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.

Ev'ry Gal Needs a Sowin' Machine!

Today, we present another low-tech marvel: the sowing machine. Most folks, when they think of farm machinery, tend to think on a grand scale: giant combines and harvesters grinding their way across the acres, mowing down miles and miles of "amber waves of grain." As we've mentioned before, we own no such monsters. Our farm has a different economy of scale.

There are no amber waves here. The rocky, acidic soils of Maine make grain-growing difficult. The rocks can foul up even heavy-duty tines and blades. Our own farmscape offers the additional challenge of steep slopes and ravines. Although an old picture shows this entire parcel cleared and pastured, the second- and third-growth forests have reclaimed our "back thirty". Decades of poor management prior to our arrival resulted in nutrient depletion and serious erosion, a combination that has rendered that acreage suitable only for wildlife habitat.

The only land flat enough for pastures now rests between the woods and the road. For the past three years, we've been working with our local Conservation District to better manage this land. We've done soil tests to determine the soil's acidity level and nutrient needs. We've stabilized fragile hillsides by planting a "conservation mix" of erosion-controlling plants, and we've removed diseased and invasive plants to make way for healthy natives. With help and advice from conservation district technicians, we drafted a rotational grazing plan and set about reclaiming two old, overgrown fields.

There was a bit of a hiccup in the plan last year when a 30-ton load of wood ash (a natural liming agent used to "sweeten" acidic soils) got delivered on the wrong side of the property when we weren't home. Over forty calls to landscape companies and tractor owners were made during Spring/Summer 2008, but no-one seemed willing or able to relocate and spread that mountain of ash. So much for the Usefulness of Big Equipment! This year, though, we happened to share our tale of woe during an Easter breakfast at church. Turns out our breakfast companion just happened to have a small tractor and some extra time on his hands. Providence!

Earlier this week, Mr. Tractor Hero moved the ash into the two new cleared fields and spread it around. What next, we pondered: fence the fields in, or sow them with clover and pasture grass? With the ground freshly worked and rain on the way, we opted to get the seed sown right away. Considering that we've been putting the cows out on our yard to let the permanent pasture recover, it's best to get some new grass growing sooner rather than later!

A few hours later, we were back home. The same wagon that carried eight piglets now cradled a few hundred pounds of seed mix: annual and perennial ryegrasses, Kentucky bluegrass, fescue, timothy, red clover and alsike clover. (Note that orchardgrass and reed canarygrass were our preferred choices for the purposes of rotational grazing, but they were almost twice as expensive as the mix we cobbled together.)

We emptied the bags into the farm cart, then raked and turned the seeds with our fingers: elongated, smooth-husked grass seeds in pale gold and greyish-green, mixed with tiny round black and red seed-beads of clover. We marveled at the gathered mass of tiny pastoral possibilities, but a gust of wind reminded us not to marvel too long. The rain was coming. It was time to bring out...the sowing machine.

Nobody's certain just how we acquired it--probably at some yard sale back in the eighties, when few cared about such stuff. The cloth top has been repaired multiple times with various weights and colours of thread and string. Printed in bold black ink on the stained, weakened canvas is the following inscription:
PEARCE'S IMPROVED
CAHOON
BROADCAST
SEED SOWER
MADE BY
GOODELL COMPANY
ANTRIM, N.H.U.S.A.

With the double Irish reference, I imagine the device being made in a factory full of recent immigrants--words of Gaelic mixing with the harsher words of English, scraping and tumbling like so many metal filings onto the dirty shop floor. Did they dream of better fields and healthier crops than the rotten praties of Home, or did they curse the work of farming and embrace the noise and heat of industrial labour?

Whoever made it, they made it to last. The metal backplate is riveted solidly to the hopper. The wooden crank-handle is well-turned and nicely varnished. The seedplate adjusts without fuss for different rates of flow. The gears rotate smoothly with a cheery wee clankety-clackety-hum. The hopper-sack and neckstrap show the most wear, but they still perform in spite of haphazard repairs. All in all, this is a wonderful device, well-crafted and a genuine pleasure to use.

I tuck my head through the neckstrap, and improvise side-straps from some camping gear, as this is the only original part that is missing. I tighten the straps so that the backplate rests comfortably against my middle and my neck doesn't bear all the weight. After making sure that the seedplate is down, I use a grain scoop to pour seed into the hopper-sack until it bulges and the old-fashioned lettering stands out. Ready, set, sow!

With my first step forward, I nudge the seedplate up and begin slowly turning the hand-crank. The gears start clattering and the wheel starts spinning. As the seeds tumble down into the wheel, they are sent spinning and tumbling out, some in the middle and some spraying out to either side. I stride the field and I sow the field, the seed landing in evenly distributed bands, all under my own human power. The whirr of the gears is not so loud that I cannot hear a cricket's chirp or a bird's song.

I could turn the gears even faster. I could get the job done in half the time, but truly the work is so pleasant, and the weather so kind, that I find myself slowing my stride. I move slowly enough to monitor my work, to be sure that the seeds fall thickly and evenly. As I walk, I imagine these fields full of lush green blades, full of clover blossoms, full of bumblebees and earthworms and countless other crucial, delicate living things. I envision the sweet contrast of shaggy red-brown kye ambling through the vibrant green, pulling up tender mouthfuls with slow-motion bovine enthusiasm.

This is what it means to steward the earth, to engage both soul and soil, to walk slowly enough to see. When we work on this blessedly human scale, we rediscover the truth that there is little need, on this small farm, for petrochemical-belching behemoths--and if the wood-ash had been dropped at the field's edge, as we intended, we could have spread even that with a shovel, a rake, and a cart.

To be a Luddite, one need not abandon all industry and innovation. What is required, instead, is a careful reflection on sources and benefits, a thoughtful deliberation on tasks best shared and tasks best managed alone. Walking the new fields with my old-fashioned sowing machine, I stitch myself back into the fabric of creation. I move with a natural rhythm and contribute to an older, deeper song.

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!