When is a Farmer, A Farmer?
January 30, 2012
While researching this blog entry, I found myself wondering how to I could possible condense all the different variations of a farmer, into a single image. I was digging around online, just sort of looking at the possibilities, when I stumbled across a blog entry talking about the documentary film The Real Dirt on Farmer John, about the life of Illinois farmer John Peterson. This film has won a number of awards for its description of one man’s attempts to remake his family farm. His efforts not only saved the farm, but subsequently helped chart an entirely new course for sustainable agriculture as well. Here is one individual who certainly deserves the title “farmer”. The blog entry where I found the photo is called the Sustainable Table Chronicles, and is very worthy of some reading time.
I have wrestled with the question of whether I’m a farmer. For most of my life, I’ve worked with either plants and/or animals - breeding and propagating them, raising and cultivating them, managing different populations, harvesting them, building infrastructure to nourish them. For most of that time, I either did that work on my own, without pay, as a hobby. For some of that time, I was paid by others to help them manage their animals, plants, farms and/or ranches. In the last few years, I’ve been building my own operation and starting to get paid for what I have produced. Sometimes I have been paid very well. Sometimes that pay hasn’t been so good. And over the last few years, my off-farm income has declined while my on-farm income has grown. This year, for the first time, it looks like the vast majority of my earnings will be farm-related. But does that qualify me to be a farmer?
As I have described my work to others, their interpretation of my job title has been all over the map. Some have declared me a hobbyist, because our operation isn’t big enough in their eyes to qualify as a “real” farm. Some have said our operation is too big, and we should cut back because I’m not a farmer and never will be, thus I’m wasting time and money pretending to be one. Some have declared that no matter how big we are, we’ll never be farmers on a farm until we have certain items, objects or features - a barn, a tractor, cows, row crops, employees, etc. And some have avoided calling us farmers because they consider it an insult, a lowly job title that we’re too good to have. My accountant has called us a farm for a number of years, and we’ve either filed corporate returns or a Schedule F to declare our earnings in various ways. Oddly, the IRS seems easiest to convince of our “farm-ness”.
I have slowly but surely warmed to the idea that I can legitimately call myself a farmer, for a variety of reasons: I spend more and more of my time building and improving a property (now two properties, since we’re leasing land), for the sole purpose of raising and selling various agricultural products as a result. I’m earning more and more of my income that way. I am gaining skill and experience and good judgment on what works and what doesn’t, while building and running those agricultural operations.
But somehow, for me the title “farmer” is still elusive, because it’s a badge of honor that I don’t quite feel I’ve earned yet. I don’t have my markets figured out. We haven’t yet sold our first batch of market hogs (psst, buddy, wanna buy a pig?). I don’t have my field rotations nailed down yet. And I’m still refining my next-generation animal barn design. So at what point do I become a farmer?
Maybe it’s like trying to identify when we first become adults. We have to work in that capacity for awhile before we can finally look back and say “aha, I’ve been an adult now for awhile.” Perhaps in the future I’ll look back on this time and decide that yes, by this point I was already a farmer, and already farming, even if I didn’t quite have all the details figured out yet. And for true professionals of any breed, the best of the best often say that their profession is challenging specifically because there is always something else to figure out. At which point it becomes not only a science, but an art. So perhaps I’ll always be in the process of "becoming" a farmer. Or, perhaps I should say I'm a practicing farmer, like a doctor practicing medicine or an attorney practicing law. Most of the best job descriptions I’ve known included that aspect of always learning something new. Farming certainly does.
I guess I can’t say for sure yet that I’m a farmer. I think I’m becoming more and more of a farmer, every single day. Lest I leave the term still too loosely defined, in closing this entry I’ll share one of my very favorite definitions of a farmer, and of farming, courtesy of Paul Harvey. Thanks, Paul, for providing such a wonderful definition of this multi-faceted profession.
So God made a Farmer
By:Paul Harvey
And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said "I need a caretaker."
- So God made a Farmer
God said "I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk the cows, work all day in the field, milk cows again, eat supper then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board."
- So God made a Farmer
"I need somebody with arms strong enough to wrestle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild; somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to await lunch until his wife's done feeding visiting ladies, then tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon, and mean it."
- So God made a Farmer
God said "I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt, and watch it die, then dry his eyes and say 'maybe next year'. I need somebody who can shape an axe handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make a harness out of hay wire, feed sacks and shoe straps, who at planting time and harvest season will finish his 40 hour week by Tuesday noon and then, paining from tractor back, will put in another 72 hours."
- So God made a Farmer
God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain, and yet stop in midfield and race to help when he sees first smoke from a neighbor's place.
- So God made a Farmer
God said "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bales, yet gentle enough to wean lambs and pigs and tend to pink combed pullets; who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadowlark. It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight and not cut corners; somebody to seed, weed, breed, and rake and disk and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and a hard week's work with a five-mile drive to church. Somebody who would bale a family together with the soft, strong bonds of sharing; who would laugh and then sigh, and reply with smiling eyes when his son says he want to spend his life doing what Dad does."
-So God made a Farmer
Digging Out and Cleaning Up
January 20, 2012
The remains of one of our hay sheds. Ironically, the hay shed shielded the shelter behind it from getting as much snow as it would have otherwise, yet that stick-built shelter would have withstood the weight better. We have some stick-built shelters, and some portable shetlers like this one. This one lasted for 10 years and countless storms before finally collapsing. In terms of cost effectiveness, that's pretty good performance. In terms of wear and tear during storm events, such inexpensive construction starts to cost quite a bit. So we'll be replacing it with sturdier construction.
Weather in the Pacific Northwest is generally pretty mild. But every once in awhile, we get a doozy of a storm, or a series of storms, which wreak havoc on the farm. The last time we suffered severe storm damage was May 2010, when a huge cottonwood fell during a windstorm, and clipped the corner of the house. Prior to that, we’d had a variety of snowstorms which came and went without too many problems other than me outside shoveling snow off the shelter roofs anytime we had any snow accumulations over 3”. But that precaution spared us any major damage from snowfall. Until now.
We knew that we had two snow events coming well in advance. The first wasn’t due to dump too much snow on us, but it would set the stage for a stormy week of cold temperatures, windy conditions and the possibility of additional snow accumulations throughout the week. That was due to start late Saturday night, January 14th. So we spent most of Saturday running errands and stocking up on supplies, in case we were snowed in. Unfortunately, the snow arrived early and came down fast. We were still 10 miles from home, fully loaded with hay and feed in both trucks, when the snow started to accumulate as the sun went down. Suddenly, we had some serious driving conditions to contend with. A trip that normally would take 15 minutes on clear roads, ended up taking 2 hours with both our trucks in four wheel drive. That includes reaching hills that were impassible, and turning around to go another way. We were stressed out, wet, cold and exhausted by the time we got home. During our trip home we passed a variety of vehicles that had gone off the road or had spun out on the quickly deteriorating roads. Wow, we were glad to get home safely.
The weather continued to deteriorate. Instead of getting a “dusting” of snow that night, we had 4” by bedtime. I was on snow watch that night, so I got up periodically to check how much snow had come down. I had already shoveled snow off the shelters when we got home that night, but I had to be ready to do it again if we had a lot more snow overnight. Thankfully that didn’t happen, so I was able to get some sleep. Sunday dawned to on-again-off-again additional snowfall, but no major new accumulations. Yet we had more snow due during the day Monday, and throughout the week. We waited, and watched.
The next four days came and went, with spats of snow falling throughout the week. The next major snowfall occurred Wednedsay, bringing us to a total of 12” of snow. That’s a fair amount for this area, and roads were a mess despite county road crews working around the clock. The growing snow load on power lines and tree branches caused a number of short-lived power outages, and we ended up using our lanterns and oil lamps frequently through the week. Steve did go to work Monday morning but he came home early Monday afternoon, and stayed home for the rest of the week. But supposedly we were done with the major snowfall by Wednesday evening. We had hopes of getting out Thursday.
Thursday dawned with light snowfall. Once again the roads were impassible, but the forecast called for the snow to stop in mid-morning, and temps to start rising rapidly that afternoon. We waited, and watched. But the weather apparently didn’t read the forecast, and we watched as another 6” fell during the day. Apparently, the new warm air mass was stalled just south of us, generating something of a snow engine which just kept dumping more snow on us. Worse, the folks south of us got just enough warmth from the new air mass that they warmed slightly above freezing, but the old air mass was still chock full of moisture, and they got a heavy dose of freezing rain for 12 hours. The damage to those areas was incredible, with whole trees coming down throughout the area. Our livestock mentor and one of our major rabbit customers both suffered heavy damage from that event. So as much as we hated to see more snow come down, we preferred that to a buildup of ice.
Finally, Friday dawned with partly cloudy skies and no new snow. Temperatures finally started coming up, and we knew our marathon was almost over. We had 16” of snow on the ground. Happily, most of our shelters were OK, mainly due to all the roof clearing we’d done during the week. However, two shelters which had never needed clearing before were finally claimed by the snow - our hay shelter, and one of the dog shelters. Happily, the dog was not harmed - she was safe in her doghouse at the time, but she did look rather alarmed when peeking out from under the snow-covered wreckage of her dog run. We were able to get that roof cleared off and replaced in fairly quick order. But our hay shelter was a total loss.
There’s a phrase that “some days, you get the bear, and some days, the bear gets you.” This week, we feel like we argued with the bear and came away with only a few scratches. Having the hay shed come down was a loss, but I’ll take that any day rather than one of the main barns coming down. And had we been just a little further south, we might have had considerably heavier damage. Another phrase goes “you rolls your dice and you takes your chances.” We definitely got lucky this time, with this particular roll of the dice. As we replace our hay shed, and gradually replace our other animal shelters and barns, we’ll keep this last week in mind. Our future shelters will be built to withstand less fortunate weather.
Saying Goodbye to an Old Friend
January 10, 2012
Carmel a few years ago, after I accidentally woke her up from a nap in the summer grass. She was named for her round, chocolate-brown eyes that reminded me of little carmel candies. Her personality was as sweet as those candies, but she had a wicked sense of cunning to get what she wanted.
We had to say goodbye yesterday to an old friend, my 15 year old dog Carmel. She finally died of old age, after a long and I’d like to think a happy life. Some would think it silly, foolish or simply a waste of time to get all emotional about a dog. Others know exactly what I’m talking about without further explanation.
I adopted Carmel as a 10 month old puppy. She was my first rescue, from a "bought-her-for-the-kids" forgotten backyard ornament situation. She was dreadfully overweight, an odd combination of timid + gonna-do-things-my-way-anyway, and she had no manners whatsoever. Her first training session came the night I brought her home, when she tried to jump on the dining room table to eat our just-delivered pizza. That was my very first moment as Alpha Dog, and it wasn't pretty. But she trained up amazingly well despite me making every possible mistake with her that a well-intentioned-but-uninformed person could possibly make. And I continued making mistakes with her throughout her life, but she liked me anyway. Some days I wasn't entirely sure why. But it was her patience and devotion and occasional conniving ways (think 'old age and treachery') which gave me the skillset, patience and confidence to go work with the bigger, sometimes easier Anatolians.
Last night I didn't need to put the dog gate up across the kitchen door to protect against midnight raids. I didn't need to listen for the sound of dog toes tiptoeing across the living room and down the hall to sneak into the kitty litter box. I didn't need to let anyone out at midnight with a flashlight for one more potty break in the rain, and there was no one waiting patiently in front of the heater this morning, looking forward to that first welcome burst of warm air. The house is entirely too quiet, despite the presence of four whiny, self-absorbed, spoiled, utterly psycho cats. I still have little dust bunnies of black fur in various corners of the house, which would magically re-appear within hours of vacuuming. I actually debated with myself whether I should leave them there. And I can wash for the last time the doggie towel that has lived by the back door, waiting to dry off the black dog as she comes in from the rain. It's been 15 years that we've had a dog in the house. I'm not entirely sure what to do with a dog-sized hole in the universe. But I take comfort from the idea that she's running and playing now with all our departed friends.
We may bring one of our outside doggies inside. Or we might experiment with having a dog-free house. Keeping up with housework and laundry would certainly be easier. But I think one of the things I'll miss the very most is coming home from being out and about, and going in to the bedroom, to see that our deaf old dog had pushed open the bedroom door yet again and was fast asleep on our bed, so that she could be near us even when we weren't home.
I told her spirit last night to come back from the great beyond and give me a hard bite whenever I'm about to do something stupid with one of our other dogs. But maybe she's already doing that - one of her toys was mysteriously in the hallway last night, hours after her departure, and we have no idea how it got there. And there was a suspiciously dog-sized depression on the bed at bed-time last night. Carmel, wherever you are, I hope you keep up your sneaky old-dog tricks. Please drop by to say hi once in awhile, when you're on a break from playing with all our departed friends.
2012 Feed Bill Challenge
January 1, 2012
A western Washington farm scene with traditional barns and silos, one of which is missing a roof. These silos were originally built to store feeds (typically corn or small grains) produced on the farm. The silos provided year-long storage, such that the grains could be fed out to livestock a little at a time until the next grains harvest came in. These silos are still considered an icon of American agricultural production. Yet many stand empty today, since many small-scale farmers no longer grow their own feed. Here's to having full silos again, and local farm communities who can and do produce their own feeds. Photo taken by
Sally of Chicken Dance Ranch in the Okanogan area of Washington state, where growing feeds is still a vital agricultural activity.
Here at the start of a new year, I’ve started a new project on the farm. I’m calling it the Feed Bill Challenge of 2012.
Most livestock owners are woefully aware of how big a chunk of cash it can be, to keep our furbearing farm citizens in good flesh. There’s a reason many kinds of livestock are called “hayburners”, either affectionately or otherwise. But woefully few livestock owners (myself included) have really made a dedicated effort to look for ways to cut down on that feed bill. I’ve heard more reasons for NOT doing so, than seen examples of trying to do so. And let’s be frank here. It’s easier to just go to the feed store, shell out the bucks, and load the feed than it is to get creative about cutting down on that bill. There’s also something of a social stigma about being frugal with our money. At least there used to be a stigma; nowadays that is lifting somewhat for a lot of families. Or perhaps more accurately, a lot of families are looking that situation square in the eye and saying “either we cut the bills or we reduce the herd”. The former might be a challenge, but sometimes the latter is more of a challenge for a variety of reasons. So I’m definitely not the only one asking these questions. But I’m going to make my current and future feed costs public, so that folks can see exactly what we’re spending on it now, and how we find ways to reduce that cost over time. It’s going to be embarrassing, I’m sure. But I think it’ll be educational, and I really hope it paves the way for other folks to go through the same process and find their own ways to cut their particular feed bill.
Now, some ground rules:
1) The goal here is to cut the bill without reducing the nutritional intake of what we’re feeding. So simply getting cheaper feed isn’t going to cut it. I have to preserve the high standard for feeding, while simultaneously cutting costs.
2) Another of our goals, which I’ve written about before, is to eventually raise our own feed. So the feeds that we use must be feeds that we can ultimately, cost effectively, grow ourselves.
3) That leads to a third issue - we want to really point out the fallacy of relying on feeds that are grown far away. Small grains were once produced here in profusion to feed our nationally-known dairy herds. Yet the advent of cheap transit resulted in those small grains being grown elsewhere. Now hardly anyone here is growing small grains, let alone teaching other folks how it’s done. While feeds produced in the grain belt might be “affordable” in the sense of bulk purchasing, they are NOT affordable in terms of the distance they travel and all the infrastructure that must be supported to enable that transit. That practice has also led to the loss of the local knowledge base for how to successfully grow fodder crops. By focusing our attention on locally grown feeds, we support not only those growers, but also that collection of local know-how.
Now, in the category of how to cut costs, we have several different options to pursue:
1) reduce the amount actually fed out - this can be accomplished by reducing waste either before or during feeding (for instance, hay spoiled because it’s been rained on or trampled underfoot), choosing feeds that offer greater utilization when ingested (for instance, using sunflower seeds as a potent source of both protein and fats, rather than buying in separate forms of both protein and fat), or using feeders that encourage healthy feeding behaviors without also inspiring “food stealing” between animals, such that some animals get too much.
2) Find cheaper ways to buy feeds - this is where I think we’ll make some of our biggest strides right away. Buying feed by the bag at the feed store is THE most expensive way to feed an animal ever invented. We’re paying the ultimate retail price for something that is raised as a commodity. Simply buying in bulk direct from the grower can save dramatically over buying the same thing, in small quantities, from the local feed store.
3) Find cheaper ways to bring home and store feeds - right now we’re going to the feed store 2-3 times a week, and making a separate trip to our hay grower 2 times a week. That is time and energy I could be using to MAKE money, not SPEND money. Furthermore, it’s more wear and tear on a vehicle which I need to maintain. So finding ways to move more feed per trip, cost effectively, is on the list. Even harvesting our own feed, which we only dabbled with last year, involves planting, soil-working, and harvesting equipment. While we will save money to put up our own hay rather than buy it in during 2012, we can save even more money by having our animals do as much of the planting, cultivating and harvesting work as possible. This gets into rotational grazing management, which will require its own investment of time and effort. But most of the folks we’ve talked to can show a very definite savings over the costs associated with conventional tillage and harvesting.
4) Find cheaper ways to grow feeds - One of the core concepts for sustainable farming is the notion that we should be finding ways for plants to grow in ways that keep them, and us, happy. For instance, putting alfalfa in a cold damp climate, then driving off pest and disease issues with tanks of chemicals, is not sustainable. Planting a locally-appropriate clover in that same field might give lower overall yields, but it won’t require the same costly intensive care to bring to harvest. At the end of the day, that lower yielding clover might be cheaper to feed and healthier for the animals, for us, and for the local soils and waterways since we won’t have to use such harsh chemicals just to bring it to harvest.
5) Find cheaper ways to provide feeds from year to year. Many of our most popular feeds are annuals - sunflowers, corn, soy, most small grains, and fodder roots such as mangels. Many growers simply buy in the seed they need for each growing season. Can’t beat that convenience, but it’s costly. It also leaves us vulnerable to the whims of the various seed companies - if we love one of their varieties, and they discontinue it, where does that leave us? Saving seed such that we can harvest one year to plant the next will take some fodder growing areas out of production, at least in terms of this year’s harvest. But it’ll reduce the overall cost of feed next year because those seeds won’t need to be bought in. Furthermore, many livestock species can make much better use of either wild or cultivated perennials. Permanent pastures, wild self-seeding forbs, either wild or cultivated hedges and lees, and cut-and-come-again type plantings can give us months if not years’ worth of feed value, where before we’d just harvest the whole thing and be done.
This will be an ongoing process, this business of cutting down on the feed bill. And I’m sure there are some categories/methods which I haven’t even thought of yet. But it’s a worthy pursuit, because it makes improvements on so many levels to our operation. Stay tuned, Dear Reader, as we move forward with this project. I’ll post our January feed costs at the end of this month as our “starting point”, then each month or so I’ll talk about a different approach for reducing that cost. At the end of the year, I’ll compare what we used to pay for feed, with what we’re paying for feed after those various changes have been made. I don’t know where we’ll end up, but I’m aiming for at least a 10% reduction in feed costs per head. Here’s hoping that we not only meet and surpass that goal, but also that we inspire others to take the Feed Bill Challenge with us.
Getting Our Hands Dirty
December 24, 2011
A very nice clean carburetor from a Ford N-series tractor, from MyFordTractors.com. That website, along with Yesterday's Tractors and others like it, make tractor maintenance a lot easier than it would have been prior to the internet. Some might think it bizarre that such recent tools as the internet would make maintenance of these older machines so much easier. Yet information and parts for these old machines has never been easier to access as it is now. For those who love old tractors and implements, whether for show, for nostalgia or for day to day production, these websites are treasure troves of information.
I recently talked about our recent acquisition of an old but sturdy little Ford 9N tractor, which needed some relatively minor work to get up and running again. Since then, I’ve been working on cleaning and rebuilding her carburetor, which was Task #1 for getting her running strong again. That task was one part tedium and one part science project, as I read through several different guides for rebuilding those old carburetors. Happily, the carb rebuild went pretty well, with only two of the numerous jets proving to be difficult to remove. I was able to disassemble, clean and reassemble the rest. Nevertheless, those two jets had to come out and be replaced. So we spent the day yesterday at our mechanic’s shop, learning a few new tricks for getting old jets out of their gunked up threads.
Our afternoon with our mechanic buddy continued to be fruitful, as we reinstalled the carb and continued our troubleshooting work on the 9N’s reluctant engine. We had already cleaned the points on the distributor cap, and now we had a clean carburetor. So why wasn’t the engine running? We tested every spark plug and had good strong regular sparks to every cylinder, and the spark plugs were firing in the correct order. During the moments when the engine ran, we had good compression and a regular rhythm, without any sounds of valves stuck closed or fluttering from excessive wear. What else could it be? Finally, we all looked at each other with a simultaneous moment of “aha!” We opened up the fuel line, and found two things. First, the fuel line itself was apparently plugged with numerous small bits of gunk which resulted in irregular flow to the carb. Secondly, the gas had that characteristically cloudy appearance of stale fuel. Our gas was chemically incapable of burning within the cylinders. But perhaps the worst of all, the tractor's long period of inactivity allowed minute traces of water in the gas to evaporate out, coating the interiors of the tank and fuel lines. Our little tractor needed her pipes cleaned.
Just to test our theory, we ran a flexible tube from a fresh can of gas and fed it directly into the carb intake port. We flushed the cylinders with fresh gas, then turned the engine over again. Our old tractor roared to life and began to purr like a very happy kitten. We had found the problem. We ran her for quite a while from that fresh batch of gas, which helped to flush out any bits of gunk which had passed through the curburetor. I even drove her around a little, with my husband walking alongside holding her fresh gas supply and tube like some sort of IV. Her gears were nice and tight, the brakes braked, the steering steered and everything worked the way it was supposed to. It was a glorious moment. After we ran out of that small batch of clean new gas, we parked her again and went about removing the gas tank for a thorough draining and cleaning. I expect after we get the tank and lines cleaned and reinstalled, then fill our old gal with new fuel, she’ll be the reliable little worker she was designed to be.
Our day was an excellent introduction to the realities of life with farm equipment. Mechanical maintenance and repairs are an ongoing issue within farm management. Every farmer dreads the idea that they’ll be mid-cultivation, mid-planting or mid-harvest, only to suffer a mechanical breakdown. Mechanical function (or the lack thereof) can mean the difference between a bountiful versus failed harvest, particularly for those farmers who are racing to get some task done before nightfall, bad weather or whatever other deadline. Farmers are, understandably, renowned for their mechanical know-how. Yet in recent years that skill-set has been challenged by machines which are dramatically more complex, and more frequently designed to be repaired by a dealer rather than in the farm workshop. When we were shopping for haymaking equipment last summer, one of the biggest recommendations from everyone we spoke to was to find a really good mechanic, because mowers and balers in particular had become so complex. Given that our haymaking window of opportunity can sometimes be measured in mere hours, that mechanical know-how was crucial.
Yet I question the wisdom of getting ever more complex machines which are ever more complex and expensive to fix. That would seem to make timely field operations more difficult to guarantee, rather than more reliable. One of the reasons we went with an older tractor was because we wanted to be able to maintain her ourselves as much as possible, and to limit the costs when something went wrong. For this first foray into the guts of a non-working machine, we were definitely out of practice with our diagnostics. But as our mechanic walked us through the steps he was taking, our previous experience with basic engine know-how came back surprisingly quickly. We were able to keep up with what he was doing and why. Add a few repair and maintenance manuals, and we’re doing most of these repairs now on our own with just the occasional hint or suggestion from the mechanic. While our learning curve for farm equipment is definitely still rather steep, at least we don’t need to go to some intensive factory training seminar to be able to rebuild something.
We knew getting the tractor would bring with it a whole raft of new responsibilities - assessing which parts and systems are in good shape, versus which parts should be replaced, how to find replacement parts, and how to do as much of the work ourselves as possible. In addition, each field operation (at least for now) includes doing functional checks prior to those operations, to ensure the tractor and implements are ready for the task. Furthermore, it means we need to study yet one more topic on top of everything else we already keep track of. It’s not a small task. Anyone doing work on these machines must have both theoretical and practical information about a lot of different systems (combustion, ignition, transmission, electrical, hydraulics, brakes, PTO, etc etc). That education doesn’t come quickly or easily. Many very wise folks suggested that we hire out any tractor work, or rent a newer tractor, rather than buying equipment (particularly such old equipment). There may be days when we recall that advice and think “yea, we should have.” But there is something very satisfying with having our own equipment, having it be basic enough to maintain and repair at least some things ourselves, and taking the time to learn how to do those tasks well. Yes, it’s one more thing on an already busy dance card. But this is another step towards having a truly self-sufficient farm, where we don’t need to hire specialists to get some job done. More to the point, it was the only tractor we could realistically afford. Having the tractor, even an old one, beats doing the same task by hand. No, it’s not perfect - we still need to buy fuel and oil and replacement parts. So maybe instead of one huge leap forward, it’s a few long strides. Still, it’s a move forward. And that’s movement in the right direction.
Winter Growing and Harvesting
December 17, 2011
This photo of frost-covered parsley is from a wonderful blog entry entitled Harvest Winter Greens, on a blog called Throwback at Trapper Creek, written by an author using the pseudonym "MatronOfHusbandry". She writes passionately about four season harvesting and other small-scale farming and self-reliance topics.
We recently began a fairly involved series on the website about how to expand the growing season, which you can read about here. At this time of year, that topic naturally leads folks to wondering about true four-season growing and/or harvesting. Is that possible? Can we actually grow and harvest crops all year around? The short answer is yes, we can. The much more involved answer is: it depends on how much effort you want to put into it. But even there, growers have some options.
There are three issues when growing and harvesting in winter:
1) what temp is the air
2) what temp is the soil
3) how much light is available
Let’s look at those three topics, one at a time.
Air temps are a fairly obvious variable, since we are already painfully familiar with the damage that frost can do to our plantings. Furthermore, many plants will grow very slowly, or not at all, if the air temps are below their preferred temperature zone. Most so-called cool season plants are perfectly comfortable when air temps are between 35F - 45F, but they won’t actually be growing. There is also the issue of daytime/nighttime air temperatures, with some plants appreciating cooler nighttime temperatures. If growing during winter hours, either indoors or outdoors, air temps of at least 45F during the day, and at least 35F at night, and a temperature drop of at least 5F between daytime and nighttime, are probably decent targets for growing conditions.
Soil temperatures, however, are a whole different topic. Here is where folks can actually get into some trouble if they’re not careful, yet even moderate effort yields big results. Soil temperatures are much less variable than air temperatures, and under certain conditions, soil temps are actually easier to control than air temps. This is because "air" as a substance is very hard to warm up and keep warm over time. Soil, however, is much more dense, so it conducts heat much more readily. If that heat can be controlled, growers can provide exactly the right temperatures for their plants. Happily, most plants are very comfortable at soil temperatures which are relatively easy to provide - 50F to 60F is ideal for most garden and crop-type plants. Interestingly enough, soil temps can make a bigger difference to plant growth than air temps. Repeated research findings plus hundreds of anecdotal results in greenhouses around the country (and world) has shown that heating the root zone to ideal temperatures can make a big difference in keeping plants happy and growing. Even when surrounding air temperatures are not similarly warm. Growers can provide an ideal situation by providing both controlled root-zone heat and moderate daytime air temps, while simply ensuring nighttime air temps stay above freezing. For instance, unheated greenhouses can warm enough during the day to raise air temps to 50-70F and keep nighttime temps above freezing. If plants are raised in that climate without root zone heat, cool-season plants would be very happy but warm season plants would grow slowly if at all. But put root zone heat under warm season plants in that same greenhouse, and even tropical plants like peppers can be very happy. See our Season Extender Summary pages for more information on how to provide this extra heat in cost-effective ways.
A third issue which must also be addressed is the amount of light that’s available. Most growers readily rig up some way to provide either heated air and/or heated root zone conditions, then fail to provide sufficient light. There are two criteria for measuring light - the intensity, and the duration. Some growers will provide 24/7 lights, in the form of shoplights over the young plants, and still have growth problems. This common situation arises from several different problems - the intensity of the light (ie, the light is too dim), the duration of the light (which ironically might be too long), and even the light’s wavelength. Let’s look at intensity and wavelength first.
Typical shoplight-type fixtures use fluorescent lights which are enough for us to read by (which is what they were intended for). Yet they don’t provide enough light, and/or light in the correct wavelengths, for the growing plants. This can be remedied by using lights intended for indoor growth, namely, high intensity discharge (HID) lights typically used in hydroponics operations. Of those HID lights, metal halide bulbs are the industry standard for leafy green growth, including preliminary growth in plants destined to flower and set fruit later (such as tomatoes). Metal halide bulbs are specially formulated to release a light bright enough, and in the correct wavelengths, to provide the light needed by that vegetative growth. Some other types of light can alternately be used under some conditions. The new LED lights are very bright, run very cool (so they can be placed very close to the plants without burning them), and are extremely energy efficient. But they are still so new that their purchase price is higher than any other type of light source. The aforementioned shop lights, outfitted with full-spectrum bulbs, are an inexpensive option for germination, the first week or so of growth, and/or sprouting. They too run very cool and can be hung very close to the plants without damage. But as soon as the plants start to grow, they need a higher intensity light source. I have written extensively about HID lights elsewhere on our website. Click here to read more about this topic.
Light duration is a topic which gets into a big more plant physiology than I really want to tackle here. But suffice to say that many plants have very specific needs for certain day length and dark length. These day-length-sensitive plants need a certain amount of dark and light, to allow for correct metabolism. While the “day length sensitive” title would imply that they need a certain amount of daylight, the opposite is true - they need a certain amount of darkness every day. So the grower providing light 24/7 is making it very hard for these types of plants to grow. Again without getting specific, most garden-type vegetables need 12-16hrs of daylight, with the balance in darkness. This makes sense when we remember that sunlight provides fuel, but most growth occurs at night, AFTER that fuel is acquired. This cycle must be preserved if the plants are to grow at optimum rates, which is what all this fuss is supposed to provide. So, whatever light source you use, Dear Reader, make sure you give your plants some darkness too.
So far in this conversation we’ve talked about growth in mid-winter, which would seem to be the goal for growers who want to harvest in mid-winter (or even early spring). But growth isn't the goal - harvesting is the goal. So let's step back and ask whether there might be a way to harvest in four season. Happily for many cool-season plants, there is a MUCH easier way to harvest all year round. Namely, planting a large population of those plants in late summer and/or early autumn, letting them put on growth as the year winds down, then allowing them to go into dormancy over winter. But how does that help us? Easy - we can harvest all through the winter during their dormancy period. We just need to plant enough, early enough, to provide enough harvest material throughout whatever dormancy period our particular climate has. For instance, our region typically experiences first frost relatively late in the year - the second half of October or even early November. Yet we are far enough north that we lose daylight very quickly after equinox. So growers who plant cool-season crops in late August/early September typically has sufficient soil temps and sunlight to provide for excellent growing conditions well into mid-autumn. Just as our day-length is dropping below minimums, those plants have reached near maximum growth anyway. The trick becomes to protect those plants from the ravages of wind, driven rain, drifting snow and repeated frost. A low unheated hoophouse can go a long way towards providing all the protection those plants would need until hard extended freezes come along in late November or early December. Double-layer insulation (row covers over each row, then hoophouses over the top) can protect many plants even in a hard frost. A deep mulch can also be put over the plants, then covered with the hoophouse, to protect plants against even longer cold snaps. As long as the mulch is kept dry, it will provide excellent protection. The trick then becomes digging up/digging out the harvest. Mulches should only be used for extended cold spells, since that mulch will block the light. Even in dormancy, plants need a certain amount of light to stay alive even without growth.
For a great deal of information about growing and harvesting crops during winter, we highly recommend Eliot Coleman’s Four-Season Harvest
and The Winter Harvest Handbook . He provides wonderfully detailed information about how various cultures have grown and/or harvested throughout the year, in a variety of climates. He also provides some guidelines for how modern hobby and commercial growers can tap those methods for their own purposes. We have used his guidelines with success here, enough success that we’re expanding our winter harvesting each year. We’re not far enough along yet to offer that harvest for sale, but we can look forward to the day when we will. In any case, harvesting fresh greens, carrots, potatoes and more on Thanksgiving, Christmas or St. Valentine’s Day is a wonderful experience, even if it’s miserably cold outside. If you, Dear Reader, are even mildly interested in this approach, we encourage you to give it a try. If you follow the precautions and guidelines listed above, you too can harvest at least some crops all year round.
True Confessions
December 10, 2011
A confessional at St. Peter’s Basilica. A familiar sight for Catholics, yet a confessional might seem bizarre to others. The general principle is that “confession is good for the soul”. Not because anyone enjoys admitting that they made a mistake. Rather, because we can heal by sharing our mistakes with others, work on ways to avoid those mistakes in the future, and share what we’ve learned from the experience.
Readers who have been following the blog for awhile will recall that we seemed to drop off the face of the earth in late June of this year, only to re-emerge in early September. At that time, I wasn’t ready, willing or able to write about what had transpired during those missing months. But the time has come to give at least a little bit of info about those two events, provide some cautionary “lessons learned”, and talk about where we’re going from here. But never fear, Dear Reader. The story has a happy ending.
First off, I had a major health scare during June. I won’t say specifically what it was - to borrow a phrase from a friend, “that’s Need-To-Know Info, and folks generally don’t need to know”. I’m happy to say it was not life-threatening, but it had the definite possibility of being life-changing. We knew early in June that *something* was wrong. We just didn’t know what. It took us until late June to figure it out, then another two months to sort out the implications. During that time, there was so much physical and emotional upheaval that we basically cut everything back to a minimum. The health scare itself came and went, but all that followup bloodwork found, amongst other things, some alarming nutritional deficiencies. I was moderately low for a few things like the BComplex vitamins, very low in iron and extremely low in Vitamin D (in summertime, no less!). So I was put on a long list of dietary changes and supplements, and sent on my not-very-merry way.
Then in November I went in for another round of bloodwork. Many of those nutrients came back at OK levels thanks to the dietary changes we’d already made. However, I was still low in iron, and I was even lower than before in Vitamin D. Darnit. Up until that point I had really been hoping that the summer bloodwork was just a fluke. I was feeling better, could work a full day again without completely tuckering out, and my appetite had pretty much returned to normal. But here were the second set of results, with some numbers that were worse than the first go-round. So I got serious about the supplements, started taking extra amounts of iron and Vitamin D, changed my diet even more by adding in a lot more raw foods vs processed items, and then hoped for the best. I wasn’t sure if I’d notice any difference until the next round of blood tests.
Happily, I’ve already had two very interesting developments. First, I’m not cold anymore. I have been an extra-sweater-even-when-it’s-nice-outside sort of person, my whole life. Where folks are wearing shorts, I’ve still got on my sweatshirt or fleece vest. I always wear a hat because otherwise my head gets cold. I always wear socks (even in summertime) because my feet get cold. And I’ve almost always got cold hands. It was something of a joke amongst friends that I was never warm. But it got to be a long haul in winter when warmer temps were very far away. Yet here I was in early December, headed into the cold weather, peeling off layers and turning down the house thermostat. The other thing I noticed was better sleep and more energy. Not hyper energy like after a third cup of coffee. But rather steady energy that lasted well into the evening most days, so that I could get through evening chores without getting cranky. Ok, now I’m a believer. I’m not due for another round of bloodwork for awhile yet, but I’m pretty sure now I’m on the right track.
Lessons learned from this little six-month episode in better nutrition? Our daily food choices really, really matter. When we eat well, and I’m talking nutrient balance, not sheer intake, we can feel years younger. We heal up faster, we stay healthy when everyone else catches the latest cold, and we’re better able to surf the various waves in Life rather than being dragged under. Farmers might be the nutritionist’s worst patients. We tend to think that since we work so hard producing food, we automatically know more than anyone else about how to eat. Folks, take a long hard look in your fridge, and on your plate. The more it’s processed, the less nutrient value it has. And even the best diets might be lacking in this-or-that nutrient (or we need a tad extra for whatever reason). We made changes to our diet this year that seemed difficult at the time, but wow we feel so much better now. It really truly is worth the effort.
As if this summer’s health scare wasn’t enough, the second issue was equally overwhelming: we came to the hard realization that we weren’t bringing in enough money from my work at the other farm. In one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make in recent years, I told my farming partner at the end of June that I couldn’t continue there. I had to find other work. It was a horrible decision. She took the news very graciously, for which I’ll always be grateful. But then came the next problem - do I re-enter the off-farm workforce or try to launch things here mid-season? We agonized over that one for several weeks. Starting things up here seemed a poor choice - we had piglets on the way but precious little else ready to sell. The off-farm job seemed the wiser decision. I got far enough with the job hunt that I interviewed for several positions which would have paid well, but which also would have had me away from home for 12 hours a day. We basically would have had to shut down the farm, or at least scale back to a fraction of our current size. That is the choice faced by a lot of families today, and we sweated over that one about as much as anyone else would have. In the end I turned down those off-farm jobs. Not because we didn’t need the money, but we weren’t willing to shut everything down to get it. Things looked pretty bleak at that point.
But then, we realized we had another option. Instead of earning more to cover our current rate of spending, we opted to dramatically cut back on our spending so that we could live within our means. Where before we had simply talked about preserving our current operation versus shutting down, this third option meant looking at each part of the farm with a cold hard eye, and figuring out where we were running a cost-effective operation and where we were bleeding money. It also meant putting our household’s finances through the same scrutiny. If we could shave spending enough, that would be the same as me going back to work, without the downside of me commuting into town and being gone all day. Now that was worth some consideration.
Towards that end, we enrolled in a series of classes known as Financial Peace University, created by financial consultant Dave Ramsey. In those classes, we made huge strides in identifying how much we spend on various categories during any given month, and how that distribution compares to “healthy” spending ratios. Ratios which help build savings, eliminate debt, ensure retirement funds and allow for charitable donations. It was simultaneously refreshing and demanding to go through those classes, learn where we’d been headed off-track, and learn how to get back on-track. Happily, as part of those classes, we determined that we can definitely live within our means and keep the farm going, IF we are careful with our budgeting and spending.
We are still discussing whether or not I am going to take on some additional part-time work to help improve the budget. I made the decision earlier this year to work at another farm, in large part because our own farm wasn’t far enough along in development to provide sufficient income. We’re earning money but we’re also still under construction in many ways. That continued development costs money up front, well before we see related earnings. Furthermore, investing in labor-saving equipment such as Dorothy, will save us money in the long run but cost money up front. So we either save up and acquire those things slowly with our current earnings, or save up and acquire them faster if we have more income rolling in. That math means I’ll probably be doing at least some part-time-work in 2012. Whatever we decide about additional part-time income for me, we know now that we can live within our means, take care of emergencies that come up, and continue to build the farm into reaching its full potential. And that’s a very comforting thing to know.
So, Dear Reader, in 2012 we have our work cut out for us. Preserve the momentum we’ve built in both personal nutrition and personal finance, and use that momentum to help carry us farther along in our chosen work. For awhile this summer we really thought perhaps the farm was just too expensive for us to continue. Since then we’ve learned that letting the farm go would be even more expensive, in terms of what we’d lose and the lifestyle we’d leave behind. That simply wasn’t acceptable to either of us. So we go into 2012 with most of the same goals we already had, but a few more tools in the toolbox with which to achieve them. Not a bad place to be at all.
A New Old Friend
December 4, 2011
A very attractive Ford 9N featured on Arthurs Tractors, painted in the traditional Ford all-gray 9N color scheme. Ours isn’t nearly so pretty, having been spray-painted a gawdy silver color. Regardless of the paint scheme, the 9N is a solid little tractor which was designed to do a variety of tasks on small family farms - perfect for our tasks. For more information on the Ford 9N and the other N series tractors, please visit 9nford.com, Old Ford Tractors History page, NTractorClub.com, and n-news.com.
Yesterday we did something which I only recently decided we wouldn’t do. We bought a tractor.
Not just any tractor. A 1939 Ford 9N. Most farmers we know would laugh to learn that we had agonized over whether to get a tractor for haying and the various other tasks we have around the farm, only to end up with a tractor that is ancient by most measures, underpowered and unsophisticated when compared to most modern models. Even tractors only ten years younger feature now-standard items such as live PTO, sturdier front ends and better hydraulics. Nevertheless, here we are, owners of a new-to-us little helper with a big heart.
So why on earth would we decide to get a tractor after concluding we didn’t want one? First, you may recall my recent blog entry here about deciding that we needed haymaking equipment, and that we preferred to train up our horses rather than buy a tractor for the same job. Since that blog entry, we have spoken to several well-respected work horse trainers who have impressed upon us that our goals are achievable, but probably not in time for the 2012 haying season. Secondly, there are tasks around the farm which horses just can’t quite help us with. First and foremost on that list, ironically, is the handling and transport of horse manure, and moving the related compost materials from stall to bin to field. While manure spreaders are definitely still a valid use of living horsepower, I have never seen a good setup for using horses to strip down a barn, move raw manure to the compost bin, turn the bin, and then move the contents into the spreader. To date my shoulders and I have been the lucky workers in that particular chain of events. While I appreciate the upper body strength I’ve developed as a result, I can’t pretend that my shoulders can take that kind of workload forever. Third, there is something to be said for having any form of PTO on the farm, with wheels to bring it to wherever it’s needed.
So late at night when no one was looking, I continued the search for a tractor. I told myself that I was just “keeping my finger on the pulse of the local market”, but really I was waiting for The Perfect Machine to magically appear. It had to be that nearly impossible combination of well-equipped yet dramatically inexpensive tractor, capable of doing the work we wanted it to do yet also fitting into our very restricted budget. Up until now, I had never found a tractor that met those criteria. Then a week ago (the day after Thanksgiving to be precise), I found the Craigslist ad for a 9N with a lot of new parts, equipped with a front end loader, for a price we could deal with. I couldn’t believe my luck.
My first thought was “something is wrong with it.” I had to proceed carefully, lest wishful thinking take over. I called the seller, and asked him a lot of very specific questions. To his credit, he was honest in saying that it wasn’t currently running well, despite the new parts. He also was honest in saying that he didn’t know much about tractor engines, so he wasn’t sure what was wrong. A mechanic friend of his was able to get it running a few months prior, and it had run strong when he bought it two years ago. I consulted with a friend of ours who is a tractor mechanic by trade, and he agreed to go with us to look at it. As luck would have it, he also had the trailer we’d need to bring it home if we decided to buy it. The tractor was located on an island some distance away, and it seemed silly to drive down, look at it, and drive home again without a way to get it home. So the date was set for us to travel the 1.5hrs and one ferry ride to visit the tractor, along with the trailer we’d need if we decided to buy her. To say that I was nervous would be an understatement.
When we got there, it was a cold misty day with rain threatening. We’d already had rain off and on during the drive and during the ferry crossing to the island. But the weather held off while we checked over the tractor. Our mechanic put a practiced hand to the wheels, the steering, the gear shift, feeling for wear, rough movement and sloppy fit. So far, so good. We tried to get the engine started, and true to the owner’s word we could get her going but we couldn’t keep her running. A series of tests later, we determined that the distributor points were arcing and the carburetor was desperately in need of cleaning. We cleaned the points as best we could while standing there, and manipulated the carb’s air intake manually. We got her started, for awhile. Long enough to conclude that the engine ran strong but the problems were in ignition and fuel flow. Was it enough?
The mechanic and I conferred, and he said for her age she was really in remarkably good shape. The issues we were having were probably relatively simple to solve - a good carb cleaning and new points would probably make a world of difference. The tractor owner, again to his credit, had stayed out of our way during the two hours we’d spent working on the tractor. He was patiently waiting in the house for us to make our decision. But finally the decision came to me - offer him his asking price, offer him a reduced price, or say “no thanks”? Our mechanic suggested that the asking price was already well below market value, and the new parts could easily pay for the time required to work on the carb and distributor. He suggested I knock a certain amount off the asking price since she wasn’t running well, but still offer most of the seller’s asking price. My husband and I agreed, that seemed to be the best course of action. The moment of truth had come.
My husband and I walked down the driveway to where the seller and his father were waiting in the house, staying out of our way. We told him of our findings, and I think I probably kicked my toe at the deck boards while I spoke, and while I worked up the nerve to offer him most, but not all, of his asking price. Then finally I said that since we couldn’t get the tractor running smoothly, yet we thought we knew what the problem was, we wanted to offer him our best-offer reduced price. The moment between my offer and his answer seemed to take forever. But in that next instant, I was very relieve to hear “Deal!” I gave him cold hard cash out of my jeans pocket, which had been staged there for that very moment. My hands were shaking and I had broken out into a sweat. But the cash changed hands and the deal was done. And then I asked him the even more obnoxious question - would he help us load it up? He laughed and said “Sure!”
Over the next hour, we pushed and pulled and coaxed and banged up knuckles but finally got the old girl loaded into our mechanic’s trailer, with only inches to spare on each side. We loaded up all the extra parts, including a carb rebuild kit and a pair of new front tires. We repacked all the gear that our mechanic (bless his heart) had brought down with him for her diagnostic session. And then we hit the road. About five minutes after we pulled out, it started to rain.
The drive home was easy enough, and we got the old girl unloaded at our mechanic’s workshop with about 20 minutes to spare before nightfall. During the ride home, we’d decided that she’d stay at the mechanic’s house while I got her carburetor cleaned up, and that we’d buy new distributor points and a resistor for her electrical system. We certainly have some work to do on our old girl.
Perhaps I need to eat a little crow for being so quick to dismiss the idea that we’d ever own a tractor. They are simply too versatile, and we have too much to do, to have dismissed the idea so quickly. It took awhile to find “the right one”. But I’m convinced after our mechanic’s very thorough check that we’ve gotten a strong little tractor who will be able to help us with our various farming and forestry work in the years to come.
PS - given that she was manufactured in 1939, the year that the classic “Wizard of Oz” came out, we have named our tractor Dorothy - a solid, likeable, humble yet ambitious American farm girl. The name seems to fit her quite well.
Giving Thanks
November 24, 2011
“We Give Thanks”, painted by Jessie Willcox Smith. This image was used by Fr. Ray Suriani for his blog posting on Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 2011. That blog entry was a writeup of his sermon given at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I the same day. He spoke of the importance of giving thanks, certainly during times of plenty but also especially during times of difficulty. Regardless of a person’s religious convictions, his blog entry was compelling, and a reminder to us all that giving thanks isn’t simply an American holiday, but rather a universal human characteristic. Visit his blog at fatherrays.blogspot.com. For information about Jessie Willcox Smith, please visit her Wikipedia entry.
A short blog this time, focusing on a topic that is applicable to every last member of humanity. Namely, the art and duty of giving thanks. Thanksgiving may be an American holiday, but every culture through time has come up with a variety of ways to say thank you - thanks to family, thanks to friends, thanks to various members and classes of society, thanks to God, Allah, Great Spirit, Earth Mother and/or whatever higher spirit a person believes in.
Countless essays have been written about the merits of gratitude, and my small contribution here will probably amount to no more than a drop in the proverbial bucket. Nevertheless, I want to humbly remind folks that none of us ever accomplish anything with help from somewhere. Supportive family and friends, research done by countless individuals throughout time, and various professions which support us by providing skills and services which we cannot ourselves provide.
So tonight I’d like to say Thank You to all the folks who have made a difference in my life - my folks, my family, my husband, his family, and our many friends scattered around the world. Our various mentors who have guided us along the way as we’ve built our farm, and who continue to answer the phone at 2am when we’ve got some crisis on our hands. The various blue-collar trades who have built and fixed and diagnosed and resurrected various appliances, vehicles, and structures in our home. The various white-collar trades who have provided expertise in health care for us and our animals, legal counsel, accounting, licensing, insurance and tax advice. I’d like to thank those who are a tad behind us on the learning curve, for asking so many great questions. Questions that we thought we knew the answer to, but which drove us to dig up more information and sometimes, new answers. I’d like to thank God for ordaining that I be born into such a wonderful family, living in a beautiful place, in what I still think is the best country in the world, and to all our friends at our congregation who are there when everything else goes sideways.
None of us have perfect lives. But everyone I know has something to be thankful for, regardless of what’s happening at any given time. I believe as long as we draw breath, we have something to be thankful for.
We would not be where we are without all these folks. Dear Reader, we invite you to look around your various lives and give Thanks to whomever has helped you along your own journey, wherever it has taken you.
Financial Health for Individuals,
Families, Farms and Nations
November 21, 2011
We’ve been taking a family financial planning class this fall, ostensibly to learn how to set financial goals, create and keep a budget, pay off all our debt, and get ourselves on the road to financial well being. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of such classes available around the country, some better than others. And before your eyes glaze over, Dear Reader, know that we initially had the same reactions you’re having now - oh, BORING. Financial planning classes have to be about as exciting as, well, watching mold grow on bread. At least that’s what we thought.
The first class we attended, a preview of the class as a whole, introduced us to a dynamic speaker who proceeded to tell us some horrible statistics - 7 out of 10 households in the United States are living from paycheck to paycheck. Only five out of 10 households are concerned about that, which means the other two households at such risk aren’t even aware of it, or have concluded it’s beyond their control. Credit card debt per household averages around $15,000, but many households go much higher than that. But it’s not just households; our nation as a whole is in even worse shape. As of this writing, our national debt and our gross domestic product both stand at about $15 trillion dollars. That’s akin to saying that a household making $50,000 a year also has $50,000 in credit card debt. In either situation, there is precious little chance to pay back the debt - we can either pay the debt or pay for everything else in life, but not both. Not simultaneously. And as we’ve seen in recent European news, that’s exactly what’s happening with other nations who have amassed such heavy debt loads.
Yet that same speaker also gave us some much happier news. Every household can change spending habits, borrowing habits, and saving habits such that this dismal pattern can be reversed. And yes we’re talking about habits - learned behaviors picked up over the years. Habits which seemed like a good idea at the time, but which later became burdensome, expensive, or downright destructive. No one needs to live in debt, even though we’ve all been taught that we should. Taught by companies and industries who then profit on that trend. No thanks. As we have been working through that course, we have learned that we do not need debt, we absolutely have the ability to achieve what we want without borrowing to do it, and it’s never too late to get going on a better road.
What does this have to do with farming?
The same mentality which has lured Americans into unprecedented borrowing, and the financial ruin that often results, is also at work within our farming and ranching communities. You’ve heard the joke about “want to make a million dollars in farming? Start off with two million dollars and wait.” Or “farming is the conversion of cash into dirt.” Or my ultimate favorite, “no one can make money at farming.” This attitude is the same attitude that has convinced us to borrow more than we can pay back. The same attitude which tells us that we can’t ever get into the black, let alone stay there. The same attitude which tells us to go into debt buying new, buying big, and buying wants instead of needs. Often only to watch it depreciate as soon as we buy it. These attitudes were not developed overnight. They were sold to us slowly, laced with the promise that we “deserved” to have these options which we couldn’t otherwise afford. But these attitudes in farming (or any industry) are just as dangerous, and just as destructive, as the per-household and national debt numbers given above. We don’t have to farm at a loss. We do, however, have to reconsider how we farm, how we budget and save and spend and earn. Just like with personal financial management, farmers and ranchers have tools at their disposal to help ensure their operations get profitable and stay that way. We just need to get over this “can’t make money at farming” mentality and start looking for ways that we can. It’s only the banks that benefit when we give up trying.
Another dangerous assumption has been that we can’t get paid for our time with farming. The vast majority of growers and livestock owners that we know, make NO attempt to pay themselves for their time. That’s absurd. Farming and ranching can be run as hobbies, purely for enjoyment. But they can also be run as businesses where everyone gets paid and there’s money in the bank at the end of the day. It’s not rocket science. But it is a new idea for a lot of farming and ranching folks who have assumed for years that it’s simply not possible.
Towards that end, we have been working here to make our operation profitable, and to share those methods with others. To be blunt, it’s been a steep learning curve. Not so much because farming itself is hard. To be certain, it has its challenges. But that’s not the real problem. There’s three issues here:
1) growing the crops and raising the livestock to be sold,
2) finding ways to sell our products in ways which keep as much money in our pockets as possible,
3) building our financial habits such that we spend less than we earn.
All three of those steps need to be in place. There’s been an inconceivably large amount of how-to articles written for the first topic. There’s been a decent amount written about the second topic. But precious few are writing about the third, thanks to this blasted national conviction that we can live beyond our means and get away with it indefinitely. Can we earn enough to cover our costs, our living expenses, and still have something to put in savings? Yes, in multiple ways, whether we’re farmers, teachers, mechanics, waiters/waitresses, factory workers, office workers, whatever. Can we earn enough to buy all the things we’ve been told we want, all at once, and then pay the interest for the rest of time? No. And that’s not just a problem with farming - that’s any job in any industry. When we live beyond our means, we reach a point where no job would earn enough. However, when we live within our means, any one of a variety of jobs would pay enough to provide the basics. It’s not the farming as a job which is at fault. It’s this “Keeping up with the Joneses” disease. As the instructor of our class has said, “Normal is ‘broke’. So why be normal?”
As we have been going through this course, we have learned what many other courses would have taught, namely, the mechanical skills for budgeting, for calculating interest (both interest paid and interest earned), the basics of saving up for large purchases, choosing financial investment options and setting up life insurance. Yet that’s not what made the difference for us. We also learned how the “industry of debt” has systematically brainwashed us over the last 60 years. Convincing us that the world can’t turn without credit cards. Until we learned that piece of the puzzle, we used credit just like everyone else. But then we "got it" - how we'd been hoodwinked into thinking we had to live this way. Once we learned that history, and those methods, we began making changes. Changes which will benefit both our household and our farming business. Changes which we encourage everyone to make, so that we can throw off the debt shackles that hold us down. And ultimately, make changes so that our great nation does not go the way of Iceland, Ireland, Portugal, Greece and all the other nations currently drowning in debt. This is America, land of the free, home of the brave, and model for how the little guy can launch a bootstrap business and succeed. Our families, our farms and ranches, and our nation need us to get back on that track. Right now. By paying off the debt we have, as fast as we can, staying out of debt from that point forward, and learning to live within our means. And by requiring our local, state and national governments to do the same. We encourage everyone to try, lest we follow those other countries into the poor house.
Debating How To Proceed
November 14, 2011
While searching for an image suitable for this blog, I found the above image from the popular Calvin & Hobbes cartoon strip. But the website I found it on was even more interesting - a site dedicated to changing the world through art. Their focus is on fiction literature rather than the non-fiction we work on here. Nevertheless, the concept was the same. We encourage you to visit Fiction4Change for more information.
As blog readers will no doubt remember, we’ve recently taken a relatively in-depth look at composting - what it is, how it’s done and what it can do for soil condition and fertility. I had planned to continue that series in this blog. And as I described in my last blog, sometimes certain topics are simply so big that they need more space than certain formats will comfortably accommodate. Turns out, composting is one of them. The bulk of materials on the topic (no pun intended) make it unwieldy to publish in the blog format. There’s just too much to talk about! So I’m going to change gears. I’m going to create a new Composting section of the website, which will give me more room and better format options for such a varied topic. I’ll move the existing compost articles, plus my additional planned articles, to that new site in the near future. In the meantime, I’m going to return to topics for the blog which I can adequately cover in this format.
I’ve also recently been mulling the future of the blog. When we started this journey together in January this year, I wanted to provide a commentary about what life is like on a small family farm. To document that life in a relaxed, humorous, yet informative format. I wanted to share why we do what we do - the joys, the frustrations, the ambitions, the limitations, the humor and the moments of revelation. I felt that the combination of factual content elsewhere on the website, plus the commentary in the blog, would be a nice balance of information.
Yet as the year has gone by, these blog entries have moved away from that commentary and towards the factual presentation of topics within sustainable agriculture, which I was already doing elsewhere in the website. The composting series was a perfect example. As we’ve already seen, there are multiple ways to address those topics. I also found myself spending more and more time researching those articles. Finally, I found myself writing longer blogs less often, rather than posting shorter blogs more frequently. I found myself wanting to get back to this blog’s original intent.
On the other hand, I have thoroughly enjoyed writing up some of the more factual blog entries. I’ve also learned a lot from the research I’ve done for some of them. And I’ve gotten some wonderful feedback from readers, particularly on some of the more involved blog entries. Farming has so many different facets, a writer could keep busy indefinitely trying to cover them all and still not be finished. So I don’t necessarily want to abandon the more factual topics, simply because they stretch the blog’s boundaries a little.
So I’m back where I started - what topics to cover in the blog? I look around at the day to day life here, the various projects and obstacles and frustrations, and I want to find a way to include you, Dear Reader, in this life somehow. I suppose the best I can do is to more carefully consider each blog’s topic, see how I can provide both the personal perspective along with the more factual elements, rather than focusing on one or the other. So that’s what I’ll try to do from here on out. Thanks for riding out these ups and downs with me as I continue to chart this course over new terrain. I’m not sure where we’ll be going next, but I’ll try to make it a worthwhile trip.
Building Our Sustainable Agriculture Knowledge
November 7, 2011
We take a breather now from our recent, in-depth review of composting (whew!), to announce an exciting new project we’re working on here.
As we’ve seen with the composting topic (amongst others), sometimes a blog simply doesn’t give us enough room. Room to fully describe a subject’s core concepts, let alone the current opportunities, controversies, tools and options related to that subject. We have explored setting up additional sections of the website to explore certain specialized topics. You can see examples of that with our sections on Season Extenders, Hydroponic Growing Mediums and High Intensive Discharge Lighting. But even that approach has certain limits on length, format, keyword searchability, portability and other issues. We have also explored creating on-going publications to cover a wide range of topics within a certain subject. Our largest effort to date in that category was our 18-month experiment in our self-published magazine called Hydroponics for Market Growers. We loved that magazine and we loved putting it together. But the ongoing costs for researching, creating, printing, distributing and marketing that magazine ultimately proved to be too much. Yet there are so many topics yet to be explored within the realm of sustainable agriculture.
So, (drumroll please), we are going to launch a new product in the coming months: a series of single-topic, comprehensive articles, ranging from 15-45 pages in length, presented as downloadable PDF documents. These articles will attempt to introduce some core concept in sustainable agriculture, explore the various scientific, economic, and social foundations for that topic, provide an up-to-date presentation of all the various opportunities, threats, tools, methods and markets for that subject, and then give readers a very well populated list of additional resources with which they can further their knowledge.
So, what sort of topics do we have in mind? This is by no means a complete list, but we believe the following subjects are large enough, complex enough, and potentially profitable enough, to be worthy of this effort:
1) Long term, cost-effective seed-saving techniques which enable gardeners and farmers to legally, scientifically and proactively produce their own seed from year to year.
2) Pastured swine production as it applies to piglet production, market hog operations and heritage breeds management.
3) Cost-effective, nutritionally complete, on-farm feed and fodder production for landowners and/or livestock owners.
4) How and why folks either succeed or fail to make money on small farms.
5) How to shift from commodities production to value-added, diversified farm management.
6) Urban agriculture as a robust source of local foods, particularly for low-income populations.
7) Permaculture and its role in modern farm and ranch management.
8) Cost-effective holistic healthcare options for livestock owners.
9) Value-added micro-dairy operations, products, regulations and options for the small-scale livestock producer.
10) Value-added on-farm meat production for the small-scale livestock producer.
11) Modern marketing channels, options, tools and challenges for the small scale producer.
12) The roles played by various local, state and federal agencies, and land grant university agencies, for farm and ranch management.
13) Predator control for livestock owners.
14) Pest control options for gardeners, farmers and other growers.
15) Livestock ownership options, challenges and techniques for urban and suburban residents.
16) The pro’s and con’s of using livestock guardian dogs in both rural and suburban settings.
Not all topics will appeal to all readers. In fact, any given reader may only be interested in a small fraction of the complete range of articles. And we may not pursue all of them. We will only be able to focus on one or two of these articles at any given time. And we’ll have to balance out the time and effort needed for each article, versus all the other projects we have going at any given time. But our aim is to provide a well-researched, well-organized, comprehensive review of these topics, such that they serve as a solid foundation for anyone who is interested. Armed with that foundation, those readers can then go forth in those subjects, knowing the issues, the options, and the additional resources. Readers will hopefully use that information to further their own goals. If these articles help readers succeed in their own goals, we will have succeeded in ours.
As you may imagine, this new project will be a major new undertaking. We may easily spend a month or more researching, creating and formatting each of these articles. It is, however, a logical progression in our ongoing attempts to provide valuable, cost-effective information to the sustainable farming and gardening communities. We invite you, Dear Reader, to consider which additional topics you would personally find valuable. We may add those proposed topics to the list of subjects to be researched.
We are currently debating whether to offer these articles for free, or to charge some small fee for their download. It’s a touchy subject. The time spent researching and compiling this information is substantial, and that is time and effort we could instead apply to other production activities. Yet, we have a philosophical commitment to providing tools and information so that all producers, everywhere, can benefit from the lessons learned by those who have gone before. As such, we want this information to be freely available. What we are tentatively going to do, as a variety of other publishers and research organizations have done, is compromise. We are planning to offer summaries of each article for free download, so that the general lessons learned are freely available to everyone. Yet we will also offer the longer, in-depth articles for a small fee, so that those who wish to have more detailed information may pay for that detail.
We hope this new ongoing project will add to and strengthen the body of information we have so far compiled. We will post updates on this new project as we make headway on each article. When these articles are ready, we’ll announce them here, on our website’s home page, and on the parent subject page for each topic. We look forward to getting started, and we hope you benefit from our efforts. Please contact us if you have suggestions or requests.
Previous Months' Blog Entries:
October, 2011 Blog Entries
September, 2011 Blog Entries
August, 2011 Blog Entries
July, 2011 Blog Entries
June, 2011 Blog Entries
May, 2011 Blog Entries
April, 2011 Blog Entries
March, 2011 Blog Entries
February, 2011 Blog Entries
January, 2011 Blog Entries
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