MONDAY
March 25, 2024
the Sweep of Thrift & the Wired Fire
A few weeks back, I received a long, hand-written letter from a Journal friend. The letter made an impression and instantly I realized there was information in there that would benefit other Journal friends and readers. It certainly benefited me. But this gentleman asked that I not publish his letter for fear that he had maybe said too many personal things. I’m honoring that request. I believe however that I might share the basic thrust of his story while protecting his anonymity.
TUESDAY
March 26, 2024
Duke – the Best Bad Horse
Duke had been broke to harness but couldn’t pull himself out of a paper bag. He wasn’t very experienced and didn’t know his strength yet. Soon after Duke came to us, Dad brought home Mary. She was an old red Belgian mare that Dad used to teach Duke how to work. Mary had come from an Amish farm and had spent her life plowing and other field work. Her calm and ready responses educated Duke much quicker than a person could as he followed her lead.
WEDNESDAY
March 27, 2024
news from a small corner of far away
It has been a different year this year, as my focus has been more on the house than on outside activities, though I still grew a garden and cut the hay. The reason is that our 1860s brick-built house has needed some work for some time, the boiler was on its last legs, most of the windows were rotten and those in the original part of the house were still single glazed. Added to that, the staircase was rotting at the bottom where it was resting on tile placed on soil and with the inefficiency of brick at keeping the heat in, there was plenty to do.
THURSDAY
March 28, 2024
Moorlands and Meadows
It all started by chance. A chance turn up a newly tarred mountain road on our way to Dundalk, we were amazed to find families cutting turf. A friend give us a slane (turf spade) made from the oar of a boat. The paddle covered with tin, the handle a cow’s horn. We rented a plot. It was never our intention to cut ‘a world of turf’; even then we were conscious of its environmental importance. Our neighbours on the bog were two genteel older men and a detached young fella who done – not a hands turn – but amble over and ask, “How many bags?” Never another word but a forlorn ‘how many bags.’ Later we were to learn he was Ireland’s most brilliant nuclear physicist; chilling out.
FRIDAY
March 22, 2024
Selling to Stores
In order to have a planned, equitable, local purchasing program between farmers and co-ops or local grocery stores, both farmers and buyers have to make it work. One of the ways to get a local buying program going is for the co-op to host a meeting with all interested farmers in the winter. A winter meeting benefits the farmers whose market season is slowing down or finished before seed buying for the season takes place. However, winter is the busiest time of year for food retailers as many farmers markets, CSAs and farm stands close for the season and holidays approach.
Blizzard Days Sale
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Explore Small Farmer's Journal: People/Events
The Bean-Field
Meanwhile my beans, the length of whose rows, added together, was seven miles already planted, were impatient to be hoed, for the earliest had grown considerably before the latest were in the ground; indeed, they were not easily to be put off. What was the meaning of this so steady and self-respecting, this small Herculean labour, I knew not. I came to love my rows, my beans, though so many more than I wanted. They attached me to the earth, and so I got strength like Antaeus. But why should I raise them? Only Heaven knows. This was my curious labour all summer, — to make this portion of the earth’s surface, which had yielded only cinquefoil, blackberries, johnswort, and the like, before, sweet wild fruits and pleasant flowers, produce instead this pulse. What shall I learn of beans or beans of me? I cherish them, I hoe them, early and late I have an eye to them; and this is my day’s work.
Minnesota Farm Visit
We most enjoy working with horses, but have 200 acres and run from 45 to 100 beef cows, so we must use a lot of modern equipment also. We personally admire the way the Amish farm. We also are sorry to see the small getting smaller and the big getting bigger. When we were young there were small farms all over our county, which is the largest county in our state. After government regulations in the 1950’s we have dwindled to three working farms in the whole county. We have gone from logging, fishing and farming to tourism.
A Very Big Change
Parents. The very word is enough to evoke memories that can strike terror, nostalgia, tears and smiles. Being a plural noun, it is assumed that more than one person is responsible for these memories. Yes, it takes two people to be parents, and in my case, no two finer people are to be had. Oh, we had the regular spats and disagreements, but in these two people I have found the definition of devotion, the meaning of work, the absolute and complete knowledge that life is about responsibility and commitment. In short, from my parents I found out why farming is a way of life, not just another job.
Guardian Farmers – Defenders of a Way of Life
The story is getting out that Michael, a local farmer, left his farm and family to join the Rural Life Defence Force (RLDF). And because the story is public now I expect its OK for me to let you in on some of the details – so we don’t go around making this into something it’s not. Michael put on his cleanest overalls a week or so ago, kissed his wife and kids good-bye, left a list of things to do for the neighbour’s boy and went to join his comrades at a blockade.
Oxen
The culture of the ox was rich across New England. On my road alone there were several good ox men for me to learn from, and many more in the surrounding area. Even the men who were too old to still be working cattle, would give of their time telling us stories of when working cattle was economically practical.
Farmers and the Law
I tried once, in earnest, to buy a farm. Being that I had mostly been operating as either a contract worker or under-the-table, farm lending from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) was out of the picture. Looking further into loans, business plans and creative land-use, the numbers didn’t line up. About six years later, the price of land in my county has gone up more than 25%. In the US, farmers under 35 have an average debt-to-asset ratio of 28%. Without inheriting land or building on external assets, jump-starting a farm is seldom viable. This reality of a systemic hardship surrounding farmland access has created a generation that rarely considers farming as a life path.
Restorative Forestry from the Ground Up
Horse logging is smart physics. The horses actually pull an “arch,” a rubber-tired sulky-like contraption that is rigged to actually lift the forward end of each log slightly off the ground. The teamsters, looking for all the world like Roman charioteers, stand high on the arch, leaning back against the seat for stability, bouncing through the forest. When the horses get it under way, the log rides on its rear end, front end raised, lessening the drag and damage to the ground.
A Small Good Thing
We shared this video a while back, and now it has been released on Netflix. Check it out! — “A Small Good Thing” explores how the American Dream has reached its end and how for most of us, greater material wealth and upward mobility are no longer possible. To find out what is taking its place, this feature documentary follows six people in one community who have recast their lives so they can live with a sense of meaning.
Harry Campbell Drives Again
Well-known for his long association with draft horses and his driving abilities in multiple hitches, Harry Campbell took on a new and rather unorthodox endeavor a couple of weeks ago. Invited over to Victoria on Vancouver Island to assist Doris Ganton to hitch and drive her ‘four,’ he was rather taken aback to discover that her four consisted of “Major,” a 2400 pound Belgian, “Shan,” a purebred Arabian, and a matched pair of Hackney mares! His initial reaction, “Weeell, they don’t exactly match, do they?”
The Four Corners Driving School
We learned right away the first thing we needed to do was slow down. Chuck is methodical. He talks slowly. He started by teaching us how to adjust and fix our harness. He drilled us on these basics along with ground driving repeatedly. I was itching to get out and do some “real driving,” but that wasn’t going to happen until we were really comfortable, almost bored with these fundamentals. We learned that every detail is important. Through repetition and guidance we began to physically memorize the feel of the correct tension in the lines, the order of putting on the harness, the habit of safety-checking the harness, of attending to the mood of the horses… Learning these things thoroughly up front helped build up a foundation that became imprinted in our muscles and our minds so that as we progressed these skills became second nature.
The Threshing Ring
That neighborly spirit was strong during the threshing season. Threshing crews were common and necessary in the 1930s through the 1950s. Our Oak Grove Ridge had about 12 to 15 farmers that were on the threshing ring. Frank Fradette owned the threshing machine whose sole purpose was to separate the golden kernels of oats from their stalks. The stalks were spit out a big pipe by a powerful blower and formed a straw stack. The oats kernels were hauled to a granary for storage. Frank Fradette pulled the threshing machine with a big orange Minneapolis Moline tractor.
North Idaho’s Renaissance Woman Liz Gollen
Liz Gollen is what could be termed a rural Renaissance woman: She’s a beekeeper; a flower-farmer; a writer, artist and occasional film-maker; a chicken-raiser (for eggs); and, last but certainly not least, a full-time elementary school teacher. She and Archie, her husband of many years, inhabit a beautiful and sturdy hand-built log home on a wooded plot of family land in Sagle, Idaho.
Rostrevor
And then it dawned on me – this ewe for all her mothering instincts and supply of milk couldn’t cope. She simply couldn’t contend with two lambs. Well not at first! Because in a very short space of time, three or four in-and-out sessions and one overnight restraint, she was delighted with both lambs and went from the wee garden at the house to further pasture with the rest of the flock. Yes, I know! In a life time of working with sheep, of holding and wrestling and doing ‘the Divil and all’ when I couldn’t, in the end, get the ewe to take up with the lamb – but this time it worked; so Harrah!
Birth of a Farm
“Isn’t it nice?” I offer to my supper companions, “to see our beautiful horses right while we’re eating? I feel like I’m on a Kentucky horse farm, with rolling bluegrass vistas.” I sweep my arm dramatically towards the view, the rigged up electric fence, the lawn straggling down to the pond, the three horses, one of whom is relieving herself at the moment. “Oh, huh,” he answers. “I was thinking it was more like a cheesy bed and breakfast.”
Our Friend and Champion Paul Birdsall has Passed On
Our dear, gentle friend farmer Paul Birdsall had the countenance of an old Maine lobsterman-wood cutter mixed with a toy maker’s spirit. He had that long true visage of a man at sea, it started ‘neath the cap bill and waved out and away just as far as need be. He had the posture of a man poised to turn and move onto the next thing that needed doing. No hesitations, no wasted steps. He had the patient reach and touch of a true horseman, making useful contact and taking sweet rewards.
The Continuing Saga of Laurent Vermeulen
On April 7, we continued our travels, heading for the Pacific Coast in Oregon. First we drove through the Snake River Valley. Immense sagebrush areas, but also good irrigated farmland. Once in Oregon, we drove back into the mountains. We crossed the Blue Mountains in Malheur National Forest and the Ochoco Mountains. Down in the valleys there was some grassland and sometimes a grain field. The last part to Sisters was sagebrush and juniper country. That whole stretch was ranch and free-range area. This practice disturbs the natural vegetation and forest heavily.
Oregon Draft Horse & Mule Breeders Association 50th Anniversary Plowing Match
We Millers were invited to attend the Fiftieth Anniversary Oregon Draft Horse and Mule Breeders plowing match at the Yamhill County Heritage Center in McMinnville. I was one of the judges (along with Michael Webster). Kristi took photos, some of which you see on these pages. It was a splendid day, perfect weather and a well organized event with lots of spectators.
New York Horsefarmer: Ed Button and his Belgians
In New York State one does not explore the world of draft horses long before the name of Ed Button is invariably and most respectfully mentioned. Ed’s name can be heard in the conversations of nearly everyone concerned with heavy horses from the most experienced teamsters to the most novice horse hobbyists. His career with Belgians includes a vast catalog of activities: showing, pulling, training, farming, breeding, and driving, which Ed says, “I’ve been doing since I was old enough to hold the lines.”
Making Hay at Oak Tree Ranch
Over the Independence Day weekend Marvin and Pam Brisk, of Oak Tree Ranch, Halfway, Oregon, hosted a gathering of animal traction professionals and enthusiasts to explore the process of putting up loose hay. While putting up loose hay may be viewed as somewhat anachronistic, even by draft animal enthusiasts, we came seeking knowledge of how haying this way could fit into our lives. And of course, to have fun! Mowing, raking, use of a hay loader, and loading hay into the barn with a trolley system were all demonstrated and many tried out the various facets of the process. With the use of Marvin and Pam’s well maintained machinery and seasoned horses, this little ranch in Halfway served as an inspiration to all who cared to marvel at the elegant simplicity of a job well done using appropriate technology and a bit of help from their friends.
Lost and Found in Wendell Berry’s Kentucky
It was early on a cold March morning when Sarah and I found ourselves driving north beside the Kentucky River. We were hoping to enter the county through its back gate, which we figured was up from the river, now running emerald green and swollen on our right. No road sign announced Henry County so when we sensed we were there we took the next left, which brought us up the Kentucky’s escarpment, through a thick woods, and onto a tangle of narrow, curvy winding up and down roads. They were almost as bad as back home. The state road map didn’t show county roads and our GPS couldn’t find service, so soon we were helplessly, but happily, lost.
Bucky’s Close Call
It was early spring when an old friend of my Grandpa came by to visit on his day off and brought Grandpa a beautiful white Leghorn rooster as a gift. He was magnificent with his white feathers, bring red large comb and wattle and when Grandpa placed him in the chicken pen, he stretched his wings and began to prance around the yard obviously attempting to impress the hens. He made a strange calling sound as he paraded around and stuck his beak in and out. Grandpa swore the sound he made was, “buck, buck, buck,” and Grandpa declared that his name from now on was Bucky, because he seemed so proud of his sharp yellow beak. So, Bucky, it was.
Can’t You See the Ox is in the Ditch?
The long winter finally ended and our hill became green again. This time the old man had got a head start on his farming. Although he and the hands had hauled many loads of rocks and had built dams about thirty feet apart all the way up the slope, he had found time to do other things. In the fall he had cleaned out all the stables and scattered the manure over the garden spot and the land he intended to put in corn.
George’s Boots
George Ziermann has been making custom measured, hand made shoes for 40 years. He’s looking to get out, but can’t find anyone to get in.
Raven Flight Part 3: If You Build It They Will Come
They arrived the week before Christmas. Coming in the late afternoon, bringing with them encouragement and faith in a project that was still barely begun. We sat around the kitchen table surrounding a freshly brewed pot of tea, and were refreshed by their presence there. Chris, myself, my sister Katie, her partner Than, and Caleb, our two year old son, gathered. And how good it felt to be simply in their company.
Reminiscence
I’ve always had sheep on Loughin More. And in summer a pony. Always been on the mountain and never ever passed any remarks on ‘The Bauch.’ It’s a word I’ve said all my life; a word from the north of Scotland (I’m told) to describe a circular wall of stones. I don’t know what The Bauch is but I think I know what it’s not.
From There to Here
I have been a fine artist for my entire life but as my vision of where the world was headed caused my art to become darker I found myself longing for something “real”, something tangible and meaningful in a rapidly disintegrating society. Dirt and food are real so I bought a piece of rangeland in Mendocino County, CA. Over the past 19 years my partner and I transformed ourselves into farmers, the farm into a family business, and a small part of the land into a gorgeous, thriving farm. We raise animals in addition to growing a large variety of fruits and vegetables for our main business, canning, which we do in the commercial kitchen we built at the center of the farm.
Magner and Me
I was seventeen years old when I got my first copy of Magner’s Standard Horse and Stock Book. I found it hidden at the bottom of a box of old books at a farm auction and as I dusted it off and started leafing through the pages I realized that I had struck gold. Every other page seemed to be adorned with beautiful woodcut prints of horses and other livestock: over two thousand illustrations in all. More importantly I could see at a glance that the text was addressing many of the problems that horsemen and farmers encountered when handling and raising various classes of livestock.
In Praise of My Preserves
Though many of us live in cities, we can still garden and grow our own food. But we associate this with summer, with ripening strawberries in the early season, perhaps red tomatoes later on. And when they are gone, they are gone until next year. What most people don’t realize is that canning their own food is still possible in their own kitchens. Indeed, many supermarkets stock not only flats of glass jars, as well as lids, but also the hot-water baths needed to process the jarred goods, and those crucial tools like tongs to fish hot jars out with.
The Zen of Maple Sugaring
March 1982 ~ Dad & I have just built a new, smaller sugarhouse on a slight bench above the brook, behind our 120-year-old farmhouse, on the Glen Road in Jay. I’m 27 now, and employed as a Correction Officer by the State of New York at Clinton Prison in Dannemora. This 6-week stretch that I spend making maple syrup with my father every spring is a retreat, of sorts ~ a return to a simpler time, of working with your hands, legs and back, producing a seasonal product, as my family has done for six generations.
The Way it Wasn’t
It often seems to me that a good share of life is determined by our own perspectives. I’ve competed in pulls where the team came in last and I was completely content, if not downright thrilled. I’ve had other times when the team pulled all they could and behaved perfectly, and still disappointed me. It’s just my personal perspective on that particular day that led to my disappointment or pleasure. Let’s face it; a day at a pull, with the good people a pull attracts, and the bond shared with horses is a good day that we should cherish whether you finished first or last.
The Turkey Vulture: Nature’s Forgotten Environmentalist
I’ve known a couple of Turkey Vultures that waited for me to do chores in the morning at the hay barn. They knew I would be there every day on time. I named them Harry and Carrie. They would perch on the corral rail, across from the hay barn, watching me the whole time. When I was done with chores, they would fly away. I know they grew attached to me, as I grew attached to them!
Fall Harvest Days at the Triple “H” Farm
Held the last few years, this October celebration has been a success because of a precise and combined effort of family and friends: Gary Moyer; Kathy Moyer, his wife; their sons, Matt, Gary, and their girlfriends; Gary’s mother and brother; friends Sally and Mark Shaw; as well as additional family and friends. The celebration offers homemade food and two corn mazes: one walk-through and the second a drive-through/spook ride where two teams of Haflingers carry visitors through the attraction, day and night. All in all, customers have found the drive-through to be particularly enjoyable.
Horselogging French-Style
Horselogging French-Style – A Photo Essay.
Field Weeds and Street Boys
So, our farming system to feed hungry street boys is to have them farm “weeds”. As we have all experienced, weeds are perfectly adapted to their climate, are robust and need no fertilizer nor any of the insecticides to enhance a good crop. Because we are aiming for long term diversified permaculture (this is a Shea native tree area), we needed some very quick marketable crops while we wait for the trees to mature. These field weeds intentionally farmed have a ready market in the big city 5 km north.
Building a House, One Scrap at a Time
Amy Andrews and Ethan Van Kooten had no money. How could they build a house? The Central College students, both environmental studies majors, wanted to build a small, sustainable home for their senior project. They proposed a $3,350 budget — but when no grant money was available, they became scavengers to complete the project as cheaply as possible. With truckloads of reclaimed materials and 10 weeks to build, the students created a house for $489. “Everything we used was on its way to the landfill,” Andrews said.
Back to Indiana
The rising sun had not yet drunk the dew from the grass in the dooryard of the line cabin when the man mounted the forward hub of the prairie-schooner and bent a final glance into the dusky interior to make sure that nothing had been forgotten. He inventories the contents with his eye: a mattress for his wife, baby boy, and little Nellie to sleep on: blankets and comforters – somewhat faded and ragged – for himself and Roy to make a bunk of, on the ground; a box of extra clothing, cooking utensils, a lantern, rope, shotgun, family Bible – badly tattered – and a hen-coop, containing seven pullets, lashed to the end-gate. A wooden bucket hung from the rear axle-tree, to which was also chained a black and white setter. The only superfluous article seemed to be a little mahogany bureau, battered and warped, but still retaining an air of distinction which set it apart from the other tawdry furnishings, and marked it as a family treasure.
Expanding the Use of the Heavy Draught Horse in Europe
“La Route du Poisson”, or “The Fish Run,” is a 24 hour long relay which starts from Boulogne on the coast at 9 am on Saturday and runs through the night to the outskirts of Paris with relays of heavy horse pairs until 9 am Sunday with associated events on the way. The relay “baton” is an approved cross country competition vehicle carrying a set amount of fresh fish.
The Discarded Stone
It shouldn’t have been there, but there it was, a nineteenth-century gravestone partly exposed at the edge of a rubbish pile back in the woods. He assumed some farmer had finally had his fill of always having to skirt an abandoned plot of graves that no one had tended for years. Perhaps he had struck a half-buried slab with his cultivator and broken a tine and, perhaps, after cursing and counting costs, he had hauled away every stone on the site and plowed it all under.
Joyce Sharp and Horses
If you spend time around Central Oregon livestock circles you are bound to run into a sweet, quiet, lovely and strong woman with excellent hands and a good team in harness. That woman is Joyce Sharp.
Bob’s Farm Day in Orange, Virginia
On Saturday, March 30, 2013 in Orange, Virginia, members of the Virginia Draft Horse and Mule Association (VDHMA), Old Dominion Draft Horse and Mule Association and Virginia Percheron Association trailered in to support Bob Brennan’s annual Farm Day. Other teamsters traveled from various parts of Virginia as well as North Carolina, West Virginia, Massachusetts and New York to demonstrate their skills in tilling a large field supplied by one of Bob’s neighbors for this public event.
Arnost & the Eagle
As I walk to the pasture, I pass Arnost, one of my guardian dogs, dozing in the morning sun. He moans a bit in his sleep, a sound that always makes me smile. Behind him, the does graze while their kids mostly sleep. They all look fine. But I still don’t see the kid I’m looking for, so I walk through the pasture gate and check one pile of napping baby goats after another. Behind me, a savage growl interrupts the quiet morning. The hairs on my arms stand up. I swing around. Arnost is fully awake and looking skyward. In one graceful movement he leaps up and runs hellbent past me into the field. His growl grows into a warning howl as he follows something in the sky. I shade my eyes so I can see what has made Arnost so upset. Eagles circle above us. “NO!” I yell.
Cindy’s Curds & Whey
The Burgess dairy farm and cheese factory are sustainable operations, meaning that nearly every by-product is re-used or recycled. For example, the usually-discarded whey goes to feed their own pigs, producing an exceptionally tasty, lean pork. Whey is the liquid portion of milk that develops after the milk protein has coagulated, and contains water, milk sugar, albuminous proteins, and minerals.
Can We Make a Living from a Small Farm?
A friend had recently purchased 11 acres of ground and wanted to know if I thought that was enough ground to set up a viable farm to support his family. We have a fairly large farm of 24 acres in our area, probably considered nothing more than a garden to large-scale farmers. Yet from this farm we have been able to support our family entirely from our vegetable and fruit production. It was from this background that my friend asked for my input to assess his chances of becoming a farmer. To answer his question I sat down and wrote a letter outlining some points that I considered important for him to succeed in his quest. Following is that letter that I mailed off to him:
When Story Roamed Free
I could catch glimpses of this story as I walked through my dusty little farm; when I went past coulees full of dark moist places scattered with poplars and willow, chokecherries and sagebrush, causing my heart to ache… I wanted to explore that coulee forever. Sorting out the smells while flushing out prairie chickens and partridge. Listening to the wind blow through the fox and coyote smells as a horse snorts scents from his nostrils; I wanted to drink the water from the ever-flowing story well and discover all the moist, fertile grounds hidden in the dry prairie where I lived. So, first we follow the wind…
Cultivating Questions: Portrait of a Plain Farmer
The first balers were so large and clumsy, no one ever thought you could pull them with horses. So the church never put a ban on balers. Then the small pick-up balers came in and the farmers pulled them with their horses. The Amish have adopted just about everything that will pull with horses. It’s hard to say why one settlement made certain restrictions and others didn’t, why some have worked and others haven’t. I guess you’d just have to say it’s the will of the people.
Circling the Garden
Our white garage faced south and here were stakes of tomatoes. The stalks were tied with twine. We stopped. My dad reached in to the front pocket of his khaki pants and pulled out a saltshaker he had grabbed on our way out of the kitchen. He picked a tomato, salted and bit into it, testing its taste and juiciness before passing it to me for a pre-breakfast treat. Each of us leaned forward, the juice spilling harmlessly on the grass.
Ruby and Amber’s Organic Oasis
The photos are of our farm, located in Dorena, Oregon. We have about 35 acres and grow certified organic vegetables, cut flowers, and plants, which we sell at the Eugene / Lane Co. Farmer’s Market and in our community supported agriculture program. In any one-year, we have about 2 – 3 acres in intensive production, the rest in cover crops, pasture, wild lands, etc. Although we have and use a tractor, we are doing most of the work with Ruby and Amber, our beautiful and willing mares who are both patient and forgiving with us.
Miss Mac
It was the end of an era. Our twenty-eight-year-old Belgian draft horse Miss Mac (Missy) died. Missy was a red mare with a large white blaze and a whitish/reddish mane and tail. She was hard in the mouth and wanted to be the first to feel the weight in her traces. She was a real work horse and the matriarch of High View Farm.
Sack Sewing with Wayne Ryan
Watching Wayne’s sure hands it was easy for me to forget that this is a 91 year old man. There was strength, economy, elegance and thrift in his every stroke.
Powdered Potato Panacea
A shrewder Dutchman than Coonrod Sprengel was not to be found throughout the length and breadth of Cherry Valley. In business he was as alert as a chipmunk, being seldom surprised far from his hole. He had been a successful farmer, and since his retirement to New Berlin and his election to the honorable office of justice of the peace he had continued to make money in loans, insurance and real estate.