Five Acres Enough

Cheers, dear friends

2010-10-10T17:55:00.001-04:00

The gentle prodding of a reader awoke me from my blogging slumber. I was amazed to see that I have not published a post to this blog since April! Six months! A veritable lifetime in the ebb and flow of a small farm.

So an update is in order. This is not to say that "I'm back" per se, since blogging still consumes too much of my extremely limited time. But perhaps this is to say, "Hello, old friends. I am well." before we part again on an autumn lane, bound for our own pressing destinations.

I am well. The farm is well. We're enjoying a late summer transition into an easy fall here in New Hampshire. We endured, quite possibly, the most horrid summer, with record breaking heat and humidity and a drought that persists to this day. We lost a chicken to heat stroke in May (May!) when the heat index soared over 107 F. It was right around our "last frost" date when we hit 95 F. Unbelievable. We had perhaps 1/3 the normal rainfall for four months and endured another 95 degree day in September. September! Our first frost day came and went with a whimper since it was still in the mid eighties. Warm. Way too warm. In 2009, I didn't even install our window air conditioner. In 2010, it ran constantly from May until October 1.

And with the warmth came pests: flies, cocci, worms. We had to wildly adjust our "natural" farming practices to the conditions. No overcrowding of chickens in tractors would be tolerated. The heat-loving pests would keep us honest. Leaf hoppers had an early harvest on our potatoes and aphids came on strong in the greenhouse. Worried about our aging well, we stopped irrigating in August. I abandoned the outdoor garden, calling it a complete loss and myself, as a vegetable farmer, a complete failure.

Yet, with the worst farming year in a decade, came some rousing successes. Rain did eventually fall again, and with it came lush green pastures seeded out of our logged land. Clover, fescue, bluegrass and rye now stand at knee height in places, waiting to nourish grazers next spring. My outdoor garden, apparently thriving under benign neglect, gave forth a bounty of pole beans, a full month late. And the corn and potatoes which were lost were replaced with bush beans and carrots and wee onions.

Despite the aphids in the greenhouse (only mildly controlled by released batches of lady bugs), we had a banner year for tomatoes, peppers and eggplants, once again producing more and faster than we could harvest and preserve. The asparagus came on strong this year, so we're hoping for our first harvest in April, 2011.

Lessons learned: There are many. But the big one is that I am going to leave my garden fallow, cover crop it with field peas and oats, maybe pasture some piglets on it for a short time. And take a break from veggies for 2011. They are so, so hard for my engineering brain to understand. The greenhouse will be exposed to the winter and restarted in the spring with "high dollar" items like tomatoes and peppers and things so delicious fresh, it's worth the effort of growing them.

The broiler chicken harvest went off well and we sold some extras to a dear friend who paid way too much for our chickens, all to support us fledgling farmers. You hear that, D? Way too much. Our new layers are slowly coming online and some old favorites have made it past the fall cull and secured a spot in our winter coop. All told, over 120 birds came and went on the farm this year. That's a lot of chickens.

We are up to four goats, three of which are pregnant and due early February. I really enjoyed my first season of goat milk. I am completely addicted to day-of fresh milk and I don't know how I will go back to the old "organic, raw milk from my local farmer" this winter when my does are dry. I made a fair amount of cheese, but not even enough to share among friends. In the spring, with three does in milk, I will be able to be much more generous.

We have plans for piglets in the spring as well. With excess milk comes pork - an old farming truism. I have an half acre I need some pig power on, and of course, we will have plenty of whey and other dairy products to supplement. I hope to get April/May piglets for an October harvest. Two are spoken for, but I might get a third if I have enough friends who are interested.

No lambs this year or the next. I will have excess male goats in the spring (most of the girls are already spoken for), and I hear that properly handled goat is as good as lamb. Well, since lamb is my favorite meat, I will most certainly be the judge of that. But it's time to commit completely to raising our own meat, and male goats, as a "by-product" of milk production, will live well until their time.

We said goodbye to some beloved critters this year: Freya, Jolene's little doeling, and Hobbiton, our found hamster, found greener pastures somewhere else. Too soon. They will be greatly missed.

So that's the plan. We will raise 80 or so broilers next year, enough for friends and family. Goats and pigs will round out the meat and dairy department. We are trying to secure a CSA for veggies to give us, and our soil, a break. We planted 11 fruit trees this year in the orchard -- pears, plums, apricots, cherries, and apples. They are too young for fruit yet, but the investment is there. And in 2012, my garden should be beaming from its 2011 nitrogen treatment and we will try again

Despite the ups and downs, I continue to be very impassioned by the realities of local farming and the great need for a diversified and humane food supply. More and more, I find my life enriched by this green earth around me and the animals with which I share it. Some day, I will be able to walk away from my lucrative (yet soul-sucking) job and make an honest go of it. Some day soon, I hope.

'til then, enjoy some pumpkin beer and live well, my friends.

None More Goat

2010-04-19T07:16:00.005-04:00

Over the rainy and cold weekend, we had some new friends over to the farm to take a look at the goats and our setup in general. I could fill a book with the things I don't know about farming, but I have learned a lot about this particular piece of land. Since my new friends are also looking to buy a small farm, I am happy to share my personal mistakes and minor triumphs about "City Girl Moves To The Country, Buys Goats".

One of the topics that was discussed however is that, apparently, I don't talk about the goats enough. Additionally, when I do talk about the goats, I do not properly convey their cuteness.

So, at the risk of stating the obvious: My goats are cute!

Therefore what follows is a completely content-free post. It's just pictures and videos of goats being cute. Because my readers demanded it. And I deliver.

Brego is my cleanup man. Amy is not so sure...

Freya, meet Brego.

Goats doing what they do best: yard work!

A Palace Fit For A Chicken

2010-04-18T17:33:00.002-04:00

When we bought this little forested property, we found an abandoned child's playhouse built by the original owners. It was in pretty good shape, only because no one ever tread upon it. We decided to turn it into a chicken coop and with two adults using it several times a day to collect eggs, the foundation started to slip. The original owners had constructed the foundation using only two 4x4 posts and some sort of creative "header" made up of a warped 2x6. The whole coop made the structural engineer in me cringe.

The coop the day we moved in. Abandoned for 15 years.

Right before we got chickens. Not too crooked... yet.

In addition to live load, this baby supported some snow loads.

Prior to rebuild. Right fore is collapsing.

With all the recent rains, the coop was in very real danger of falling down the hill, so we decided to rebuild the foundation. For this project, I uses poured concrete piers, 6x6 posts and a sistered 2x6 headers. Designing the foundation was the easy part. The hard part was lifting the coop off the old foundation to level it and build the new foundation underneath. Lucky for us, our downhill neighbor happens to own everything you could ever need in life. And this weekend, I needed two 2.5 ton jacks. And, of course, my neighbor had them so I was able to borrow the jacks for the heavy lifting of the coop.

Jacks holding the coop up while we rebuild the front right column.

New foundation.

Like all major projects, it took twice as long as it should have, but the finished result is very, very stable. We could not get the coop perfectly level or square because the decade of falling downhill had changed the entire frame. In fact, once the new foundation was in place, we had to rehang the door latch because the whole coop had moved so much. We also added a roost underneath the coop so the ladies can hang out someplace dry on rainy or snowy days. We filled in the base with sand, so they can bathe when the rest of the ground is covered in snow. In short, it's chicken heaven.

Elevated coops are wonderful in the north. The chickens always have a nice place to hang out, regardless of the weather.

Once the pasture clear and logging is complete, we will reseed the grass at the base of the coop and plant some nice chicken-proof shrubs. I am glad to get this particular project out of the way, and glad that our lovely ladies have a safe place to live once again.

Goats Vs Cows Vs Full-Time Job

2010-04-08T07:36:00.004-04:00

A reader asked some very good questions and I thought I would respond with a full post so everyone can see my reasoning, instead of hiding a very long response down in the comments.

The first question was why did I choose goats instead of cows or one of the miniature breeds of cows. That is a very, VERY good question and I hope the small amount that I have learned in the last year can help someone else in a similar situation. Initially, I was very interested in mini-cows, Dexters specifically. I did a lot of research and their land requirements are not excessive, they produce 1-2 gallons a day which is completely sufficient for my small needs, and they do very well in New England climates. Every now and then, I see a sale ad on Craigslist and I wax poetic about my cow that never was.

I ultimately decided on goats for a couple of reasons, but the biggest was that goats are more suited to my land. I have 5.5 acres of land total, and will probably have 3.5 acres of open pasture available after everything is stumped, graded, seeded, etc. My land is rocky, on a slope, and was an old growth forest. I will be applying 2 ton per acre of lime, but it will still be a battle for years to grow good pasture on this acidic soil. I also happen to have two big grazers already competing on my land: the horses. Whatever grass I might grow will be primarily for the horses and then any left over will be for the sheep, pigs, etc.

Notice I did not say goats. Goats are primarily browsers (like deer) and they can and will eat grass, but they do best on browse. The kind of browse you find in a New England meadow which has not been managed for pasture. Goats have a very high mineral requirement and the brush has deeper roots to bring those minerals to the surface. Raspberries, shrubs, pine, etc. Anything they can get to really. And my land, for the foreseeable future, will be growing plenty of browse. Sheep, cows, and horses are grazers and will compete for grass. Goats can eat "the rest of it", the stuff along the tree line or in the darker, less hospitable reaches of the land.

Additionally, goats are smaller and "more manageable" which is a completely subjective assessment, but it works for me. I own a draft horse. I know big animals. But I didn't even want to deal with full-sized goats (which can pull 400 lbs, strong little critters). So I chose mini-goats (which still pull 200 lbs, I am somewhere south of that number. Yes, my 2' goat pulls me around). Mini goats can be housed in smaller pens and are low impact. They don't turn any patch of ground into instant mud (like my horses). They need only a 4' fence, versus a 5' fence for standard goats (cows are easier to fence, by far). Pound for pound, they produce more milk with less feed.

Ah, but how much milk? I think it's reasonable to expect 2 qts a day from a good mini-goat producer, which is not anywhere close to the production of even the smallest cow. Standard goats can give a gallon or more a day. But here's the kicker. With three or four goats in milk, I can stagger the breedings and never be in a dry period. With a single cow, once she's dry, you wait... wait... wait... for milk. If you need smaller amounts but want it daily (which also ties you down to the farm, etc), then more little goats might be a better way to go.

Goats have a much smaller "setup" charge. Ever price a good milk cow? They are completely worth their price tag, but for a first time ruminent owner, I wanted something with less cash invested. Of course, that is slightly cruel to think about, but a very real practicality of farm life. My goats are housed in a little shed, 8' x 10'. I did not have to build a larger barn for them. Also, I milk my goats in my basement. They walk down the stairs of the bulkhead just fine and I can keep my basement cleaner than I can keep my barn. A cow would need a bigger setup and I would obviously not expect them to go down stairs into my basement. The way my land is situated, there is not a really good location for another barn and milk parlor, so even facilities weighed into my decision.

Properly handled goat milk is not musky or "goaty". It is sweeter than cow's milk and has a slightly different texture (the milk is naturally homogenized), but it is definitely as palatable as a drinking milk. So you really don't give up anything there. Goat meat is not really as good as beef, in my opinion, so if you want to butcher the male offspring for your freezer, cows make more sense, and more meat.

And finally, I just love my goats. I am biased since I have never spent a considerable amount of time with a good dairy cow, so feel free to disregard this last item. A dairy animal is an animal with which you will bond heavily. You will spend a great deal of time, twice a day, pressed at her side, smelling her skin, feeling the heat come off of her body, grooming her, caring for her. You have to not only like your dairy animal, you need to love her. My little Jolene, as the matriarch of my goat herd, and the sole milk producer at this time, is by far the most important animal on this farm. I am intensely bonded with her. So if cows are your thing and not goats, please get a cow.

The second question was if I thought I would produce as much food if I didn't work from home. This is another good question and one I consider almost daily. I think the answer is "Yes", if you don't also have another full time hobby, like riding horses. During the growing season, our weekends are usually full of farm work and if we didn't have to also ride 5 times a week or go to horse shows, we could fit it in more easily. But make no mistake, this farm is our life, it's pretty much all we do. We don't have TV, we don't really go to movies. We eat out maybe once a week and that's usually lunch on the way to the hardware store for some project. We very rarely get to go hang out with friends partly because we are rural and far away, and partly because we can't take 6 hours out of our day to sit around and drink beer, as much as we would like to. But we've made the farm our priority, at least for this Five Year Plan, and so we are committing everything we have. It is possible to get an evening away (milk early and then again when we get home) and once we find a good farm sitter, even more time away. I have friends who take very long vacations from their farms with the right farm sitter. It's very doable. We just haven't done it yet. But this year is the year. I haven't had a real vacation in eight years, and I WILL GO ON VACATION THIS YEAR. Just as soon as the kids are weaned, and the pasture is seeded, and the goat paddock completed, and the drainage lines dug, and the outdoor garden planted, and... and... and...

I think I just made my point.

Safe Milk

2010-04-05T14:11:00.003-04:00

I have been consuming raw cow's milk for about five years. As I mentioned previously, it was getting more and more difficult to purchase the milk, due to the location of the farm and demand exceedingly supply. Some days, I would make the nearly 2 hour trip to find them sold out of the day's milk when I arrived. Now *that* is disappointing.

So I got my goats and now I have one in milk and slowly but surely, I've been able to snatch one or two cups a day from her without too much trouble. Once the kids are weaned, I can expect around 2 quarts of fresh milk daily from just the one goat. Once all of them are in milk.... pure milk heaven. I will be able to supply all the cheese, butter, and milk products my family needs.

A reader recently asked how I prepared the milk and how I knew it was "safe". As a raw milk veteran, I have heard this question many times. But now, instead of discussing theoretical facts (you are more likely to get sick from eating deli meat, per capita, than drinking raw milk), I can talk specifically on how I handle my milk and how I have no problem drinking it.

If you are remotely interested in learning more about the safety and health benefits of drinking clean, properly-handled raw milk, you can start at RealMilk.com or read an excellent book called The Untold Story of Milk. There is no question that contaminated milk from confinement cows living in horrid conditions 100 years ago made so many people sick that pasteurization (which reduced child mortality from 50% to 7% in Chicago) was a miracle. But a simple fact remains: if the milk is not contaminated to being with, you don't need to sterilize it. Just like irradiating beef because of fecal contamination doesn't make the meat clean, it just means you are eating radioactive cow shit. Keep the fecal material out of the meat and you don't have to irradiate it. Raw milk from healthy animals does not, in itself, contain pathogens that make people sick.

And really, that's where it all begins for me: healthy animals. I purposely sought out a breeder of dairy animals (not pets) who had a herd which annually tests negative for three terrible zoonotic diseases: CAE (Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis), CL (Caseous Lymphadenitis), and Johne's disease (linked to Crohn's in humans). I looked at milking and production records, but also at biosecurity practices of the breeder, who lectured me as soon as I arrived on the property on how to keep the animals from being exposed to pathogens which can make people sick. I paid handsomely for these goats, but there are no bargains when it comes to your food. If you are considering buying that $50 goat on craigslist from an untested herd, think again. Don't gamble with your life.

Luckily, goats are easy and cheap to test, so I will continue to test for the big three diseases annually. I need to wait until the girls are 6 months old before they get added to the testing cycle.

I feed my goats as well as I can, with fresh hay and organic grains. But I don't feed them as well as they deserve, which is to be rotated on fresh browse and pasture daily. Once the pastures and orchard are established, I hope to do better. My goats have free access to fresh minerals, powdered kelp, livestock yeast, and baking soda. A properly working rumin is the key to a healthy goat. And a healthy goat is your best defense against pathogens.

Since my goat is about 24" tall, her udder is only 7 or so inches off the ground so a normal milk pail is too tall to fit under her. I bought a seamless, stainless steel sauce pan with no rivets or creases inside the pan. This is important so you can properly sterilize the pan. Some people milk into plastic, but I find that plastic scratches and so you can get bacteria in the scratches which is difficult to sanitize. My stainless steel pan is washed with the dishwater once a day and also hand sanitized with a dairy cleaner to remove milk stone.

Once the milk leaves the goat, it becomes my responsibility to not contaminate it. Before I milk, I place the doe on the milking stand and brush her off, hoping to dislodge loose hairs. I then use a commercial udder wash (iodine based) in a bucket of warm water and I sponge off her udder and her belly (both of which have been shaved) with a clean disposable milk towel. I use another clean milk towel to dry her. I then wash my hands thoroughly.

Once the doe is clean, I milk the first three or four squirts from each teat (goats have only two teats) into a strip cup which is designed to help you identify clumps or flakes or other signs of mastitis. Plus, the first few squirts have the potential to contain the most bacteria, so those are discarded. Once we're all ready to go, I place the pan under the goat, grab both teats and start milking.

The first couple weeks of milking were disasters and the milk was discarded. I was too clumsy and would end up with milk on my hands or dripping back into the pan. I don't want milk running over my fingers into the pan. Now I've gotten the hang of it, so I can milk directly into the pan without any additional contact. Once the pan is full, I immediately pour the milk through a specialized milk strainer which removes any foreign material like hair or flakes of skin and the milk is placed immediately in a clean glass container and in the fridge.

I then dip the goat's teats to avoid mastitis and depending on her udder condition, I might massage her with some bag balm or other moisturizers. I also take this time to check her over again, make sure there's no heat or lumps in the now empty udder, no weird discharge from her eyes and nose. I give her a carrot and she goes back with the herd.

Easy as pie. The milk is then consumed or used in cooking. I don't have enough milk yet to make cheese or other fermented foods, but that will come soon. I have no doubts as to the health and quality of the milk. I haven't examined it under a microscope or had it tested, but it tastes and smells good and I've had no ill effects.

As a side note, I did unwittingly perform an experiment where I left milk out for four days in a bowl, completely forgotten in a corner of my kitchen. Not only did the milk not sour and start to smell, but when I finally discovered it, I saw it had clabbered. Intrigued, I stuck my head in the bowl to get a good whiff and I smelled... cheese. It smelled like feta. Not sour. Exactly like cheese. I did not try the milk, because you really are supposed to clabber milk by covering it with a cloth to keep foreign contaminants out. But I will try to clabber some milk soon.

People have been consuming milk from their own dairy animals for millennia with very few problems. Like many aspects of agriculture, the real problem arises in trying to concentrate milk production and then ship the product many miles to the waiting population. From goat to fridge to my tummy is a short, and sweet, trip. I also have the ability of being picky with the milk. If a stray hair gets in the milk prior to straining, I can choose to give the milk to the dogs. I know exactly what gets in the milk and since I will get more milk tomorrow, I can be judicious. A little common sense goes a long way.

A little common sense also applies to the dangers of food borne pathogens. I live with someone with a somewhat compromised immune system, so I am very aware of pathogens that make you sick. However, we are much more likely to be killed riding our horses, or even eating raw spinach, than from drinking our milk. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of ground beef are recalled and people discuss the recall over a Big Mac (arguably they are safe since a Big Mac contains so little real beef), but you mention raw milk to people and they involuntarily gag. Hysteria is a little one sided. You cannot eliminate all risks in life and I view the perceived health benefits of drinking our milk far outweigh the possible consequences. To me, life is about living deeply and richly and I feel better when I have my milk. This is my choice alone, however, and I respect everyone's individual choices when it comes to their body.

The Hardest Decision

2010-03-31T08:43:00.000-04:00

I am a bit behind on posts. We just finished three days of steady wind and rain, dropping an impressive 6" of rain on us. Coupled with the 7" we got last week, we are in official "Wet Spring" territory. Oh, I can't wait for Mud Season to be over.

But the real topic of today is the goats. In my last goat post, I discussed that a dear reader and friend was going to take the three buckling kids once they were weaned and wethered. Right after that post, I took all five kids and momma Jolene back to the breeder to get the kids disbudded. The kids handled the somewhat disturbing procedure very well, surprisingly well... well, let's just say better than I did.

The breeder, whom I deeply respect for her decades of goat knowledge, looked over my doe and then made me an offer. She had pet homes waiting for boys, Jolene was going to have trouble keeping all five fed, I could trade the three boys for an older doeling who was on the bottle. The older doeling would be weaned in three short weeks, leaving Jolene to only feed the two remaining girls, making the demands on her body more reasonable. The boys would be in a good home, not eaten, and the offered doeling is of considerable breeding. Better breeding than any of my other goats, actually.

I didn't have days to think about it because the new homes were open the next day and the boys would go to their new homes immediately. I had to decide then. It took me long hours to reach a decision, loitering around my breeder's farm, weighing the scenarios. I made the decision to make the trade, handed over the three boys, picked up the new doeling, and cried continuously all the way home.

From a purely pragmatic perspective, this was a total coup. I traded three "useless" mouths to feed for a very nice girl, one which would have cost more cash than I could afford if I had to pay for her outright. Jolene would have a much easier time only raising two girls. I would have the potential to get milk from her sooner and expend fewer resources raising goats that were not invested in this farm.

From a personal perspective, however, I was devastated. Not only did I go back on a promise to a friend -- that the boys were hers -- but I went back on a promise to myself and to the goats. When I ventured into breeding, I promised that I would be responsible for all the lives I brought into the world. Collateral damage in the milk industry is all the unwanted males, not unlike the laying chicken industry. I promised those boys that they would never be sold on craigslist for $25 so some stranger can come, hog tie them, and carry them away, terrified, to be butchered in a strange place. Male goats, in this economy, are often only good for food. If it came to that, I would put them down myself, after they had lived a summer and experienced the joys of the sun, the grass, and living a life. Some breeders opt to put the males down at birth. I consider that a waste of a life. Let them live, and in growing, let them then feed my family so they are not forgotten, or wasted. I won't pretend they never existed.

Anyway, I did not sell the boys on craigslist, but I also did not personally vet their new homes. I trust my breeder not to lie to me, that they were in fact good homes. And there's no way she would make the swap just to later eat the boys, so I do know they were destined to be wethered and turned into pets.

Jolene grieved for three days, while still attending to her girls like the wonderful mother she is. And I grieved with her. I grieved for my friend who was so excited to meet the boys. I grieved for the always painful separation of mother and baby. And I grieved for my personal loss of innocence in how to raise animals on the farm. Sometimes the best decision is the hardest decision.

A startling reality of farming, one I had not fully appreciated, is how expendable 50% of the population is. I work in a male dominated field, in a slightly misogynist country, and despite my strong feminist roots, I harbor a lot of my own prejudices. But on the farm, girls rule. Of the 40 something animals I currently keep, only three are males. Only one is intact and actually fulfilling his biological imperative: the rooster. Brego and my one male dog are attractive, useless animals. Even my hamster is female.

I have since followed up on the boys and they are doing well. They took to the bottle just fine and went to their homes. Their new people were so thrilled and excited to raise them. They will be ok.

Introducing.... Katja!

As for the new girl, she is exceptional. As a bottle baby, she views me as mom and took no time in being cute and adorable and wormed her way into my broken heart. All three girls will be registered, tattooed, and spoiled rotten.

First born girl - Adalaide!

Second born girl - Freya!

Jolene and Amy along the bottom. From left to right - Freya, Katja, and Adalaide.

Off Balance

2010-03-24T07:56:00.003-04:00

If you are looking for some happy sunshine, best look past this post. I've been busy and Spring is sorta kinda happening, so life has been pretty good. So I've been coasting along -- la, la, la, la, la -- with my biggest worry being how soon can I start drinking my goat's milk.

My readers keep me on track though by sending me news articles in the mainstream media about our impending food crisis. The little signs are everywhere: disappearing bees, antibiotic resistant staph, deforestation, pesticide runoff, unusual growths linked to GMO foods. There's a groundswell of support for the local and Organic movements, but there's still so far to go.

Here's a couple of articles to zest up your day:

Bees In More Trouble

EPA officials said they are aware of problems involving pesticides and bees and the agency is "very seriously concerned."

The pesticides are not a risk to honey sold to consumers, federal officials say. And the pollen that people eat is probably safe because it is usually from remote areas where pesticides are not used, Pettis said. But the PLOS study found 121 different types of pesticides within 887 wax, pollen, bee and hive samples.

Um, yea. Probably safe. Forget that we are going to lose crops to lack of pollinators, the food the pollinators produce is toxic.

And here's some fun about antibiotics in our meat:

Save Lives, Save Animals, By Saving Antibiotics

Experts estimate that up to 70 percent of the antibiotics sold in the United States are given to healthy food animals on industrial farms to grow the animals faster and compensate for often crowded, unsanitary conditions.

You know, I used to think that eating sustainably and ethically raised food was trendy or expensive or a fad. But now, I feel like we must eat this way if we are going to find our way through to correcting the balance.

From front-page politics, to our food supply, we are so out of balance. Whatever happened to moderation? To thoughtful, rational discourse? To solving problems holistically, with an eye to longevity and the future, instead of "Me, Now"? Instead of maximizing production in our food system, how about we maximize health -- human, animal, and plant?

I feel... trapped. On my very small farm, I spend all my time caring, nurturing, observing, experimenting, improving. While the world comes crashing down around me, I plant my seeds, I feed my chickens, I milk my goats. What more can I do?

The Great Chicken Experiment

2010-03-21T17:19:00.001-04:00

Here on Five Acres Farm, our goal is to produce good quality food in line with our personal belief system. A lot of words can be used to describe what we do: sustainable, renewable, self-sufficient. But these words are bolder and grander in meaning than the actual act. At the end of the day, we just want to eat while "doing no harm".

Last year, I ordered 20 meat chickens to raise and butcher. Unlike our resident layer flock, these birds are hybrids, often called colored broilers or Rangers, and are seen as an alternative to the much maligned Cornish Cross (rightly or no). They grew to impressive size in a mere 10 weeks and they are, quite honestly, the tastiest chickens I have ever eaten. Seriously, I am spoiled now.

I am a big fan of the Rangers, but the problem is, I still have to order them and have them shipped across the country every year. And in trying to minimize diesel miles for my food, that is one recurring expense I hoped to remove. And so we've started a breeding program to breed two flocks: A self-reproducing meat flock that tastes as good and produces as well as the hybrid Rangers, and a true "heritage" layer flock, restoring some of the breed characteristics lost from the mass produced hatcheries.

Life is never simple though, and learning to farm is all about making compromises. If I truly wanted to raise the *most efficient* meat bird, I would continue buying the hybrid Rangers or Cornish X birds and have them shipped to the farm every year. With feed conversion ratios around 2.5 to 1 (2.5 lbs of grain to produce a pound of carcass), they cannot be beat. And using less resources is always a good thing. However, my goal is not necessarily to make the most efficient meat, but the most... appropriate meat. I want a bird that can live to adult age, happy and healthy, that will put on weight on forage, that will breed easily and run/fly from predators. In short, I want a true small farm bird that doesn't need to be intensively managed. Oh and if they could lay golden eggs, that would be great, too! :)

A Speckled Sussex Hen

I mentioned two flocks before: a meat and a layer flock. But if the genetics of a heritage layer flock could be revived, they may become blended into a single flock. For example, we've chosen to focus our layer flock on Speckled Sussex birds, which were once heralded as excellent layers AND a great table bird, with hens reaching a hefty 6.5 lb live weight (4.5 lb dressed). The three Specked Sussex hens we have now, derived from hatchery stock, don't even come close to this size. It seems the Sussex breed has been able to maintain its true Dual Purpose label in both eggs and size in other color varieties (such as the Light Sussex) but not so in the Speckled variety. The Speckled coloring is much better suited to a free-range small farm environment where they blend more easily into their surroundings. A giant white bird might as well be wearing a dinner bell against a backdrop of pasture and leaves and so they aren't really an option.

To kick off this breeding program, we've order/reserved 4 batches of either chicks or hatching eggs from some pretty impressive Speckled Sussex breeders. One line won first place in a Kentucky fair for Large Fowl - English, which is pretty unheard of for that color variety. We will select for size first and then work on refining the color pattern, combs, and eliminating the curly toes prevalent in the breed. It will take many generations, but it's also a good investment. People are willing to pay top dollar for an excellent bird, and so perhaps this flock will start to pay for itself if we are careful.

In the meantime, we still need to eat. Although I am not opposed to eating scrawny culls, I still love -- LOVE -- my giant ranger birds. I can easily get 4 meals for two adults out of every bird and that's before we start making stock from the picked over carcass. As a comparison, I recently ate a culled Wyandotte rooster (butchered at 16 weeks) and we both polished off the 2.5 lb bird in a single sitting.

The Sweet Meat

So I would like to have the best of both worlds until the Speckled Sussex birds become meat-worthy. And for that, we have our ace in the hole: Sweet Meat. Sweet Meat is the pullet we retained from last year's Rangers order. She was the extra they threw in and after we processed her 20 siblings, she was spared and sent to live with our laying flock. Even though she is currently 12 lbs, she gets plenty of exercise and a ranging diet and she's managed to avoid heart attacks or limb problems (prevalent in the meat breeds once they pass butchering age) and has started laying quite nicely. Current layers, you are on notice!! We use our current Wynadotte Rooster over her and she has produced some nice "hybrid" chicks. They are not as fast growing as true Rangers, but they were also born on this farm. Time will tell (actually, 6 weeks more will tell) how they dress out, but they might just keep me satisfied.

4 week old chickens. Sweet Meat hybrid behind, Speckled Sussex/Wyandotte cross in fore

Our Wyandotte rooster is not exceptional and so he will be replaced, hopefully with a big strapping 9 lb Speckled Sussex rooster from our breeding program. If all goes according to plan, Sweet Meat will continue to thrive and we will get to see her chicks from that pairing which should grow even better than the ones from our Wyandotte rooster. And then another milestone will be reached on this farm: a full cycle, from birth to table, entirely on this soil.

Spring 2.0

2010-03-20T20:59:00.002-04:00

We are just entering Year 2 of this five year voyage to grow/raise/barter locally for 70% of the food we consume and so I thought I would start at the beginning (again) with seeds.

Last year, we raised our seeds in little seed trays, nestled in an electric blanket to keep them warm, and placed by the window to give them light. The seeds germinated, but after that explosion of Good, things quickly turned to Bad. No matter where we placed the trays, the young seedlings never got enough light. They grew long and stringy and failed to thrive, even after patiently waiting four weeks or more. I eventually just placed them in the ground or the greenhouse and within days, they were growing again, but we'd lost a lot of time in the trays.

This year, I actually did a little research before jumping in and found that up here near the Arctic Circle (not really, it just feels like that some days), you cannot actually get enough light to start seeds in early spring. That kind of sunlight only comes in summer. In spring, you need to add supplemental lights. And so we dutifully went down to Lowe's and picked up a $20 shop light and installed it over our seed table. We did keep the electric blanket from last year. I can't afford the seed warmers just yet. Maybe for Spring 3.0.

So far, I have been very impressed with my modest investment in lighting. The baby plants are thriving and no longer stringy and weak. They are even starting to get their "real" leaves, a feat never achieved before being placed in the ground last year!

Florescent bulb worshipping seedlings (kale and onions)

In other ways, the farm is coming to life. The garlic is up and the asparagus patch has been de-mulched to allow the sun to entice the spears to the surface. Our 23 hens gave us 20 eggs yesterday. It's going to be a good year.

Did you see what I just did there?? I made it an entire post without mentioning the goats!

Busy Busy

2010-03-14T11:08:00.004-04:00

Things are starting to heat up around the farm, both literally and figuratively. I've been away on business and upon my return, we were hit with another wind storm. Nice.

But life on the farm keeps humming along. We've started our early green seeds, harvested some overwintered arugula, made pasta and bread with some local heritage wheat I scored.

Oh, and I've been playing with some goat babies. Congrats to a dear reader, S, who will be taking all three boys for her own three (human) kids. I am so happy they will be loved in such a good home. I am retaining the two girls for my own small milking herd.

Jolene continues to be an excellent, and prolific, mother. We have not had to supplement additional milk yet and her patience knows no bounds, as this video will show.

I hope to start posting about some other fun farm topics in the near future, but in the short term, enjoy the goaties!

Happiness

2010-03-11T08:39:00.004-05:00

I am away on business, but I wanted to post my morning picture of the goat babies. All five are doing well and Jolene is being a good momma and still able to nurse them completely. This picture is of the middle and youngest boy and the oldest girl, but all five are bouncing around at this point. All healthy and happy. Just happy.

Happy Birthday, Kiddos!

2010-03-09T20:21:00.001-05:00

On Monday, March 8, 2010, we hit a milestone at our little Five Acre Farm. My goat, Jolene, gave birth to five -- FIVE! -- kids. It was not the easiest delivery. In fact, it was quit touch and go for the last two kids, delivered over an hour after the original three had been dried, fed their colostrum, and given their Bo-Se shots. Jolene was in labor for a long time and to say she was uncomfortable is putting it rather euphemistically.

In the end, I had to soap and lube up and pull the two errant kids out, by hook or by crook, in order to save the doe. Horse showing has nothing on the kind of pressure you feel trying to grab a limp, slimy leg of a long overdue and presumed dead baby goat while feeling vainly for the still missing head, elbow deep, while your doe is screaming frantically and the vet on the phone is trying to explain to you that you are not, in fact, in trouble because goats don't have five babies. That's pressure, people. Miraculously, both kids survived my rather abrupt welcome into the world and now we have five healthy, thriving kids and one very sore, very tired goat momma (and two sleep-deprived humans). But it could have been worse, and for that I am always thankful.

Jolene will not be able to nurse all five without assistance so instead of receiving milk from my goat, I will be buying milk for my goat(s). Delicious irony, to be sure, but not as delicious as that glass of goat milk that will be a long time coming. I will need to start supplementing feeding in the next week as the kids' demand increases until they are weaned, at around three months of age. Then Jolene's milk is all mine! Mine! Muahahahaha!

Between the storm and the quintuplets, the 2010 farm season is beginning with a bang. Let's hope it gets more dull before someone gets killed, figuratively of course.

But really, all people want to see are pictures of cute goat babies, so let me wrap up the monologue and just say: Sometimes being a farmer is scary (storm, screaming doe in distress) and sometimes it is Beautiful (first suckle from the first kid born on my farm).

Jolene with all five babies.

First born - A boy!

Second born - A girl!

Third born - A boy!

Fourth born - A girl!

Fifth born - A boy!

The original three, all dried and looking for their soon to be born siblings.

House goat in a basket.

Wind Storm - 2010

2010-02-28T10:37:00.001-05:00

If you follow me on twitter or, day I say, Facebook, you may have noticed a certain... feverish pitch to my communications recently. And that would be because the world came crashing down on me and my little farm on Thursday, February 25th. That was the day that a massive storm blew in off the coast and reeked havoc across all of New England. The SO was away on business, so I was running the farm solo.

The weather gurus had predicted 50 mph wind and maybe an inch or so of rain You fail, weather gurus. When it was all said in done, wind gusts of 91 mph were recorded and we got over 6" of rain in four hours. All the animals were locked up in their barns and things were looking ok during the afternoon on Thursday, but around 10 pm, we lost power and the wind really started screaming. I heard many crashes and booms from trees falling all over the property. I suited up and evacuated the goats to the basement. I was worried their little 8' x 10' shed might slip from its concrete block foundation and surf down the hill on the growing flood. And, of course, Jolene is very, very pregnant, and I was worried the storm might trigger her to deliver. Stressful. I got the goats safely into the basement and threw down some hay and went for the horses.

After about 20 minutes of trying to skate along the water/ice flowing through our backyard against a wicked headwind, I gave up trying to get to the horses. It was just not possible. Water was over 8" deep from the flooding and headed all down hill. A river was running through my path. I watched the trees bend to almost 45 degree angles in the wind and was afraid of them falling on me. I shined my light on the barn and tried to see if there was any damage. The barn looked intact from this side, but I heard lots of crashing. Of course, most of the trees on the property are around the barn. I retreated to the basement and regrouped. Around midnight, I realized our new baby chicks were without a heat lamp so I looked around for something to put them in that would capture their body heat and keep them from succumbing to the cold. I eventually settled on my sweatshirt.

So there I was, sitting in the dark basement, alone, with a very pregnant goat by my feet like a dog, with chicks stuffed in my sweatshirt, listening for sounds of my horses being crushed by trees. And I lost it. I seriously had that thought of: How did I get here? How did my life come to this? I have a graduate degree in engineering. I studied at Oxford. Now I have chicks stuffed in my shirt, soaking wet, worried about more animals than I can count. What the **** am I doing???

Chicks in my shirt... and not in a good way.

It was at that moment that a chick shat upon me and I laughed. Animals keep you humble. I got up, put the chicks in a small box, suited up and went out to check on the horses. I finally got to the barn by pulling myself along a fence line and they looked ok, scared, but fine. The barn looked ok. The wheelbarrow and other odds and ends were no where to be found. I threw the horses some more hay, tried to act as calm and cheerful as I could, and headed back to the basement. I settled in for a long night.

After the storm cleared the next morning, I assessed the damage. Miraculously, all of our buildings survived intact. Spare sheet metal stacked by the house had blown by the greenhouse and out into the horse pasture hundreds of feet away, and had not made one tear in the plastic. Two trees fell by the goat barn, one brushing the fence on its way down, but they caused no damage. One tree fell by the horse barn, but missed it by 20 degrees. All told, we lost 12 trees, but none fell on the truck, the trailer, the buildings, or the power lines. Truly lucky.

Downed trees by the goat pen.

Chicken tractor pulls double-duty as a generator shelter.

After the storm, 5" of snow. New Englanders have to roll with the punches.

The power stayed off for 48 hours, but we are well prepared, living in the country as we do. I had the generator up and running so I had heat. We stockpile gas so I had enough to last through Monday. It turned out not to be necessary, since we got power back early Sunday morning.

Now it's clean up time, and waiting for Jolene to deliver her kids. She is getting close, should be in the next couple of days. I hope our luck holds, and everyone is healthy.

Oh, and I figured out how I got here, to this farm, to protecting my animals in the darkest of nights, against the wind and the rain. I got here by following my heart, which is how all great adventures get started.

Potato Storage Fail

2010-02-15T08:16:00.004-05:00

One aspect of growing my own food I underestimated was preservation. I spent so much time learning how to plant and grow food (and of course, eating it), that I didn't pay much attention to how my hard-earned food was going to overwinter until I could get fresh stuff.

A total newbie mistake.

Well, if I hadn't learned the lesson before, I have learned it now. I was cooking a special dinner for my SO and I decided to use all local ingredients. I purchased fresh, local Cod, direct from the fisherman at the farmers market. I used local butter to make it even more delicious. I cooked up some of our canned green beans from last year's garden. And then I ventured down into the basement to grab some of our potatoes.

I keep the potatoes in burlap bags deep in a big box so no light can intrude. Even though my basement has lights, it's still pretty dark in there so I carried a flashlight to inspect my potatoes. I pried open the top of the box and saw this horrific image:

Boo!

Night of the Living Dead!!! Yes, I shrieked like a school girl. But once I got over my fright, I realized that perhaps this was not the best way to keep potatoes. My basement stays around 55 degrees, so too warm. And I obviously have not checked on the potatoes in quite some time. Two lessons there.

In other news, the canned beans were perfect, so canning was a success. But my yummy whole chickens are starting to freezer burn. There are several ways to preserve chicken in the freezer in a safer manner, and I will dutifully perform them next year. So far I have scored a C- for preservation. Now I need to study up and stop underestimating the food storage aspects of small farm life.

Getting Closer

2010-02-09T17:46:00.008-05:00

My goat, Jolene, hit 125 days in her pregnancy today. That means she is just 20 or so days from delivering her kids. I am excited and nervous, but I've been reading up and prepping myself to help. I've gotten all the necessary supplies and some completely unnecessary ones (like whiskey, not sure if it's for me or the goat).

This goat was made for milkin'

Her first freshening resulted in quadruplets and everyone who has seen her think four kids are on the way again. Personally, I am hoping for triplets. I don't think I can manage 4 youngsters all at once.

As exciting as that is, and believe me, it is exciting, Jolene's babies will not even be the first babies born on the farm. That inglorious distinction belongs to some eggs we've been incubating for the last couple of weeks. They are due to hatch February 17th and are a test hatch in preparation for our serious chicken breeding operation. And by "serious", I mean our plan to breed the ultimate small farm dual purpose flock. But more about that in another post...

What I like to call "My Bucket O' Wings"

For now, think healthy baby thoughts and wish Jolene a safe and prosperous kidding!

From Tale to Snout

2010-02-07T14:18:00.003-05:00

Clean, humane meat is expensive. Doubly so if you buy local and organic products. I do not begrudge a farmer making a living from his or her back-breaking, high-risk work. On the other hand, I am not made of money, either, so I am always looking for ways to buy quality meat on the cheap. One way to do so is to get the "off cuts" of an animal. The farmer has no trouble selling tenderloins, but may have trouble offloading some of the less "reputed" cuts, so I can usually get them at a good price. Plus, it would disrespectful to the life of the animal and the work of the farmer to let anything go to waste.

I also feed my dogs a biologically-appropriate raw food diet. Without question, the single greatest consumer of meat on this farm is the dogs' diet. Again, the farm has rendered me relatively poor, so I have to find meat on the cheap. Since it would be slightly hypocritical of me to rail against the industrial food chain while simultaneously buying chicken leg quarters for $0.49/lb at Walmart, my dogs also learn to do more with less.

The greatest boon to my dogs' diet was finding a local farmer who sells his "extras" for $0.50/lb. Extras could be anything from turkey necks to chicken feet to pork necks to trotters and some occasional freezer burned veal stew meat. (I confess, I eat the veal stew meat). The farmer gets to clear out his freezer, we get to feed the dogs, and everyone is happy. We buy everything the farmer would sell to make sure we stay tops on his "discard" list. So sometimes we are literally overflowing with animal bits that no decent modern human would consider food.

And that is how we happened to have 25 trotters in the freezer. The dogs, being somewhat small, don't do well on raw trotters. The bones can choke and there's not much meat. So they just pile up. Until one day, we saw this recipe. And we decided to eat our way through the trotters.

We selected 10 fore trotters (the front feet of the pig). We improvised a bit from the recipe, namely using primarily meat and not the skin to make the croquettes. The trotters were simmered for 24 hours on low heat until they basically exploded. Then the meat was teased out. The liquid was strained into a dish and set into a pretty decent gelatin which was then cubed and vac packed for the freezer. The gelatin can add body and flavor to soups. The meat was made into croquettes similar to the recipe.

Stewin' some pig's feet

One exploded trotter before piecing it out.

The bones and gristle from 4 trotters

The skin and fat from 4 trotters (aka Dog Food)

The meat from 4 trotters (aka Daun Food)

Trotter gelatin!

Pig Trotter Gelatin from Eventing Percheron on Vimeo.

The croquettes turned out quite amazing, but very rich. I could not finish mine and I think we could have easily served 4-6 people on the meat from the 10 trotters. Adding more of the skin and fat back in could have stretched it out even further. The dogs ate the discarded fat and skin and the chickens enjoyed the contents of the strainer after we separated out the gelatin. Overall, we all got several meals out of those 10 trotters, which more than likely would have gone into the landfill if we hadn't been so daring.

Dinner is served!

Nom nom nom pig feet...

It's always an adventure around here. If you ever come to visit, make sure you ask what's for dinner before you decide to sit at the table! :)

Change: You're Doing It Right

2010-02-06T08:17:00.003-05:00

I couldn't believe the news this morning:

NAIS is dead!

Small farmers get a reprieve and now individual states dictate regulations for animals transported for commerce. What a relief! And hope for the small farm!

A Day In The Life

2010-01-26T10:18:00.003-05:00

A reader asked me to detail what I do in a day and how much time it takes to care for the critters. My life is really not that exciting, but I thought it might give people a good idea how much effort is involved in growing your own food and working full time.

My new job allows me to work from home, which is the greatest asset in running a small farm. I work more hours than I did at my last job, but I am not commuting so the time spent is basically a wash. I usually begin working at 6:30 am and finish up around 5 pm. Most days, I take a 1 hour lunch break to walk the goats, muck stalls, or ride. So I still average about 9.5 hours of work a day which is "high" but very necessary for this job which is both challenging and exciting.

The rest of the farm life breaks down as follows:

6:15 am - feed goats (~5 min)

6:20 am - feed horses (~10 min)

[work]

9:00 am - let chickens out (~5 min)

9:05 am - Turn horses out for day (~5 min)

Lunch - let goats out, muck stalls, collect eggs, enjoy the sunshine (1 hour)

[work]

At dark, feed goats and put in barn (~5 min)

Put up chickens, collect eggs (~5 min)

Bring in horses for dinner (~10 min)

7:30 pm - grain horses (~5 min)

8:00 pm - feed dogs raw diet (~20 min)

Before bed, blanket horses, if necessary, and put back out or top off stalls (~15 min)

This sounds more organized than it is, times always vary depending on weather or if I have meetings to attend.

So all in all, it's a little bit of time spread throughout the day which would be impossible if I worked off the farm. When we are both working together, it goes quickly, but if one of us is out of town on business, you can only do the bare minimum and still cook three meals for yourself and feed the dogs (and hamster). Organizing feed bags, stall stripping (40 min), coop cleaning (30 min) or goat barn cleaning (30 min) happens on the weekend.

The horses are easily three times the work of the chickens and goats combined, not just in time spent, but also in labor. Cleaning Brego's stall out is a major undertaking, requiring a strong back and lots of patience.

Once the goats are in milk, add 10 minutes, twice a day for milking. During the summer, add at least 1 hour a day for garden chores, with an additional 4-6 hours per weekend. Also add 2 hours a day for riding, with an additional 4 hours per weekend. Summers are crazy busy, starting before 6 am and not finishing until after 9 pm. It's good to have a lot of soups and stews prepared and canned over the winter, since we usually don't feel like cooking after being so exhausted all day.

Around the daily work, we always have projects going on which need a few hours of attention whenever we can manage it. Highlights of 2010 include:

Prepping, liming and seeding 4 acres of pasture
Build a 4 x 6 root cellar (meat/cheese aging cave) in basement
Move a door in the garage for easier hay access
Build a mud room to keep the house cleaner
Replace sink in basement and possibly install a stove for cheese making
Jack up the chicken coop and rebuild the foundation which is failing
Reside and reroof the chicken coop
Build the permanent goat paddock fence
Dig up the underperforming drainage lines and replace with larger pipes across entire length of the property
Plant an orchard

And that list is just the highlights, we have at least 20 more items on the list which are smaller, less exciting projects. Seeing it all written down, it does seem like a tremendous amount of work, but I guess when you enjoy it so much, it doesn't feel like it. It's all just part of my routine of life and I love it. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

The Taming Of The Shrew

2010-01-19T11:35:00.004-05:00

When people think about farm life, they often think of the native wildlife that will cohabitate on your land: deer, falcons, foxes, that elusive moose. We have seen the big animals, but what has really amazed me is the diversity in the itty bitty animals, from chipmunks, voles, mice, hamsters, and now... shrews.

This little guy showed up in my mare's food bucket this morning and was unable to get out. My first clue that something was amiss was when my SO came inside and called, "Come see this mouse I caught with no eyes!" Strange, I thought, since wild mice usually need eyes to live. So I went to the barn and looked in the bucket and there was this little shrew.

The mare was quite put out but luckily did not smoosh him (or eat him). I left him in the bucket to contemplate his lot in life while I went inside to do some research. Shrews are not rodents, despite their appearance, and are voracious eaters, eating up to 90% of their body weight daily. They eat slugs, insects, and even mice if they can find them. And, unlike mice, they have limited growth in their teeth so they do not chew on wood, electrical wires, saddles or other naughty things. They can carry disease, but not as often as rodents, so no licking of shrews!

So this guy earned his ticket to freedom. I let him go in our woodpile where hopefully he will do a number on the mice and chipmunks that live there. It was very cool to make his acquaintance since I've never seen a shrew in real life. They really have no eyes. Crazy critters.

Disclaimer: This shrew was not really tamed. Just photographed and then released. I don't have time for taming shrews, but it sounds like a fascinating hobby.

Winter Greens

2010-01-17T12:48:00.001-05:00

It's mid-January and for the Northern Hemisphere, that means winter. Lots of people are deep in the throes of winter blues, but I'm feeling a bit... "green" this year. Winter greens... mmmm... delicious.

Some of the tastiest plants like it cold and do well in near freezing (and sometimes below freezing) temps. Since this was the first winter with the greenhouse, I decided to try my hand at winter gardening.

Over the summer, I read and re-read Eliot Coleman's Four Season Harvest. The man is inspiring for many reasons, but a big one is that he lives up the road from me in Maine. He's more northern than I but is right on the coast, so has some advantage there. However, in page after page of his book, he makes a compelling case for selecting and growing cold-weather crops. Heating a greenhouse through the winter takes energy and is wasteful. But if you work with the plants that love the cold, you can have fresh greens without any extra electricity. Sounds right up my alley.

In keeping with the theme of "At Least I am Learning", not everything went according to plan. For one, Coleman recommends starting your winter veggies in August at my latitude. In August, I was suffering from heat exhaustion and the last thing I was thinking about was winter. I thought if I planted my greens now, they would mature and bolt by the time it got cold enough to put them in a deep sleep for the winter. So I stalled.

And stalled.

And then, at the beginning of October, I remembered and feverishly planted. My poor lettuces and kale. They tried to grow as fast as they could, but the sun was already low in the southern sky and it was cold at night. I completely underestimated how up here it goes from late summer to late fall in two weeks and that the lack of sun was the biggest problem.

But the wee plants did their best and I was able to prove that even now, in mid January, green things are not dead in my greenhouse despite the lack of heat and the extra cold this year.

Snowy greenhouse (and cute goats).

I ended up growing two sets of plants, those under an internal cold frame and those outside a cold frame. I wanted a "Control Group" for this experiment. I wondered if the double layer of plastic in the cold frame would slow down the meager sunlight and stunt the plants. The opposite effect occurred. The plants under the cold frame far surpassed those outside the cold frame, although both sets survived and did not die from frost. Totally fascinating.

Double layers. A cold frame within the greenhouse.

Plants without a cold frame.

Plants under the cold frame doing much better.

Looking good, just not big enough.

Overall, I am very pleased and I am planning to keep a bunch of those plants through the winter for my early start in spring greens since they will likely grow as soon as things warm up. The biggest problem is I didn't plant enough greens and didn't let them grow enough before the seasons changed. Both issues are easy to fix next year and I can't wait to see how much greener I am in January 2011!

2009 Seed Swap Update!

2010-01-15T07:47:00.003-05:00

Thanks to all my wonderful readers who are participating in the seed swap. I am going to be putting together the routes this weekend and mailing the packages on Monday. If you would like to get in on the fun and have not already emailed me your address, send it to fiveacresenough at gmail dot com.

I've ordered my 2010 seeds, primarily from High Mowing and Heirloom Seeds. I went with a couple of hybrids for the crops that did the worst last year, namely corn and brussel sprouts. Absolutely no GMO seeds however. I am very excited about some of the new varieties and some of my favorites, like the Blue Lake Pole Beans and De Cocci broccoli, are making a return. I am trying a dry bean this year to make New England's famous Boston Baked beans! I went with completely new varieties of tomatoes, searching for that elusive big producer with blight resistance and I am going to try a field tomato outside the greenhouse as well, since space is limited in the hot house.

I also found a local provider of seed potatoes and ordered 50 lbs. I hope I have room in my expanded garden for all this food!

Like last year, the seed producers are predicting shortages due to the tough economic times, so I would get my orders in fairly soon, especially if you are looking for open-pollinated or otherwise heirloom type seeds.

What Do I Get With 5.5 Acres?

2010-01-10T18:02:00.002-05:00

My small farm is only 5.5 acres. That's "micro" scale as far as farms go. And to add insult to injury, when I bought it, it was 80% wooded.

When I decided to move to New England, I had fantasies of the old white farmhouses, the big grass fields, the stone walls. I was hoping for 30 acres, all arable, with a 5 stall barn to boot. Well, nothing makes you feel poor like shopping for farms in New England. That 30 acre farm I just described would be a cool million anywhere commutable to Portsmouth (the location of my job at the time). You could find that kind of acreage for cheaper, but it would not be arable, much less pastured. We're talking swamp, people.

Anyway, after nine months of searching for a farm, I found this little parcel and the house was nice, so I went for it. Five acres and change is a far cry from my romantic New England homestead, but we all have to start somewhere. It might as well be at the bottom.

I moved in on November 1, 2008, just beating winter by a mere few weeks. My first introduction to hard farm life was an ice storm on December 18th that left us without power for five days. No heat, no water, no electric fence for the horses. We learned from that one and now have a generator and a healthy appreciation and respect for winter.

The following year, 2009, we barely got our feet under us. We fenced off a small 3/4 acre paddock for the horses out in the woods, got some chickens, and tilled up the sod on a 40' diameter garden disc aka our leach field. It was a terrible year for weather, but a good year for learning. I watched how the sun rose and set on the farm, where the shadows lay in each season, where the wind would bite the coldest. I learned a lot about the natural rhythm of the spring which feeds our livestock trough. I learned more than I wanted about flood drainage and how even though it is tough to be on the side of a steep hill, it's worse to be at the bottom. Maybe we didn't start at the bottom, after all.

2009 Farm. Satellite photo from 2007 but this is how the property looked when purchased. Improvements in red.

So by November 2009, one full year on the farm, I knew what I wanted to do with the land and I had it cleared. I hired a company that would purchase the timber from me and then use the credit to stump the land and grade it. From forest to pasture in two short weeks. Sounds great, right? Well... They cleared the land in about two days but then moved to my neighbor's 30 acres and by the time they thought about stumping my land, snow had fallen. Funny how that happens in December in New Hampshire. Caught us all by surprise. Not.

Anyway, the bad news is that we will now get stumped on May 1, 2010, because that's how long it will take after mud season to get the big machines back in. The good news is that we got more money for the wood they cleared than we thought, so we just might be able to afford all these "improvements". So pastures in (late) 2010 and, with luck, we will get to graze them in 2011.

As for the rest of the property, the front 1/2 acre was cleared save for some truly awesome old oaks. It will be used for an orchard and a meadow grazed on a 150 day management cycle. The goats will get a 100' x 45' permanently fenced paddock (once the ground thaws), and I have portable electric fencing to graze them out during the day. The garden will be expanded to approximately twice the square footage. And we will see how that goes.

2010 Farm (proposed).

A note on the pictures. The green dots roughly represent large trees, but we saved more trees than it looks like from that representation. I want living pasture, not strip-cleared dead zones. In addition, we have plans to plant approximately 20 fruit and nut trees in the orchard and other areas of the farm.

Future pasture from future goat paddock. Plenty of gorgeous trees and now hopefully more gorgeous sun.

What is becoming very obvious from our experience is that even though the farm is micro-scaled, we could very easily produce almost all the food we need IF we did not have the horses. The horses will take up 3.5 acres of land and they would destroy it if not managed properly. I could raise 30 goats or 10 pigs or 20 sheep on the same amount of land and have a much easier time keeping it healthy. But the horses are here to stay, because there's more to life than farming and that's being loved by a goofy draft horse.

Micro-farms are very viable, however, if properly managed. So although I still wax poetic about my "next" 30 acre farm, that's just so I can have more horses. Or goats. :)

Why Lard?

2010-01-10T08:16:00.001-05:00

I had a couple of readers ask about the purpose of lard and how we would use it. I thought the answer was so obvious, I failed to put in the previous post. We would use lard for cooking!

Ah, but there's more to it than that. Lard historically has been used where we now use butter or other vegetable oils. Despite its somewhat nasty reputation, lard has less saturated fat, more unsaturated fat, and less cholesterol than butter. And, unlike margarine or shortening, lard contains no trans fat.

I don't happen to live in Iowa or, tragically, Italy, so corn and olive oils are not local foods. Nor do they provide the right kind of "mouthfeel" for moist but flakey baked goods. Lard also has a relatively high smoke point, producing little smoke when heated and is more stable at higher temperatures. To read all about lard, check out the wikipedia article for more benefits for cooking.

Of special note is that the kind of back fat I showed in the pictures does not come from modern pork pigs. You need a heritage pig bred to create fat (which most of our fat phobic dieters abhor) and it needs to live outside to be stimulated to produce more than 1" of fat under the skin. Our pig was a Tamworth x Berkshire.

As for our uses, we will use small amounts of lard for frying up meats so they don't stick to the pan. We will make tortillas and pie crusts, including quiche. We recently used it to grease a pan for bread pudding, using up old, stale homemade bread. Basically, we will use lard for anything we would use oil for if the food combines well with a more "savory" fat.

Once my goats are in production and I am making homemade butter, the hope is to limit our olive oil use to just what is required, such as marinating mozzarella (which, in my opinion is a "need" and not a "want"). Olive oil, like tea and coffee, are not produced locally so will figure into the 30% we allow ourselves to come outside of our sphere of influence.

The Goodness of Lard

2010-01-09T11:28:00.001-05:00

Lard has been much maligned recently, but I think with the "Trans Fat" scare, people are starting to realize that animal fats aren't really all that bad. On a scale between Good and Evil, lard is not exactly lily-white Luke Skywalker. It's more of the Han Solo type (after all, Han did shoot Greedo first). You can't help but love it and nibble it all over. Lard, that is. Not Han. Ok, well maybe Han a little.

Anyway, lard contains about 40% saturated fat and 45% monosaturated fat. For reference, coconut and palm kernal oil run 80% in saturated fat. It is also high in Omega 6 fatty acids, Vitamin D and has some nice anti-bacterial properties as well. There's a reason soap has traditionally been made from animal fats and don't even think about hanging that nice slab of beef for three weeks unless there is a nice layer of fat covering it.

But don't run out and buy a tub o' lard for your next cookoff. The lard from the store has been hydrogenated to increase shelf life. And like most things done for preservation, injecting the lard with Hyrdrogen negates a lot of the good benefits, leaving the fact that it is just a bunch of fat. The best and healthiest way to use lard is to render it yourself from pig fat from a local farmer.

You knew I was going to say that, didn't you.

This year, we bought a whole pig from a local farmer. What that means is that we purchased a pig and even though the farmer raised the pig and delivered him to the butcher, he was technically our pig. We paid the farmer for the pig and the butcher for the processing and got the added benefit of being able to specify what we wanted back in little packages. Because we don't believe in wasting anything from an animal, we got it ALL back. So we received about 154 lbs of pig parts, including the head and trotters. About 120 lbs of that pork were prime cuts, ham, and bacon. Not a bad deal.

In case you are wondering, the head is great for jowl bacon and tamales and some amazing stock. Waste not, want not!

But today is all about the lard. As part of our pig, we received about 20 lbs of back fat and leaf fat. For lard aficionados, leaf fat, the fat from around the kidneys, is preferred because it can be rendered "purer" with less porky flavor. Another tip for less porky flavor is to not overcook it. If you heat the fat until the cracklins turn brown, it's too late and you get a more "savory" lard.

We cooked our lard via the "wet" method, where we poured the hot oil into water to allow the water to bring the stray proteins out. Then you reheat the water/oil mix until you stop hearing any sizzling. At that point, all the water has evaporated out, and the oil you pour off cools to a snow-white finish. Yum!

The cracklins can be saved to flavor meat soups and to feed to the chickens on cold days where lots of calories will help them stay warm.

The bag of fat as delivered from the butcher

The bag opened. Leaf fat is hiding under the first slab of back fat.

Leaf fat exposed!

Leaf fat ready for cubing.

Back fat being cubed. The smaller the cubes, the more yield. Also, it's easiest to cut the fat when it is semi-frozen.

A slab o' fat makes lots of cubes.

Two pans of fat ready to go. Leaf fat is on the left, back fat on the right.

Boil, boil, toil and trouble.

Pouring the oil into a pot of water, filtering out the cracklins and solids.

We cooled our lard with snow, the traditional method!!

The finished product. We used less than half our fat to make this much lard.

An Exercise in Futility

2010-01-06T06:41:00.004-05:00

Anyone who knows me knows I try to keep the rants to a minimum on this blog (as opposed to real life... my poor friends). It's supposed to be uplifting and about personal triumph in the face of a full-time job. It's supposed to be practical and inspiring about how one small human with zero farming experience can make a positive impact on the environment, the animals, and fellow (wo)man.

But sometimes, I can't help myself. Sometimes, I just rant. I am feeling that urge again. I broke down and watched Food, Inc (I linked to it on PBS, because you can watch it for free starting in April) the other night. I told myself I didn't need to watch it, I already knew most of what was said. I had heard of it, of course, and how good it was, so I finally caved. And I have been in a clinical depression since.

The scale of the problem is simply overwhelming. One single processing plant slaughters 32,000 terrified, screaming pigs A DAY. The downer cows, cruelly tortured to get them to their feet for slaughter, number in the hundreds PER DAY. And the corruption and lies go all the way to the top, from former Monsanto employees holding positions in the USDA and other conflicts of interest. Who polices the police??? What can one woman do against such reckless hate? And it is hate; hatred for the animals, hatred for the customers who die from e-coli contaminated food, hatred for our humanity which has been stripped away from something as vital and base as our food.

The answer to the question of what one woman can do is answered in the movie: Nothing. My withdrawing from the industrial food supply will probably mean better health for me and my family and more dollars to local farmers (all good things), but we're not the ones driving the cruelty in the slaughterhouses anyway. We've already opted out. The people who shop at Walmart are making the difference. Walmart starting carrying Organic products because consumers demanded it, not because they thought it was a Nice Thing to do. Organics are a mixed bag, but at least they are not GMO and use fewer pesticides in their production. The shoppers of Walmart took THOUSANDS OF TONS of poison out of the environment. Kind of staggering to think about, isn't it?

The lesson is clear: If we, collectively, demand cleaner food, the big businesses will deliver. Despite my pastoral dreams, the world is not going to change so that each family can have a couple of hens and a goat in the back yard. Our economy *needs* us to be workers, not farmers. We need 8-12 productive hours a day doing "work", not growing our own food, to keep our insatiable economy going. People are not going to give up their satellite TV money (apparently) to eat "Slow Food". Big business will remain in the picture, but if we can change Big Business, we can change things on a colossal scale.

You know, I was wrong, I did learn quite a bit from Food, Inc. One of the things I learned was about the treatment of hamburger with Ammonia to "cleanse" it from salmonella and e-coli. I have already discussed the ubiquitous practice of bleaching chicken. Now the NY Time is running an article about our favorite little magic meat machine, Beef Products Inc. It's a good, if scary read, and speaks to the ~~corruption~~ lack of oversight at the USDA.

We, collectively, must demand change. None of my readers have taken my up on my offer for free seeds yet, so if gardening is not your bag, buy something Organic from a grocery store today. If none are available, ask the store manager why not. Go to a farmer's market and buy one single item and look the farmer in the eye and thank them for giving people an option. Ask your butcher where they get their beef, show them you care about where the food comes from, even if the answer is "Out West".

If you are still reading this, thank you. I will tantalize you with a promise that my next post will be about rendering the lard from our pig. Exciting stuff!!