reflections on a film & farming

This evening, I will be participating in a panel discussion after a screening of the film A Farm for the Future.  Below is a link to the first 10 minute segment of the film.  (The film is about 50 minutes total and can be found either in segments here or in its entirety here.)  I first discovered this film several months ago in my online ramblings, and I've been thinking about it ever since.  I was thrilled and honored to be asked to participate in the event (find event info here).  

Aside from being located in New York instead of the UK, my family farm is very similar to Rebecca Hoskin's family farm.  On both farms, livestock is being raised on pasture.  Both farms have some degree of diversification amongst the domesticated species (on hers, cows and sheep; on ours, cows, hogs and chickens, with sheep coming soon - hoorah!).  Both farms have space for grazing as well as space for nature; pastures, hayfields, tillable ground, woodlots, natural meadows, swamps.  And both farms absolutely depend upon tractors, and thereby on fossil fuels, to harvest, bale and bring home the winter's supply of hay.  On our farm, we're also growing the grains which we use to make feed for our hogs and chickens - another completely fuel-dependent endeavor.  Like Rebecca, I have done a great deal of research into alternative methods of farming, and, like Rebecca, I worry about how my farm will manage to change and adapt to a range of changing conditions in the future (climate and fuel availability chief among them).

At this point, I have more questions in my head than answers.  I'll be experimenting with no-till vegetable growing come Spring, and I look forward to putting my team of light draft horses back to meaningful work.  I'm interested by the principles of permaculture and biodynamics.  But making hay for 75 head of cattle, by hand?  Planting, cultivating and harvesting grains for a few hundred hogs and several hundred chickens, by hand?  Even adding two small draft horses into the mix, these things, on their current scale, I know are not possible.  So where do we go from here?  Of one thing I am absolutely sure; humans are wonderfully adaptive, and have an unlimited capacity for creativity and resourcefulness.  The history of farming stretches back into the far reaches of the recorded - and unrecorded - human journey.  The history of conventional, petroleum and petrochemical-based farming?  Just a blip in the timeline of our existence on this planet.  Given our innate human abilities and gifts, we can and will adapt as our reality changes around us.  The real keys right now are to preserve the land needed for growing food, to work to preserve and restore the natural fertility of that land, and to preserve and share the skills needed to coax food out of the earth.  

It is fascinating to me to watch the trend of farming take hold.  As Rebecca's father says, we're glorified lavatory attendants, and this career is trendy?  Coincidental with the rise of the Small Farm is a widespread return to traditional pursuits and crafts - gardening, putting food by, beekeeping, knitting, sewing - creating one's own essentials.  Perhaps like wild animals preparing in advance for a long and hard winter, we are feeling drawn to skills that may once again be essential.  

So in the end, for me, it all boils down to this: farming matters.

extracting

Thanks entirely to my mother's help with Thatcher and Greta, I was able to get my honey extracted yesterday afternoon.  I had two full hours without any interruptions AND bright warm sunshine to keep things flowing.  Perfect!  The first job is to uncap the frames.  After the bees have filled each cell with honey, they top it with a little wax cap.  This cap prevents the honey from absorbing moisture which would cause it to ferment and spoil.  So, to get the honey out, the cappings must be removed.  I use a heated electric uncapping knife for this job. 

Sun shines through an uncapped frame full of honey.

Next, the frames are loaded into the extractor (a centrifuge specifically designed to hold frames of honey).  The extractor spins the frames, flinging the honey out of honeycomb and onto the walls of the extractor. From there, the honey runs down the walls to the spigot.  Allowing the extractor to sit in the sun for several hours prior to extraction helps hugely with getting every last drop of honey into the bucket waiting below.  Yesterday, I also pre-heated the frames by leaving them in my car for a few hours.  One piece of advice I received early on in my beekeeping adventure: don't try to extract cold honey.  The old saying about being slow as molasses on a cold day?  True for honey, too.

This is what it's all about.

Totally raw and unfiltered honey straight from the hives.  This will get poured through one rough filter just to remove the bigger bits of wax, but that is the only processing it will receive.

Here are the uncappings which were cut off the frames in the first step.  This messy looking pile will turn into beautiful beeswax after a bit of heating and straining.

At the end of the day, the harvest for this year was a whopping 34 pounds.  From two hives.  In a good year, it is possible to extract 100 to 150 pounds of honey from one hive.  This small amount of honey will be sold out within the next few weeks, and I won't have more honey to bring to the markets until this time next year.  So I will hope for a better season in 2012, and in the meantime I am going to forge ahead with my plan to add more hives.   

To all of my hard working bees:  I was not the most attentive steward this year, but you still managed to provide the farm with honey to sell.  Thank you.

fare thee well, summer

Today is the Autumnal Equinox, and so begins my favorite season of the year!  In honor of the day (because there must be a reason), Craig and I both overslept this morning, so now there is a great deal to get done in not quite so many hours...  I'll leave you with one photo today, celebrating Summer.  Be well, my friends!  And be sure to visit your local farmers' markets this weekend!  

out & about

While harvesting the honey from the hives, I noticed that the female worker bees are already kicking the male drones out for the winter.  A sure sign of the coming season.  Here is one rather large drone I found hanging about at the base of one of the hives.  I can't help but feel a bit bad for the poor sods, although they've done basically nothing all season.  Once kicked out, they're not allowed back in, and that's the end of the line for the drones.

Craig has been hard at work building the new fences for the bigger and better designed overwintering area for the hogs.  He has made much larger paddocks with a wider laneway and added a gate system that makes it easier to shuffle around the sows and boars.

Spotty's piglets are getting huge!  Soon, they'll be ready for weaning.

Do you see this one piglet?  Her rear end might be hanging in mid-air, yet it makes no matter to her, up front she was nursing away.  Watching this group jostle for position at the teats was like watching a rugby match.  Isn't it called a scrum when everyone dives for the ball at once?  Exactly what it looked like.  Yes, Spotty will be ready for some alone time very soon...

Mama only let this bunch nurse contentedly for a few minutes before she performed a move which I refer to as "closing up shop".  She very deliberately turned onto her belly, pinning every single teat neatly beneath her.  Enough already, you lot!

And here is Sugar's one-week-old bunch.  Much more manageable, don't you think?  Sadly, Sugar lost two piglets, but this group of ten is in great shape and, having made it through the first week, they will very likely make it through for the duration.  Knock on wood, but the first few days are generally the most precarious.

What's going on in your neck of the woods this week?

robbing my bees

I only have two active hives at the moment.  My goal is to build up to 20.  For next year, I'll increase to 10.  I've already ordered my nucs for 2012, but I was too late in the game this year to get nucs ordered in time (might have had something to do with the little girl who arrived in January - just perhaps).  I buy nucs from a beekeeper who breeds queens and raises his own bees in our area; one of his beeyards is right across the road from our farm.  I've had many years of disappointing overwintering results with bees raised in the south and trucked north in the Spring, so I have found that it is better to buy local bees.  Of course, the real goal is to not need to buy any bees.  I'm working on it.  Ten years in and I still have plenty to learn.  Anyhow, today I had about an hour window of care for both Thatcher and Greta, so I headed out to see if I could harvest any honey from my hives.

It's been yet another not-so-great honey year.  Too dry, then too wet.  Third year in a row...  I know that in my case, some of it is due to the weather, but much has to do with the fact that these bees are 100% my responsibility, and I've been more than a little remiss in my duties.  I can do the chicken & horse chores with the kids in tow, but beekeeping??  So beekeeping only happens when both kids are cared for by someone other than Mother (read: not often).  The first hive I opened had two supers, and the top super was completely empty.  Bummer.

The second super had a good amount of honey, but...

...most of the honey was in big pieces of burr comb, which makes it very difficult to extract.  So, these ladies get to keep most of what they made, and I'll start them over next Spring with fresh foundation to see if they'll be a bit more obliging about just how they draw out the comb.  All of this honey will give them a good head start on their Winter preparations.

Better luck with the next hive?  This hive has been consistently more agitated and excitable than the other, so they get a good dose of smoke, bottom and top.  If I'm just doing a quick check, I generally forego the smoker altogether.  When I'm doing a total rearrangement of their home from top to bottom and stealing the result of months of their labor?  Smoke.

This is more like it!  Well done, ladies!  Beautiful.

You can see how much my bees love Pierco foundation.  The best use I've found for this stuff so far can be seen here.  My bees keep refusing to draw it out, and I keep my ceramicist friend well supplied...

Of course I couldn't find my proper brush for this job, but hey, this one did the trick just fine!

And half-way through, my cell phone rang.  Granny Moo calling to tell me that Greta is inconsolable and Thatcher needs a nap.  So long for now, ladies!  So long and thank you!

mid-september gift

Dear old Sugar just couldn't wait any longer.  She farrowed her 12 piglets in the wee hours on the morning of our return from vacation.  We knew there was a chance this would happen, so our 19-year-old nephew was well prepared for every possible scenario, including - but not limited to - how to tell if a sow is about to farrow, what to do if anything goes wrong, and how to assist a struggling newly born piglet.  The vet's phone number was posted in several spots and was programmed into Sam and Opa's phones.  As it happened (as it generally happens, thank goodness) Sugar farrowed successfully on her own between her last check-up on Wednesday night and her dawn wake-up call on Thursday.  She's a good mother, very laid back.  She didn't mind me sitting right next to her to photograph her new brood, nor did she mind me giving a few of the piglets a tiny cuddle.  There are few things on this earth softer than a newborn piglet.

Before we were even in the car heading for home on Thursday morning, Opa called to let us know that the piglets were already scampering about outside the hut.  Just a few hours old!  Precocious little guys!

They sure know where their mother is, though.

A good mama sow, hard at work.

piglet teaser

One of yesterday's new arrivals, already outside the hut, napping in the sunshine.

I'll do a more thorough introduction to the new group of piglets tomorrow.  For now, it's back to work.  I have a farmers' market to manage and attend this afternoon, eggs to package for said market and a farrier visit after lunch.  Oh goodness - AND a car to unpack before it can be loaded up for the market.  I keep forgetting that small detail...

a w a y

We made it - off the farm, on time, without forgetting anything vital.  For just a few days, this little farm family went to the ocean.  The weather could not have been more perfect.  The beaches could not have been more empty!  Just one of the many wonders of the "off season" on Cape Cod...

Look Mama, eagles!

This was all I wanted.

Craig worked out the kinks.

And like father, like son.

One happy little baby girl!

Home again.  It was almost 80 degrees when we left the Cape yesterday morning.  And by the time we arrived back at the farm, it was a chilly 56.  All was well.  We had a sow farrow in our absence yesterday morning - 12 piglets!  Sam, our little niece, Sarah, and Opa did a wonderful job of looking after all of the animals.  The dogs were convinced they had been abandoned, but nobody else seemed to miss us too much.  In the few days since we left, Autumn has taken over from Summer.  Fine by me, really.  I certainly enjoy the charms of Summer, but Autumn and Winter are my true loves.

On the other hand, I think Greta prefers the warm beach!  We bundled up for chores.

No matter what the weather, it's good to be home.

the joy of [not] farming

Today, we're leaving.  The whole family, all together, in one vehicle.  Not since August of 2009 have we left this place as a family for a vacation.  It's time.  And she'll be in good hands.  Craig's father lives here on the farm, and has more than 60 years of farming behind him.  He'll be keeping an eye on everything, as well as making sure our nephew gets all the chores done without any problems.  Craig's brother has a dairy farm just down the road, and his son is well accustomed to the importance of getting chores done on time.  It makes us nervous to leave our farm, even in the best of hands.  But we need a break.  We're heading to the ocean.  To sand and salt water and bare feet in the waves.  

To different birds in new places.

Take care, ladies.  Behave yourselves, please!  No "testing" fences this week...

After a visit with Opa once chores were done, it was late as we walked home.  This moon was making me think about all the work we have to do, shining as it was on the frame of our hoop house.  We need to get the cover on this so we can move the chickens in for the winter.

But for now, we get to play.  Just for a few days. 

family photo

So I thought it would be a nice idea (Craig, stop rolling your eyes!) if we take a family photo every year on our anniversary, standing in the spot where we were married.  All parents more experienced with toddlers can stop laughing, OK?  Anyway, up the hill to my sister-in-law's lawn we went.  Some of us more willing than others.

At least Greta paid attention to Mama's artistic direction!  Dad?  Not so much.

Toddler on the ground.  I have a feeling the photo shoot is drawing swiftly to an end.

Better luck next year!...

four years

Happy Anniversary, my Dear.

I love you with all of my heart.

homemade feed

Finally, we get to check something off The List!  We are now making all of our own hog feed, and as soon as we have gone through our final ton of purchased chicken feed, we'll be making that ourselves, too.  This has been a goal of ours for quite a while now.  For us, this is a big deal.  Here is Craig at the Harvestore (silo) unloader, monitoring the flow of home-grown corn into the first auger.  From here, it goes through a roller mill to be ground down a bit.

I apologize for the lighting - it was a rainy day and our feed room is a bit dreary on the best of days.  Here you can (sort of) see the spout of the auger which moves the corn from the unloader to the roller mill.  From there the ground corn falls into a bin, then gets shoveled by hand into the next auger which takes the corn to the mixer.  We need a longer auger for moving the corn directly from the mill to the mixer, but the budget only goes so far, so we are making do with what we have (aka Craig & a shovel).

This big yellow piece of machinery?  That's our mixer!  Found last year on craigslist, and finally paying its keep around here...

For a half ton load, add three fifty pound bags of soy,

thirty pounds of a swine-specific mineral mix,

rotate the drum for three minutes, and out comes the feed!

Here Craig and Thatcher are parceling out the feed.

Add whey.

Mix well.  Feed to the very appreciative hogs.  Repeat twice daily.

Want some?  Sooey!!