The Calf Named Sunday

Meet "Sunday."

She's named Sunday because she had the audacity to start dying on a Sunday.

Her mom is a 1st calf heifer and doesn't really know what to do with her, so she mostly abandoned this little calf in the weeds.

Which meant we spent most of our Sunday doing....

... this. Pumping electrolytes and milk replacer into this little one on our ONLY day of rest.

But, after all, who among us would let our ox die if he fell in a ditch on the sabbath?

Definitely necessary labor, and kind of fun labor at that, but these every-few-hour-feedings when she lives a 15 minute drive away make for a very unrestful day of rest.

Who can resist that sweet face?

This morning her mother rediscovered her. She's still far from out of the woods (she might have scours and we still haven't seen her nurse), but we'll be watching her closely.

Good luck, little Sunday.

Three Things You Probably Didn't Know About Cherry Farming

 
1. If it rains for an extended period of time when cherries are ripe, they get so full and fat on water that they can burst, causing "splits." Split fruit rots quickly and is, therefore, unmarketable. In order to dry off their fruit, many cherry farmers hire helicopters. The helicopters fly very low over each and every row of the orchard, and the wind (purportedly) blows the water off the cherries. It's outrageously expensive (hiring a private helicopter, and all), but the alternative is to lose your entire crop.

2. To be able to export cherries to other countries (including Canada), a pesticide residue test must be performed. So about a week before harvest, we collect five pounds or so of cherries and take them to the lab. They mush all of the fruit up and test for residual pesticides before we can get the go-ahead to sell.

3. The best tasting fruit is slightly over-ripe, but you'll never get it in the grocery store because it doesn't transport well. We eat the best and sell the rest.

Cherry harvest is coming up soon. Keep us in your prayers!

Cattle Ranching: Out on the Range

Last week I mentioned an overnight business trip to check on the progress of our little herd of cattle.

Some time I'll have to tell you about the trip itself, 'cause it was a doozy! But for now...

Here is part of the ranch; the area where the cattleman works his horses.

Horses on this ranch, you see, are vital. You could die pretty easily in a rollover accident on a 4-wheeler in this range land.

Horses can carefully pick their way down these cliffs.

Other wildlife are pretty good at it, too. I heard there are bears and cougars on this ranch, but mercifully we didn't run into any of them.

This is what we came to see!

Mamas and babies are pretty well bonded.

The calves are chubby and fat.

Coats are sleek and shiny.

Lookin' good, sir.

We'll stay away from those!

Yep... everything looks good!

Date With Fate

Poor Ofelia, our dry milk cow.

She is going to be preg tested this Friday.

The results of her test will determine whether I clean out my freezer or call to cancel her butcher appointment on November 29th.

She's such a cute cow, and she has a lot of personality. It will be dreadfully sad, but a milk cow who can't have calves (and thus produce milk) is a useless eater on a farm.

Sometimes farmy life isn't much fun.

A Countrified Business Trip

I'm on an overnight business trip right now.

No presentations, no Power Point slides, no high-powered meetings, no executive dinners, no convention centers, no training, no networking, no conferences...

...we're checking on the state of our cattle.

As such, I'm riding on a four-wheeler with my husband in ranch land country, looking for our little herd and noting observations of cow and calf health in the herd book.

Our luxury suite for this business trip? A trailer on the ranch man's land with no electricity.

Does life get any neater?

Pre Cherry Harvest Checklist

Print bin labels
Make employee ID cards
File and enter employee applications into Harvest Database
Weed-eat around the scales
Clean out weigh shacks
Flag the orchard (for which trees to skip)
Make menu plan and go shopping for harvest meals
Tweak Harvest computer program
Clean out water jugs
Schedule employee training and safety meeting
Go to Confession

There are 47 other items on the family's collective to-do list, but this is a fair sampling.

God willing and the rain don't come, we'll start picking sometime this week.

Chickens: New Life, Death, Sickness

There are 25 fat happy fluffy chicks running around in their spacious brooder right now. Little fuzzballs of cuteness.

But we got 27 in the mail on Sunday.

One of the chicks was sprawled out this morning, appearing to be breathing her last. I couldn't bear to watch the tiny creature suffer, so I asked my husband to hasten her departure. Poor little dear.

Another of the chicks seems to have epilepsy. She convulses every few minutes and can't walk straight. She backs up and stumbles along without seeming to be able to control her neck and then drops down and has a seizure, shrieking loudly all the while. But she eats and drinks fine. I read that force feeding Vitamins B & E can help this.

There's a "bird man" in our town. He's usually sitting outside on the ground with chickens on his head, shoulders, and in his lap. He has some geese, turkeys and ducks as well.

I've spoken with him before (last year before we got chickens and I needed some advice), and he's a fascinating man. Poultry are his life.

Riding in the front seat of my husband's pickup right now is one very sick little epileptic Barred Rock chick. If she has any hope of making it, it now lies with the "bird man" taking her under his wing, so to speak.

I don't remember this sort of thing happening on Little House on the Prairie.

*Update* The "bird man" happily took her and said, "Sure, I'll care for the little one." God bless him.

Baked Chick?

Last night at 10:30pm we went to the post office in town and picked up a batch of 27 fluffy chicks.

The time has come to replace the old flock; they're eating almost as many eggs as we are.

But the chicks weren't supposed to arrive until today, so I wasn't quite prepared for them. Our old heat lamp bulb blew out! How on earth to keep baby chicks warm all night??

Remember that little trick about raising bread? Well, it works great for an emergency brooder, as well.

The Farmy Sense of Time

When living in the big city, I used to think and plan in days, weeks, and occasionally in seasons.

"I'll come over tomorrow."

"How does Tuesday sound?"

"Let's get together next week."

"Why don't we plan that for the Fall?"


Now, I plan and think in terms of crops.

"After the hay is down sounds good."

"Let's wait until after baling."

"We'd better not start that until after cherry harvest."

"No, that's tomato canning season."

"During Huckleberry picking?? I don't think so!"

"Let's do that around applesauce time."

It's weird, granted, but I kind of like it.

Poultry Progress

Here you can see the progress of the chicken tractor. It's moved forward each day, leaving a patch of thoroughly eaten-down grass behind as the hens are treated to greener grass and fatter grubs. Supposedly the grass will grow back a lot more luxurious thanks to the mobile fertilizer.

I'm really a fan of the Barred Rock hens.

They're pretty fat and happy right now.

This chubby biddy right here lays some of the most beautiful green eggs ever.

Somebody, apparently, couldn't quite make it to the nesting boxes in time. I wonder who it was...?

I won't name any names, but I have my suspicions.

Bad Day to be a Rodent

Meet Twiggy.

Hello, Twiggy.

Twiggy was a brand new cherry tree planted last year. He was carefully planted, watered, pruned, and painted (to indicate which variety; Twiggy was a Chelan).

But it was curtains for Twiggy.

Under that healthy veneer of shiny bark and lanky limbs was a dead tree.

Twiggy has no roots.

Not a single root. You just had to look at him the wrong way and he fell over; no support or taproot underground whatsoever.

Twiggy was a victim of the sneaky silent crop killer: The Gopher.

The Gopher tunnels around underground looking for a free buffet. Tender tree roots are a popular salad variety for this voracious vermin.

Twiggy and 200 defenseless companions were claimed by The Gopher this year.

Retribution will be hard and swift.

If you're a gopher, be forewarned. Your days on this farm are numbered.

Flying Around the Farm

I'd like to take you on a little flying tour of the farm...

The Robins are everywhere.

So are the Magpies, but they're a little camera shy.

Here is one fat little Quail... a whole covey just flew away.

This sweet little bird and his mate are soaking in the warm sun and eating the first of the Spring grasses.

This little guy is the crown jewel. I'm not sure... Western Meadowlark?

This is as close as we can get to him.

This concludes our flying tour. Goodnight!

My Favorite New March Tradition

Right now... my fifth grade niece is doing Spelling and is lamenting the fact that the entire 3rd grade (her little sister) is home sick. I'm sitting back, happily surveying the fruits of my weekend labor: a tidy house.

This weekend... was exquisite.

On Friday, the Solemnity of the Incarnation, I received a revelation during Mass.

I'd had a nightmare the night before, a recurring one that happens whenever I feel like my life is going too fast and is utterly out of my control (I had them most often during my senior year of college). In the dream I'm in a car, careening downhill with no brakes. I guess I was stressing a lot more than I realized about this whole land/house situation and so on Friday morning I took it to God in Mass.

I wasn't really expecting any answers, only hoping for some peace, but when I asked in prayer the answer came back very clearly: "Trust your husband. I will guide him."

What a relief!! What a burden lifted!! Isn't marriage incredible!? I don't have to bear the weight of this decision alone -- in fact I don't have to bear it at all, I just have to follow my husband's lead.

Yay!

Also on Friday I saw on Facebook, "For those of you who are Lord of the Rings nerds, happy Anniversary of the Destruction of the Ring." LotR nerd? That's me. So my husband took me out for (yes, for all of my "real food" convictions, I keep an 85/15 diet -- 85% good whole real food, 15% 'cause I want it food) fast food burgers and curly fries. When we got home we polished off some homemade ice cream in root beer floats and settled in to watch the Extended Edition of Return of the King. We split the nearly-four-hour movie between two nights, but I think we'll have to make this a tradition; it was just too fun.

On Saturday it was all work out at the farm. But more on that later this week.

Sunday was one of the most glorious of recent memory. I love my life.

Some plans for this week: I really want to learn how to make cheese. Swiss, Gouda, cheddar, Muenster, Havarti, Colby, Mozzarella, Pepper Jack...? Add "smoked" before any one of those and come to mama!

If I get some time for myself, I want to... get a haircut. Maybe. I haven't had one since my lovely locks were butchered in October of 2007. It was right before I presented my first academic paper at a Philosophy conference, and I was mortified when the stylist cut my hair like a man's. Anyway, I've never trusted scissors near my head since. My tresses actually look very nice when I take the time to style them, but Summer is coming and to avoid the fate of the teeny-bopper ponytail, the time has come to remove the temptation and whack off my hair... and maybe get some bangs?

Special prayer intentions for this week: for Nadja's son, and for my baby nephew.


Something that makes me smile: Something, or someone?

Happy sigh.

Chicken Smack Talk

Greedy biddies were waiting on the ground beneath a hen in the nesting box as she was about to lay an egg for them.

My husband intercepted the pass and caught the egg mid-air.

Eat that cannibal chickens!

Oh Stupid Chickens, Who Hath Bewitched Thee?

I may or may not have mentioned that lately our egg production has dropped off severely. We were getting about eighteen eggs a day. Now we're averaging nine.

Why? I suppose they wondered why we were harvesting the fruits of their labor and decided to give them a try. Lo and behold, chickens love eating eggs. Filthy little cannibals.

I didn't know this about chickens before we had them. There were a lot of things I didn't know about chickens before we had them. But I do know that I will never again feel bad about eating the grody creatures. They deserve to be eaten and good riddance.

Case in point: my husband spent many hours away from farm duties to rig up a system to prevent their poaching. Pulleys, trap doors, pipes, gravity systems; it would have made Rube Goldberg proud. For about one week our problems were solved. The eggs would roll to the back of the laying boxes, out of harm's way, or else drop through a hole into a padded bucket below. Voila.

But no. Those furious little bird brains were scheming, and hatched a plot so brilliantly stupid we couldn't have anticipated it.

They now go into the egg-laying boxes head first.

With their hind ends hanging out in the breeze.

So their eggs kersplat into the coop below where a bunch of eager biddies are greedily awaiting a scrambled egg breakfast.

I hate chickens.

On The Eve of Liberation

Sad sad news.

We're down to 25 chickens and a rooster.

Poor Clucky. On the eve of liberation (the great move to the chicken coop), one of our Rhode Island Red hens up and squawked her last squawk.

(This is not her. This is a public domain image of a Rhode Island Red hen. But she looked just like this.)

I don't know why she died, but her timing couldn't have been more tragic, nor more ironic. If she could've held out one more day, at least she would have known the bliss of a single day on a spacious grassy field. Alas, she's buried a few yards under it now.

R.I.P., Clucky.

Part 2 of 2: An Ugly But Real Look into Organic Farming

Yesterday I wrote about what I observed at a large conference about pesticides, and some of the abuses that go on in organic farming. But despite all that I said, yesterday, I don't point the finger at the farmers. Perhaps I'm biased because I'm married to a farmer and into a farming family (who use pesticides and sell to packing sheds instead of directly to the consumer), but the farmers are just trying to eke out a living.

The labor is hard. The hours are long. The risk is huge. The pay is minimal.

Farmers are not trying to poison you with pesticides! Pesticides are expensive, they're a hassle to put on, and it's not enjoyable work. Farmers are just trying to keep bugs out of your food (wormy apples, mushy maggoty cherries, aphidy lettuce, slug-infested tomatoes... sound appealing?), to keep weeds from killing their crops, and to keep fungus from wiping out their farm.

Honestly, if I have to die a year earlier in order to keep bugs out of my food, then I say so be it.

What really upsets me about all of this, though, is not the pesticides but the additional chemical sprays put on because of the demands of the consumer.

Consumers want bigger fruit, they want their fruit anytime of the year, and they want more vibrant colors.

Emma Jean decides she wants to eat fresh (not canned or frozen) tomatoes in December. Tomatoes don't grow in December. She goes to the grocery, and there they are. But in order to get there, they had to be infused with known carcinogenic chemical gases in order to appear red.

Cherries are tiny fruit. But a big fat cherry with a crunch to it is more appealing, so growers have to bend over backward to meet the consumer's demand for huge fat red cherries. Do they naturally grow this way? No. So farmers spray their cherries with Gibberellic acid to modify the plant's natural cellular structure.

Apples should be the size of your hand. But how can you make an award winning pie with a tiny apple? Consumers want bigger apples. Growth hormones and genetic modifications are producing mammoth apples. They weigh more. The packing sheds get more money for heavier fruit. The farmer doesn't see an increased wage, because the standard is just raised and it's either use the chemical or go under when your fruit is too small. And if it's not red enough a consumer won't pick it up (taste? no difference; it's all aesthetics), so an additional chemical spray is put on to make the fruit redder.

If we wouldn't demand behemoth neon fruit and vegetables year-round (out of season), there would be drastically fewer chemicals on our food.

The same goes for our demands for fat, tender, juicy meat (which is injected with "up to 15% saline solutions" to give that effect). And milk that will last for 3 weeks. And bread that never grows mold.

So it's not fair to give one side of the story (corruption in organic farming) without showing the reasons that drive farmers to use the chemicals they do.

And that ends this two day tirade.

An Ugly But Real Look into Organic Farming

Part 1 of 2.

I spent the whole day at a Pesticide conference, today. In a room of almost one thousand men, I counted four women. What the heck was I doing there? My father-in-law has to go once a year to these events to keep his license to buy pesticides, and I asked if I could come along. I wanted an inside scoop on these companies, and was hoping to come away with a greater knowledge of their products and applications (and, yes... perhaps a little ammunition).

While I wasn't able to dig up much dirt on the pesticide companies or big agribusiness growers, my eyes were opened wide to the reality in the fields of "organic farming."

Tale after tale (at the lunch tables in casual conversation with real "organic farmers") of guys skirting regulations, finding loopholes, mocking protocols, and freely admitting that there's a way around a lot of rules. The "organic" apples you pay an extra $3 a pound for may have a lot more exposure to toxic chemicals than you think.

A few more eye openers:

1. One thing that I didn't realize, but probably should have:  "organic" does not mean "no chemical" or "no spray." In fact, "organic" fruits and vegetables are allowed more spraying than "conventional," because the permitted chemicals are not strong enough actually to kill pests and prevent diseases. To compensate for the abysmal effectiveness, additional sprayings of the weaker chemicals are permitted.

2. The same chemical companies that make the organic sprays are making the "conventional" pesticides. I don't know why I assumed they were two separate entities, but it seems to me the equivalent of Coke making Pepsi, or sugar manufacturers making diabetic supplies. How can one company pour research and investments into two diametrically opposed ventures? Is it a conflict of interests?

3. A lot of the organic farmers are in it simply for the money (although the farmers themselves really aren't making as much money as the fruit and vegetable packing companies are), and do not espouse the same principles as the consumers who pay through the teeth for their product. What this means is, they're not really interested in making sure that your food is free of chemical toxins, your streams are free of pollutants, that their practices are sustainable and build up the soil rather than depleting it. So if they can get away with using a few more pesticides, using contaminated equipment, skirting regulations and getting an edge, they're going to do it.

I'm not saying they're bad guys; it's tough to make a living in farming!!

But I am saying that based upon what I saw today, I would say that it's not worth it to pay extra money and trust implicitly in the government's ability to regulate, legislate, and monitor the "organic" label, because abuses are widescale.

So what is a person to do?

1. If you can grow it yourself, then do. This is the only way, truly, to know what's going into your food. If you're not the gardening type, go in with a few friends and offer to pay for seeds and help preserve the harvest (canning, pickling, lacto-fermenting, freezing, etc.).

2. Build up a rapport with a local farmer or hobby farmer at the farmer's market: ask questions. People selling at a farmer's market are a lot more likely to share your ideas on these sorts of things than the mass-scale farmers who sell to grocers. Plus, you're supporting the local guy.

Hm... I guess it's time for me to go peruse those seed catalogs again.

To be continued tomorrow.

THE EAGLE HAS LANDED!

26 hens (+1 rooster). Hundreds of $$. Hours of labor. 15 bags of feed. 5 1/2 months.

2 eggs.

But aren't they pretty?!!

Cows & Guiltless Baltimore Catechisms

Right Now... 9:15am. The girls will be getting here in a few minutes, and I'm giddily happy because my house is clean! And I went to Mass this morning! And ate a delicious breakfast! Getting up early can be wonderful.

I've had two unexpected visitors this morning and didn't panic! I was actually proud to show off my clean house to the surprise inspectors.

This Weekend... I found out our milk cow, Ofelia, does not in fact have a calf inside. Nobody knows where it went; she was definitely pregnant in May. So we've been waiting in vain. What to do? I don't want to wait another 9+ months, so I think we'll sell her and try to buy a cow in milk.

On Saturday I was invited, for the first time since I've lived here, to a party that wasn't hosted by a family member. Young faithful Catholics who are fun to be around? They do exist! Yay!!

On Saturday I also hopped back on the FlyLady bandwagon. Oops. I used to read the testimonials and wonder how or why people ever got off of it, because an ordered house and an ordered life is so beautiful and fulling. Then my dishwasher broke. As soon as my kitchen was dirty, the rest of the house fell apart and I even started sleeping in.

This weekend my sweet husband did all of the dishes and wiped down the counters. When I saw a clean kitchen, the burden was lifted and I went on a rampage around the rest of the house. I found a book I had thought someone had borrowed without returning, I found my bag of birthday beef jerky that I'd hidden so well I couldn't find it myself, and I found a bill or two that needed to be paid.

And this morning, for the first time in a few months, I was able to look at this without feeling guilty:

Some Plans for the Week... helping with the high school lock-in at the parish on Wednesday... knitting lessons on Friday! I'm so excited about that! It's time to expand my knitting skillz beyond the simple scarf.

I also intend to grind some more wheat and get in a little more baking. It's lovely to have enough freezer space to bake ahead.

If I Get Some Time for Myself, I Want to... finish making a few Christmas gifts. Oh, how I wish I could give details and tutorials, but some of the recipients read this. Alas.

Some Prayer Intentions for this Week... for healing for my mom's eye. And for the niece of a dear friend, whose waywardness knows no bounds; conversion, dear Lord!

Something That Makes Me Smile: my shiny clean house, and a generous selfless husband who helped make it possible.

Read others' Monday Musings and share your own; hosted by the lovely, Nadja, at Patch O' Dirt Farm.