“Lie down dog! Lie down Bo-Patch!” I was shouting while cutting frantically at the wool. When –– what should pull up at the gate but a very big sedan car; a luxury vehicle and to my horror two coiffured older ladies get out. “Cooee Ian! Cooee!” they shouted. “O look he has lovely lambs! Can we help!” They were two ladies who live on Cherry Hill; as the name suggests a very nice area in the village behind my house. ‘Ladies who lunch.’

My farming life has far surpassed the dream. The original dream came to me spontaneously, at the age of 9 or 10, when I received a vision and comprehension of where things were headed with the world: ecologically, economically, societally. I didn’t want my family to be waiting in line for a food handout, wanted to see myself on the provision end of things, and figured that what we’d need, in order to take care of ourselves and help others, would be a farm. Starting then, I went after life skills learning and personal development opportunities, gathering abilities to enable myself to do what needs to be done to take care of basic needs. I was called to the path of farming, but had no idea what that path could or would hold for me, or how a life path unfolds.

For any would-be farmer, probably the most common, and unhelpful, piece of advice is – ‘don’t do it!’ This is not a new phenomenon; except in the 1950s and ’60s, that has been a constant theme for a hundred years. On the other hand, every farmer alive has started farming within the last hundred years, so that piece of advice has been ignored millions of times. Nevertheless, it is still perhaps one of the best pieces of advice you can receive, because it tells you that farming is hard, it makes you question whether farming is really what you want to do and immediately forces you to think how you might circumvent the norms of conventional farming practise and make a success of it.

As you may recall I contacted you several months ago seeking information concerning Big Wheels. This Adventure started in 2015 when Matt Veerkamp of Veerkamp General Engineering in Placerville, CA found a metal wheel hub. It was labeled “The Holt M.F.G. CO. Stockton CA.” As a Historical Consultant, he asked me to find what the hubs were used on, as he wished to build the item. That started a nine year process of research, phone calls and travel.

The anvil must be conveniently located with respect to the forge and the height of the working surface should be such as to avoid fatigue. A good rule is to mount the anvil so that the knuckles of the clinched hand will just touch the working face of the anvil when the workman stands erect. For mounting the anvil select a solid timber or stump with bottom and top squared off parallel and cut to a height after mounting which will give the proportions mentioned above. In positioning the anvil, the block should preferably be sunk into the ground and when facing the anvil, the horn should point to the workman’s left hand.

Over the past 25 years I have raised more bottle or bucket fed animals than I even know how to count. A few were orphans, many were dropped off by busy farmers, some we bought and the rest were calves from our own cows that we separated to hand raise. I have lost very few but some of those took much more time and energy than any practical person would ever do. Many of those long exhausting hours would have been unnecessary if I had known then what I do now. But life is about the journey not the arrival. My journey is ever ongoing and I will continue to waste time and energy in my struggle to learn and grow. I am okay with that kind of life. It is full.

Gooseberry was thrilled to have company who knew his language. He was very sweet and comforting to the terrified new gosling. Lucy was just sure that we were out to eat her. Gooseberry was a good example and Lucy soon calmed down. Not only did she calm down, she became quite fond of lap time and was a snuggly baby goose.

It’s clear from his new novel, THE BIG BAYS OF LINCOLN COUNTY, that Ed Vande Voorde knows plenty about working horses. The book is a refreshing and realistic read about the pleasures and efforts involved in working draft horses, and competing in pulling contests with them that hold compelling moments for any teamster old or new. Yet the story begins with a flood around a bridge, and a human and animal rescue that depends on a team and teamster immersed in icy waters, being controlled and directed entirely by the teamster’s voice. Besides being realistic, Vande Voorde is also surprisingly frank in this story, about the motivations of Amish farmers, and their religious practice and beliefs, which ordain a life of hard work and devotion that keep the rest of American culture, that they call the “English,” at a distance.

The Tale of Nimble Deer Part 8

Some of the young dairymen here prefer to keep enough cows to utilize all of their land, instead of investing in machinery for haymaking, thus buying all of their hay. Bought in hay also brings in nutrients, and is a good way to boost the fertility of our land. They have taken to heart the advice to not invest in anything that rusts, rots or depreciates. It is amazing how little equipment it takes to operate a well-run grass-based dairy. Another reason for an auction like this is to stimulate each other into producing better cows. It has long been Nathan Weaver’s goal to breed a perfect – maybe I should say a better – grass-fed cow.

A couple of years ago, after years of allowing moles to run roughshod all over the farm, I finally had had enough of their damage and I served them an eviction notice: “Out of the garden, and while you’re packing, out of the lawn as well! And would you mind also giving my hayfields a break!” It took time to make an impact, but there could be no doubt—with fewer moles there were many more worms. Of course the moles didn’t merely take their leave voluntarily and head off into the subterranean sunset. In order to reclaim a bit of my domain, I first had to learn a bit about the nature of these pesky ground dwellers.

I thought I was just getting an equipment tour and donkey visit, but I quickly saw that François had other ideas when he slipped a halter on Pepito’s long kind face and led him back to the stable where he tied him to an iron ring in the stone wall and ducked inside to round up a curry comb. After a brushing, he went after his donkey harness, a minimal, but perfectly functional breast strap affair, which featured built-in “saddle” bags, an accessory of which François was particularly fond. “You just throw a sandwich and a water bottle in there and off you go!”

One way to deal with these different weather extremes is to spread the risk through diversification. When arable farmers expand their crop rotations, they will always have crops that are better adapted to the extreme situation that arises than others. However, in vegetable growing this is much more difficult to implement. Future food security can only be created through an improved climate resilience of our social-ecological system. This requires developing or rediscovering more stable and resilient systems that do not rely on optimizing a single factor. In recent decades, yields and earnings have counted too much.

I am one of the editor’s daughters, as I presume most of the readership knows. He put my photo on the back cover of a series called Farm Romance in the late 90’s, and the same photo has shown up in his books and magazines over and over again, like pins threaded with red string across a map. I admit, I look much different now than the giggling, nearly bald toddler running down the red cinder road between the pines, although I’d like to think I have maintained the way my eyes disappear when I grin and the toothiness of that smile.

An international group consisting of cattle experts and specialists under the coordination of the Center for Draft Cattle Research and Education (Lorsch, Germany) took over the development of new test standards. It was important to both the test committee and the active members of the draft cattle community in Germany that the trials should not be a competition, but rather a joint review of quality standards. It should also explicitly not be about demanding maximum performance from the animals (in terms of maximum pulling power), but rather the average pulling power that the animals should be able to deliver over a period of several hours.

If you need a steady supply of quality pigs, a breeding operation is the way to go. Crossbred pigs grow better and generally have superior meat quality. Common crosses include Hampshire/Yorkshire; Duroc/Chester White; other breeds you might encounter include Berkshire, Red Wattle, Mule Foot, Spotted Poland and Landrace. It’s generally preferred to cross a meat-type pig Hampshire, Duroc, Berkshire with a maternal type Yorkshire, Chester White, Landrace. Sows should be the maternal type and boars the meat type.

Ploughing is an age-old agricultural practice, a cornerstone of farming since it’s earliest beginnings. The method involves turning over the top layer of soil to prepare it for planting, effectively controlling weeds, aerating the earth, and incorporating organic matter into the soil structure. While modern agriculture has seen the rise of no-till and reduced-tillage methods, ploughing remains a vital process for many farmers to this day.

The morning began cool, and heavy dew drops clung to the grass. Thunder rumbled in the southwest as we checked for the final time the measurements on the post feet and the foundation stones. Would we get rained out on this long-anticipated day? I had been up since first light with my two young sons, doing final preparations before the crew arrived. After a year of studying timber framing, and consultation with other framers, a blueprint had been put together. Another six months were spent, off-and-on as farm work allowed, cutting the 98 white oak timbers that the plan required.

Now all these years later, February finds a half mile of yellow along a remote road in Tennessee. Their simple immortal beauty lives on for future generations. They tell those passing by of a woman no longer there, who tried to brighten a little of her wilderness.