge of the heavens: a knowledge which included actual names other than that “small blinky one”. After admiring the night sky we moseyed back down to the house. Soon afterwards our guests dispersed down the valley to their own homes and farms carrying empty platters and full bellies.

Rain Harvesting

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Our land is a dry farm. The closest running water is the creek across the highway. Our home is served by an adequate well and the aquifer has never given us any cause for concern. Since, however, water tables are dropping across the planet as urban development and commercial agriculture do their part to draw down this resource faster than Mother Nature can replace, we do pause and consider our water usage frequently.

We scale our pasture use to match the consumption of our livestock to the driest summer in our twelve years of farming. Could we stock at a higher rate? Of course but we have seen how quickly a two week drought of rain stretches to two months. The stress on grasses in drought is enormous and even with steady pasture rotation the animals quickly damage root systems leading to erosion which leads to poor water retention.

To conserve water for livestock we have built a catchment pond in each field. The ponds total seven, of which two are not currently functional. An area next to each pond is allowed to grow up, grow wild. This preserves a riparian habitat for animals and birds. The number of bird species has increased significantly over the past twelve years due to the increased habitat next to water sources and the increased flowering plants. Hopefully this is a sign that we are being good neighbors and stewards in our land use. It also serves to provide a buffer to prevent erosion.


Large pond built in a ravine trapping water from the hill. The area to the upper right, thick with brambles is home to a number of bird species, rabbits and groundhogs.

On most downspouts on the barn, equipment sheds and house we have a variety of cisterns, water troughs and rain barrels. These rain collection centers allow us to water livestock and water the gardens in all but the driest weather.

The back of the equipment shed has two systems in place. This area is next to our largest harvest gardens. A two hundred gallon cistern is attached to the downspout. On the ground the black livestock trough holds a hundred gallons. The usual plan is that following a rain a hundred gallons of water is transferred to the black trough. A bag full of fresh manure is hung from the side. This provides ready supply of nutrient rich water to dress the vegetables in the garden.


Small rain barrel on the front of the potting shed is in easy reach of the lamb paddock. The water is also handy to the chicken coop and is frequently used for washing out poultry waterers and feed buckets.


Another 100 gallon trough, this one elevated a few feet. A drip hose from the base provides a steady supply of water to the chickens. The 300 gallon cistern in the corral provides watering capacity to the cattle and horses in the winter and the gardens in the summer.

This 300 gallon trough/cistern is set-up to provide easy access to the cattle and horses year round. It is fed by the downspout up on the wall of the barn. Any spout lower is easily dislodged by the livestock. We know.

Quick note: a 300 gallon cistern will fill to capacity in a 20 minute downpour. The volume of potential water that could be harvested boggles the mind. With that in mind our latest pond is a bit more ambitious. It was built two years ago and had a leak. We have just had it repaired. But experience has proven that a four inch rainfall fills this pond to the half-way mark. As a potential storage pond on a dry farm it is priceless.


The pond is approximately 15 feet deep and about 100 feet across and bit longer in length. The livestock will not be allowed in the pond. It will be stocked with native fish to provide an additional resource of food. But the volume of water available in a pinch will be significant.

That is all from the farm this week.