Archive for January, 2009

January 17, 2009 – This is the Nice Day?

After a week in the deep freeze, we were all looking forward to Saturday when the temperature was forecast to approach freezing! This week in some parts of the state, the temperatures reached -40, which is cold for this neck of the woods.

But the 32 degree temperatures were tempered a bit by the wind blowing up to 50 mph, taking all of the joy out of the day (other than being thankful it wasn’t the 50 mph wind with -20).

one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #103″

January 16, 2009 – Photo Friday “Meditation”

This is a bit strange that this week’s Photo Friday theme is “meditation” and exactly a year ago, that was the topic of the blog on this day. So, I guess we’ll repeat the entry, just because!  So, here is last year’s entry repeated:

After Martin got his jammies on, he shouted down the stairs to us, “Can I meditate?”

We gave him the ok to go ahead and meditate, a bit puzzled. We wondered what a 6-year-old meant by “meditate.” We waited a while so he could do his thing alone. Finally, we couldn’t stand the mystery of what he meant by meditate (and he was quiet), so we sent Emma up to investigate. Here’s what she found!

Namaste Martin.

one year ago…”Can I Meditate?”

January 15, 2009 – New Record Low at High Hopes

The sunrise this morning brought -24.  Martin was excited to record the overnight low with his new high/low weather station.

Things are supposed to warm up over the next few days. (I’m not sure how it could get much colder!) No school again today.  As a bonus, the winds are down from the 30 mph we’ve had the last few days, so we can finally shovel/move snow and have it stay in place.

one year ago…”Sandra Steingraber Lecture”

January 14, 2009 – Snow. Wind. Cold. Repeat.

The weather reminds me of the instructions on a bottle of shampoo only instead of: Lather. Rinse. Repeat, there’s an added verse: Snow. Cold. Wind. Repeat.

Here’s a picture taken out of the kitchen window that shows the neighbor liberating the road with his industrial snow blower, blowing snow as high as the power lines. A pickup and plow were unable to punch through and the plow was tardy in arriving.

The days are starting to melt together. It seems like the only time I’m outside is on the tractor clearing snow. Schedules are all messed up – school delays, all out cancellations, early outs, I’m not sure what happened what day – it’s just an endless week of uncertainty.

Tonight is supposed to be the coldest night since we moved to the farm 13 years ago. It will be a test for our fruit trees that are supposed to be hardy to -20. We won’t find out until spring how they fared.

one year ago…”Public Hearing on Coal Plant”

January 13, 2009 – Lab Results are In

Today we got word from the lab via the vet that Nellie tested negative for rabies. So we no longer have the prospect of that treatment over our heads.

one year ago…”Getting Ready for Public Hearing”

January 12, 2009 – PFI Conference Wrap-Up Part 2/Nellie’s Gone

We had a juxtaposition of events that causes us to rethink how we do some things around the farm. Before Christmas, Nellie,  our two-year old Nubian became thin and we had her stool tested for parasites and found she was indeed in need of treatment, so we did that and she was getting her weight back on.

In this picture from just before Christmas she is furthest to the left. The vet gave us some wormer and she seemed to be on the upswing, and put weight back on.  Last Wednesday when I was in the barn, I heard a goat bawling like one had their head stuck – I looked and everyone looked fine, but it was Nellie bawling.  I thought she may be missing the goat we recently removed from the herd. An hour and a half later Emma went to do chores and Nellie was down.  We called the vet and he was out in an hour and her body temp was 3-4 degrees below normal, he administered the usual antidotes, and asked if we had a heated building to keep her in.  We tried bringing in some heat lamps, but it was not going to keep her warm enough, so she went to the vets.

To make a long story short, while we were attending the PFI conference, we were getting updates on Nellie, none of them good.  The vet thought she ended up with some neurological damage, and cautioned us that there was a remote chance she could be suffering from rabies.  By Saturday morning it was clear she was not going to come out of it and she was put down.

All this was against the backdrop of a 3 hour session I attended by holistic veterinarian Will Winter who opened our eyes to many things we have been somewhat (opposite of proactive) about.  He made a very string case linking pasture health, mineral content of soil, and pasture brix level to herd health, particularly parasite control.  We just started using the pasture and creating separate paddocks within the last couple of years and have done some overseeding to increase plant diversity and medicinal herbs, but we have not yet performed a soil sample to see what kinds of mineral deficiencies we may have in our soil, and therefore in our pasture plants, therefore in our animals, and ultimately in us. So this spring brings a renewed emphasis on pasture improvement.

But back to the unpleasantries. So this morning, I  arrived at the vet clinic at 8:00 to deliver the goat head to the Iowa State Vet School for rabies testing.  I must admit it was unsettling to pick up a sealed foam cooler that contains the head of your goat to get a test that could lead to a series of… oh well, let’s just stop there and wait for the results.

one year ago…”Trip Redux – Six-Year-Old Style”

January 11, 2009 – PFI Conference Wrap-Up Part 1

OK, the Practical Farmers of Iowa annual conference has now come and gone. It’s time for some reflections on the meeting.  First, it was a treat to meet a very successful sustainable farmer, Joel Huesby, of Thundering Hooves near Walla Walla, WA.  Linda was set to introduce him, so she fetched him from the airport and was able to spend some time with him.  Perhaps the most fun was when we took him out for dinner along with holistic vet Will Winter after the conference ended.

Some things that Joel has done include having the only, or one of the only, on-farm USDA inspected “mobile abattoir” or slaughterhouses on wheels. The carcasses are then transported to the cut-up facility that Thundering Hooves also owns.  Because slaughtering techniques and treatment of the animals before slaughter and during processing are very important to meat quality, (and respectful to the animals) Joel’s keen eye for detail led him down this path.  Only recently have people like Temple Grandin brought to light humane slaughtering procedures.  Just think how much less stress those animals have in them as opposed to those getting loaded in a truck, moved down an interstate and held in holding pens at a slaughterhouse.

I’ll give you a piece of Joel’s story, in his words, copied from Thundering Hooves web site:

In the summer of 1994, I had an epiphany, a life-changing realization, and I haven’t been the same person since. I remember the day well. I was out burning a field of wheat stubble, trying to quickly rid myself of what I thought at the time was the bothersome organic matter in my way, so that I could plant alfalfa that fall. Only a couple of weeks earlier I received the yield results from a crop of snap beans. I had grown them under contract for a local cannery and yielded 5 tons per acre. This was a good yield, but the cannery was only paying me $102 per ton based on the tenderometer reading (the cannery’s measure of the quality of the beans based almost solely on the timing of the harvest, which is determined by the cannery!) This came to a little over $500 per acre. Then I started to do the rest of the math per acre. Seed cost $100, fertilizer $60, water $120, weed control $35, equipment $80, land payment… operating loan payment… insurance… interest… taxes… And oh yes, I got to pay myself with what was left over!

I saw problems on my farm that weren’t being addressed. The dirt was blowing away. The soil wasn’t holding moisture. I was barely scratching a living. Worse yet, the canneries and the fuel man and the parts man and the fertilizer man and the aerial spraying man and even the migrant workers were all making a living from my land, but not me.

The way things were going; I had to ask myself, “How long can we keep doing all this?” “Should we get out?” We watched as other long-standing farm families were forced to sell everything and move to town. Were we next?

It had become painfully apparent to me that my choices were to either get a job to support the farm and my family, or to borrow more money and fall further into debt until we could no longer make the payments. Our story was not unlike countless other producer/farmers in the commodity business across the country.

What makes this story — and our farm — unique is what I decided to do about it. Remember the wheat stubble I was burning that day? From that fire, as I watched the land turn to black, rise in a dark smoke, and fade into the sky, so also my dreams of making a living in modern commodity agriculture were set ablaze and blew away. Let’s face it; it had been a failure since the beginning – on all levels -financially, ecologically, socially, and personally. At that time I did not yet know where to turn, nor what to do next. All I knew was what did not work for ME. So it was that from that moment I resolved to do NOTHING the same again.

As the weeks went by, I came to view my farmer brethren across the country as being caught in the same circular living from which I had just divorced myself. We always needed bigger equipment to farm more acres faster, and more and more fertilizers to get bigger yields that made greater supplies that lowered prices which meant we needed bigger equipment and on and on.

I could see no future in this for me. Like a giant whirlpool with no way out, I could literally hear the great sucking sound of our finances being pulled up from our farm if I stayed in the present paradigm.

So, what to do? It sounded intriguing to say, “I will do NOTHING the same again,” but what did that really mean? I began to read more and think more, and slowly it dawned on me why my farm was not supporting my family and I. I had broken the law. I was a criminal. Not in the legal sense, but in a much more vast, universal sense. What do I mean? In a nutshell, here is my confession; I had compacted the soil, fed it artificial food, removed organic matter without putting any back, laid the ground bare, disrupted the soil community of microorganisms by use of tillage, poisoned the soil with chemicals and dumped my commodity on the market and wondered why I got a dump price.

one year ago…”Congrats to Linda”

January 10, 2009 – Wind Turbine Presentation

Today was the 2nd day of the Practical Farmers of Iowa conference. Up today was my presentation entitled “Small Wind on the Farm.” I’ve converted the Powerpoint to a series of images. Keep in mind that the slides where only meant for talking points for the presentation, but the pictures may be interesting and I have some new data on production and savings included.

Since the windiest six months of the year are upon us and we are due for a software upgrade to raise the top cut-out speed, I’m envisioning the savings will be even greater in the coming months.

one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #102″

January 9, 2009 – Ice Landscape

With the 3-4 ice incidents in December, we’re left with an icy ground.  The ice has melted off the trees, but not the ground.  It is extremely icy around the farm yard.  Walking to the barn or chicken coop requires the “old man shuffle” to remain upright.

Anywhere the rain didn’t melt the snow has created a hard, icy surface that I’m afraid will last a long time.

one year ago…”Ouch”

January 8, 2009 – Thingamajig Thursday #149

Here’s this week’s thingamajig.

Also check out the last thingamajig answer.

As always, put your guess in a comment below.

Hold mouse over this sentence to pop-up answer.

one year ago…”Winter Chores”

January 7, 2009 – Holiday Detritus

I took advantage of  a not-so-cold afternoon to remove the holiday lighting from everything but the structures – so lights are off bushes, fences, and the like.

It was a bit too windy to go up on the ladders to fetch the rest.  I bought a bunch of LED lights on clearance for next year to slowly begin to replace the dead strings.

one year ago…”Retrieving Goats/Back to the Farm”

January 6, 2009 – Upcoming Practical Farmers of Iowa Conference

After many years in Des Moines, one of the largest gatherings of interesting farmers is coming to Marshalltown Jan 9th and 10th, in part due to Linda’s efforts in creating the agriculture program at MCC.  Linda is part of the opening session where she’ll welcome people to the conference and introduce the keynote speaker.  Mark will be part of a farm energy roundtable and talk about the farm’s wind turbine.  I’ll try to post the presentation after the conference.

We greatly look forward to meeting friends from across the state, meeting the King Corn filmmakers, and playing host to hundreds of progressive farmers.  More details can be found at the Practical Farmers of Iowa web site.  Stop on by if you can make it!

one year ago…”Leaving for Home”

January 5, 2009 – More Perplexing Instructions

I bought a new antenna for the TV for the digital cross-over and was quite bemused at the last warning on the installation instructions!

I’m really curious how many drunk and pregnant women find themselves in a situation where they need to install a TV antenna?  I’ve never been both drunk and pregnant, so maybe some of the female readers can help me out on this one.  I know pregnant women often have strange food cravings like jalapeno peppers on ice cream, but tell me, during a night of binge drinking, do pregnant women have an uncanny urge to install TV antennas? More importantly, how do they have the foresight to have an uninstalled antenna at hand?

I’m also baffled by the imperative “Do not throw antenna at spouse.”  I guess it’s ok to throw the antenna at neighbors, children, or people you are shacking up with, but somehow spouses get extra protection from intentional antenna hurling?  Chime in if you can offer up your view on the dangers of  drunk, pregnant antenna flingers.

one year ago…”Rain in the Desert”

January 4, 2009 – Old Machine Shed Demolition Begins

The east half of the old machine shed is beyond repair.  Last year I put a new roof on the left side (just out of view of this picture) and new framing inside where the new end wall will begin.

Here’s one view that shows the shed with some of the siding already removed and the sorry state.

Here’s another view of the demolition so far.  Depending on the weather, this project could drag out a while.  We are saving the wide boards – they are wonderfully weathered and hope to find re-use down the road.  I hope to also salvage some of the 4×4 and roof rafters as well.

one year ago…”Hanging Around Sedona”