Tag Archives: Farming

The Blame Falls on Wendell Berry

Posted on by
2

The seventy acres of our farm touch the boundaries, borders, property of ten other landowners or farmers. These ten property owners account for thirty or forty persons who represent our nearest neighbors, who we know ranging from close friendship or partnership to the category of not at all. Having neighbors entails certain obligations. Those obligations range from the simple notification that an animal is loose to working together rebuilding fences. We work to keep those obligations from entering into the realm of being “obligated”.

Of those ten neighbors only one is active in farming his land and he is about eighty years of age. The rest of our neighbors derive incomes from the categories of “best not to inquire”, retirement, toxic waste handling, nursing, and the job of no visible means of support.

I was thinking of neighbors and neighborliness yesterday. We were returning from a conference in Louisville, KY celebrating the 35th publishing anniversary of Wendell Berry’s “Unsettling America”. It was our first vacation off the farm together in ten years. That simple act of leaving obligations and responsibilities behind in the care and trust of those thirty-forty individuals, leaving one’s home place, all brought back to me how thoroughly tied we are becoming to this land.

Our drive through rural Kentucky found us focused on fencing, outbuildings, housing stock, livestock, soil health and all of those small things that make up good or bad agricultural practices. We would find ourselves grimacing at good ponds aware of our eyesore of a pond back home which is still waiting for a solution. Or we would smile at poor fencing that clearly suggested lack of practice, something of which we now have plenty. But overall we were studying the land, observing it for hints at how we could steward our land.

We drove back into Tennessee invigorated by the conversations, moved by hearing Mr. Berry read poetry and humbled by the intelligence of the presenters. We came back home with new purpose and plans. We came back home to a steer standing in the front yard, a steer that simply will not stay in a fenced pasture. A rebel steer does not make for good or happy neighbors. He moves your needle from obligations into the red obligated zone. We moved him back into the pasture without real optimism or expectation that he would stay.

And indeed this morning our small herd of cattle was one short, the rebel steer had gone wandering, again. I found him on the highway. After some work we got him up to the barnyard and loaded him into the trailer for sale at the stockyard. But not before we saw him jump a five foot wooden fence from a standing position…without touching wood.

Obligations discharged we were able to turn our attentions to other matters.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Reading this weekend: From the Forest: a search for the hidden roots of our fairy tales by Sara Maitland.

A Winged Elm Farm Alphabet Book “B”

Posted on by
Reply

 

“B” is for the bees.

Our smallest livestock, for that is what they are on a farm, are a constant presence whenever the weather allows. Even on a warm January day they congregate on the stoops of the hives and then fly off in search of nectar. The Jessamine growing on the pergola flowers in January. Each time we step off the back porch the hum of the bees greets that step.

The hum that announces their activity is a dramatic note in the sheet music of our farm whether we are harvesting cucumbers or dining at a picnic. The honey harvested at the end of the season from their labor is the coda to the piece.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Reading this weekend two books, Energy: overdevelopment and the delusion of endless growth by the Post Carbon Institute and Beauty: the invisible embrace by John O’Donohue.

Jack Frost

Posted on by
Reply

An early morning walk down the lane behind the house, a small woodlot of a few acres on my right. On the left, screened by a copse on the edge, runs a long steep pasture. At the far end lies a fallen oak straddling the two worlds. I sit on the trunk with Tip and watch the sun rise on one of my favorite views.

The pasture is smooth, clear of any obstruction, rock or tree. The grass is short and green, covered with a thick sheen of white crystals left from Jack Frost’s nightly visit. The pasture has folds and hills as it rises up the ridge. A starkly sensual sight as the sun rises and illumines through leafless trees selective contours of the land.

The blankets of frost quickly disappear in streaks where the sun touches the hill. In minutes the pasture is rippled with stripes of green. It will be another hour before the sun will vanquish the frost from the pastures. Another hour yet before all the remains of a cold night will be the skim of ice on water troughs and crunch of grass in shade of the porch.

From my desk, as I write, the view is of the chicken yard and coop. The light has crested the hill and hit the coop window, a window of ancient and honorable pedigree. A large rectangular piece of zinc lined glass, each pane four inches square of distorted lines from a pre-mass production furnace. The window, one of a handful rescued from the Jacobs Agricultural Building at Chilhowee Park when it burned around 1900. A grand palace of a now vanished agricultural heritage, its relic gives reflected light to our hens on their roosts.

Husbandry

Posted on by
2

To be a good husband or a husbandman or to practice husbandry all mean essentially the same for a farmer. Managing land, animals and resources is what we do most weeks and some weeks more than others.

Which brings me to the subject of maggots. Did you know there is a spray that makes maggots uncomfortable? If the topic of maggots makes you squeamish then read no further for this is a tale of woe, pain and redemption and not for the delicate of stomach. It started a week or two ago, the exact day or time frame still subject to debate, when we noticed one of our ewe lambs limping. We made a half-hearted attempt to catch her up in a pen. She was too cunning and fast for us which seemed to indicate that whatever was bothering her was insignificant.

Over the next week we noticed her continued limp and her wool was discolored. Again an assumption was made that the wool was dirty from her prolonged contact with the ground. She was spending a lot of time lying on the ground. Long about Thursday evening we decided that come hell or high water we were going to get her up in a pen.

I had just returned with two ram lambs bought off a neighbor. After unloading the newcomers we made a concerted, long and ultimately successful attempt to catch her up. The discolored wool turned out to be putrefying flesh on the back left leg and smaller patch on her right. Clear puncture wounds from a dog bite. A dog bite we recognized as coming from Robbie, our English Shepherd. He had gotten into the pasture a week or two ago, the exact day or time frame still subject to debate.

The wound had time to fester. As bad as the wound was the lamb seemed alert and clear eyed. We put the lamb in the dog pen, sans dogs, washed, sprayed iodine on the wound and called our vet. He showed up the next afternoon. With Cindy’s help he sprayed the wound area with the anti-maggot spray. After a few minutes they began to exit the wound. Using tweezers he removed 30-50 maggots over the next 30 minutes.

A shot of penicillin, a spray of anti-bacterial mist and a liberal coating of fly repellant and he was off leaving us with a bill equal to a new lamb. For the next three weeks we will give her a shot of penicillin twice daily, check for maggots with the spray each day for a week, spray the anti-bacterial mist and use the fly repellant as needed.

The woe and pain in this tale belongs to the lamb. The redemption is ours to earn when she recovers. If all goes well this ewe lamb will “lamb” in February or March. And we will be more attentive to our livestock in the future, we promise.

Pork Liver & Jowl Pudding

Posted on by
Reply

Casting about in the freezer and trying to decide what to do with the odd spare pig part and inspiration struck, based largely in part to James Villas new cookbook, Pig: King of the Southern table.

1. 1lb of pork liver
2. 1.4lbs of pork jowl
3. Medium size onion
4. A ½ cup of salt, black pepper, dried sage and freshly grated nutmeg.

Add liver, jowl and chopped onion to stockpot, cover with enough water to hide the meat. Bring to a boil. Skim of any scum on the surface, reduce to a simmer and cover for 2 hours.

Take out liver and jowl, roughly chop and place in a blender. Add onions, two cups of reserve liquid and seasoning/spices. Blend until smooth.

Pour into casserole dish. Place in preheated oven of 275. Cook uncovered for 2.5 hours. Take out and cool. Place in refrigerator for another two hours. Eat on crackers or toast.

Wonderful flavor. And, we felt good to be able to use the “parts” successfully.

Drought, Rain and Death: a normal week on the farm

Posted on by
Reply

Like a desert after the rains our farm has erupted into mid and late summer growth. June was dry and hot, then July above average in rain and now August with five inches of rain to date. I recently returned from a trip to Iowa to find my neat and manicured vegetable garden a veritable rain forest of foliage, some intentional and some opportunistic. How pigweed can appear and grow into spiny three foot plants overnight I’ll never know? Jack’s beanstalk ain’t got nothin’ on pigweed.

Concurrent with the explosion of growth is the discovery of our tomatoes by the chickens. Reaching through the dense tomato vines I clutch a beautiful two pound Brandywine only to find it hollowed out and empty. I chase the chickens out only to find they have additional partners in crime hiding under the ever expanding pigweed who then dash out to resume their tomato festival after my departure. Will their flesh be tomato flavored?

Our new pond has filled 1/3 full with the rains and seems to be holding. The hard work of putting down grass seed and hay, what seemed to be a folly in 105 degree heat and in the middle of a drought, now seems Solomon like in wisdom and forethought. Sometimes best laid plans work out.

And sometimes they do not. In June we lost three ducks in gruesome attacks to a snapping turtle. An early morning stalking session by one of the ponds and I was able to send the turtle to the afterlife with the assistance of my double barrel 12 gauge. Our beautiful Saxony ducks, a heritage breed we have long wanted: Cindy wanted for their beauty and elegance and I for their possible contributions to the table had been ordered in the spring from a hatchery in Oregon. We had nursed them along from hatchling status. Then watched them feather out into beautiful mature birds.

Thursday, while we were gone the flock disappeared. Cindy looked unsuccessfully on that night and was unable to find them. Arriving back from my trip on Friday evening I called our neighbor Lowell to see if he had seen the flock. He had. I put my boots on and Cindy stayed at the house. Walking up the big hill a few hundred yards I climbed over the gate into Lowell’s hay field. It was another hundred yards until I found the site where our neighbor had spotted the flock the night before. I found them just as he said. Spread out over a large area, were our Saxony’s… all dead.

We can only hazard a guess. And that guess is death by canine. The ducks mostly had been killed from the back consistent with our herding dogs. It is possible that the ducks had moved up the hill while grazing and Robbie tried to herd them back. Frustrated, he may have started to bite. He may have had help. Or it could have been a neighbor’s dog. We will never know: a death by misadventure.

Hatching chicks: not the Hollywood ending

Posted on by
2

Looking through the fogged window, I spy a single eye peering back. Surrounded by shell, the hatchling has managed, just, to break out a dime-size portal into the outside world. The eye swivels as the chick gathers strength to peck at its shell. For 21 days, the shell has provided nourishment, protection and room. Now, an overcrowded, solitary chamber limits movement and life.

Eleven baby chicks are already hatched and under the brooder. One moves with more energy and peeps with enthusiasm. Waking from a brief sleep, I come downstairs to find it stretched out oddly, unmoving, beneath the heat lamp—the measure between life and death recorded in a 30-minute Sunday afternoon nap.

The eye still swivels as the chick peeps loudly from its confines, answered by four others in shells slightly cracked. Eleven empty shells in pieces mock their pipping sounds and efforts. Experience has given us knowledge that a chick aided in shedding its shell almost always dies. Nature provides this last hurdle to birth: Batter your way out of your fragile shell and you get a chance at life. Fail and the sounds fade away, and die out.

Forty-eight hours of fighting the confining shell, the peeping is still strong but growing less frequent.

Monday morning, six o’clock, I grab a plastic Kroger bag. Removing the cover to the incubator, I place the cracked eggs inside. Some emit peeps at the change. Swiftly I walk through the morning dew to the pond. How do you kill baby chicks that have not hatched, and won’t?
Not dwelling on the task, I reach in and toss them one at a time into the pond. They bob, fill with water and sink beneath the surface.

Later that day, the peeping of baby starlings breaks my focus at work. Later that night, a bird’s chirping turns out to be a bathroom fan in need of oil. I recite under my breath, “I admit the deed, tear up the planks. Here is the beating of that hideous heart.”

The Romance of a Canebrake

Posted on by
Reply

A canebrake loomed large in my imagination as a kid. In the books I read, my forbearers would hack their way through canebrakes for days, endure snakes, elusive and hostile Indians, finally emerging into a river valley of rich and rolling pastures, where they would settle. Images of heroic Scotch-Irish explorers, pioneers and dashing pirates peopled all kid’s literature in those increasingly remote days (of my childhood).

I’d head off as a kid to the Barbe Property, a wild wood and swamp at the end of Holly Hill Rd., with my machete, and hack my way through the undergrowth. Since my machete was a wooden stick I really just sort of mashed my way through the undergrowth. Only to emerge out on the bayou staring at petrochemical plants across the ship channel. But, as a kid, I was never disappointed. There was mystery here, layers of history and days to explore.

Those woods were rich with romance and history. Contraband Bayou, where Jean Lafitte roamed and reportedly buried his treasure, served as a border to the east and north. One summer we discovered a rotting hulk of a shrimp boat and whiled away a week or two navigating it over the Spanish Main in pursuit of loot and captives.

The ability to create play and not have it manufactured and its loss must have an impact on our culture. Perhaps it is to the good, shove a game-boy in their hands, teach them to find entertainment only in what you provide and you produce a new generation of compliant consumer citizens. But, I digress.

Mr. Kyle and I stood in the remains of an old canebrake off of Johnson Valley (around the corner from Possum Trot). It measured thirty yards across wedged up against a creek. As we cut beanpoles for our gardens a history of sorts was in the air. Here, my English friend Phil and his wife, Malley had helped me cut beanpoles three years ago during their visit. Cindy and I had joined Mr. Kyle six years ago cutting poles in this stand that continually replenished itself. Mr. Kyle had cut beanpoles here for 60 plus years and residents of the valley had been cutting from this patch for the past two hundred years.

We had driven down Johnson Valley and turned into a drive. Asking the permission of the owner before driving down an access lane along the creek bottom. Mr. Kyle had lived in the house on the property with his family from 1941-47. He named off the dozen or so families that had owned that small farm over the years as we bumped along the lane.
We cut down our poles tied them together, left my images of pioneers and pirates there among the cane, and headed back to the farm.

Today the Barbe Property has been cleared and turned into a super Wal-Mart or a Target, a housing development, and a casino. And, I have to wonder, do kid’s still see Lafitte’s lanterns swing in the fog as his treasure is buried? I hope so.