Porcine Love

Watching a boar on loan from our neighbor ignore Delores and a friend’s gilts reminded me of this post from the archives:Delores and beaux 005

Lord Emsworth and Lady Constance (Clarence and Connie to their friends) followed me this evening into their new paddock. They had been living in the spring garden paddock, snacking on cowpeas, tomatoes, pepper and eggplants. I opened the walk-through gate and they trundled after me, noses to the ground sniffing and snarfling, reaching out to nibble on volunteer turnips, pumpkin and squash vines and the other remains of the summer garden.

Clarence and Connie, our Berkshire boar and sow, were ushered into their private matrimonial quarters a few weeks ago after he began to show interest in consummating this arranged marriage. He’d sidle up to her and place both forelegs across her mid-section, standing at a right angle to her body. She’d continue eating, which we took to be a sign of at least mild interest, assuming that if she wasn’t interested she would bite him.

She would reciprocate by pushing her haunches against him as he walked by, he’d keep going. He’d stop an hour later, take a look at her, drool running down his jowls. She’d ignore him.

We figure some night soon the combination of emerging sexual maturity; hormones and timing will culminate in a mating. Meanwhile, I watch as Connie is body blocked by a snarling Clarence from nabbing a 7-top turnip. Porcine chivalry is still apparently in its Viking phase.

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Reading this weekend: 200 Classic Chess Problems by Frank Healey. That explains the lack of new output on the blog. Fiendishly elegant ways to not get anything done this Sunday.

Sanctuary

The mowers across the valley hum with honey bee intensity. Mid-morning heat and the grass has parted ways with the dew after their nightly tryst. Hay is down in dozens of fields, signs of industry from the stewards of those lands. Other pastures are newly shorn and baled, revealing lines both stark and sensual. Round and square bales dot the landscape like chess pieces randomly scattered after play.hay making 6-5-15 001

Gathering my own pieces—a stirrup and a Dutch hoe, a pitchfork and a rake, a 50-gallon tub—I head into the vegetable garden. As I work, the sounds of lawnmowers combine with the nearby shout of a mother to a son, “Pick the green beans while you’re at it.” The sounds of scraping the soil, grunts of my own exertion, a ping as metal strikes rock, the thud of a rock casually tossed to the edge of the garden, where dozens more have gathered over the years.

The tub gradually fills with a spring mix of weeds, a buffet of flavors I tip over the adjoining fence for the sow and gilt, Delores and Petunia, to enjoy. They have been pacing the fence since I arrived, coated in mud from their wallow, grunting and squealing their impatience to begin dining. Another hour of weeding and culling and another tub filled: cabbages and turnips past their prime, leaves of chard and collards, all to be fed to the hogs in the woods later in the evening.

A retreat to the house and a lunch of the previous night’s dinner of grilled ribeyes, creamed chard, and new potatoes, then we catch up on our respective tasks. I read and finish a book before leaving to ted the hay in an upper field.

The grass cut only yesterday is already dry and ready to be baled, no tedding needed, its conversion to winter’s feed complete. Leaving the tractor behind, I enter on foot the sanctuary of the woods. Meaningful word “sanctuary,” both a refuge and a sacred place. Under the canopy of large oaks, poplars, and maples, the woods are still cool and sheltering from the blazing afternoon heat, and the word is both to me. The dogs drink from secret stumps water collected in recent rains. How many other animals know the same? Do they find these watering dishes by scent or instinct?

I walk along the winding lane and exit back into the sunlight. In a heat not yet marred by the humidity of late day, there is an oven-like comfort, like a woodstove in a cool house. At pasture’s edge, a new mother guards her calf, fiercely eyeing the dogs. White Oak 003We move on, past the pond, past the white oak, through the equipment yard. The dogs find shelter from the heat under the chicken coop; I find shelter indoors.

Closing the blinds, we lie down under the ceiling fan and take a midday nap. Sleep is refuge against a hot Tennessee summer day, a sacred state of renewal before the workday reconvenes.

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Reading this weekend: Anatole France, “Revolt of the Angels”

A Farm Toolbox: The Pitchfork

Often the weapon of choice by angry peasants and fathers chasing away a daughter’s suitor, the pitchfork is part of our collective farm image. Picture Grant Wood’s American Gothic and you know the tool we speak of today. With a pitchfork in hand work will happen. And if you have chosen the right fork the work will happen more efficiently.

The pitchfork typically ranges from three-five prongs, with many exceptions. We have four pitchforks: one each for hay, manure, compost and a useless horse-stall fork.

Lounging by the coop.

Lounging by the coop.

The hay-fork: a slender three prong fork with tines spaced a couple of inches apart. This is for moving loose dry hay. Amazing how much hay can be lifted and tossed with this fork. One of my favorites, I use it frequently in the barn. We keep a round bale of hay in one of the stalls. Once or twice a week, using the fork, I tear hay from the bale and spread it around the barn for fresh bedding.

The manure-fork: Each spring we clean out a years’ worth of bedding and manure. It is layered in the barn to a depth of about twelve inches. What the front-end loader cannot get, the four prong manure-fork gets the rest. Not elegant, like the hay-fork, but it gets the job done. The extra tines give it more surface area for lifting bedding and manure.

The compost-fork: very similar to the manure-fork but it has five tines. The design allows you to shovel into a compost pile with ease and turn it with minimal effort. Just remember to lift with the knees. The more tines on the pitchfork, the greater the load; and the greater the load the more risk to ones back.

The stall-fork: designed for hoity-toity horse barns with paved surfaces, it has a dozen plastic tines and is near useless for real work. We bought it our first week on the farm. It leads a lonely life in the back of the tool shed.

Auctions and antique stores usually have well-made pitchforks for bargain prices. Pick one up, use it on your farm. Or save it for the next suitor or politician who knocks on your door.

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Rereading this weekend: Travels With a Donkey, by Robert Louis Stevenson. One of the greatest travel works of all time.

Butcher’s Wife Pork-chops: a recipe

After a late evening shearing sheep with the help of neighbors, we reentered our home with well-earned appetites. I had done the prep work on this recipe hours earlier. So it was the matter of about thirty minutes before we set down to a late meal.

This is a favorite recipe, using ingredients produced on our farm.

Season a couple of inch-thick pork chops with salt and pepper and any herbs you like. Heat up a cast iron skillet and throw a knob of butter into the pan. Cook the chops about ten minutes a side. I’ll usually throw more butter into the pan when I turn them over. When the chops are done put them into the oven to keep warm.

Fry a few strips of bacon in the same skillet. Remove the bacon and add one chopped onion, sauté until soft. Add two diced garden tomatoes, a bit of wine or balsamic vinegar and let cook for a few minutes. Add some chopped homemade dill pickles (capers or olives also work well) and a large bunch of greens (about a pound). We used turnip greens last night but any garden greens would work.

Cover your skillet; turn the heat down to simmer for about five minutes. The greens start out bulky and piled high but quickly lose their volume within a few minutes. Uncover, crumble the bacon into the mixture and toss the ingredients.  Spoon the ingredients over your pork chops so that it forms a nice pile on top. Make sure to spoon some of the pot liquor from the greens over the dish.

Before eating say a note of thanks to the pig (the one on your plate) and dig in. You might also thank me for turning you onto one of the best, and easiest, dinners in your repertoire.

Thanks to Mr. Reynaud for this recipe, from his French Feasts cookbook.

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Reading this weekend: Plato’s Revenge: politics in the age of ecology by William Ophuls. I should, however, be reading the manual on our ancient New Holland manure spreader. A tension bar broke and I’m not sure if that might not signify something more technically advanced than my duct tape approach to all things mechanical would solve.

 

Late Spring Update: bungee cords break

Important tip for you gardeners and farmers out there: bungee cords don’t last. This may seem self-evident. And this lesson is one I learn repeatedly. But please remember that when using a bungee cord to secure a gate or fencing around your garden that it will eventually rot and fall away. That falling away of the cord can then be interpreted by thirty sheep as an invitation to brunch.

Waking after my afternoon siesta, a civilized practice that I have adhered to since kindergarten, and one I am fortunate to share with my mate, I heard our flock bleating what I took to be signs of distress. Upon examination of the source of this sound I found the whole damn flock in the spring and summer gardens. Magnificent kale, three feet in diameter, reduced to a nub. Onion tops nibbled down to the bulbs, potato plants trampled in their haste to get to the cucumber patch. And what I thought was sounds of distress were instead the sounds of delight from gluttons stampeding into a casino buffet.

I chased them out the open fence line, aimed a few well-placed kicks to the rear of the dawdlers and replaced the bungee cords with some wire ties. Surveying the damage and I realized that they had probably been in there less than thirty minutes. It could have been worse. At least I got them out before they hit the dessert bar and eaten the tomatoes plants.

This has been a vacation week, cutting hay, weeding the gardens, bush hogging fields, hauling hogs to market, canning pepper sauce and a hundred other small tasks. We have had two farm volunteers this past week from the state of Vermont, two women in their mid-twenties on a summer hiatus from the job of looking for careers, spending the next few months working gratis on farms across the country. We provided room and board and our charming company each evening over dinner. They helped work through the mountain of tasks that kept getting bumped to the back burner. This morning they hit the road for Alabama. They planned to stop in Dayton, TN to visit the site of the Scopes Monkey Trial, just a short 30 minutes away from our farm.

On other fronts we have new bees and are working on our sawmill shed. The shed is 30×20 feet. It will house a portable sawmill and have room for storing cut lumber. The footings have been poured and the support posts set. Once the shed is completed we will order that sawmill and move forward on our woodlot management plan.

Our new beehives are in place and both are active. We had to introduce a new queen in one hive. Tomorrow we will get into the hives to determine her status and when to add a new hive body to each. Clover is still in bloom, so they should be getting plenty of pollen and nectar. However, we will supplement those sources with sugar water over the summer.

Finally, for this update, we have been working with the state forester and local extension agents on a plan to develop a remote pasture into a nut orchard. We have a pasture of about 6-8 acres that is seldom used for cattle or hay. We had discussed using it to grow pines for a crop, harvestable in 16 years. But we’d prefer to use it for a food crop. Still in the exploratory stage, but excited about a new project. Because, we know nothing stays static on a farm.

Now why are those cattle bawling?