We Start Them Young

The most important fact about a farm is that the work is never done. The first year I was here, I kept trying to 'finish' my work. By the second year I was committed to 'keeping up' with the work. Now, I settle for 'doing something' every day.

In order to keep even close to having this farm run properly, we all have to work: that includes the kids. All 3 of them. Alessia is 6 and 1/2, Naavah is 4 and 1/2, and Jesse is 2 and 1/3. Alessia has been opening gates, feeding chickens, gathering eggs, and in general being another pair of hands for 4 years. Naavah is a reluctant (to say the least) member of our human fence to help guide stock into the proper paddocks. She will also pull an occasional weed (under duress). Her future is destined to be living in a penthouse apartment in Manhattan and only breathing unfiltered air as she sweeps to her limo on the way to the ballet.

Jesse is the newest member to be introduced to farm labor. And easily the most enthusiastic and least fearful. Alessia would do anything required of her and often a lot more but she had to overcome her fear of chickens, of sheep, of cows, etc. It is just the opposite with Jesse. He has to be reined in. He will run headfirst into the flock of chickens, greeting them with rapture while I race behind him worried that he'll be pecked or clawed. So far they just move out of his way.

Yesterday Dan decided to move the sheep from the new barn paddock down to the quarantine paddock. Yael and the girls walked on down closing gates on the way. They then positioned themselves alongside the open gate as the human fence into the quarantine paddock and waited.

Dan started moving the sheep down to the gate leading to our driveway. This is a large paddock and very long. It dips significantly in the center and rises steeply at both ends. Since Dan couldn't both chase sheep and move at Jesse's small legged pace, he sent Jesse to stand in the middle of the paddock. Generally speaking the sheep will move along the fence line so the middle is the safest place to be. Dan called to Jesse.

"Are you all right?"

"Des." Translation - Yes in 2 year old.

Dan then spreads his arms wide and moves on the sheep. Jesse spreads his arms wide and plants his sturdy little legs deep in the wet grass. All 47 sheep race up to him.

"Are you all right", queries a slightly panicked father.

"Des." Lots of giggles and outright laughter as the sheep cluster even closer.

Dan then moves toward the sheep who obediently file out the gate. Guess who is right behind them? Not Dan! Nope, here comes Jesse following his new 47 best friends. The sheep cluster right outside the gate and begin munching. Jesse runs right up to them, waves his arms and yells "RUN!"

And they do. All the way to the curve in the road. Dan is panting his way far behind. Jesse is galloping down ecstatically yelling "RUN!" This happens all the way down to the quarantine paddock where Jesse's terrified mother is not amused when he announces, "I move de sheep all by myself." I bet there was an interesting discussion in the parental bedroom that evening.

Until next time.

Suzukis Are Not Pursuit Cars

Dan and I both own Suzuki cars. They are fine as basic transportation. I refer to mine as "the lawnmower". It is extremely economical, easy to turn, and has almost no power whatsoever. And that brings me to the latest farm saga.

Our rural communities have been infested with thieves and arsonists. This is not a laughing matter. Some crazies have taken chain saws to cows, burned, pillaged and stolen everything that is or is not nailed down.

We have been warned repeatedly by the police to keep a vigilant eye out for the unusual or unexpected guest. So when we were sedately driving the Suzuki down our driveway, it was not hard to spot the intruder. Of course it could have been an innocent sightseer who had managed to leave the road and wander half a mile up our driveway (which is posted prominently as "Private Driveway").

But we gave up any benefit of the doubt idea when the intruder ran back to the car parked on the verge, bolted into the driver's seat and raced away at a speed never before seen on that driveway. I use the term 'intruder' because we genuinely have no idea of this person's sex. The figure had shoulder length dark hair, wore a unisex sweatshirt (I think with a hood), baggy pants and country shoes. Could have been anybody.

Once we grasped that the cloud of dust ahead of us was trying to escape, we raced off in pursuit. We tried; we really tried. Our Suzuki gave its all. We zipped down the mountain, over the railroad tracks and around and around the twisty mountain roads. But we never even got close enough to get the license plate. Sukuzis are not pursuit cars.

So if anybody knows of a black or dark green station wagon owned by a unisex sweatshirt wearer in the Rodney district of New Zealand, let us know. We want to have a chat.

For the Butcher

This is what a steer looks like when cut into usable meat. We couldn't even have fit half of one of the boys in the trunk (aka boot) when he was alive. And we take all possible parts. Still, the boys gave us beyond-prime meat.

The butcher raved on and on and on about how our meat was the best he had ever seen. "You can't buy quality like that!" And he's right. You can't. But we don't have to. All we have to do is buy yearlings, baby them for 2 years, give them lots of room, a calm environment, plenty of grass and fresh water and wait. No hormones, no nothing, But try telling that to people who have spent their lives on supermarket sirloins.

Yael was so thrilled to have our boys appreciated that way that she gave some cuts of meat to the butcher. It sounds funny. Sort of like giving shoes to the cobbler but he was very appreciative.

Once again I am going through my angst. The boys were an important part of my day and I miss them. I find that I am eating less and less beef and I don't know if it's an increasingly delicate digestive system or this nagging sense of guilt. And yet I have to admit that our beef is really, really good!

Catching Up

So here we are again with autumn here and winter coming on. It has been full on at Stone Tree Farm. We have had visitors from all over the world. And while that has been great, the weather has not cooperated. The first guest came when it was still summery (and by the way, guest, many, many thanks for the Lego set. The kids have been entranced ever since.)

What do you do with people who can't drive here (wrong side of the road), it's bucketing, and Alessia has a massive ear infection and sore throat? Oh, and did I mention that the kids are off school?

Yup, it has been a trip. Now my dearest friends are leaving and I am struggling with some serious sadness. But the farm always has a way of dealing with sadness. It's called "work". The chickens are moulting, the borrowed ram is being returned (hopefully having impregnated 30 some ewes), the ewe lambs need to be re-introduced to the larger flock, and the boys aka our 2 steers are headed for the freezer.

Taking the last first, 2 steers is a ton (almost literally) of meat. Where to put it all? We have both a house freezer and a chest freezer at the farm. And a normal refrigerator/freezer at the apartment. Not enough. Not nearly enough. So we are renting a freezer from a neighbor.

All this is because we don't want the steers chewing up the paddocks through the sodden winter. They are hefty and leave great gashes in the soil as they walk. We could take off just one but they are social animals and it would be cruel to leave one all on his own.

The sheep are happy in the new barn paddock but the steers just left it and there probably isn't enough grass for the large flock once the ewe lambs join them. This is the conundrum of autumn. There is much less grass and it grows slowly. How are we able to balance feeding our animals with preserving the integrity of the paddock? We have never found the ideal solution so each year we have tried something else. This year we will try taking off the steers and just wintering over the sheep.

I'll let you know how it turns out.

Autumn Abundance?

The above picture is the sum total of our market garden's Autumn abundance. The yellow cucumbers are great and there are a slew of them. The tomatoes - not so much. In fact that is all that have survived the great bug infestation. Out of 12 plants the harvest is, to say the least, puny!

The reason can be seen in the picture below. See that huge black rot spot? All the tomatoes (save the 6 in the above picture) have it. I can't control it with the only option available to me as an organic gardener - squishing the predators with my fingers. Where is good ole RoundUp when I need it?

Oops, I forgot. It looks like I could get cancer from it. Since I've already had more than my fair share of that disease, thank you very much, I think I'll pass. So back to organic squishing. I just don't see how the pioneers ever got enough produce from organic farming to survive. Perhaps I'll go to Amish country and see how they do it. There has to be a way; I just haven't found it yet.

It's possible that Alessia (granddaughter age 6) has found the way. The picture below is of her 1 tomato plant which is growing (dare I say thriving) in a raised bed in front of the living room. Now she does nothing but come out and pick the ripe cherry tomatoes. She planted the seed and babied it through infancy to teens and now I do the weeding and most of the watering. There has to be something she's done that I'm missing.

BEETS

The picture of beets comes from the green thumb of my 6 year old granddaughter. Her mother loves beets (or as they say here beetroot) and so Alessia decided to give her a gift. This gift took months of dedicated watering, transplanting, and care but they are quite literally the largest beets I have ever seen. I was worried that they would be 'woody' but they were delicious.

Unfortunately that is the only crop we have. My 14 tomato plants are producing well but some kind of black spot thing is ruining each and every tomato. I have gotten a total of 6 yellow cucumbers from 6 plants. Hardly worth the effort.

I am going to reconsider my whole approach. I think that I might switch to blueberries, asparagus, beet(root) and other such delicacies. The blueberry bushes should do well under bird netting and I don't mind waiting 3 years for asparagus since I can't get anything else to grow anyway.

My rose bushes have managed to stagger through the worst of the drought. They are nothing to write home about (although that is precisely what I am doing right now) but at least I only had 1 fatality. It helped to move the grieving companion bush to the front of the house. Perhaps this Fall I will do the same with the roses that are now in pots.

When I say "I will" I hope you realize that the true digger, mover, transplanter is Dan. I am, however, a crackerjack supervisor. I am brushing up on my "No, no, a little to the left. Are you sure that's deep enough? Perhaps we could pull it out again and try the purple in there."

Dan never says anything but his looks are exceedingly powerful. Oh, and he keeps right on planting where he thinks the bushes should go. Oh well, if I want it done right, I need to pick up a shovel myself.

Til next time.

Breeding Season

The picture above is of our ewe lambs. These are females born last July/August/September who are destined to provide us with cute, cuddly lambs in 2016. The problem is that they don't want to wait that long.

Their mothers and aunts are frolicking in other pastures with our borrowed ram. Our shearer has lent us a fine specimen of ovine masculinity and our ewes are mightily pleased. Our ewe lambs are envious. Downright green-eyed with jealousy.

We think they're too young to mate and far and away too young to be mothers. They might reluctantly agree that motherhood should be postponed but they have quite definite ideas that some practice mating this season would be a good idea. Teenagers! They're all the same.

So we separated them out from the flock. As you can see, they are in what we call the front paddock which is directly in front of the house. There is a far paddock (aren't we clever with our naming?) that opens off the front paddock and we moved them in there as far from the ram as possible.

This worked fine until they ate down the far paddock and we moved them into the front one. From there the catcalls of satisfied ewes across the driveway echoed all day long. Our ewe lambs couldn't stand it. They bolted. They knocked down the fence rails,  burrowed under the gate (see below picture with the gap on the left gate), and headed for the testosterone laden ram.

They didn't make it. The ram was busy elsewhere and they couldn't find a gap in the fence into his paddock. So they made do with an al fresco buffet on the main driveway. Obviously they had to be moved. Who got that chore? Guess. A  subtle hint: I was the only one at the farm at the time.

So I got in my car, shut all the gates along the shared driveway and then tried to figure out what paddock to put the ewe lambs in. Notice my optimism that I'd get them in. One side of the driveway was off limits - filled with mating sheep. The only other paddock was filled with our 2 steers. 

Now they could share the paddock but I would have to leave the gate open for an unspecified amount of time while I rounded up the lambs and herded them into the paddock. Not a good idea since the steers were quite likely to amble out to see what all the fuss was about and I'd never be able to get them back in.

That left the front paddock again. The far paddock is still grazed down. I eventually managed to get them back in the paddock. The key word is 'eventually'. Then I was faced with the prospect of them getting out again. So I wrapped the fence in rope and bird netting. Ditto with the gate. Finally I called Dan to report in.

We agreed that the best plan was to shepherd the lambs into the far paddock at night and let them into the front paddock to graze during the day. So that is what I have been doing. Luckily Dan is up here now and can reinforce the fence so they can't get out. Because I have to tell you, this herding stuff is getting old - really, really old. Or perhaps its just that I'm getting old - really, really old.

Til next time.