Not Just Us Small Farmers

It's good to see that it's not just us small farmers who are up in arms about the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). The NY Times has an excellent story today about large western ranchers who are resisting participation in it.

Mr. Platt said he already did all he could to fight epidemics. He does not bring any outside animals into his herds, and he happily staples on metal tags that identify animals to help with brucellosis control. But as he drove his pickup from grasslands into dense thickets of piñon pine on this highland desert that requires 100 acres per cow, he explained why he thought the federal plan was wrongheaded.

Mr. Platt called the extra $2 cost of the electronic tags an onerous burden for a teetering industry and said he often moved horses and some of his 1,000 head of cattle among three ranches here and in Arizona. Small groups of cattle are often rounded up in distant spots and herded into a truck by a single person, who could not simultaneously wield the hand-held scanner needed to record individual animal identities, Mr. Platt said. And there is no Internet connection on the ranch for filing to a regional database.

Looking over the 22,000 acres that his cattle share with elk, pronghorns and mountain lions and where animals can easily disappear, Mr. Platt scoffed at the idea of reporting every death, as animal health officials prefer.

“They can’t comprehend the vastness of a ranch like this,” he said of federal officials. "They don’t appreciate what is involved logistically.”

Beyond the individual ranchers profiled, the story nicely summarizes many of the program's aspects that we find so troubling.

Underlying the opposition is the fragile economics of ranches and small farms, which are already disappearing. The extra cost of radio tags, scanners and filing reports when animals change premises would be crushing, some smaller producers say.

“My main beef is that these proposed rules were developed by people sitting in their offices with no real knowledge of animal husbandry and small farms,” said Genell Pridgen, an owner of Rainbow Meadow Farms in Snow Hill, N.C., which rotates sheep, cattle, pigs, turkeys and chickens among three properties and sells directly to consumers and co-ops.

“I feel these regulations are draconian,” Ms. Pridgen said, “and that lobbyists from corporate mega-agribusiness designed this program to destroy traditional small sustainable agriculture.” Paul Hamby, owner of Hamby Dairy Supply in Maysville, Mo., and a vocal opponent of the plan, said, “It is very much an economic and class warfare issue.”

“Fifty years ago,” Mr. Hamby said, “hundreds of thousands of farms raised hogs, and now very few players have control of the market. I believe one of the reasons for this plan is to consolidate the cattle industry.”

Go read the whole thing. It is excellent.

When Coons Attack

A nasty surprise greeted me this morning when I went out to the barn to do chores: we'd clearly had a raccoon attack overnight.

I noticed something amiss as soon as I let the sheep out into their paddock (and from there out to the pasture). There were white feathers all over the paddock, but especially strong concentrations of them in a direct line from the barn to a certain part of the fence. A moment later, my worst fears were confirmed: our flock of geese came honking out of the barn to be let out to pasture with the sheep, and a quick head count revealed only seven White Embdens --- one short. They, and the two mature gray geese which have adopted them, all looked fine.

Once they were in the pasture with the sheep, I took a closer look at the carnage and tried to figure out what had happened overnight. There was a heavy concentration of white feathers in a small gap where one of the barn doors doesn't fit tightly to the old stone wall. None of the birds have escaped through that gap, so I haven't worried about plugging it. However, the geese often do sleep next to that door, on the inside of the barn of course, at night. One of them may very well have been sound asleep just inside that gap when the coon came prowling. He seemed to have reached in, grabbed hold of a leg or neck, and forced the struggling goose out through the gap.

The feathers led in a trail diagonally from that gap to a corner of the paddock fence. As Scooter and I followed that trail, we got confirmation of the culprit: we found a severed goose head (not pictured). Decapitation is a signature killing style for raccoons.

The coon then seems to have forced the dead goose through the fence --- no small feat, as the fence has such small holes that live geese never have been able to push their way through.

I continued tracking the feathers through the hay field, and found the place where the goose had been disemboweled and consumed. (Again, not pictured.) Then the feather trail petered out.

Geese are usually pretty ferocious animals, and a flock of them can easily repel predators even as large as foxes. This is the first goose we've lost to a predator in many years; the only other victims have been broody geese who were sitting alone on nests outside of an enclosure.

It's amazing how sneaky that coon was, pulling the goose right out of the barn the way he did. I had no idea that something could fit through that little gap...but I suppose that if you're a coon, and you're hungry enough, you'll try anything.

Guess what The Yeoman Farmer's first repair task will be this morning?

Yeoman Farm Baby --- Incoming!

In a recent post, I asked for your prayers regarding a big development that was underfoot. Mrs Yeoman Farmer and I are deeply grateful for all of those prayers...because they have been bearing tremendous fruit. Specifically, this kind of fruit:


No, MYF is not pregnant. We wish another pregnancy was possible, but God has made it clear that he has chosen a different way he'd like our family to grow. Some time back, we were contacted by a friend who wanted to know if we had ever considered adoption. We said that we had in fact thought and prayed about it a lot, and were open to it, but that we had not begun actively pursuing it. She then explained that she knew of a young woman who was at a loss as to what she should do about an unexpected pregnancy. Although privacy reasons prevent my elaborating on the details, the young woman and we both decided that her baby would be a perfect match for our family.

The baby is not due until late in the fall, so we have some time, but the upcoming months will still be a hectic whirlwind of agency interviews, legal proceedings, and a home study. We are discovering that even with a private arrangement such as this one, a great deal of government oversight (through an adoption agency) is still required.

But that is all fine with us. Our whole family is so excited about this new little member, all the legal and agency hurdles in the world seem like nothing. This new little baby is truly a pearl of great price, for whom we are prepared to sacrifice all we have.

The birth mother, and we, are completely committed to the adoption. However, given the number of complications that can arise in both a pregnancy and a legal process, both of our families would greatly appreciate all the prayers you are able to offer up on our behalf.

Food, Inc.

There is a new documentary out today called Food, Inc. I haven't seen it, but from the trailer it looks like an excellent indictment of Big Food.

In a textbook example of irony, an advertisement for McDonald's Big Mac appeared on the YouTube page while I was watching the trailer. I clicked through on the advertisement, which will hopefully cost McDonald's some money.

Has anyone seen the full movie, and can you give us a report? According to the film's website, there are no theaters within 40 miles of me that are showing it. If I do manage to see it, I will post a review to the blog.



H/T: Patti L.

Back from the Wilderness

We're back from the virtual wilderness; AT&T finally got our DSL service re-established on Friday, a couple of days after originally promised. We are now a cell phone-only family for voice communications, and so far it has worked out well enough.

The week without DSL (or even dial-up, as we had no landline) was difficult, and I was going through serious withdrawal at times. Unfortunately, the closest WiFi hotspot is quite some distance from our house (at the local bakery/cafe, the staff didn't even know what "WiFi" is); I ended up driving in just once a day to check and respond to critical emails. Unfortunately, my laptop chose this week to begin its death spiral. It's now 7 or 8 years old, but I use it so infrequently (and for such basic tasks) that I haven't bothered upgrading it. Just this week, when I took it into town to check critical emails, it began doing something truly bizarre: it was like the keyboard was frequently stuck on a particular key, and would type that character repeatedly no matter what application I had open. It didn't do this all the time, and it wasn't always the same keyboard character, but I seldom had more than about a minute between episodes. Even plugging in an auxiliary keyboard didn't solve the problem. It seems like something is going seriously wrong with the wiring in the laptop's built-in keyboard. Bottom line: I had to respond quickly to emails, and had no time for posting to the blog.

I hope to rectify that soon, once we catch our collective breath. My folks are in from Arizona for the next couple of days, and we've been enjoying spending time with them. It's been particularly fun seeing my parents get to know Mrs Yeoman Farmer's father better; we had a grand time at his place yesterday, and my father is out golfing with him right now. (And the three of us played in a K of C charity golf scramble on Saturday morning.)

Last weekend, we had a wonderful time hosting one of MYF's law school friends and her family; they are Chicago-area homeschoolers with kids corresponding very closely in age to ours, and all the children had an absolute blast running around the farm playing and doing chores. The friend's parents also came; her father grew up on a large farm in Mainland China, before the communists seized power and the village's landholders all fled to Taiwan. He later attended college and graduate school in the USA and settled in this country, but never lost his love for the land. He was fascinated by all aspects of our property, and we thoroughly enjoyed comparing notes about "yeoman farming" practices in 1940s-era China versus 2009 Michigan.

Finally, there is a big development under foot that has been keeping us preoccupied for the last couple of weeks. I'm not sure it's prudent to say much more about that development at present, other than to ask all of you to pray that everything surrounding it go as smoothly as possible. I should be able to supply more details before long; in the meantime, your prayers are very much appreciated.

Going Down

It's official: I'm losing my internet service later today, due to the switch from landline to mobile phone. In fact, our (landline) home phone number started ringing on our cell phone today --- but for the moment, we still have a dial tone on the landline. AT&T assures me that the dial tone will be gone soon, and with it our DSL internet. However, they're now saying it will take until next Wednesday to reestablish internet service. This is a switch from the "single day" interruption they told me earlier.

Bottom line: I won't be posting much over the next several days. I will be driving in to a WiFi hotspot to get coffee and check email each day, but blog posts are unlikely.

I'll give a review of our "cutting the cord" experience once we've lived for a few weeks without landline service. With the cost savings ($40/month in our case, even after the cost of adding a third cell phone and $10 more for internet), this is a move that others out there might want to seriously consider.

Hay is Done!

It turns out that the hay wasn't as wet on Sunday as we had feared. Our neighbor came over late that morning, flipped it over, and then determined that it was drying fast enough to bale later that afternoon. A contributing factor is that they had a field full of their own hay to bale, and needed to get that done Monday before Tuesday's rains came; that meant ours needed to be cleared out on Sunday if at all possible.

A final check at 4pm proved that the hay had dried nicely in the sun, and the baling commenced. For the first load, Mrs Yeoman Farmer and her father stacked bales on the hay wagon as they emerged from the baler. The baler is quite a device; it is towed behind the tractor, but its intake for the hay is set off to the side. As the tractor drives between the raked rows of hay, the hay is drawn into the baler, compacted into a bale shape, trimmed, and emerges in a continuous feed from the chute in the rear. It is automatically tied into bales of a standard length as it comes down that chute. In this photo, the farmer has stopped the tractor momentarily to deal with a broken string.

Once this rack was filled with 80 or so bales, the farmer towed it to our barn, backed it in to the second story, and unhitched it. Then, as three people got busy unloading and stacking bales in the barn, he went back to the field to fill a second rack. We soon had a smoothly-functioning system running, with the two teams handing off full and empty racks every half hour or so.

After the first rack came in, MYF and her father opted to stay in the barn and work with the farmer's wife to unload and stack all of the day's bales. I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening riding around in the hay field, stacking newly-tied bales on the rack behind the trailer. Joining me was an extremely hard-working 15 year old homeschooled boy from a nearby farm; his family had a lot of experience farming hay, and he had the muscles to prove it. He is also an avid hunter and shooter; we had a grand time discussing firearms and the best way to dispatch various wildlife --- which made our hours out in the hot sun fly by.

With the last bale put away at 8:45, and the evening twilight beginning to fade, all of us were bone tired and ready to eat and go to bed. MYF's father and I cracked open a couple of beers, which tasted all the better for having been so hard-earned, and surveyed the day's handiwork: a literal wall of 465 bales of hay, stacked 15 feet high in our barn.

Because this first cutting was so early in the year, and the field is well fertilized, it's likely we will get at least two additional cuttings. The rule of thumb is that those two additional cuttings will roughly total the first cutting. Although we can't count the hay until it's baled, we're looking forward to having 900+ bales stored up for the coming winter.

No one had any trouble getting to sleep Sunday night. Then, we ended up toiling most of Monday, trying to get the remaining beds of MYF's garden cultivated and planted before Tuesday's expected rains. Again, no trouble sleeping last night.

It's a relief to finally have my day of rest, even if I had to wait until today to get it. But that's the thing about farming: you have to do things when you have to do them. And now...I'm just glad they're done.

God's Plans, and Ours

A few years ago, I attended a week-long theology workshop taught by a very holy and learned priest. One subject had to do with Natural Law foundations for morality, and proofs from natural reason for the existence of God. At one point, the priest posed a question to us: "How many of the Ten Commandments are knowable from natural reason alone?"

Various people threw out various guesses, ranging from "six" to "all ten." The priest shook his head after each one, and we ran out of guesses. Then, with a wry smile, he gave us the answer: "Nine and a half."

"Huh?" we collectively responded. "What's the 'half'?"

Still giving the wry smile, he explained, "We can know from natural reason that human beings need a day of rest, but we need God to reveal to us which one it should be."

As I explained in one of this blog's earliest posts, we've grown much more appreciative --- and much more observant --- of Sunday as a day of rest. We're not Pharisaical about it, but we try to avoid doing any kind of hard labor or other work that isn't strictly necessary. Livestock certainly need to be cared for on Sundays, but the garden certainly doesn't need to be weeded and laundry almost never needs to be washed. We try to spend our time seeing and hanging out with extended family, taking bike rides with the kids, catching up on some reading, or having other families over for dinner. The idea is to avoid shopping for anything but emergency items, trying to clear backlogs of work, and other kinds of "running around".

This weekend, an unfortunate necessity loomed over our Sunday: Haying. Thanks to a timely application of fertilizer last fall, we have a bumper crop of hay this spring. We hire a local farm family to cut it, flip it, rake it, and bale it; we assist with hauling it to the barn and stacking it. The farmer did the cutting late last week, and thanks to some hot weather it was nearly dry enough to bale yesterday afternoon.

Nearly dry enough, but not quite. The hay was so thick on the ground, it hadn't all dried even after flipping and raking. But by his estimation, Monday might be too late; the hay could be so dry, much of it would crumble into dust and be lost.

We reluctantly decided that we'd better bale the hay on Sunday afternoon. In this case, as backbreaking and exhausting as the work is, it was necessary if we were to feed the livestock. We decided that this week, our "day of rest" would be Monday.

We decided. But, as it turns out, God had other plans. I awakened this morning, threw back the bedroom curtains, and observed a surprise: rain. Not a hard rain, but the ground was definitely wet. Going out to take care of chores, there was definitely a steady drizzle. Everything, including those five acres of neatly-raked and ready-to-bale hay, was wet. Not soaking wet. Not we're-going-to-lose-it-to-rot wet. But definitely too wet to bale today.

Fortunately, the drizzle has already let up, and it's supposed to be sunny and warm all afternoon and Monday. It's not supposed to rain again until Tuesday. I suppose we'll let the top of the hay dry today, flip it, allow the other side to dry Monday, and bale it Monday afternoon.
Regardless, it's looking like Sunday will indeed be our day of rest this week. And thank God for that.

Starting Small

In a recent post, I advised aspiring farmers/homesteaders to "start small" in their plans for livestock. For us, that meant we should have tried dairy goats before graduating to a cow. Smaller livestock are easier to work with, easier to contain, cost less to feed, and are often more efficient at transforming that feed into meat or milk.

We got one thing right: we bought a Jersey cow, and not a Holstein. You'd have to have an extremely large family to consume the volume of milk a Holstein produces. For nearly any small farm, a Jersey is plenty --- and much easier to manage.

A story in today's LA Times highlights a number of farmers who have chosen smaller, heritage breeds of cattle.

They bought minicows -- compact cattle with stocky bodies, smaller frames and relatively tiny appetites.

Their miniature Herefords consume about half that of a full-sized cow yet produce 50% to 75% of the rib-eyes and fillets, according to researchers and budget-conscious farmers.

"We get more sirloin and less soup bone," Ali said. "People used to look at them and laugh. Now, they want to own them."

In the last few years, ranchers across the country have been snapping up mini Hereford and Angus calves that fit in a person's lap. Farmers who raise mini-Jerseys brag how each animal provides 2 to 3 gallons of milk a day, though they complain about having to crouch down on their knees to reach the udders.

"Granny always said I prayed for my milk," said Tim O'Donnell, 53, who milks his 15 miniature Jerseys twice a day on his farm in Altamont, Ill.

Minicows are not genetically engineered to be tiny, and they're not dwarfs. Instead, they are drawn from original breeds brought to the U.S. from Europe in the 1800s that were smaller than today's bovine giants, said Ron Lemenager, professor of animal science at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind.

The Petersens' mini-Herefords, with their white faces and rounded auburn-hued bodies, weigh in at a dainty 500 to 700 pounds, compared with 1,300 pounds or more for their heftier brethren.

Big cows emerged as a product of the 1950s and '60s, when farmers were focused on getting more meat and didn't fret as much about the efficient use of animal feed or grasslands.

"Feed prices were relatively cheap, and grazing lands were accessible," Lemenager said. "The plan was to get more meat per animal. But it went way too far. The animals got too big and eat so much."

Today, there's little room for inefficiency on a modern farm, and that has led some farmers to consider minicows.

You should, too. Go read the whole thing.

The overall lesson in here for aspiring homesteaders: don't think you need to get the "industry standard" of whatever livestock is out there. I'd add, in a vein similar to that of the article, that Giant White turkeys might make sense for Butterball, but are lousy homestead animals. Heritage breed turkeys are usually much more practical.

But that doesn't mean smaller is always better. White Leghorn chickens are very small, and are highly efficient at transforming feed into eggs, which makes them perfect for packing into concentration camp egg factories --- but we tried letting a few run around our farm and we hated their temperament (and there was almost zero carcass left for chicken soup when we butchered them). Likewise, our friends who raise hogs have much preferred heritage breed pigs to the breeds raised in confinement in Iowa, even though the body sizes are similar. And if you're going to be raising an animal which is already smaller by nature (i.e. goat versus cow), there is no need to keep going smaller. Pygmy goats, for instance, are cute and make nice pets, but I wouldn't rely on them for my family's meat or milk supply (unless we were trying to do stealth farming in an urban environment).

Paging Jeff Culbreath: Would you like to post a comment regarding the merits (and drawbacks) of Dexter Cattle? I didn't see the breed mentioned in the LA Times story.

Dispactched

As I pulled up to the house at about 6:30 this evening, I spotted an animal running erratically along the shoulder of the road about 50 feet or so ahead. It was roughly the size of a large cat, but I'd never seen one of our barn cats that far off our property --- and certainly not running along the side of the road in this manner. Not able to get a better look at the animal's markings, I dismissed it and turned into the driveway.

As Mrs Yeoman Farmer used a hose to water newly-planted bushes in the front yard, I went inside and began cooking dinner. A moment later, she came running into the house with an urgent request: "Get your gun! There is a sick, rabid-looking raccoon wandering around in the street."

So that was it. No wonder I hadn't been able to recognize the animal at first --- raccoons are never out in the daytime, and they certainly never run around like this one was. Unless, of course, they're rapid.

I dashed upstairs, grabbed the 12-gauge pump shotgun we use for home defense, and then hurried out to the road. The raccoon had now crossed to our side of the street, and was looking as disoriented as ever. Two cars were coming, so I stood just off the road. Strange as I must have looked, standing there holding a large shotgun, neither car so much as slowed down to get a better look at me. Once both had passed, I raised the shotgun to my shoulder, lined the coon up, and blasted.

Because rabid animals are known to charge and attack, I hadn't wanted to get too close to my target. As a result, I didn't score a direct hit with enough of my nine pieces of 00 buckshot to kill the coon. He was definitely wounded, but still on his feet.

I racked another shell into the chamber, and took a couple of steps toward him before firing again. This blast took him off his feet. As he rolled around on the shoulder of the road, I knew he'd never survive these wounds --- but I wanted him all the way dead. Now.

Except there was a small problem: another car was coming. I stepped back from the road, sheepishly holding the shotgun in my arms, wondering if the driver was at all curious as to what I was doing. If he was, he didn't indicate it by slowing down. Once he was safely past, I racked a third shell and again approached the coon. As he was now unable to charge me, I got to within about ten feet before letting go with my final shot --- and this one left no doubt.

MYF and I were both concerned about leaving a dead rabid coon on the side of the road, especially with the propensity our dogs and cats have for poking around and exploring. And what would happen if some scavenger cleaned up this carcass? Could the disease spread wider into the local wildlife population? Plus, we weren't sure if the game department needed to be informed about the situation.

I made a quick call to the local Department of Natural Resources, and the woman I spoke with assured me that there was no need for them to catalog the kill. Coons are terrible spreaders of disease, she said, and I shouldn't hesitate to dispatch them any time they come on our property. As for this one, she told me, I could either bury it or carefully dispose of it in the trash. I chose the latter. After donning latex gloves, I dropped the carcass into a large paper feed bag and then secured it in the trash can. And then washed my hands thoroughly.

What I still can't get over is how totally nonplussed the drivers were as they went past me. As one who grew up in a quiet Seattle subdivision, and lived in fairly densely populated neighborhoods for most of my adult life, I can imagine the utter panic (and calls to the police) that would have ensued if I had walked any of those streets with a 12-gauge pump shotgun over my shoulder.

It really is different out here. And I can't imagine living anywhere else.

Cutting the Cord

One of the few positive things about an economic downturn / recession is that it exposes and leads people to eliminate unnecessary expenditures from their lives. By analogy, a leaky faucet, which we may have once tolerated and put off repairing in normal times, will quickly find itself getting fixed when there is a drought and water is rationed. In a recession, many of the "leaking faucets" in our budgets are now coming under closer scrutiny. I'm not a trained economist, but my hope is that, as we all work to eliminate those expenditures, the system as a whole will become more efficient.

Here on the farm, we've begun going after our own "leaking faucets." One small one: I realized that every broadcast television program I want to watch is now streamed over the internet. There was no longer any reason to pay Dish Network $5.99/month for local channels, so I ditched those this week. And when our contract with Dish is up later this summer, I will quite likely cancel that whole service.

A bigger leaking faucet, that we're eliminating today, is landline phone service. At $60 per month for local and unlimited long distance (more like $67 after all the taxes and fees), this didn't seem like a bad deal when we moved here. But Mrs Yeoman Farmer and I both have cell phones, with plenty of "family share" minutes and unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling. For the last several months, as I've written my check to AT&T, I've grown to increasingly view the landline as a redundancy.

MYF and I did our homework, thought the decision through, and concluded that we should add a third cell phone to our plan, so we could always have one parked in the house --- and we would transfer our existing home phone number to that phone. Cost for that third line is $10/month. And without a landline, AT&T will charge us an extra $10/month for high speed internet. But that still puts us ahead by $47/month.

We'll be making that transition today, and the internet will be disrupted for a day or two as AT&T adjusts our service. Blog posting will therefore be sparse for awhile, and there may be a delay in my moderating any comments you post.

One interesting thing about planning for this transition: I hadn't stopped to think lately about how dependent I am on internet service, and how much anxiety I'd feel about being deprived of it for even two days. Fortunately, I was able to identify a couple of days where I wouldn't need it for work. I will be able to drive in to a WiFi cafe to check email during the day, but that is quite some distance from our house and I won't be going often. I'm trying to see the break in internet connectivity as an opportunity to (1) examine and reflect upon my degree of attachment to the service; and (2) get outside and take care of some projects on the farm.

Both of which are pretty good. And maybe I'll identify a few more leaking faucets while I'm at it. How about the rest of you? What have kinds of budgetary leaking faucets have you eliminated over these last several months?

UPDATE: When I made the call to pull the trigger on porting our landline over to the new cell phone, they gave approval...but said it will take until May 28th to actually go through. So, it looks like I'll have uninterrupted internet service until then. There is no technological reason why AT&T couldn't release the old landline number to my new Sprint cell phone today. They're simply trying to milk eight additional days of landline service out of me. And, yes, this makes me all the more glad about my decision to dump them.

IPPY!!!

We got some great news over the weekend: my novel has won a bronze medal, for best 2008 religious fiction, in the Independent Publisher ("IPPY") Book Awards. Although Independent Publisher magazine has not yet disclosed the number of titles that were competing in that category, there were a total of 3,380 books entered across all 65 national categories --- an average of 50+ per category.

According to the sponsor, the "IPPY" awards are conducted annually to honor the year's best independently published titles. The "IPPY" Awards reward those who exhibit the courage, innovation, and creativity to bring about change in the world of publishing. Independent spirit and expertise comes from publishers of all sizes and budgets, and books are judged with that in mind. All independent, university, small press, and self-publishers who produce books intended for the North American market are eligible to enter titles copyrighted or released in 2008.

All I can say is: I'm very honored that the novel was judged to be near the top of its category. But what makes me even happier are the messages of appreciation from those who have read the book and found themselves moved or inspired by the story. If this award helps the book find its way into the hands of even one more such person, that's the only thing I really care about.

Permaculture

In the comments thread on a recent post, the subject of "permaculture" came up. I have a couple of permaculture books listed in the right margin, and the commenter was interested in the relative merits of each. As I told him, the "Designers Manual" is much more detailed than the average person needs; the "Introduction to Permaculture" is a good practical overview of key principles. I noted that the prices for both books on Amazon are really high. In the days since, Mrs Yeoman Farmer pointed out to me that the "Seeds of Change" site has the Designers Manual for much less than Amazon is currently listing it for --- and they also have a number of other relatively affordable permaculture books. I can't personally vouch for those, but they look good.

Our one big criticism of Bill Mollison's books is that he is Australian --- and his diagrams therefore assume that northern exposures give the most sunlight for plants (exactly the opposite of the case in North America). He addresses this issue in the text, but many of the diagrams still seem oddly "upside down" and we sometimes struggle to understand them. It's like trying to work on an American car using a Haynes Manual from England; all the information is there, but you have to keep remembering to turn it around.

Some other good permaculture sites include the Permaculture Institute and the International Institute for Ecological Agriculture. The latter is home to "Farmer Dave" Blume; he's a fascinating and extremely knowledgeable character, and we had the opportunity to attend one of his full-day permaculture workshops in Illinois a few years ago.

One way to think of permaculture is as "permanent agriculture." Or, as the Wikipedia definition puts it: "an approach to designing human settlements and perennial agricultural systems that mimic the relationships found in the natural ecologies."

We have chosen to incorporate some aspects of this approach in our own farm, but we have never been able to set up our entire property following permaculture guidelines. In practical terms, for us, permaculture has meant:

1) Cultivating as many perennial fruiting trees, brambles, and vines as possible. These not only provide fruit for the humans, but lots of "windfalls" and extras that can feed livestock. In the fall, when apples and pears are coming down like crazy, we toss the extras over the pasture fence --- and watch the sheep come running at full speed. A few mature mulberry trees out in the chicken yard will provide lots and lots of supplementary feed (not to mention entertainment, as the hens scramble to grab ripe berries every time the wind picks up and rustles the branches). But, as MYF cautions, keep the mulberry trees far from your garden --- they will spread and become a real nuisance.

2) Integrating livestock with plants as a system. Our movable poultry pens, serving as tractors, are a prime example. Pens of waterfowl are perfect for clearing new garden beds in the sod. Then make your garden twice as large as you need, and run chickens or turkeys in pens on the unused beds. The birds mow the weeds, get green stuff and bug protein in their diet, reduce the bug population in the garden, and leave fertilizer behind. The next year, those beds get planted --- and the poultry pens can move on the beds that had been previously cultivated. We also ran pens up and down the aisles of our vineyard in Illinois; in addition to providing fertilizer and weed control, they also did a number on the Japanese beetles. Next year, we will be introducing bees to our farm; they will provide an important service as pollinators, and will also provide honey.

3) Utilizing large PVC tanks to catch rainwater, and then releasing that water for livestock or the vineyard.

A very important theme of permaculture is that, whenever possible, the outputs from one component of the farm should serve as inputs for another component. Mollison's book is outstanding in giving ideas for constructing these sorts of systems. (Just remember that North means South and South means North!)

Bottom line: The key to permaculture is to work with your property, taking advantage of its natural characteristics, and fostering connections within it, rather than declaring war on it.

Gosling Adoption

We tried for several years to get our geese to hatch their own goslings, but were never successful. Goslings are fairly expensive to purchase (nowadays going for eight or nine dollars each, not counting shipping), so we didn't give up easily. But what would inevitably happen is that a goose would make her nest --- and then another goose would make her nest right next to it. And then other geese would climb in there to lay, and soon there were far too many eggs for the broody geese to cover. And then a chicken or two would lay eggs in the goose nest, and the goose would return before I discovered those eggs. The weight of the goose would crush them, coating all the goose eggs with sticky egg fluid. The nest material would then encrust itself all over the goose eggs.

I think it might've worked if we'd had just one or two geese, plus a gander, and been able to isolate their nests in a private area away from all other birds. We ended up concluding it was easier to simply purchase new goslings.

Which we did again this year. As reported in recent posts, they've been doing wonderful work busting sod for Mrs Yeoman Farmer's new garden beds. Yesterday, however, we ran out of sod for them to consume. I turned the eight surviving goslings loose in the pasture, and after a bit of orientation (and time to overcome their shock at suddenly being surrounded by so much green stuff), they went to work mowing down high weeds along the fence.

And then something interesting happened. Our two mature geese (which we kept because they are too old to butcher; we sell their eggs to a woman who paints them for crafts) eventually emerged from the barn, and slowly made their way toward the goslings. One of the geese seemed especially interested in this new little group, and approached them with her neck extended and head lowered. When she reached them, she shook all her feathers (making herself look bigger and more imposing), and then hissed at me and the dog. Within moments, all eight goslings were following her around. She hissed and honked at every nearby animal, and made little maternal honking noises to urge her little brood to move in the direction she wanted.

A day later, the new goose family is still all sticking together. They slept together in a group in the barn last night, and have been inseparable in the pasture.

You know that expression about "birds of a feather"? Truer than you might think.

And I think we'll be keeping "Mother Goose" for at least one more year. Craft sales of her eggs have more than paid for her keep...and how do you compute the entertainment value we got yesterday?

So, You Want to Be a Yeoman Farmer...

A reader writes with a few excellent questions:

Reading your post about the lambs today got me thinking - how did you learn to do all this stuff? Did you grow up on a farm? [My wife] and I dream (and pray) daily about doing the same kinds of things you do, but even if I had a farm delivered into my lap for free I have no idea what I'm doing. How does a guy who never even hunted in his life learn as an adult to become more self-sufficient, deal with domesticated animals, etc.?

The answer to the first question is an emphatic No, neither Mrs Yeoman Farmer nor I grew up on a farm. MYF's grandfather had a large farm in Indiana, which she enjoyed visiting from time to time, but that's the closest that either of us had gotten to "farming." I grew up in a suburban Seattle subdivision, and went off to college not even knowing how to change the oil in a car --- let alone how to cultivate a plant, load or fire a gun, butcher an animal, drive a fence post, milk a goat, or anything else that I now do on a regular basis. To paraphrase a line from Casablanca, I suppose that I would have despised doing those things...if I'd ever even given them any thought.

As described in this blog's very first post, we didn't begin to give farming serious thought until we'd been married a few years and our children began suffering from severe food allergies. That post gives some overview of how we made the move to the country, but I would like to fill in and emphasize a few points in response to the email correspondent's questions:

First, we bought a large library of books, even before making the move, and continued adding books after the move. Education of this sort is essential background, as it allows you to learn about a wide variety of things and make some decisions about what you'd like to do. Carla Emery's Encyclopedia of Country Living is the very best, if you only have the time/money for a single book. Your library may have it, but it's an excellent investment. We spent hours browsing it and dreaming, while still in California. Use this book as a jumping-off point for buying books about specific topics that you find most appealing. Even after moving, we read magazines like Countryside that share the experiences various people have had with various types of livestock --- that's how we discovered Icelandic sheep and found our breeder, for example.

Second, visit other small farms and get to know the families who run them. Even now, we find it extremely valuable to see how other people have laid out their properties and the sorts of innovative things they have some up with. Just yesterday, we attended a day-long beekeeping class at a farm about an hour from here. It was a wonderful experience, and just $75 for the whole family (and includes a follow-up class in August, when they harvest honey.) I went home with a number of new ideas about things we could do with our farm. Even if you have no desire to get a bee hive, this farm is an excellent example of a visitor-friendly place where you can learn a lot and sample some outstanding produce. I encourage my Michigan readers to check out the link above --- and for those of you in other parts of the country to look around for similar places. They are literally everywhere. Your best bet is actually not to surf the web looking for them, but rather to shop at farmer's markets and strike up conversations with the people manning the booths. MYF found the beekeepers because they'd set up a booth at a Catholic homeschooling conference she attended last year; she struck up a conversation, and quickly learned about what they had to offer visitors.

Third, once you've gotten to know other farm families, volunteer yourself as slave labor, learning by doing, helping out as best you can. Though some might prefer not to have to spend a long time training you, if they are passionate about what they're doing, they will want to share that passion. That was our experience, anyhow. It's how I learned how to butcher poultry, brood chicks, keep poultry in movable pasture pens, dig potatoes, etc. MYF learned a great deal about gardening by talking with others who had cultivated plants in the area and getting a good look at what they were growing; it's the best way to understand what will thrive in your particular location and its micro-climate.

Fourth, we made lots of mistakes and learned from them. The key advice I'd give: start slow and start small, so your mistakes aren't too big. I don't regret having started anything too small. I have many regrets about starting some things too big. A classic example in our case is dairy. We never ever should've started with a cow. We should have started with one goat. Eventually we figured that out, many dollars (and headaches) later. In a similar vein, don't rush into getting livestock before you have the facilities prepared; do not think to yourself "we need to get some chicks started, and I'll worry about building a chicken coop as they're growing." We made that mistake with our cow; we got her before fencing an outside area for her --- and we never ended up getting it done. She was stuck with her calf in a small area for the whole time we had her. We learned from this, and securely fenced the pasture before getting our sheep. Likewise, at the beekeeping class yesterday, we were greatly tempted to splurge and buy our first hive. But as I thought about it, I realized I wasn't fully prepared for bees. I needed to read more, and plan more, and think things through more completely. It would be wonderful to have a hive this year, but I want to make sure we do it right. There is no harm in waiting. As I said, where we've usually harmed ourselves most is in not waiting and preparing more.

This is the sort of post that could go on forever (and MYF needs me to dig another trench for potatoes), so I'll bring it to a close. The bottom line, if you want to be a Yeoman farmer: Read, Visit, Volunteer. You can't do enough of that. And do as much reading and visiting as you can before moving to the country. It will help a lot in deciding what sort of natural characteristics you should be looking for in a property --- and many times, the farmers themselves will know of suitable country properties for sale that aren't on the radar of most realtors.

But there I go, making this post even longer. It's hard to stop writing about this question, because it's something I feel so passionately about sharing. Find someone near you who has that passion, and go see up close how they're living the dream.

Imagine That

There is a wonderful new television spot, "Kinship," out from the folks at CatholicVote. It's excellent.

And I'm particularly appreciative of this video, because The Yeoman Farmer's name and likeness could also be counted among those featured in it.

It's not centering very well on my blog page, so double-click the image below to watch in a new window.

Waterfowl at Work

I recently blogged about how the "chicken tractors" have been helping us get Mrs Yeoman Farmer's garden ready. As the young birds grow older, they seem to eat more weeds and drop more fertilizer by the day. And as I type this, MYF is out in the garden beginning to till some of the garden beds.

The one pen with 15 ducklings and 9 goslings has been particularly productive. As waterfowl are voracious consumers of grass, we thought it made sense to put them in charge of clearing sod from the brand new beds we want to plow up in the lawn.

After just over one week, moving the pen basically once per day, take a look at what they've been able to accomplish:

This is a classic example of sustainable agriculture, and working with nature rather than declaring war on it. And we will enjoy remembering this lesson as we feast on goose all winter long.

The Meatrix

This is quite good:


H/T: Patty L.

Last and Least

Our final ewe, Enigma, delivered today. It was just a single male, but he was up and on his feet quickly. This ends the lambing season!

Given all the activity with the sheep, and the number of other lambs, it was remarkable how well he was getting around and holding his own with the flock. However, given that he is completely in-bred (his sire produced him by breeding his own mother), there is no question that we'll be butchering him this fall.

Scooter, our Border Collie, is doing his part to bond with the new member of the flock:

This makes a total of 14 lambs from 8 ewes...for a lambing percentage of 175%. This is outstanding, and we could not have asked for better --- especially since we have not had a single death yet this year.

Authorities and Outbreaks

Remember the concerns I expressed last month about the N.A.I.S. (National Animal Identification System)?

When news like the following breaks, it's hard not to imagine some authority in our own country getting a similar sort of hare-brained idea the next time a disease breaks out:

CAIRO (AP) - Egypt began slaughtering the roughly 300,000 pigs in the country Wednesday as a precautionary measure against the spread of swine flu even though no cases have been reported here yet, the Health Ministry said.

The move immediately provoked resistance from pig farmers. At one large pig farming center just north of Cairo, farmers refused to cooperate with Health Ministry workers who came to slaughter the animals and the workers left without carrying out the government order.

"It has been decided [TYF: gotta love that use of the passive, bureaucratic voice] to immediately start slaughtering all the pigs in Egypt using the full capacity of the country's slaughterhouses," Health Minister Hatem el-Gabaly told reporters after a Cabinet meeting with President Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt's overwhelmingly Muslim population does not eat pork due to religious restrictions. But the animals are raised and consumed by the Christian minority, which some estimates put at 10 percent of the population.

Health Ministry spokesman Abdel Rahman estimated there were between 300,000-350,000 pigs in Egypt.

Agriculture Minister Amin Abaza told reporters that farmers would be allowed to sell the pork meat so there would be no need for compensation.

Bravo to the Egyptian farmers who have stood up to the authorities and refused to allow the slaughter of their healthy animals. And be thankful that there is no N.A.I.S. in your country that would allow those authorities to more efficiently locate and target the smaller farmers who might be less able to fight back.

Getting the Garden Ready

We've been working intensely over the last week or two, getting the garden ready for planting; that is one big reason why blog posting has been so sparse of late.

Before I forget --- for those of you thinking about putting in a garden for the first time, Mrs Yeoman Farmer strongly recommends a book called Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times. If you buy only one gardening book, she says this is definitely the one to get.

But back to our own garden. You may remember that we left several garden beds fallow last year, and ran portable poultry pens full of turkeys up and down them. That proved to be an excellent system. We began preparing those beds on Friday and Saturday, getting ready to plant potatoes in them. There were very few weeds to remove, as the turkeys had wiped them completely out. And the layer of fertilizer the turkeys left behind had broken down over the winter into a nice, rich soil that was easy to work. A severe late-afternoon thunderstorm (of the kind so common here in the upper Midwest in the spring) interrupted our planting, but we did manage to get a trench dug and about half a bed of seed potatoes into the ground.

Mrs Yeoman Farmer plans to use every one of the garden beds this year, which means we need to get some fertilizer onto the ones we used last year. As we don't want to use synthetic fertilizers, and we don't yet have a good compost heap, our "quick and dirty" solution involves putting more birds to work. For the last week, I've had a pen of 15 or so older laying hens moving down a bed that had tomatoes planted on it last year. I'd suspected that these hens had reached the end of their productive laying life, but they have surprisingly been holding their own in the egg department; we've gotten several eggs out of the pen each day, and I'm glad I didn't simply butcher them. So, in addition to wiping out the weeds and getting some fresh fertilizer onto the garden, the pasture pen has proven itself useful in yet another way: letting us test the productivity of suspect hens.

Just this morning, we got a second "tractor" pen moving on another garden bed. This one contains the seventy young chicks (30 broilers and 40 pullets) that we got a few weeks ago; they'd been indoors, in a brooder, until now. We actually could have gotten them outside several days ago, but we've been too busy building pens and taking care of more urgent tasks. Anyhow, this photo gives a good look at the pullet pen (foreground), with the mature hen pen in the background. Because the manure from both of these pens is so fresh, we will need to wait a few weeks before planting them --- and we will need to work the manure into the soil thoroughly. Otherwise, the nitrogen-rich chicken droppings will be too "hot" for newly-planted seedlings.
Mrs Yeoman Farmer wants to add a few more beds to the garden, which will involve the tedious task of "busting sod." Regrettably, she didn't realize we'd need the new beds until after we'd butchered the turkeys last fall; otherwise, we could have used the turkey tractors to clear the sod for us. As it is, I've put the new baby waterfowl (ducklings and goslings) into a pasture pen to at least get the process started. (Given the enormous appetite that goslings in particular have for grass, I figured this would be an excellent job to put them in charge of.) Here is what they've managed to do in just a day and a half:
Given all the work that remains to be done, I can't promise frequent postings over the next few weeks. But I do plan to put more details up about gardening; I really wanted to publish something about it before the planting season, when the information would be more useful for my readers. Stay tuned.

Turkey Season

Our turkey poults will be arriving in about a week and a half. In the meantime, the wild turkeys in our area have really been out and about. Nearly every morning, we see them strutting around in the neighboring field (35 acres, behind our fenced pasture), their tail feathers fanned majestically.

This afternoon, for the first time, a couple of big toms flew into our pasture --- but then they couldn't find a way out. One was on the sheep side of the pasture and the other was on the goat side; the two of them strutted confusedly up and down the dividing fence, stopping now and then to press themselves into it, not seeming to understand why they couldn't go through it and be together. (Even in the wild, it appears that turkeys are pretty dim-witted.)

Anyway, this had been going on for the better part of an hour before ten-year-old Homeschooled Farm Girl happened to look out and notice it. She came running to find me, and announced, "Daddy, there's a wild turkey on our property! Too bad you can't hunt it."

"I know," I replied, "but it's not hunting season."

HFG thought for a moment, and then asked, "Why don't we chase it into the barn, and then keep it there until turkey season?"

Smart girl. But, as I explained to her, that's not exactly legal. Or sporting.

And the best way to get delicious turkey is to raise it yourself. Which we will be doing, starting in less than two weeks.

Good Out of Evil

Mrs Yeoman Farmer came across the following story the other day and asked me to share it:

NAIROBI (Reuters) – A Kenyan man bit a python who wrapped him in its coils and hauled him up a tree in a struggle that lasted hours, local media said Wednesday.

Farm manager Ben Nyaumbe was working at the weekend when the serpent, apparently hunting for livestock, struck in the Malindi area of Kenya's Indian Ocean coast.

"I stepped on a spongy thing on the ground and suddenly my leg was entangled with the body of a huge python," he told the Daily Nation newspaper.

When the snake coiled itself round his upper body, Nyaumbe resorted to desperate measures: "I had to bite it."

The python dragged him up a tree, but when it eased its grip, Nyaumbe said he was able to take a mobile phone out of his pocket and phone for help.

When his supervisor came with a policeman, Nyaumbe smothered the snake's head with his shirt, while the rescuers tied it with a rope and pulled.

"We both came down, landing with a thud," said Nyaumbe, who survived with damaged lips and bruising.

The snake escaped from the three sacks it was bundled into.

MYF's comment: "Thank God my ancestors came here on boats 300 years ago, so my kids and I don't have to live some place where giant snakes drag people into trees!"

When I finished laughing, she added: "I'm serious! You can quote me on that. Put it in your blog!"

Slavery, particularly the way it was practiced in the Americas, was a horrendous affront to human dignity; MYF and I would be the last people in the world to wish it on anyone. But it's interesting the way such tremendous good can be drawn even from such a tremendous evil. Beyond freedom from giant serpents, MYF and other descendants of African slaves enjoy liberties and opportunities that are unthinkable on the African continent today --- and we are deeply grateful for that.

With everything in the news these days, it's easy to forget how blessed we are to live in this country --- no matter how our ancestors got here. Sometimes it takes a truly odd news story ("man bites snake") to remind us of that. And to remind us of all the ways in which God can draw good out of the evil that men commit.

I fully expect that, ten years from now, we will all be marveling at the unexpected goods that emerge from these present social and economic difficulties.

Abundance of Lambs

What a blessed Easter!

I got up this morning and put a leg of lamb in the crock pot, and then headed out to the barn to tend to animals. It was chilly, but sunny and beautiful.

In the barn, we had another beautiful sight: Nera had delivered THREE lambs overnight. This makes two years in a row she's had triplets.

With these two males and one female, we are now up to a total of 13 lambs from seven ewes --- an outstanding lambing percentage of 186% (Licorice's stillborn triplet is the only thing holding us back from 200%). Only one ewe, Enigma, has yet to deliver.

Here's hoping that your Easter is as blessed as ours...

Unfortunate Footnote

I must add a sad footnote to this morning's post.

I reported that Licorice had a set of twins, because that's what I observed at chore time. Then, after returning from the Good Friday liturgy at our parish this afternoon, I was able to make a more thorough examination the sheep pen. In the far corner was an object that appeared at first glance to be afterbirth...but something about it didn't appear quite right. It was darker than usual.

Looking more closely, I recognized the shape of a black lamb's body. It was much smaller than Nera's two surviving lambs, and its limbs were crumpled into odd angles. The umbilical cord was still attached. Given all of the evidence, I'm almost certain this lamb was stillborn and never took a breath.

It is terribly sad, and the first time we have ever had a stillbirth, but I suppose it makes for a timely Good Friday reflection. Particularly because this is a death from which good will flow almost immediately: triplet lambs don't get as large as twins or singletons --- a third sibling must share the same limited amount of milk (unless we bottle-feed one of them, which is a huge and time-consuming hassle).

So, at least the two survivors will now have a better shot at reaching their full growth potential. Life ends, life goes on.

Farm life is wonderful, even when it's sad.

Lambs Keep Coming

The lambing season continues at full tilt; this morning, Licorice gave us the surprise of two beautiful black twins (one male and one female).
Notice that one of the twins has a white spot on the top of his head. It's more clearly visible in this photo:

Licorice's sire, Buddy, had the same little white spot. Buddy was by far our most dangerous ram, and tried on several occasions to kill me. Whenever I was out in the pasture alone, and particularly if I was downhill from him or working with one of the other members of the flock, he'd run right at me at full speed. If I didn't get out of the way, he'd lower his head and launch himself into my body. A couple of times, I didn't see him coming and he managed to slam into me at full force; had the impact been slightly different, he easily could've broken my leg. He was the only animal I was tempted to personally kill with my own hands, right there in the pasture --- but I managed to summon the self-control that Buddy himself lacked. Taking him to the butcher, and then enjoying those fifty pounds of ground mutton, was a deeply satisfying experience.

After one of Buddy's male progeny, Coco Puff, proved equally destructive (and also had to be butchered), we concluded once and for all that we wouldn't keep any other males from his line. We now joke that the white spot on a ram lamb's head is the "Mark of Buddy," analogous to the "Mark of Cain." All ram lambs start out and sweet and innocent as the one Licorice delivered this morning, and we enjoy them while they remain so. But given our history with his particular genetic line, he will eventually do much better service to us in the freezer than as a breeder.

Hard to believe that it's April 10th and we've already had six ewes deliver ten lambs. Just two more ewes to go! (And one of them, Licorice's sister, Nera, is acting like she's preparing for labor --- so stay tuned.)

Dilemma Was Busy

How else to explain what happened yesterday? After putting up last evening's blog post, putting things away in my office and the house, and getting ready for bed...I couldn't fight the sense that I should put my boots back on and take one last look at all the new animals in the barn. Being a farmer is oftentimes not unlike being a parent: you feel many of the same anxieties and worries that accompany being entrusted with new little lives that are utterly dependant and unable to fend for themselves.

My first stop was the upstairs portion of the barn, where the chicks and goslings are being brooded. My primary anxiety about them concerned the heat lamps; it was going to be a chilly night, and if anything happened to one of the big 250W infrared bulbs we could easily lose a large number of birds by morning. (Don't ask me how I know.) But everything was perfect with the birds: they were spread out like a solid blanket under the heat lamps, twittering softly as they slept. The waterer was almost empty, so I made a mental note to fill it first thing in the morning. In the meantime, I didn't want to disturb their sleep.

From there, I lifted the trap door and made my way down the stairs to the sheep area. It was pitch black, so I shone a flashlight all around. Much to my surprise, I spotted two more brand new little lambs, still dripping wet. They were standing unevenly on their feet, near Bianca, who still had afterbirth coming out of her rear end. Scooter, for his part, was standing just on the other side of the fence and watching them protectively.

I'll have to check, but I'm almost certain that three ewes delivering five lambs on a single day is a new record for us --- and especially impressive given that we had only one breeding ram in with the flock. I've long thought Dilemma was a beautiful animal, but this new feat has proven his stud abilities definitively.

Given all the new little lambs underfoot, I thought it prudent to leave the lights on in the downstairs portion of the barn overnight. This morning, I managed to get some pictures of Bianca's new arrivals (which are one male and one female):

Ever wonder how the mother ewes can tell which lambs are their own, when so many lambs of roughly the same size and color are running around? Especially at night? The answer is smell. Each lamb produces a distinctive scent near its hindquarters, and the ewes identify their own lambs that way. Bianca demonstrates the correct technique here:

And as a lamb latches on to nurse, you'll often see the ewe sniffing the lamb's rear end to make sure this is one of her own. If it isn't, she'll twist away and then butt the lamb with her head.

I could sit on the barn steps and watch these animals for hours. But now it's time to wrap this up and get back to work.

Lots of New Arrivals

It was a busy day on the farm, with new animals arriving left and right.

The first batch was planned long in advance: our new baby poultry. The local feed store pooled orders from many customers, and placed a bulk order with a nearby hatchery. Today, all the newly-hatched birds arrived, so Homeschooled Farm Girl (HFG) and I drove into town to pick them up.

We bought 10 White Embden goslings, 40 Buff Orpington pullet chicks, and 30 mixed-gender broad breasted meat bird chicks. Actually, ten of the pullets and ten of the meat birds are for another family; they recently moved to the country, but don't have a brooder facility set up yet. Since we'd have to run the same heat lamps no matter how many chicks we were brooding, we offered to take care of the other family's chicks until they're old enough to go outside. They'll reimburse us something for the feed, and everyone will be happy.

Speaking of feed, the feed store had a terrific deal: for every bag of chick starter feed you buy, you can have ten free meat bird chicks. Since I knew we'd need at least three bags anyway, this deal was a total no-brainer. We got all thirty of our meat bird chicks free; these things cost at least $1.20 at the feed store that sells them, and even more than that when ordered by mail. The three bags of feed cost us $28.65, so we're definitely coming out ahead.

Remember those pastured poultry pens that we had the turkeys in last year? Once all the turkeys were butchered, Mrs Yeoman Farmer and I moved the pens into the barn for the winter. Looking at them, I realized they would make ideal brooders this Spring. We spread a tarp under them, to protect the wooden floor from chicken droppings, and then added some loose straw for bedding. Last night, I hooked up two heat lamps in one pen (for the 70 chicks) and one lamp (for the goslings) in the other. I then set up some waterers, turned on the heat lamps, and made sure they were generating enough warmth for the babies. When HFG and I got home with our boxes of birds, everything was set to go. She helped me unload them from the boxes, and made each bird got a drink of water before releasing it. (She also cuddled quite a few of them before handing them over, but that's another story.)

Anyway, here are the chicks:

And the goslings:

Our barn cats have been stalking the pens (think Sylvester and Tweetie Bird); looking at all the small birds, a couple of the cats have facial expressions like they've died and gone to feline heaven. As a result, we're taking extra special care to ensure there are no gaps in the lids or other ways for cats to get in.

As if all these new birds weren't enough, Dot (our leader ewe, and matriarch of the flock) delivered twins for us. She turns ten years old this Spring, and isn't showing any signs of slowing down. She did an expert job, as always, and both lambs were quickly up and nursing like pros.

It was a mixed-gender set of twins. As this is Spy Wednesday, my first inclination was to name them Julius and Ethel --- but I figured that would be way too esoteric. And MYF would probably veto it.

I thought that would be it for new animals. Then, late this afternoon, HFG came running in excitedly from the barn with news that yet another ewe was in labor. HFG had been eagerly anticipating actually watching a lamb's birth, so she immediately turned around and ran back to the barn --- and then stayed there with the ewe for quite some time. Eventually, she returned with news of the latest happy arrival in the lambing pen: one beautiful male lamb.

With four ewes delivered, and six lambs on the ground, we are exactly at our historical lambing percentage of 150%. If the four remaining ewes can keep this up, we'll hopfully be blessed with twelve lambs. Given Dot's age, we will probably keep a couple of the best females --- including the one born today --- as replacement breeders. But if all goes well, we should still have lots of delicious lamb for the freezer this winter.

Two Down, Six to Go

Saturday morning brought a pleasant surprise at chore time: Conundrum, one of our seasoned mother ewes, had delivered a little white ram lamb. He'd already been thoroughly licked-off, and was on his feet, so he must have arrived early in the morning. It's really remarkable the way mother and lamb are able to pull this off, even in the pitch darkness of a barn in the middle of the night; as always, I'm in awe of the instincts that God has given these animals...and thankful to be privileged enough to observe and help them along.


This makes the second ewe to deliver; Maybelle's twins are thriving. With the six remaining ewes looking uncomfortably pregnant, I won't be surprised if lambs start arriving left and right.

Got Coon?

This yeoman "urban hunter" is managing to take advantage of the City of Detroit's regression to the wild. I'm just hoping that the City eventually decides to allow "urban farming" within the city limits. There are so many empty lots in Detroit, it's not even funny. (Kick up Google Earth some time and take a look yourself --- you'll see vast swaths of "city" that more closely resemble countryside.)

The only problem with farming in Detroit, of course, is that you'd need to erect a ten foot high concrete wall, topped with razor wire, to protect your livestock from drive-by shootings. So, for now, Glemie Dean Beasley seems to have the right idea:

Beasley, a 69-year-old retired truck driver who modestly refers to himself as the Coon Man, supplements his Social Security check with the sale of raccoon carcasses that go for as much $12 and can serve up to four. The pelts, too, are good for coats and hats and fetch up to $10 a hide.

While economic times are tough across Michigan as its people slog through a difficult and protracted deindustrialization, Beasley remains upbeat.

Where one man sees a vacant lot, Beasley sees a buffet.

"Starvation is cheap," he says as he prepares an afternoon lunch of barbecue coon and red pop at his west side home.

His little Cape Cod is an urban Appalachia of coon dogs and funny smells. The interior paint has the faded sepia tones of an old man's teeth; the wallpaper is as flaky and dry as an old woman's hand.

Beasley peers out his living room window. A sushi cooking show plays on the television. The neighborhood outside is a wreck of ruined houses and weedy lots.

"Today people got no skill and things is getting worse," he laments. "What people gonna do? They gonna eat each other up is what they gonna do."

A licensed hunter and furrier, Beasley says he hunts coons and rabbit and squirrel for a clientele who hail mainly from the South, where the wild critters are considered something of a delicacy.

Go read the whole thing. It's fun.

H/T: Anthony G.