Another Leveraged Bale Out

The cows weren't expecting this. There they stood, in the pre-dawn winter darkness, looking aimless and sleepy in the middle of the snowy field. Our boots crunched in the ice-crusted snowdrifts as we approached the top of the hill. We would have to be decisive. We would have to be swift.

But it's hard to be swift when you're moving a 4-foot-diameter 500-pound bale. No matter how deep the cleats are on your boots, it's hard to gain purchase in ice and snow. By the time I'd brushed the snow off the plastic-wrapped bale and rocked it loose from the ground, those cows--in spite of the darkness--were acting suspicious.

So, we pushed. The Piper and I leaned our shoulders into the bale, muckling on as well as we could with our gloved hands. We paused to re-plant our feet and rocked the bale some more. Finally, we leveraged that behemoth up...and...over...so that it rolled two full revolutions down the hill. Unfortunately, it was headed exactly NOT towards the pasture gate.

Pause for another correction. The Piper and I stand at opposite "corners" of the bale and push, slowly spinning it a quarter-turn until it's aimed in the right direction. Now the cows are lined up at the gate, snorting and tossing their forelocks. Iona, queen of the cattlefold, firmly plants herself at the fore.

Cows are not good at physics. I suspect their phenomenal digestion is the primary location of their intelligence. No, perhaps that's unfair-- there's nothing in their primal cognition to help them respond when a pair of two-leggeds starts rolling a giant marshmallow down the hill towards the pasture gate before dawn. We had the right voices, at least, so we weren't intruders... and when we sliced the haywrap just before the final push through the gate, those cows caught the clean vinegarish scent that announced incoming food. Hunger and curiosity dictated their subsequent arrangement.

And so it was that, when we gave the final push, that bale rolled down the hill, through the gate, farther down the hill with gathering speed, and...smacked broadside into that poor silly heifer. She gave a surprised wee jump forward, then turned around and stared reproachfully (balefully?) at the still-wrapped bale. I hustled down into the field and pulled off the haywrap. As the tasty contents were revealed, the heifer hung back and stared a minute more--just long enough for me to pull the wrapper off and out of the way--then moved in, determined to bite her breakfast right back.

So this is how the New Year begins: with rolling bales, chores before dawn, well-fed cows, strong women, leverage and surprises. We're ready, even if the cows aren't. Bring it on!!!

No More Bull.

Friday the 13th came on a Thursday this month... at least for Broilleach, our 2-year old Scottish Highland bull. He's still a wee lad compared to some of the newer, more hybridized beef animals you'd see on other farms, but it was definitely Time For Him To Go.

We were clear about our plan from the very beginning: any female cattle born on our farm would become breeding stock, to be kept or sold as needed, but male offspring would be raised for beef. As confirmed meat-eaters, we chose to raise our own meat animals. (I have considered vegetarianism in the past, but strong allergies to soy and other non-meat proteins led me to an omnivorous option.) We committed ourselves to animal-rearing practices that would ensure optimal health and well-being for all of us. As Joel Salatin advocates, we would create an environment where pigs could indulge in their full "pigness," cows could revel in their full "cowness," and chickens could...um...be all chickeny and stuff.

Broilleach, whose name means "Beef Brisket" in Scottish Gaelic, was the first calf born on our land to Iona, our Cattlefold matriarch. We charted out a plan for one initial two-acre field and three additional fields to be developed the following year for rotational grazing purposes. Thanks to a one-year delay in field development, those fields weren't ready when we needed them. The forages in that central pasture could not keep pace with the needs of one cow, two heifers, and one hungry, growing bull calf. Broilleach started seeking low spots along the fence line and busting the spring-wire gate to find better food. The female cattle never initiated any similar behavior, but if he busted through, they were happy to follow once they were sure of the gap.

"You'll never be able to do in your first one..." So said Iona's previous owner when he sold us our bred heifer. We smiled back at him and said that, if the first calf born on our farm was a male, we most certainly would, because we did not have the money to keep such large animals as pets. Broilleach's name (pronounced BROYL-yock) was chosen as a reminder to ourselves. True to our promise, we raised the bull calf for the standard 18 months recommended for Highland beef cattle, then kept Broilleach just long enough to be reasonably sure that he'd bred both our heifers. After that, well, that grass-guzzling fence-breaker had to go.

Mr Bisson and his boy came down to our farm yesterday morning with their trailor. We had Broilleach and the other cattle up on the front lawn, roped in with portable electric fencing. True to his nature, Broilleach made one last successful plunge through the fence, but it seemed to be mostly for show-- after a few defiant chomps on the rugosa rose bushes and a momentary tangle with the forsythia, we routed him back towards the lawn and he stepped daintily over the dropped-but-live fence wire. Thanks to two years of frequent handling including hand-fed treats and regular brushing, Broilleach stood a couple of feet from the open trailer and calmly allowed Mr. Bisson to drape, then tighten, a rope over his horns. After the end of the rope was secured inside the trailer, Mr. Bisson grabbed one horn, his son grabbed the other, and they led that great, hairy beast up and into the trailer. Now THAT'S grabbing the bull by the horns!!!

In a few days, we'll get a call from Bisson's butcher shop, then we'll drive up to pick up our boxes of pretty white packages. We'll also take home his horns--I have a rather indulgent, silly dream of having them made into something splendid like a pibgorn, a Welsh member of the bagpipe family--the only one I've ever successfully tried to play. (We wanted to save his hide and have it tanned, but the cost was sadly prohibitive.) We'll sell about half of the meat to cover our butchering costs and keep the rest for our own freezer and table. Our winter meals will be seasoned with the savoury knowledge that this animal lived a good and decent life, free from the stress of toxic management and the cruelty and disease of feedlots.

So, look out world-- our house is days away from being done and our horrible year is behind us. In September, we'll finally fence in those new fields. Next year, there'll be enough grass for cows and calves both. Goodness knows whether we'll get heifer calves or more baby bulls. For now, though, this is one farm with NO MORE BULL!

Licht Amang the Mirk?

Overheard on BBC Radio Scotland, during a weather report:
"Tonight, in the northwest, it'll be dreary; in the northeast, a wee bit less dreary."

The Rain in Maine has stayed mainly on our plain...
and clogged storm-drains, and seeped into our brains.

Slugs of near-Northwestern proportions have been sighted feasting on the sad, rotting remnants of crops and the lush strappy leaves of healthy weeds.

June has seen more than three times its average rainfall this year in Southern Maine. For us, that means ridiculous delays in transplantation and the sowing of warm-weather crops. (Many farmers who planted on a "normal" schedule have lost their crops and will be forced to replant or simply declare the season a loss.) For most folks with livestock, it also means hay-induced desperation. Our hay supplier managed to get some fields cut and wrapped on a rare stretch of sunny days early in last month, so we'll manage, but most of New England's first-cut hay crops are ruined.

We do have our own pasture-management concerns, though: sodden fields are more easily damaged by the hooves of grazing cattle, and our attempts to restrict grazing areas have been foiled. Broilleach, our bull, regards our electric fences as a mere momentary annoyance on the way to the next buffet. Because of these destructive habits, his date with destiny may be coming sooner rather than later--our fields are in too perilous a balance to absorb and rebound from his abuse.

Today it is raining...again. Our last full day of sunny skies was over two weeks ago. I may actually light a fire in the woodstove (in JULY!!!) just so I can run a load of laundry and get it completely dry. This afternoon, when the rain's supposed to slow to a mere drizzle, I may run out and try to plant some more carrots, peas, and lettuce: crops that may survive better than all the melons and squash that go vining and fruiting only in the fields of my dreams.

Speaking of dreams, I sought out some inspiration at the Glasgow Herald's poetry blog. Today's essay seems to be the product of some serious wrestling with heavy (sometimes intangible) objects--an intrinsically Scottish pursuit. Here's the poem, with introductory comments from blog editor Leslie Duncan:

The distinguished Glasgow-born psychiatrist R D Laing (1927-1989) was also an accomplished poet. His collection, simply called Sonnets, was published in 1979 (Michael Joseph). Understandably for someone who looked deeply into troubled humankind, some of the sonnets are dark in tone; but No 37 shows him in pretty positive mood. – Lesley Duncan

There’s Light and Love and Joy and Freshness Yet

There’s light and love and joy and freshness yet.
There’re those who have something to celebrate.
There can be times we hope we’ll not forget.
A helping hand is not always too late.

Up really high there’s still clear perfect blue.
Morning must dawn as long as there is night.
Without the old there’s nothing to renew.
Once in a while it almost feels all right.

Although I know that light needs dark to shine,
I don ‘t expect to tell what atoms mean.
The universe is fine without being mine.
The flowers of countless valleys grow unseen.

What is above subsists on what’s beneath.
The world is not entirely blasted heath.

Moovin' Into June

Welcome, June, sweet month of green-growing!

June is a month of movements: folk flex muscles and venture outdoors, seeds open and stretch, leaves unfurl, vines extend, snowbirds return from Parts South and the highways of Maine burgeon with migratory herds of RVs.

The first movement of our own June symphony involved some challenging orchestration. The instruments at hand were spools of electric fence-wire, unwieldy armfuls of step-ins (portable fenceposts), hoses and water-tubs, several hungry animals and a clamjamfry of forage areas.

To begin with, we made an overture...a perambulation of all areas with enough mollifying mouthfuls to appease our hungry cattle. They've eaten their way through everything in their permanent pasture, and--as we wait for the recently-seeded auxiliary pastures to become established--we view all grass-growing areas as bovine buffets. No need to pull the gas mower out of the barn yet this year-- all our mowing has been done not with a sputter and a roar, but with a munch and a moo.

I'm sure we'll need that mower towards the end of the week. Earlier this Spring, in a fit of temporary insanity, I offered our farm as the host site for a church picnic. Wouldn't it be fun to share our sweet baby animals, tidy little gardens, and the farm's fine, green expense--er, expanse--with the rest of the congregation? The offer was made--and accepted--in April, that cruelest of months when all gardens exist merely as figments of the imagination rather than rank, bug-bitten, weed-choked realities. April, when the pasture is just starting to emerge from the snow, and one imagines it perpetually lush and grassy...well, I'm sure you can figure out how this played out! Here we are at the start of June, struggling to rotate our livestock around the yard while we rush to beautify the (manure-strewn) landscape and try to make the house look like a quaint little cottage instead of a construction site.


Yesterday we moved the cows (out of the side yard into the orchard)










so that today we could move the piglets (out of the barn into the side yard)










so that tomorrow we can move the chicks (out of their box upstairs into the barn)
so that we can start a new batch of chicks in the incubator.



ADD TO THIS WEEK'S TO-DO LIST:
Finish all interior house trim. (Mmm-hmm. Right.)
Move the tablesaw out of the dining room. Replace with actual table.
Tile the bathroom floor so we can finally hook up the bathroom sink.
Clean out the pig stall, power-wash & spray down with bleach.
Clean out the chickens' stall & add used shavings to compost pile.
Weed raised beds; plant succession crops, beans, tomato seedlings.
Make signage for farm hazards & mark safe areas for picnic guests.
Haul all debris, tree-prunings, & construction waste to burn pile.
Have everything looking nice by Friday morning.
Work at Farmers' Market Friday afternoon.
Work off-farm job all day Saturday.
Mow whatever remains of lawn (Saturday night?)

Yep, June: month of growth and movement. Right now, I'd better get mySELF moving, because I'm growing a nice big crop of STRESS!

Making Hay...?

"No, I never said that." So claims the woman at the end of the line, bringing me to the end of mine. Back in June, she said she could get us a winter's worth of haylage from her fields. We were jubilant--the favorite winter food of our cattlefold, sourced locally from another Farmer Woman. "Put us down," we said, meaning, "Add us to your official customer list."

Yesterday we learned that she had, indeed, put us down... that is, she dropped us.

We had called at the request of Iona, Cattlefold Matriarch, who announced with insistent mooings that the pasture grass was about used up, and the musty henhouse hay just wouldn't do. How lovely--how luxurious-- it felt to ring someone up, knowing we'd planned in advance. How wonderful it felt to rest and wait for an answer, knowing her supply would be there to meet our demand... Then came the awkward pause, followed by denial. "I never said that! No, I don't have enough to feed my own!" Turns out the fellow who was supposed to hay two of her fields never did the job.

We asked who, and she gave out a name we've heard for years. It's Farmer Drown, the same guy we tried to get hay from last year, the same guy we get referred back to EVERY time some other tractor operator claims they're just too busy to work our fields. "Why don't you call Farmer Drown?" they all say, "He lives near you." Then we explain, once again, that we have indeed called him. For three years, we've been trying to buy his hay, trying to hire him for tractor work. Farmer Drown never calls back. That's the point where the other guy usually scratches his neck, looks away for a sec, then says, "Yeah, he IS kinda hard to get ahold of..."

"So," we ask Hay Lady, "what's up with Farmer Drown?" After a few choice but unprintable words, she finally blurts what we've suspected, but never dared confirm: "the guy's crawled inside a bottle by noon." Now the familiar knot of anxiety rises in our throats, the well-known dread sinks back into our bellies, and the fragments of the tale fall into place: One man--one capable, strong, experienced local man with barns, livestock, good equipment and fine farmland--has allowed his personal demons to hold not only his own farm hostage, but ours and others as well. Because of his bond with the bottle, animals and families go hungry all over town. Because of this, we must thumb back through old phone logs and retry last year's exhausted list of potential hay suppliers. All this unfolds as the Almanac trumpets a coming winter of bone-chilling, mind-numbing cold.

The cold has settled over us early, indeed, though the thermo- meter shows the mid-sixties. We are cold in anticipation, shivering with stress and fear. We walk outside when the light is most golden, trying to warm ourselves with the beauty of the farmstead. We murmur appreciations at the well-feathered hens strutting in the green September grass, the fattening pigs with their deep bass welcoming grunts, the dear shaggy cows that come running... Then we wearily admit that their affections depend largely on being fed. Our minds spiral back to bald pastures, empty haylofts, and ever-higher grain bills. Back and forth we perilously swing, hoisted and hanging between two passionate extremes: "Why the hell are we farming?" and "Oh, we love this farm so!"

How grand it will be, someday, to look back and laugh at this year's comedy of errors. We'd been congratulating and comforting ourselves all summer over the hay--securing this supply was the one thing we'd done right. Meanwhile, we made the rounds of the aforementioned tractor-operators, trying to find anyone who could disc-harrow our newly-stumped fields. Most had traded in their disc harrows years ago: "Good luck finding one. Nobody uses them now." A few guys had disc harrows, but--curiously enough--were overbooked with work. A handful actually had the grace to come walk the fields and talk the job over, but they all admitted a hearty disinterest, citing other projects with better payback and less "fussy-work."

The last guy showed up two weeks before the last possible pasture-seeding date. We walked down and perambulated the potential pastures. Yes, he had the right equipment, and yes, he could do the job, but it wouldn't come cheap--see, he'd rather be working on his own house, to have it ready for the winter, so he'd charge us a premium for his time! Trying to hide our shock, dismay, and a fair amount of disgust, we continued on with our little farm tour, taking him over to see the orchard and the pigs. "Well, shoot," he said, shoving his John Deere cap back on his balding head as he caught the scent on the mellow breeze, "you didn't tell me you had PIGS."

Leaning towards us with a confidential air, he adjusted his bombast to an almost conciliatory tone: "Now, I'm always happy to save folks money if I can. You don't need me. You don't need my fancy equipment. You've already got most of the equipment you need. Here's what you do: get your lime spread, then lay out some temporary electric lines and fence those pigs out in the new fields. They'll work it over and till it up real fine. Send 'em off to the butcher, hunker down and let the snow fly, then--come Spring--it'll be plantin' time!"

Well, didn't we feel dumb. Good little Luddites like us, spending a whole summer in thrall to the Big Lie of Heavy Equipment, when we could have had our pigs out there tilling. Worst indignity of all--it took a Big Ol' Tractor Man to point the whole blessed truth out to us!

September 15th is the last frost-free sowing date for our "hardiness zone." We still have the pigs, but not enough time to get grass established in this calendar year. That means we can't fulfill the requirements of our farm's Conservation Plan, which had us scheduled for completion of "pasture/hayland planting" in 2008. Our farm has benefited from conservation programs--without them, we could not have afforded good fencing or the field hydrants we had installed last year. Unfortunately, due to this summer's misguided and fruitless tractor-quest, we'll miss out on this year's cost-shares. The money spent for stumping and lime delivery in preparation for tilling, (over $4,000), will haunt us like a phantom limb, aching long after its severance.

So, time to wrap up this entry and get on the phone. Time to see who, among the farmers in nearby towns, might have some hay or haylage they're willing to sell. Then it's time to finish off this year's pigs--maybe with a few weeks in the new fields--and sell all the pork to pay for that hay. Come February, sure hope those cows still appreciate us!

Some farmers make hay while the sun shines. Some farmers make way toward the cheap wines. And some farmers--like us--buy hay while we stun swines.

Wait 'til next year!

Failte! Welcome to the Tir na nOg Farm blog!

Strange it is for a Luddite like myself to go a-blogging, but here we are, and here we go!

Like many women farmers, we are "undercapitalized." We are careful to manage our debts and strenuously avoid taking on any more. We own few pieces of farm equipment other than a gloriously inadequate assortment of hand tools. Our lack of a tractor, in particular, provokes much eye-rolling and head-scratching from the non-female farmers hereabouts. (Admittedly, it provokes some occasional hand-wringing from us, too, but we delight in the related lack of payment books and fuel bills!) Without a tractor, we are forced to use other tools: the telephone, our wits, and our computer. These tools allow us to banter & barter for the services of others in our local agricultural economy.

Poverty and isolation have always dogged those who choose the farming life. Celts have always struggled to balance a love for the land with a hunger for exploration and innovation. We look forward to flexing some new "connective tissues" as we test this particular tool. A computer may not be able to harrow a field, but it can help us plow through possibilities. A blog may not scatter or secure a crop's worth of seeds, but it may scatter a few useful ideas and help them grow... (I hear it's pretty effective as a manure-spreader, too.)

The original Luddites did not reject technology altogether. Rather, they resisted those technologies which would harm, rather than contribute to, a healthy & well-lived life. Now, I'm not sure how the "carbon footprints" of computers and tractors compare. I'm also not sure we'd resist the purchase of a tractor if an affordable, easy-to-maintain model showed up. In the meantime, the computer is the one piece of serious farm equipment we have, so we aim to use it as best we can.

With that, my friends, we welcome you to Tir na nOg Farm and our farm blog. Bear with us! Enjoy the adventure along with us and all our lovely Celtic creatures. Watch for pictures and see how the farm takes shape, the gardens expand, and the animals grow. Step out into the field and dig your own roots alongside us as we explore Celtic cultures, traditions, and ideas. You never know what might turnip...

P.S. Our Scottish Highland cattle would have preferred a presence on MooTube, but they found videography didn't really behoove them.