Most internal parasites are worms, but bots are fly larvae. This parasite spends most of its life fastened to the inside of the horse’s stomach, drawing nourishment from the blood supply to the stomach lining. These free-loaders cause irritation as well as rob nutrients from the horse, and can occasionally perforate the stomach wall (which may lead to fatal complications).

I set out to landscaping with edibles with a willing husband in tow. We planted blueberry bushes in front of the house where other ornamental shrubs would have gone, and rows of fruit trees near the driveway. Neat raised beds of vegetables greet people as they park, and thornless blackberry bushes and a variety of herbs surround the doorway. They are all placed as I would place any flowers I may have had, and look just as wonderful to me. The garlic chives are in full blossom right now. A flower is a flower, even on an herb plant. The apple mint is blooming too, in lovely lavender.

They were exactly what we were looking for, a Saanen and an Oberhasli, both two years of age and ready to be bred. Luckily we had just butchered our turkey flock and had a large fenced in space with a barrel-vault shed that was now vacant. With a little bit of work on the fence the goats were ready to move in. At first we placed loose hay on the floor of the hut for them, but quickly realized how much was wasted and knew we needed to build a feeder or creep.

Summarizing a segment on how the bio-extensive rotation reduced hand weeding to four hours in a half-acre of Stuttgart onions, Anne emphasized that “our goal is not to maximize yields but to minimize the costs of production.” Another way of saying this is that reducing risk is more important to us than achieving a high income. Although our low-input, land-extensive system has maintained surprisingly consistent production over the past 26 years, we can rest assured that a complete crop failure would not result in a major financial setback. In this respect, our bio-extensive mindset is more closely aligned with a peasant economy than modern day capitalism.

D Acres – Development Aimed at Creating Rural Ecological Society – is a non-profit service organization that operates as a small-scale farm, homestead, and education center. A fluctuating number of staff, residents, interns, and apprentices live at the farm, working together to improve the human relationship to the environment.

Deering and McCormick Colors

The “feel and appearance method” is one of several irrigation scheduling methods used in Irrigation Water Management. It is a way of monitoring soil moisture to determine when to irrigate and how much water to apply. Applying too much water causes excessive runoff and/or deep percolation. As a result, valuable water is lost along with nutrients and chemicals, which may leach into the ground water.

Profits in farm poultry raising are largely affected by the number of eggs produced during the fall and early months of winter and by the number of broilers and roasters that can be marketed when prices are highest. The larger profits can be best obtained by hatching early and by having early maturing strains.

We are presently seeing data coming out of the United States Census of Agriculture that is showing that we are in the midst of another major back to the land movement. Good people are returning to farming as their primary occupation and the data is showing that, contrary to some opinions, it is the number of farms of modest acreage, those under 180 acres, which are growing. In fact, you’ll notice that small farms are the only U.S. farm sector seeing any real increase in the numbers of farms and of course farmers.

It seems to take forever, but how can a young seven-year-old boy on his way to pick up his first horse measure time? Dad has made a deal for a horse with a rancher named Andersen. Their place is way out “on the reservation.” West of our town, farther than my usual trips to town with Dad, hauling grain to the elevator or picking up supplies at the local general store. This time we’re headed out of town on rough dirt roads.

We own a 40 jersey cow herd and sell most of their milk to Cobb Hill Cheese, who makes farmstead cheeses. We have a four-acre market garden, which we cultivate with our team of Fjord horses and which supplies produce to a CSA program, farm stand and whole sale markets. Other members of the community add to the diversity of our farm by raising hay, sheep, chickens, pigs, bees, and berries, and tending the forest and the maple sugar-bush.

This machine was extensively used in the large potato-growing districts where late potatoes were grown, and hence no heavy roller is deemed necessary to crush the vines in front of the plow, because the vines of late potatoes are almost always allowed to die before they are harvested. This machine is meant for operation in heavy soils and to be pulled by four horses, but, of course, it can also be operated in lighter soils.

An account of the experiences of the writer in army life with the mules and horses may interest your readers. The army blacksmith and wheelwright is quite a busy person, as he not only makes repairs and alterations to the army wagons, but often has to do the shoeing of the mules and the horses. The writer has followed army life for a number of years, and was on foreign soil with the United States army during the recent wars with Spain in Cuba and the Filipinos in the Philippines. The career of the army horseshoer in America is very different from what it is in the tropics.

Cockletop’s Pride • Tony • Chicks • In the Farmyard • Our Poultry Business • In the Chicken Yard • Five Little Chickens • Our Barnyard • The Magpie’s Nest • The Doggies’ Promenade • Hide and Seek

The Dream • Seasons • My Pet Pig • My Youth Farm Stand Experience • Mika • A Child’s Logic • One Little Seed

Kerosene Tractors 1919 • Convertaplow • Range Shelter • Drills • Door Holder • DIY Septic Tank

A view of an outdoor storage pit with the side broken away so that the interior construction shown by dotted lines may be seen. This pit holds from 30 to 40 bushels. The construction is simple. First, a level bed about 6 inches high and from 8 to 10 feet in diameter is formed by shoveling some of the surface soil into a heap and then smoothing it out. Then two small trenches about 4 to 6 inches wide and deep are dug at right angles across the bed, bisecting each other at the center. Boards are laid over these trenches to keep the air space free. At the point of intersection of the trenches a ventilator flue made of boards about 4 to 5 inches wide nailed closely together is set up; this is to provide for the ventilation of the roots; the flue must be held in place by one man until the potatoes have been piled high enough around it to hold it in place.

Discipline was not only the name of the game in the road traffic, but also at our first destination, the “SM Brukshästar,” the Swedish championship for draft horses. The 2008 edition took place near a gymnasium for agricultural educations in Rättvik, located more or less in the centre of Sweden. To come to the point, speaking about the Swedish Champions is simply an understatement. The people we saw at this 2 day event are worth being called the true European Champions. Not only in the horse lodging contest, which took place at the same time as a riding competition on Saturday, but also in a coach driving contest on Sunday. The harmony in the cooperation between men and women and horses was impressive.

The onion plant should be put in with the root from ½ to 1 inch underground. An onion seedling set the right depth, about 1 inch, is shown in (a); the dotted line represents the size and position of the onion bulb that may be expected to develop from the seedling; about two-thirds of the bulb will be above ground, or just where it is wanted.

There was a day when five horses on a two bottom plow would not turn any heads. Today as the team and I are out plowing I notice a car drive slowly south by the field. A short time later the same car crawls back north and stops on the road. I need to rest the horses regularly anyway and sometimes I stop to chat, but now I’m finishing up a piece. It’s a long hike over rough plowed ground and it’s freezing cold.

And CFA is not the only farm in Detroit. By my count, there are now at least six micro-farms within the city limits ranging from about an acre to several acres. Even more important, there are now scores of productive community and school gardens, along with hundreds of family gardens, which are providing fresh fruits and vegetables for their neighborhoods and for sale at various farmers’ markets around town.

From the beginning the concept for this event was that it be a true market festival with the auction as a center piece. We have always wanted to make those three days be a time when folks could come together, whether or not they wished to buy and/or sell, for a broad community networking reunion. And we’ve been fortunate that it has been very successful in just that way. With the spacious and accomodating new venue in Madras we are excited about how the event might now take a giant leap forward in growth.

This spring-time favorite has been cooked up at sugar houses and sugar camps for over 200 years. In some places, it is also known as “leather aprons” or “leather britches,” because of its chewy, leathery consistency. Many New Englanders and Canadians call it “sugar-on-snow.” Here’s how to make it at home:

Our fields were plowed by Nettie B, a huge, gray-colored, plow horse that we had bought from a farmer that had owned her for more than fifteen years. She was named Nettie by the man who had owned her before, but Daddy Joe added the B, for Babe, who had been a plow horse when he was a child. Nettie might be old in years, but she was big, faithful, and was always anxious each morning to go to the fields and turn up the sandy soil.

Pa said “Hey Lis, listen to this…” I hold my breath and listen. He had done this before and if I didn’t listen real close I’d miss it. Tears welled up in my eyes as I heard… plink, plink, plink coming through my LG cell phone. Pa had been out tappin’ and if he hadn’t told me, I would have never guessed that the sound I was hearing was sap hitting the bottom of a galvanized bucket.

When I step out the door on a frosty spring morning, and I’m greeted by the sounds of not only my own animals, but those of the songbirds, crows, and wild geese, I know that I’m right where I was meant to be, where I need to be – the only place on earth where I WANT to be. As I take those first brisk steps towards the hay barn to commence the morning feeding, the bleating of my goats, nicker of the horses and meowing of the cats serve as a welcoming chorus…

This spring the horse lost two true champions. Both John Sharp and Dan Kintz have passed on but not without having left an indelible imprint on the best of working horses. Both men are sorely missed and deeply appreciated for the thousands of hours they gave to helping people and their horses.

Some will remember how it was that Dad never explained, just expected you to know. “No, not that way. To the left, to the left! Haven’t you been paying attention?” Instruction was a ludicrous concept. Water in the nose, fire on the skin, ridicule in the gut, dizzy with pain, nauseous with anxiety, dull with confusion: these were the ways to learn. Those days, for some they may still be today, if you didn’t allow yourself to be pulled along you were left behind. And behind was nowhere, no flow, no connection, no justification, no ladders, no doors, no coupon, no pay, no stay, no return.

There are three adults and four of our boys as staff for this loading. We’re well equipped with pen and ramp, but still, hogs of any kind don’t like to make it easy. Although one goes up the ramp with relatively little fuss, the other races around the pen in desperation. Eventually we get her up the ramp. Time to go, and our friend kindly invites us to dinner. In the course of the meal comments are made about how the pigs are looking out over the top of the stock rack. From where I sit I can’t see the truck, and by the grins on their faces I know they are pulling my leg.

We all know that shaft irons generally break at the bolt holes, and we also know that if we upset the irons to be welded, as they should be, the iron, when welded, will be quite a bit shorter than it was originally, which makes it necessary to rebore from one to three of the holes and also cut the shaft according to the length of the iron, all of which not only takes a great deal of time, but in a measure disfigures the shaft, and that in its turn displeases the customer.