Short Lessons
- Magic Wild Turkey Tricks: I have a magic flock of wild turkeys on the farm. Each evening, between the hours of 4 and 6, they reliably cross the lane and graze on our hill pasture. Yet if I stand quiet in the shadows with my shotgun at the appointed time, they magically never appear. How do they do that?
- Learning to Panic: Living on a farm provides plenty of opportunities in learning to panic. Owning Grainger, a 70-pound adolescent Carolina Dog who still considers chickens chew toys, gives me multiple moments of anxiety each day. Yesterday, I walked around a corner of the barn to find the door to the brooder left open and all 25 4-week-old Barred Rocks scattering to the wind.
- Water Conservation, Part 1: (A timely lesson as our county slips into extreme drought.) Question: If I turn on the water for the hogs in the woods at 8 a.m., at what time will Cindy come in the house to inquire after the length of time the water has been filling the hog trough? Answer: 5 p.m.
- Water Conservation, Part 2: In an effort to redeem myself, I hustle outside and fill up the sheep’s water trough. When it is full, I leave the hose in the trough and carefully disconnect the hose from its source. Doing so allows the hose to act as a siphon … slowly pulling all of the water back out of the trough and onto the parched ground. Later, over dinner, Cindy asks, “I thought you were going to fill up the sheep’s watering trough?” I feign deafness.
The Longer Lesson
Timing Is Everything: One of our nearer neighbors owns six or so dogs, an unruly mix of mutts big and small. The largest are kept penned, bored and alone, and bark morning and evening. Although a good third of a mile from our house, they can still be heard clearly through the windows and walls of my study. Not quite loud enough to disrupt my slumber, they nevertheless disturb my early morning reading and correspondence.
I’d been looking for a way to gently approach the neighbors with the question, “How in the hell can you live with such racket?!” Since their son works on our farm on Saturdays, I decided that would give me a perfect opportunity for a conversation. And, more important, a demonstration of how we manage to be good, quiet neighbors by keeping our animals firmly in check.
Yesterday, after he’d arrived and we’d exchanged a few minutes of pleasantries, the time had come to diplomatically broach the barking dogs.
Having first made a point of disciplining Grainger as he repeatedly lunged at a chicken on the other side of a fence, I began, “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask …”
Alas, it was at that very moment that the sheep chose to begin their morning cacophony, drowning out my words, “… about your barking dogs.” Their bleating was immediately overwhelmed by the cattle in the lower pasture as they began bawling lustily for fresh hay. The sounds echoed off the ridges and continued for the next 15 minutes, disturbing the peace of everyone within a mile.
Half an hour later, our farm helper reminded me politely that I had wanted to ask him something. “Never mind,” I said. “We can talk about it another time.”
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Reading this weekend: The Winter Harvest Handbook by Eliot Coleman. A re-reading of this modern classic to prepare us to use our new hoop house.
Is it acceptable to also include other people’s lessons?
When I met my (urban-folksy) neighbour, he seemed really proud that his 9mm-blank-loaded vole trap had atomized every one of them on his property.
I have now achieved to construct a vole paradise a few metres from our fence by covering an entire large vegetable garden in grass mulch for the winter.
Who will learn more from this configuration?
Will my weasels, who have set up shop in the centre of the garden, protect me?
How much ammunition will he be needing?
Or will his robot lawn mower scare the little buggers away?
My money is on the weasels.
“I feign deafness”
The good actor. But used too often this tactic loses its worth, or so has been my experience. Clever one that she is, my wife once followed up a short comment that had triggered this response from me with, “Your appointment with the ear doctor is on Wednesday afternoon.”
Domestic politics, Clem.
I loved the water conservation stories. Of course I’ve done both. In my lifetime of growing up on a farm I ran the well dry 4-5 times watering my horses. I don’t feel that is terrible over a 26 year period. I also burned up the pump once. The only thing that has saved me in recent times is the apparent endless supply of water our drilled well in Paint Rock draws from. Many a day I have driven home from work to find a river going across our pasture. I’d ask Sara “did you happen to hear the pump running all day?” Nope. In NE Georgia most wells are bored, not drilled, and are only 40-50 feet deep as the deep layer of granite found throughout that part of the state acts as a natural filter, allowing clean water to seep into the well. Much easier to “run dry.”
The siphoning thing I fell victim to over a two day period, commenting that “the cows and horses were unusually thirsty” because i filled that tank the past two days.
Pet peeve: Filling and cleaning water troughs, tanks, containers in pouring rain when it is about 38 degrees. They still get thirsty in the rain and cold.
I’m glad that I am not the only one so challenged, Melanie.