Farming is a wheel that rolls through the hours and days, grinding down the seasons and the years, only to bring you back to where you started. The sowing of crops, raising of livestock, harvesting of hay, maintenance of infrastructure — each are acts of renewal, and faith in rebirth. Even the variabilities of the weather, markets, and customers, or simply the challenges and distractions of life, constantly reframe our work on this land.
Here is a short summary of the farm in 2021:
Livestock
- Poultry: Chickens first arrived here the same week we took possession of our property, September of 1999. Since the beginning, we have always kept a flock, along with the occasional geese, ducks, and turkeys. But aside from one lone elderly goose living out her life on a pension, 2021 was a year of chickens only. A small flock of 8-15 hens provided us a steady supply of eggs for home use, with any surplus going to feed the pigs. We also raised out two batches of Cornish-cross meat birds (30 in all) for our table, slaughtering them at nine weeks. And we fattened, dispatched, and froze three batches of roosters (8-10 at a time) for future dinners of gumbo, coq au vin, chicken and dumplings, to feed ourselves and share with guests.
- Sheep: We began and ended the year with a flock of 20 Katahdin ewes. The flock had a 200 percent lambing rate (all twins except two singletons and two sets of triplets), so we gained 40 lambs in 2021. We retained only five ram lambs for our customers; those market lambs head to the processor next week. We also held back four ewe lambs for evaluation as replacement breeding stock. Last January, 15 of the 2020 crop were sent to the processor for customers. But, to be frank, we found that handling that many customers at one time was just too much to juggle. So we put a new strategy in place for 2021: to actively sell lambs and ewes as breeding stock and ram lambs for weekend barbecues (and, in one case, as a 4-H show lamb) throughout the year. The new approach helped reduce pressure on the pastures and generate extra cash flow, and it allowed us to focus on continuing toward our goal of improving the flock’s genetics.
- Hogs: As we have the past four years, we purchased weanlings instead of keeping sows in 2021. If the price for replacement pigs remains between $50-$60, maintaining breeding stock for our small operation does not make economic sense. And while we have the infrastructure to raise more, we have settled into a routine that works for us. We raise the weanlings to slaughter weight (at nine months) in groups of three, adding a new group every 3-4 months, for a total of 12-15 hogs a year for our customers. That gives us flexibility and pork in our own freezer (we hope!), and protects us somewhat from increased feed prices. Our hogs continue to be raised in rotating paddocks of 1-3 acres.
Fruit. Last year brought us a very mild late winter and an early spring followed by two hard freezes. Which left our apple, pear, and fig crops the weakest in a decade. Even the always-prolific crabapple tree failed to produce. There was also an increase in rusts and cankers in the orchards that has me worried about the long-term health of the trees. However, the plantings of the small fruits did well. They, like the orchard trees, are all for home use. We harvested plenty of blackberries, muscadines, blueberries, and raspberries for jams, jellies, wines, and when we finally ran out of steam, frozen bags of fruit.
Gardens. After producing a beautiful and highly productive Covid garden in 2020, I had to be content in 2021 with a somewhat productive and unattractive one. Each year in the garden holds its surprises, and last year had winners and losers. Winners: peppers, greens, eggplant, cole crops, field peas, green beans, onions, garlic. Losers: tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, butter beans. The determining factors are to be found in the muddy area between weather and energy exerted.
Infrastructure. Two-plus decades on, farm infrastructure is bound to need a bit of TLC. Last year we replaced one wall of the chicken coop. We still need to replace the corral fencing and a section of the potting shed floor that has water damage. And, of course, there’s the occasional tree that will inevitably drop on the fencerows. We did have a new 16×60-foot barn addition completed that covers the chute system we bought in 2020. Late in the year, we also hung LED shoplights both in the barn and in the addition. The results were as dramatic as, well, night and day.
Farming life. New Year’s Day 2022 we sat on the front porch waiting on another round of severe weather to hit, when something from earlier in the afternoon got us tickled. It ended with a bent over, tears streaming, unable to catch our breath, bout of snorting and guffawing. Fortunately, I live with someone to whom laughter comes easy and often. Which, while not essential to a farming life, sure makes mine more enjoyable.
That laughter, along with the companionship, were needed this past year as I faced the loss of the older generation of my family (my aunt, father, and stepmother). That my 22 years of farming also provided a framework for understanding those changes should not surprise. For both death and rebirth have been manifested daily and throughout the years in our life on this land.
Indeed it would be easy to say that loss and renewal are simply different signposts to two roads in this existence, my life and farming, and not to confuse the two. But increasingly I know that they are one and the same.
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Reading this week: The Solace of Open Places (G. Ehrlich) and continuing the journey with Patrick Leigh Fermor.
