Spring is Springing

So much for ‘a long winter’s nap’.  Spring is upon us in all its busy glory.  Where did the peaceful winter go?  Yikes.

First, kidding season has begun and is nearly over.  We have 10 baby goats on the ground and only one more doe left to kid.

In a related matter, Brittan has begun milking.  She’s doing things a bit differently this year and leaving the kids with their mothers and only milking once a day until weaning.  As a result, we’re not going to have much milk available for customers until around the end of April, but I’ll be having my chocolate milk nightcap on a regular basis.  I can’t figure out why I don’t lose any weight…..

The greenhouse is up and operational.  It’s far from finished, but at least it’s functional.  I’m so happy about that and so grateful to everyone who pitched in on weekends to make it happen.  We have a few things growing in it already.  The strawberries are looking good as are some herbs and a couple of early tomato plants.  I have several seedling trays going and have more to start.  I’m way behind getting beds ready for planting, but still have plenty of time to catch up…if I get my wide side in gear and get going, that is.

We move the aquaponics unit into the greenhouse this weekend and should have some lettuces and herbs going in it very soon. I’ve decided to focus on the Tilapia business this year and wait until next spring to do the crawfish.  I am very good at putting too many irons in the fire and getting burned, so just this one time, I’m going to focus on one fish project only.  That means, I’ll be ordering this year’s Tilapia and my breeding colony within the month.  Watch this space for pre ordering fish that will be ready to harvest this fall.  My plan right now, is to do this just like we used to do with chickens and take reservations.  I know that we’ve had loads of requests for them already, so it will be first come, first serve.

Since we were surprised by baby pigs, our pork project is way off schedule.  We should have had two in the freezer and instead we have 5 babies being fed by one of the sows and the other one is looking pretty pregnant to me.  It will be at least May now before we have any pork.  On the other hand, we have this year’s feeder pigs already on the ground, so the glass really is half full.  Watch for details of pastured pork being available this autumn.

We are out of the beef business.  For space and financial reasons, and because of my health, we had to find new homes for our cows.  It was an extremely difficult and emotional decision, but the right one.  We are comfortable with our decision.

We have eggs.  Yay!  The girls are laying well, as one would expect this time of year, and we are collecting quite a few.  Unfortunately, the pigs are collecting their fair share, too.  As a result, we’re going to have to build a pen to feed the pigs in and to put them in at night so we can actually gather eggs before they do.  We love having our porkers ranging, but since we can’t keep them from stealing, they’re going to have to spend some time in their cell, and we’ll let them out on a work release program.  We have them in our worst pasture so they can root it up and allow us to replant. If they get their fill of eggs, though, they will never get the plowing done.

We do hope to have a few rabbits born this spring, as well.  The only kindle so far, had two in it and they were born outside the nest and died.  It happens to first time rabbit mothers sometimes.  Hopefully, two more are pregnant right now.  We’ll know in a few weeks.

I think that catches you all up for now.  I will try and be more diligent about taking photos.  I’m really terrible about remembering to capture images.  Please have a wonderful St. Patrick’s Day weekend.

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“Did We Like ‘God Made A Farmer’ Too Much?” – One Farmer’s Reply

Given the title of Jake Meader’s article on the Christianity Today website, “Did we love ‘God Made a Farmer’ Too Much?” my expectations were pretty much below ground level when I read it.  Even with the bar set so low I still feel he fouled off the pitch at best.

I realize his target was the modern ‘factory farm’ movement, consumerism and a potential misunderstanding of scripture rather than those of us who are small, diversified farmers, and that’s why I give him credit for making contact even if he didn’t quite put the ball in play.  I would encourage him, though, to watch the ‘game film’ and reconsider his conclusions.

Most Americans have no idea where their food comes from.  For them, it’s all neatly packaged at Kroger, IGA or one of a thousand other chains.  So for one fleeting moment, America’s attention was drawn to the men and women who make Kroger possible.

Yes, too much of our farming is industrial and destructive of God’s creation.  Yes, monocultures of flora and fauna are a detriment rather than a blessing to the earth we’ve been commanded to steward.  The American Industrial Farming industry needs to be outed and corrected.

The commercial, though, highlights those of us who are trying to bring balance back to an industry and a world that desperately needs balance.  America, and many other parts of the world, has multiple thousands of farmers exactly like the ones in Paul Harvey’s poem.

My wife and I are among that army of farmers, who rise early and rest late.  I remember staying on the phone with my bride as she helped pull a lamb when the mother couldn’t do it alone.  The late winter wind howled and the actual temperature hovered around freezing. By the time I raced across town from my day job, she had pulled the lamb and stripped off her own jacket and sweatshirt to dry and warm it, giving no thought to her own comfort.

I have searched pastures in the darkest nights during driving rain to find goats born in the storm.  I have buried them deep inside my shirt and wrapped my coat around us all to warm them and give them a chance at the life they were born to live.

We have labored day and night to save a hen with a gangrene leg and I have wept man sized tears over creatures I’ve had to put down to end their misery.

While our friends and neighbors slept late on their Sunday mornings, we have been up at zero dark thirty, so the goats could be milked, the animals fed and watered as well as the garden tended to so we could be ready for me to teach an 8:30 a.m. Bible class.

We have fought droughts and battled floods.  We’ve seen bumper harvests and withered fields.  We have savored the birth of countless animals and have awakened to find flocks slaughtered by predators the previous night.

My wife can decorate a table as fine as the fanciest establishment in New York City and she can build a stall in a barn as well as any carpenter.  Her dairy goats follow her like she fell from Heaven and they may just be right.

We know no greater joy than when our friends and customers (those are synonyms by the way) tell us that our eggs, milk, yogurt, chickens, beef, pork, vegetables or fruit are the best they’ve ever had.

We go to bed at night knowing that our farming methods are helping feed the world while we heal the land.  We are stewards of God’s creation and we take our responsibility seriously.  We are not alone.  We know many more like us, most of whom are far more skilled than we.

Last week I had serious neck surgery.  The nurses stuck me in 5 different places before they found a vein into which they could place my IV port.  The head nurse said, “I’m so sorry to do this to you.  I don’t mean to hurt you.  Your skin is very thick. You use your hands.”  I beamed.

During the Super Bowl, in an attempt to sell trucks, Dodge drew the world’s attention to a subculture often overlooked and under-appreciated.  My email inbox was full the next day from people saying, “I thought of you.”

Our lives are not romantic, they are real. Did we like “God Made a Farmer” too much? Maybe Mr. Meader surmises we did, but I’m thinking, that thousands of others thought a Super Bowl ad finally hit the right note. Y’all decide.  I’ve got chores to do.  I’m a farmer. And I thank God every day for the privilege.

 

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I’m A Farmer, Call Me Gumby

One of the words in every farmer’s vocabulary is, ‘flexible’.  We don’t always like the word, we sometimes wish we didn’t have to embrace it, but if we are anything, it is, flexible.

Even this blog post was originally going to be about my surgery and how Brittan has become even more of a superwoman than ever, but that post now has to wait.  I need to be flexible.

We made all these plans about butchering beef and pork in November.  Keep them on grass and hay all summer, then butcher in the autumn. Everything about the plan was solid.  We had a processor.  We had customers, including deposits. We had the animals. What could possibly go wrong?  Let’s go with….everything.

First, my neck went out.  Five bulging discs and pinched nerves put a real hamper in my ability to wrangle animals.  Heck, it messed with my ability to do pretty much anything except hurt.

As the weeks passed and my insurance company delayed approval for surgery, the processing time slipped to December, then January then February.  Besides frustrated customers and empty freezers, the delay meant extra feed bills.  Oh, well, we’re flexible.

I eventually gave up on surgery ever happening and booked a date in February to get the cows and pigs to the processor.  Then, out of the blue, my insurance company relented and my much needed surgery was scheduled.  You guessed it, 5 days before the animals were to go in.

Fortunately for us, the processor was able to move the date one more month into March.  It’s inconvenient because we had to feed animals all winter which is expensive. Life happens.

Wait, we’re not through yet. Speaking of life happening; three days ago, as I’m resting under the influence of my post op medications, with visions of sugar plums dancing in my head,  my text message alert goes off, waking me reluctantly from my slumber.  The text is from Brittan saying, “We have baby pigs.”

As fate would have it, our runaway potbelly boar, managed to impregnate at least one of our Large Black Hogs before his demise.  For all we know, we may have more in a few days.  At any rate, we have 4 little half breed girl piggies and one little boy.  The bad news is, mamma won’t be going to become ham anytime soon.  It also means a pig pen needs to be built at our new farm.  And since I’m laid up for several more weeks, guess who all the work falls on?

The good news is, we know where our 2013 feeder pigs are coming from.  That will save us a few bucks.  If the other sow is drops young uns in the next month, we will have other issues to consider.  But….we’re flexible.

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Garden Pics and Aquaponics Experiment – Danger Imminent

Spud 1

The garden is starting to look like one.  I’ve captured a pic of the season’s first potato, “Spud 1″ and of a golden Patty Pan squash.  It appears that the bee activity from Brittan’s bee boxes, yes, it’s B’s Bees, are going to have the desired effect on our production.

I have also included a photo of my barrel Aquaponics unit that is currently under construction.  What a disaster that has been.  I am photographing and filming some it and will call my adventures, “Aquaponic Gardening With The Village Idiot.  Watch for updates.

 

 

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Traumatized

It’s been a rough day.  It was supposed to be a run of the mill Thursday.  I had some meetings on the calendar and was scheduled to teach some sales classes at work, but nothing dramatic.

The day started quite peacefully.  Lucy the Mastiff had no accidents during the night and was well behaved all morning.  I had my coffee and quiet time, then went upstairs to get ready for work.

While I was showering, Brittan got up, put on her farm clothes and prepared to face the day.  As I got dressed, she would head downstairs and infuse her soul with caffeine.  Before she stepped into the hallway, my cell phone rang.  My phone NEVER rings.  Especially not in the mornings.

The call was from a lady from Church who was taking care of our youth pastor’s dogs; letting them out to potty.  The youth pastor lives next to our farm.  The lady, who shall remain nameless to protect her identity from being besieged by pet sitter requests said, “Sam, one of your cows is out.”

Please allow me to point out that “one of your cows is out” is not an expression I’d hoped to hear this morning.  It is not a hopeful, amusing, entertaining or casual announcement.  It’s an “Oh, Crap” moment.

Brittan was already on her way to the truck before I could thank the caller and hang up.  I finished buttoning my freshly ironed white shirt, made sure it was tucked properly into my dress trousers, slipped on my shoes, jumped in the car and chased Brittan down the road.

Please keep in mind that our farm is surrounded on three sides by a subdivision and our Church Property.  The front side is a major road with thousands of cars blasting by in the mornings.  It is rush hour and a pregnant cow is loose in the neighborhood.  As long as she stays near the fence where the other cows, including her calf, are peacefully grazing, all will be well. If she strays to the highway, bad, horrible things will happen.

I pulled up beside the wandering cow and parked the car.  The escapee is Nadia, mother to our heifer, Butter and to our bull calf, Sir Loin.  Nadia is fairly easy going, but doesn’t like us touching her.  She has jumped fences before.  Brittan had arrived far enough ahead of me that she was putting a bucket of sweet feed in front of Nadia’s face to distract the bolting bovine while we got a rope on her.

Brittan is one of the best I’ve ever seen at calming an animal and getting them to allow themselves to be roped, caged, corralled or captured.  She has amazing patience with the animals.

After she got a rope on Nadia, I took it from her, held the rope fairly close to the cow’s neck and led her away.  B walked in front with the bucket of junk food just out of Nadia’s reach.

Now we faced our first and biggest problem, how to get Nadia back into the field.  She sure as heck wasn’t going to jump back in and there are no gates on the subdivision side of the pastures.  Our only option seemed to be to walk Nadia around the corner, along the shoulder of the road against rush hour traffic, up the driveway and through a gate.  This was not going to be easy.

The journey started off easy enough.  Nadia was cooperative and the smell of sweet feed was intoxicating to her.  As soon as we rounded the corner though, the fast cars and traffic noise spooked her and she lurched.  For a moment I was able to stay in control.  I stayed on the road side and kept pushing her to the inside.

Between the shoulder of the road and the fence is a boxwood hedge and a fairly dense stand of 2 to 4 inch diameter pine trees.  Fear of the traffic scared Nadia so bad that she jumped into the boxwood hedge and dragged me through it lengthways.  It is a thick hedge and she eventually stopped to rest.  I caught my breath then she turned around to race through the trees back to where we started.  I held on for a moment, being bounced off pine trunks, but eventually had to let go.  My left shoulder and left thumb had been jammed pretty severely by collisions with evergreens and my glasses lay twisted about three feet away from where my momentum ended.

Fortunately, Nadia ran into the Youth Pastor’s back yard where Brittan was able to grab the rope and tie her to a large wood framed swing set.  About the same time, a Good Samaritan stopped to ask if we needed some help.  We gladly accepted her offer.

I get a little fuzzy after that, because the shock, trauma and oxygen deprivation had me in a state of delirium.  I remember Brittan asking me what we were going to do.  I said, “we have to cut the fence and drive her in through the hole, then put the cows in another pasture.”

By that time I realized that Nadia would not leave her calf, so the fence cutting should work.

I stayed with Nadia, while Brittan went to cut the fence.  Our anonymous helper stood by the fence to calm the other cows who were by now in quite a state.

Even with a halter and second rope, Nadia proved too strong for the both of us, but she only wanted to be near her calf, so B walked behind her down the fence line and I walked beside, but about 10 feet away in case she decided to turn towards the road again.

This time, there were no incidents. The stressed out cow walked straight through the hole in the fence and reunited with her son.  Three of the 4 cows followed Brittan to the new pasture as if nothing had ever happened.  I had to go back and encourage the fourth one to move along and join the migration.

Once the cattle were in the other field we were able to do a damage assessment.  Apart from some cow pats and spilled feed in the Youth Pastor’s yard, the only other property damage was the cut fence, but that is fairly easily repaired.  No, most of the wreckage appears to be to my carcass.  I am fairly bruised from head to toe.  My clothes were ruined, but that’s no big deal.  I will heal, but not for a few days.

I forgot to mention that somewhere along the way, as B was climbing over the fence, one of her feet got stuck for a second and she went head first over the fence. She, being younger and more nimble than her man, went straight into her best Jackie Chan impersonation and executed a perfect tuck and roll.  She’s going to be sore, but nothing broken or strained.  Whew.

As a sequel, after Brittan got home, she went out to work the bee hives to prepare them for removing honey.  She got stung twice; once on the nose and once on the temple.  I convinced her to take some Benadryl.  She sent me an email saying she took two and was totally drunk.  She said she would take a nap and see me tomorrow.

So, how was YOUR day?

 

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Aches, Pains and the Everyday Farmer

I watched from the other side of the room as Brittan tried hauling herself from the comfort of the bed to face another early milking call.  Sunday mornings are particularly rough, because we have to get the chores done and get cleaned up in time for Church at 8:30.  We can’t really be late, because I’m the Bible teacher for the 8:30 class and apparently everything runs more smoothly if the teacher is on time.

Apart from the early hour, there is really no difference between Sunday and any other morning for chores.  The grunts, groans, creaks, pops, spasms, grimaces, aches and pains are the same 24/7, 365.

On this particular morning, B’s heel, hip and back are especially disgruntled at being forced to participate in the morning’s adventures.  Still, after muttering something incoherent, and possibly irreverent, she puts on a brave face and forges ahead.

I couldn’t help but chuckle just a little.  Not so much at her pain, but at the situation.  You see, Brittan is not alone in her war with the human body.  We’re in this together.  Between us, we are living examples of the first two laws of thermodynamics.  Summary: The universe tends to age and deteriorate.

Not a day goes by that one or both of us doesn’t come home without a new cut, scrape, gouge, pierce, poke, bruise, twist, strain or sprain.  Our cuts and scrapes bleed freely and mingle with the mud, muck and manure.  Our immune systems have undoubtedly been tested to the limit.  We’ve endured and fought off more infections that we can count.  Brittan quipped yesterday that she might just be walking antitoxin for every known infection short of snakebite.  In case you’re wondering, I concur.

In my case, it’s easier to identify joints and muscle groups that DON’T need attention, than ones that do.  Both my elbows have tendonitis. To be fair, that originally developed back in my dog mushing days and only recently reappeared with the frequency of hauling buckets of water to animals or plants that need hydrating.

Both of my rotator cuffs pretty much hurt all the time.  Raising my arms up over my head is fast becoming something I USED to do.

I’m pretty sure I will need my left hip replaced sometime in the future.  The pain in it is frequently almost too much to endure.

Both of my knees have been twisted and hyper extended so many times that on certain days it’s difficult to find a position that doesn’t hurt.  And I think I damaged the ACL in my right knee last week when I slipped in the mud.

Moving downward, both ankles really need to be taped daily because they’ve had so many sprains and get ‘turned over’ almost daily.  They have virtually no strength at all.

We won’t say much about the gout in my right big toe or the carpal tunnel in my wrists, because neither of those is related to farming.

Talk about a walking disaster.  Most of the  Zombies on TV are in better shape than I am.

Brittan sports a new bruise almost every day.  She’s been head butted by so many goats,  sheep and bulls over the last three years that I’m sometimes surprised she can walk at all.

The other day, I queried her regarding the blood running down her arms and she said, “I have no idea.  I was at the farm, what more is there to say?”

The woman is gorgeous, but I’ll bet you that under an x-ray, she has the knees, hips and heels of a woman three times her age.  She sure walks like one some mornings.

Yes, sports fans, we are the walking dead.  And we love it. I would not trade a single ache or scar, because the same activities that gave us pain also brought so much joy and pleasure.

When customers tell us how much they love the milk, eggs or hot peppers, the aches start to disappear. When they refer friends and family, it has more healing power than any antibiotic or analgesic.

We’ve participated in the births of animal and fowl of all kinds.  We’ve played with them, bathed them, nursed them and cursed them.  Our fridge is full of milk, our freezer full of meat and our larder full vegetables.

Sure, we could get everything right down the road at a supermarket and it would hurt a lot less. But the food we eat and serve to family and friends is not just groceries. It’s a part of us. And we are part of it.

Ok, symbiosis hurts a bit, maybe a lot, especially in the morning. But it’s a hurt that makes you smile. At least when you’re not grimacing…

 

 

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The Lord Giveth, The Lord Taketh Away

Sometimes, raising animals naturally is hard, really hard. This is one of those times.

A couple weeks ago, our Black Spanish turkey hen hatched out a dozen or fourteen beautiful little big eyed poults.  We have marveled at how she has taken to mothering and how Thomas, the dad, has so easily adapted to his role as guardian of the flock.

Our little turkey family have roamed over the farm, foraging through the pastures as ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ teach their little ones the ways of the world.

All that came to a sudden end yesterday in the torrential rains that found their way to North Georgia.

Turkeys are not the brightest of animals.  They are easily confused and can become distraught very quickly.  For reasons I will never know, our new mother led her babies into, rather than away from danger.  It did not end well.

Last night during chores, B noticed both adult turkeys eating with the chickens.  That was the first bad sign.  Once my chores were done, I went looking for the birds.  I soon spotted Thomas and his Mrs. wandering frantically, searching for their brood.

I found them. All dead; drowned in a puddle not 8 feet from shelter.  My heart sank.  It was quite emotional picking up all those little carcasses and disposing of them.  Sure, we’ve had birds die before, but this one seemed so senseless.  Frankly, we could have avoided it by intervening and taking the babies away as soon as they were born and putting them in a brooder box like the baby chicks we buy from the hatchery. But we wanted to raise them naturally.  Unfortunately, nature can be harsh.

Life goes on.  We have baby goats everywhere, along with four young pigs who are growing wilder as they grow larger.  The little porkers scamper about the field, enjoying every minute of life.  They have no fear of the rain or the floods. On the contrary, the water provides them an opportunity to do more damage, by softening up the ground and making rooting not only easier, but more inviting.

We have a donkey foal and a calf in the oven, due later in the year. Last fall’s batch of hens is starting to lay.  Life is good. Life is also fragile. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.

 

 

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Her Name is Lucy

Lucy at 10 weeks

When we left Maine, a part of my heart stayed behind.  I have loved sleddogs since I was in Jr. High School, and that wasn’t yesterday!  I got my first husky in 1976.  I have had show dogs, pet dogs and dozens of working sled dogs.  Training and running sled dogs is as much a part of me as being left handed.  I’ve felt like a piece of me has been missing since we re-homed all of our huskies before moving to HOTlanta.

Don’t misunderstand, it’s not like we’re dogless or that I am not crazy about our Belgian Sheepdog, Guinness, our Collies, Lady and Karma, or even Iris the Virus, our Cardigan Corgi.  They are awesome and own their own real estate in my heart, but working dogs in harness is just necessary to my good health.

Sustainable farming has opened the possibilities for a variety of draft animals.  We have our mules and we have our donkeys, both of which will fill certain needs, but I wanted an animal that could be harnessed quickly and hooked to a wagon or cart to help me carry loads about the farm.  Sure, an ATV would do that, but I wanted something that didn’t require gasoline, oil or engine work.  Enter, the Mastiff.

Mastiffs are large dogs who love their people and have a history of being outstanding draft animals.  They are also outstanding guard dogs demonstrate strong protective instincts without being aggressive.  They have been bred for centuries to know the difference between neighborhood children who want to snuggle and the bad guy who wants to burgle.  We have loved them from afar for years.

Last week I saw someone on Facebook who had some English Mastiff/Bullmastiff cross puppies for sale.  I ignored it because we have enough dogs.  When Brittan, though, sent me an email at work asking if I wanted one to satisfy my jones, I leapt at the opportunity.  So on Saturday, we drove up to Ringgold, GA and picked up our little bundle of Lucy.

When she is full grown, Lucy will weigh in at about 120 lbs, give or take and ounce or two.  Even at only 10 weeks, she shows all the traditional calm, assured, quiet Mastiff tendencies.  She is good with people. She is great with the cats and other dogs.  She has shown zero interest in chasing the chickens.  So far, AWESOME.

We will take her to puppy class after her last shots and will get her in an obedience class soon after.  She will be 7 to 9 months old before she gets in her first harness.  By that time, we should have another donkey foal who will also be harness trained.  Life is getting better all the time.

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A Change in Appearance and A Change of Direction

Large Black Hogs

East of Eden Farms and Our Edible Suburb are going through changes.  We’re growing up.  You should expect to see some of those changes in the very near future.

First, our website is undergoing a makeover.  We have enjoyed our site and I know many of you have complimented us on it, but it’s time to kick things up a notch or two.  We have been working with a web designer and really like what we’ve seen so far.  We think you will like it, too.

Secondly, we’re cutting way back on our rabbit population.  Georgia just doesn’t have the market we hoped for, so we are only going to keep our two pair of American Chinchilla rabbits. The Am Chins are a heritage breed and are rather rare.  We will have two or three litters a year and sell as many as we can as pets and to show people.  We will still have a few for meat for our personal consumption and certainly we’ll get plenty of great fertilizer.

Thirdly, we’re making a substitution in the pig department.  While we have loved our Vietnamese Pot Belly Pigs very much, they are just too destructive and frankly, too small. We have 4 to process next month and a litter of piglets due in March.  We will make the piglets available as pets or as feeder pigs once they are weaned.

Pot Bellies have amazing personalities and they make us smile every day.  I never tire of watching them leap up from their hiding places under the straw in the barn, but I’m beyond tired of the craters they’ve created in their pasture.  We’ll have to reseed it this spring at the same time we reseed the mule pasture.

We are replacing our mini porkers with a rare, heritage breed called, Large Black.  I wish I’d done this earlier, but I wasn’t paying attention.  Large Black Hogs do not root like other pigs.  They can graze along side our goats and cows.  They will still gobble up our excess milk and whey, but they will produce serious quantities of meat.  Large Blacks are processed at 200 lbs, whereas a Pot Belly is large at 90 lbs.  A full grown Large Black will tip the scales at 700 lbs plus.  They are docile, attention loving animals, with poor eyesight and big floppy ears (a trait that B is especially excited about).  When full grown, our breeder pigs weigh more than our donkeys and almost as much as our Dexter Cows. We pick up our new pigs on Feb. 12.

Speaking of Dexters.  We are forging ahead with our plans to add a couple more to our herd.  Dexters are our breed of choice as they can supply us with dairy as well as meat.

The sheep are gone. We won’t be raising broiler chickens anymore, but we will sell the occasional stewing hen.  We will keep laying hens and will have turkeys at least one more year.  Our livestock focus will be our goats, both meat and dairy, with some pork and beef as a supplement.

Keep your eyes peeled for the changes in the website.

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Life Lessons From the Farm – Part 1

Sometimes it’s hard to believe we’ve only been farming for 2 years.  Even if you count the two years of gardening alone as farming, the total is still only 4. That’s not a long time at all, but I’ve learned a great deal in that time.  Here are some highlights:

1.  If your wife is the better mechanic, just go with it.

I am not, and have never been, handy.  My wife, on the other hand, is.  I believe in the Yellow Pages. Brittan believes in doing as much as she can by herself.  That’s true of carpentry and engine mechanics.  She likes stuff like that. I don’t get it.  I have rudimentary skills, in that I can do some rough carpentry, plumbing and electric when forced to.  I have done roofing, drywall, laid blocks, taken apart starter motors and a few other things as well over the decades, but I loathe it and am poor at it. One should only depend on my handiwork in dire emergencies.

Brittan, on the other hand, is good at these things and enjoys doing them enough to want to improve and broaden her skill set. Silly girl. But she has saved us a ton of money on things like chicken coops, feed troughs, raised beds and even minor truck repair.  Her latest wild idea is to replace the brakes (lines, discs and calipers) on the truck, by herself.  Her logic is sound. Doing it by herself will save us hundreds of dollars. And since the truck is a 97, what have we got to lose?

I have neither the desire nor the attention span to do things like that myself.  And yet, for the longest time, my ego didn’t want Brittan to do them, either.  Eventually, I got over it.  Saving money and having a happy wife are much more important than admitting to my macho friends, “My wife does that stuff around here.”  Oh, did I mention that she’s pretty darned good at it?

1.  Pot Belly Pigs are liars and deceivers.

I love pigs. I love the pork they produce.  What I never liked was seeing a field or pen destroyed by the rooting and burrowing that pigs are famous for.  I figured the answer was Pot Belly Pigs.  They are cute, tasty, smart and too small to do much damage.  Besides, anything that can be leash and house trained can’t be too destructive, right?

We got our pigs back in the summer. They were just little weanlings and too cute to describe.  We kept them in an old chicken tractor for a couple weeks to make sure they were acclimatized to us and our other livestock.  We fed them some garden scraps and lots of whey and excess goat’s milk.

When we turned them loose, they went right to grazing and browsing, eating weeds and grasses that even the goats had ignored. It was perfect. Between the chickens and the pigs, we have not thrown a single table scrap in the garbage can for months now.

This idyllic scene lasted all summer.  A handful of goats, some chickens and 5 little pigs sharing a pasture in perfect harmony.  Brittan even trained one of the pigs to let her squirt goat’s milk straight into his mouth from about 3 feet.  It was a great party trick.

Then winter came.  The grass died. The milking stopped. The rains fell. The pigs got bored. Now, their pasture is dotted with pot belly pot holes. They have turned that idyllic space into the Iraqi frontier.  The little monsters deceived me. They spent an entire summer like some sleeper cell, lulling me into a false sense of security, then out of nowhere, BAM, shock and awe.

Sure, they’re still cute.  They love to get their ears scratched and bury themselves in the straw in the barn to nap, then pop out of their camouflage to squeal with delight when they’ve scared the wee, wee, wee all the way home out of me.  But I am no longer deceived.  They are terrorists.  Adorable, heartwarming, loveable terrorists.  It will not be forgotten at bacon makin time.

1. Farming for food involves a lot of death.

Whether it’s eliminating rodents from the garden, processing animals, finding the remains of predation or dispatching the sick and injured, I’ve seen a lifetime’s worth of death and gore in the last couple years.

Death never gets easier. Nor should it, I guess.  I did not anticipate, though, just how emotionally, mentally and spiritually exhausting it would be.

Brittan and I are omnivores. With a couple of notable exceptions, our customers are omnivores.  Fortunately, even the vegetarians among the East of Eden family of producers and consumers are appreciative of what we do here.

We started farming to produce our own food naturally, sustainably and ethically.  We knew there was death involved.  Brittan and I hunt and fish. We are not new to animal death, but shooting a turkey at the edge of field from a safe distance is a whole lot different than the up close and personal methods employed in pasture based poultry. I assure you that when you’ve spent 13 or 26 weeks with chickens and turkeys respectively, or 9 to 18 months with a feeder cow, the emotions change.

Over that time, we watch them grow from tiny, helpless little things, to maturity. I the case of poultry they are usually just a day or two old when they arrive. Rabbits and other livestock are often born here. In many cases we were there to watch and even assist in the birth.  We have fed them, cuddled them and nurtured them every day. We have talked and sung to them, and they to us.  They have made us laugh and they have made us angry. They have brought us something that too many people never experience; joy.

Processing days are hard. Anyone who does this will tell you the same.  It is emotionally easier to pick up a plastic wrapped package at the supermarket. That’s just meat.  To look a creature in the eyes and take its life, is an act of intention and is not done lightly.

It’s just as easy to ignore the fact that the steak, pork or chicken picked up already neatly presented at the supermarket very likely lived its life without a moment’s pleasure.  In the case of poultry, the birds may have never seen daylight until they were loaded on a truck and taken to be processed. Most pigs have never had a chance to tear up a pasture or bury themselves in the straw. The cows that produced the hamburger lived the last months of their lives in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions, without the feel of grass beneath their fee or the sheer ecstasy of lying down at the edge of a hay stack for a nap in the afternoon sun.  That is why we do what we do. Our animals have a good life. They live as God intended, eating the food God created them to enjoy.  Their end comes at my hand and I know their lives are taken with respect for all they have given me.  When we sit down and the dinner table to enjoy a meal of vegetables and meat that we have raised, processed, preserved and prepared ourselves, we are aware of the connection we have to the soil and the life. We are more aware than at any other times in our lives that life is not cheap, but it IS precious.

While processing animals is stressful, having to put animals down is more so.  On multiple occasions, we’ve had birds or bunnies, which due to accidents or illness had to be put down.  For a while last summer, it was every day. We had a serious predator problem and we would come to the pastures to find killing fields. The carnage was awful.  Each time, I felt more helpless and angry than the time before.  Dozens of headless, partially eaten chickens and turkeys littered our pastures. Coyotes, hawks, owls and neighborhood cats and dogs were wreaking havoc.

If that wasn’t bad enough, there were ‘survivors’. Some animals escaped, but with mortal injuries.  For weeks on end, I had to dispatch one or more birds a day. I remember telling Brittan that I was totally exhausted from the task.  My soul hurt.

With the help of better fencing, donkeys and mules, my own .45 caliber pistol and the marksmanship of a good neighbor, predation has dropped to a manageable level, if such a thing exists, and I don’t know how I will cope if I ever have to go through a spell like that again.

To be continued…

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