So you want to be a farmer? The Reality of Being Organic and Sustainable

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work."
-Thomas Edison

If you thought that recycling made you sustainable and organic meant that you didn't use deodorant, then we're a shocker for you.  We take that to a whole new level!!!(Yes, we do use odor protection.)
Sustainable means we put up enough hay in the summer to feed the herd in the winter, and we're planning on growing the grass again next year. So we mow it when it goes to seed-head.  It's not a nice lawn look all year.  Sometimes during the summer it may look quite shaggy-depending on rainfall.
It means when there's an apple tree in the field, we pick it and sauce it so we have food in the winter. We don't complain the apples are the size of your thumb. Sometimes sustainability can take on the same look as common-sense...a chicken gets used four different ways. First as a vet for the cows as it cleans the pasture, next as an egg layer, third as a stew bird for dinner, and lastly as chicken broth preserved for later. We use the sun and air we breathe to dry our clothes, for light during the day and that "fresh air" smell on our sheets.
Everything that's sustainable is hard work, there's no skating by.  Burning wood for heat means cutting the wood, splitting the wood, and stacking the wood-sometimes in the coldest day of the winter.
But it's so worth it!
Organic means we don't use anything God didn't create for fertilizer, animals, and food.  We use our own animals to fertilize the pastures, then give them a dose of watered down compost for good measure.  We don't breed animals to have the biggest body-parts for show or production, we take them as God made them and use them right. That's why our goats have horns, cats have claws, and chickens have bone and skin!  We let the animals eat the grass, the apples, the leaves, the herbs-and we don't peel back an ear of corn for them.  This is the way God meant it to be.
Before you think this is all daisies and roses, can I be quite frank?  Because of this life we live...there are things you may want to consider...wear mud boots(real ones, not fashionable ones) to get to the door. There's chicken poop everywhere.  Why? They have wings, they fly any where they want to.  That means to the house, not just in the barnyard.
There's a goat who will greet you at the car door, and will gladly display for you how she can urinate on your foot and poop all the way to the front door of the house.
The cats like to leave "gifts" everywhere.  Dead mice, voles, ground squirrels, chipmunks...
Be prepared for dirt.  The windows are open in the house and it coats the furniture...really, I dusted it off six times today from the dark wood piano!  The dirt covers feet, shoes, clothes, and gets under nails.  It sticks to the cobwebs created overnight, and onto the faucets where children were washing it off.  It doesn't matter how we attempt to get rid of it, it comes back. A magazine cover will never show the reality of farm life dirt.
The mess. There's a plethora of misc. tools, equipment, toys, and vehicles that don't run. The reality is, we're busy staying alive, there'll be a time to make it all clean(when the dumpster is here), but right now isn't that time.  So, if you're OCD(which I find I am) take a deep breathe and close your eyes as you walk past it. The mess won't change the taste of dinner, and it also won't make the photo shoot for the magazine cover(thankfully).  So just move on. Lastly, prepare yourself for a new brand of sweat.  I promise, we do use odor protection, but it doesn't help the amount of sweat we produce.  It doesn't matter what time of year it is, there's hard physical work we're doing.  Whether it's under the hot sun or bundled in the dead of winter-people around here are sweating!  No need for aerobics class, we pitchfork hay around for hours. Snow-shoeing and cross country skiing are means for checking the fence lines.  Walking miles is a form of transportation, not relaxation. And when you see people standing around this kitchen with dripping hair or frozen hair and wet shirts and socks, covered head to toe in dirt and poop-laughing about the day they just had...know that they've accomplished the "Organic" label that went on that product in the store. AND LIFE IS GOOD!

The Chickens Are Coming! The Chickens Are Coming!

Farm Rule #100: It's going to be a warm day when: the chickens come up to the house!

At 7am the Wife sighted the first chicken up on the deck.  She knew this meant it would be a warm day...

She turned off the furnace and turned on the blowers.

She doubled up wood inside the house so we could get the woodstove piping hot and (hopefully) open windows to get fresh air.

Then she smiled and told Dear Farmer that she was glad that spring is on it's way!

 Dear Farmer broke the news to the Wife that the temperature is only to be at 38F today.  38F!!!!  That's just above freezing! 

But...but...but...the chickens are at the house!  That means it's going to be a warm day...is 38F warm?

...maybe it there will be sunshine....

The Farm-Boys Cut Wood

Today was one of those unusual days this time of year..clear blue sky and enough warmth to make you think spring wasn't so far away.
It was also unusual because we had all our farm-boys home, Honorable Sons 1&2, the Keeper of the Flame, the Pied Piper, and the Farmer's Shadow.  The bigger boys had returned home for a day of woodcutting...a labor of love for their parents. The day went smoothly, the little Farm-boy Trio had the opportunity to keep up to the bigger brothers and they had great joy in working with the BIG BOYS.
The wood is stacked in neat rows, enough for the next few weeks.
Later that night we all sat down to dinner together.  No electronic devices, just home-cooked food, and home-cooked humor.  The dinner table was happy, the house was warm, and the parents were blessed.  A truly wonderful way to end the day.

Welcome the new Groundhog!

While Dear Farmer was preparing to do chores this afternoon he had the opportunity to witness a "waterbirth" by Yellow tag #1.  Of course, this first time mother would choose the day that it's raining, snowing, and icing all at once to give birth to a little calf in a sludge puddle.
Dear Farmer had to get the pair into the barn, which is quite the chore when the weather is as it was, and set up with water and hay.
Dear Farmer, calf and cow were all covered in sludge from head to toe(or hoof),but everyone's now in the barn dry and safe.
The Wife called the calf "Groundhog", appropriate for the day and because we've done this all before.

Farm-Boys Do Not Clean a Bedroom

Go ahead and tell the Wife all you want to about making boys clean their own bedrooms...it's nothing she hasn't told herself....however, the Farm-Boy Trio's bedroom was so BAD there was just no way she was going to ask for, require, or wanted their help. The bedroom needed an adult size heart of a prison guard, the adult size muscles, and a mother's love.
Just to give you a little taste of what the Wife has found in the Farm-Boys' bedroom in the past, here's the ugly side:

• a dead vole in a jar under a bed-pillow (which the Wife was told, it's not dead, it's just sleeping)
• molded chimichangas stuffed under the bed (when did we last eat chimichanga's???)
• hardened banana peels in the closet
• underwear worn by a boy who didn't make it to the bathroom soon enough...under the pile of clean clothes.
• dead worms (they assured the Wife they were dead and dried when they came into the room, it was a scientific discovery)

this is just a few...the ones that made it onto the short list....

What kind of mother are you? A mother who has happy healthy children, who had a disgusting bedroom.

So now the Wife gave the Farm-Boy Trio the choice, "You may go outside and play with your goats, or work next to me cleaning your disgusting bedroom."
The choice was unanimous to go outside.  And for the entire four hours that it took the Wife to clean the bedroom spotlessly wonderful, the Farm-Boy Trio played outside with their goats.  The goats loved the attention, the Wife loved the solace of peace while cleaning, and the Farm-Boy Trio loves the clean bedroom.  No disgusting discoveries were made during the cleaning this time...and once again the Wife is on the war path that the bedroom should NEVER look like that again!

To Be Industrious

Farming and the character trait of Industriousness go hand in hand.  Did you know that?
The Wife had first discovered this during childhood while talking with her Grandma the Amazing Farm Wife. When Grandma, while hanging laundry on the line, said,"A gardener doesn't go hungry.  It's hard work, but it feeds the family when others might go without." She had said this to The Wife when she lived in town.  Her garden consumed the entire side of the corner lot the house sat on, and it also shared the space with the walkway from the ally and the clothesline.  Looking back, it was a Norman Rockwell moment, but at the time, it was just barely appreciated.  One simple sentence and it planted the seed of Industriousness in The Wife for the rest of her life.

Living on the farm now we have no choice but to be industrious at times...the cows got out and there was no gate to block the road, we had to figure out how to make three people seem like a very large deterrence at the road side...things like this happen often enough to make you prepared at a moment's notice.
Then there's times that we choose to be industrious...to heat with wood, to milk a goat, to make soap, or to boil down bones for broth.
We see our children taking industriousness to the next level...knitting hats, gloves, dishcloths, crocheting blankets, stuffed animals, and slippers, making gifts with wood and nails, and training goats to pack-goat so they don't have to carry the heavy loads.

Recently we spent time with our Uncle Intelligentsia and his wife, Aunt Intelligentsia.  It was fantastic to hear Aunt Intelligentsia tell us of her process to insure the city where they live in be educated and funded for the community garden project.  She has had to be Industrious to see healthy lives restored even in the city.

Dear Farmer looks at Industriousness as a part of sustainable agriculture.  If there is no character of Industriousness in a farmer, there won't be a sustainable farm.  The two go hand in hand.
It's not easy, not always fun, sometimes barely appreciated...but it will change lives for generations.

The "Polar Bear" puppy and Farmer's Daughter

The Farmer's Daughter became the caretaker of the the "Polar Bear" puppy-a Great Pyrenees- the moment she saw it.  The puppy, at nine weeks, was the size of our full-grown Australian Shepherd.  She was instantly in love. Affectionately referred to as the "Polar Bear" this pup is playful, smart, and a self-thinker.
The Farmer's Daughter has been taking her for regular walks around the perimeter of the farm property.  The two have a grand time.  As the Polar Bear is so large, her strides are pretty big as well, so she keeps up with or exceeds the strides of the Farmer's Daughter, the walk is done in a relatively short time.
Currently, because it is wintertime, the fields are damp enough to have created ice intermixed with the snow. The Farmer's Daughter, while on the walk today, slipped on the ice and landed flat on her back.  The Polar Bear saw the Farmer's Daughter down on the ground behind her.  The Polar Bear stopped, picked up the end of the leash that the Farmer's Daughter would hold, walked it over to the Farmer's Daughter(still on the ground), and licked her face as if to say "Get up and let's keep going!"  The Farmer's Daughter is thrilled! This was proof positive for her that there is a relationship between the two(girl and dog) and that the Polar Bear will be a good guardian dog for the farm. Ahh, if we only could all have a Polar Bear in our lives...