Monthly Archives: January 2024

Farm Journal Notes: 2023

Posted on by
8

Most enjoyable or interesting books read:

  • The Epistles of Horace (Horace)
  • A Short Walk in Hindu Kush (E. Newby)
  • Memories of Gascony (P. Koffman)
  • Social History of Bourbon (G. Carson)
  • True Grit (C. Portis)
  • King’s Day (T. E. Porter)
  • Burden of Southern History (C. V. Woodward)
  • Complete (3 volumes) Calvin and Hobbes (Waterson)
  • One Man’s Meat (E. B. White)
  • The Last Farmer (H. Kohn)

    2023 readings

It is the wind: Discovered evidence of a tornado down Ross. Rd, Stockton Valley, and Pond Creek. Dozens of shattered and splintered trees in a miles long path. Nothing reported by weather service.

Timing: Anxious to check on Ginger this morning, due to farrow. And…farrowed!

Farewell to a pet: January 30th. Chip is in in final stages of kidney failure. 19, which is quite old for an outdoor cat…. Chip died at 11 am, buried him in the garden.

Connections: Thinking about when we only had three news stations. There seemed to be much more common purpose. Less is more.

Over-sowing pastures: Rye, red and white clover, 7-top turnip sown in three sheep pastures.

The cold: 3-15-23. This is one of the coldest days in March (23 degrees). Although it doesn’t compare with April 7th, 2007 when the temps dropped to 18 degrees. 95% of the Tennessee apple crop was destroyed.

The cold, revisited: 3-19-23, 19 degrees at 7am.

Achieving the proper life balance: 3-30-23. Highs in the upper 70’s. Sitting on the back deck smoking a cigar, sipping an Old Fashioned.

Off the farm: Drove out to Overhill nursery. Cindy picked up some bog plants for the pond. Took a lovely drive over the mountain to Tellico Plains for lunch at the bakery.

Sheep: Picked up some Dorset-Hamp crosses. If we can keep them alive, they will mark a change in the direction of our flock. Larger and meatier.

Publisher: 6-25-23. Turned final manuscript into publisher.

Dorper ram: Butchered on the farm, (June 29th) the Dorper ram. 14 for dinner on July 2nd. Smoked the ram for 8 hours in the China box. Expected high of 96 was cooled down by t-storm to 72 degrees. Dined on front porch.

Chanterelles: July 5th, two pounds harvested.

A Good Daily Harvest: July 19th. 1.5 bushels of Golden Delicious, 50 pounds of potatoes, sweet corn, and collards to the kitchen. Fed three tubs of “old” greens to hogs.

It is the wind, again: August 7th. Wind storm. Power out for 24 hours. Neighbors were without for 48. Trees down everywhere. We lost 2 dozen oaks across the farm. Many were snapped off. Tornado? Spent August 8th with chainsaw removing the largest that had fallen across the drive.

August 15th: 5.25 inches of rain. (note: this was the last until late November)

Hog news: High in 90’s, no rain. Ginger is not bred. So, bought barrows from Mike and Sabine to feed out for customers.

Paying the idiot tax: Tractor wouldn’t start. Couldn’t quickly find the problem. In the middle of haying. No time. So, paid an “expert” to trouble shoot. Corroded battery cables. $320. What a chump.

Hog news: Small boar brought in to breed Ginger. He is intimidated and runs away from her. We may have to get him lifts if he is to do the job.

Politics: Democracy is increasingly a chance to play a role as an extra in a play written, directed, and acted by others.

Book news: October 1st. The book is finally published. Feeling ridiculously pleased with the effort.

Cooking schedule for the coming week: October 3rd. Chicken and dumplings, seafood gumbo, beans and cornbread, pork dish with greens, pasta carbonara.

Three rules for a good day: Express gratitude. Work well. Don’t buy anything unneeded.

Women and Men, the real differences: Cindy spent most of the morning doing laundry and the afternoon working on a new table in the workshop. I skipped farm work. And went out and had a burger and a couple of beers with Tim, followed by a long nap. Cindy fixed dinner.

Resilience: How resilient is our farm? It is a question that can’t be answered until the reasons for asking it becomes “active”.

Weather: Hard freeze expected (October 31st).

New Year’s Eve: Nasty cold. 25 meat birds to butcher. Ginger (three failed breedings) to finally be hauled to slaughter on January 4th. Happy New Year.

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

Reading this weekend: A Bookseller’s Tale (M. Latham), a marvelous work about why we read. How to Focus, a monastic guide for an age of distraction (J. Cassian). This last is another of the Princeton reprints of classics, each given a modern title.

 

 

 

 

Partings and Reminders

Posted on by
3

The low winter sun is a trickster, part coyote. Freed from the confinements of summer’s leafy arbor, it shape-shifts across the horizon, always blinding the beholder no matter which direction he peers. Its glaring illumination finds me most days waving my hands in semaphore ballet simply to see where on the farm I am heading. Still, this morning I manage to glimpse a flicker of bright crimson in the perfect white light by angling my hands and spreading my fingers in deflection. It is a cardinal perched shoulder height in the hornbeam, plumped to substantial girth on this frozen January morning. I manage to outwit the sun and place him behind me, then take a few moments to stare at the red-robed fellow before me.

Folklore says seeing a cardinal is meant to remind us of those departed. If so, there is a lot of reminding going on on the farm. Pairs frequently nest in the muscadine vines, others favor the sweet gums, and at least one couple usually makes a home in the weigela at the southern edge of the yard next to the rusty wrought iron gate. This male appears to be by himself, which is not unusual, although it may be that his vivid plumage creates an impression of a bachelor life, while his mate, with her discreet browns, grays, and hints of red, remains present but hidden in plain sight. Then again, the pair won’t begin nesting until March, so he may simply be scouting, showing off, or spending some much-needed me time after the holidays. In any case, he finally flutters off and perches briefly on the livestock trailer parked to the north side of the house, before lighting in the top of the nearest winged elm. I cup my hands round my eyes so I can track his flight. Again, how did the sun shift directions?

My diversion ended, I approach the trailer and peer inside. It is full of fouled hay—first from accommodating twenty-two meat birds in the final days leading to their butchering, then from housing our still-unpregnant red wattle sow, Ginger, who spent her last night in the space—and it awaits cleaning.

Yesterday evening, gentle and trusting to the end, she followed me from her paddock into the trailer without question or falter. This morning, just after sunup, I walked her easily out of the trailer and into the pen at the slaughterhouse. I left her quietly waiting for the butcher to make his dramatic stop. Within minutes, I was sitting with a woman in the small cramped office discussing in practical terms how we wanted the carcass cut and packaged. It is a cruel world. But it can be kind, and sometimes both together. Ginger led a very good life—a sheltered stall with hay to burrow in; a large gravel lot and access to a grassy paddock; fresh produce, dairy, and mixed grains fed twice a day; plenty of scratches. She was never treated with anything but care and respect. She was given many more chances to succeed on our farm than those animals caught in the maw of the industrial farm system.

It is an old theme for us: that all of our actions have consequences, that even the most benign of actions, from hoeing the garden to shopping at the grocery, result in death. It is just that our modern world offers an all-too-convenient buffer, a spectator’s distance, that provides a camouflage, justifiable deniability for consequences. That is a position unavoidable in this farming life we lead: unwinding modernity one meal at a time.

After making a note in my pocket journal about cleaning the trailer, I head to the barn and finish my morning chores. Before arriving, my eye is once again caught by the familiar color. A quick fluttering of my own hands shields the light and reveals the cardinal, now flitting from branch to twig to branch in the nearby golden raintree, gentle and trusting in my presence.