Shades of Green Farm

This is a very long post... a story...

... a tale of farming on the wane…. a heart sharing from me- jules.

So, it’s been awhile since I’ve written on this blog.  There have been several long gaps over these years of having our Shades of Green Farm blog. Each time there’s a reason… sometimes I know exactly what it is and just have a hard time getting past the block. Other times, the weeks just slip away and I’m not even aware of this one-among-many tasks I’m letting slide by. And what’s the issue this time?

Perhaps it’s because the fire trauma took a long time to wear itself out. It pretty much has passed at this point… even though I have to drive through a chunk of the devastation several times a week and there are moments when I feel the tears coming back. Now it’s less about fear (but watch how fast I can pack a bag and get it in the car on a wildly windy day!) and more about grief for the trees and the wildlife and the many displaced people who have no homes to return to. As the thousands of dead trees are cut down and chipped or positioned to reduce erosion, the barren quality of the ash-covered, black-and-white photo landscape I drive through has an impact that at times feels like erosion… the gradual wearing away of my upbeat mood the longer it takes to pass through the burn zone. But my joy returns more easily now.

And there are signs of returning life all over the place! It is amazing and truly hope-filled to see how a fig at Pine Crone Retreat Center has begun to sprout new leaves from the base of the scorched remains of it’s many-branched trunk. In the labyrinth whose rock-shaped paths are now set amidst an ashen ground, the grass is beginning to show itself in thin blades of bright green against the gray background. And some of the vines that once grew on the porches that once surrounded the two houses of Pine Crone—incongruously,  the vines begin to emerge—incongruous because there is no structure for them to grow on. A simple fix, this; simply bring back the metal trellises that are now leaning against a fence on our farm… now there’s a use for them again.

So, while the fires shut me down and diverted my attention, I cannot honestly claim that the challenge I face in writing and posting is solely about that.  Our land was spared and daily life on the land has not changed very much... or rather, the changes aren't related to the fire. Before the fire, I wasn’t writing here, and two months later I’m still not writing, even as other elements of life returned to 'normal'.

Perhaps it’s because I feel like a fake… writing about farming when our farm work has become so severely limited in scope. And perhaps the part of me that feels relief that this is so, is ashamed as much as the part that is sad feels defeat and failure.  The truth is I’ve been a farmer but am no longer farming… and yes, a part of me feels relief.

I have spend many an hour wondering about whether or not “I am a farmer”. Obviously, I was in that I was certainly farming—producing food for others in ways that I felt were sustainable, humane and appropriate. The work was also exhausting and did not earn us a living. So, I doubted. And I missed being a teacher. And missed the energy to engage in art. Now, I am substitute teacher. Now I have more energy. The other restriction on doing art continues—we live in such a tiny space that there is no room to set any work up for longer than a few hours at a time. And that will change—perhaps even soon.

Our farm is up for sale. Our debt load over the double water well expense and trying to build up a farm with limited income, followed by the loss of that income, combined to make staying on our land next to impossible. We’ve sold our camper van, two calves, two flocks of laying hens and myriad equipment since spring, trying to keep ‘farming’ and pay the bills in the absence of reliable income. There’s not much left to sell… except the farm itself… the land, the improvements, the beauty and potential and maybe even the four cows we have left.

And when we move we have the opportunity to live in a home with more than one room; with space to work and to do art and to sleep in peace if the other of us is still up. A place with a bathroom and a tub and shower and enough hot water to take a full blown shower or bath every day… to clean and soak this water-sign-womon as much as I need it… and in so doing, to replenish my own inner well. All this is very good and sits in such odd accompaniment to the sorrow and pain of considering this move away from the land we've loved and lived on for five years.

We don’t know where we’ll go yet. We haven’t sold this place yet either and our prayers ask that the money comes in to stay here and pay our bills until it is sold. And we ask that those who follow care for this land and hopefully continue to develop its agricultural capabilities.

And finally, there's gratitude... for the land, for the opportunity to build our home and farm up from land that contained only cattle and potential. Gratitude for the hands of education that builds deep appreciation for all those who produce our food. Gratitude for finding out what my body and soul were capable of doing... and even what proved to be over-whelming at time.

I want to thank all of you who have followed this blog, who have supported and cared about Shades of Green Farm over the years, who treasure wholesome food and all that means. We may end up somewhere near here (the little town of Elgin is one place that calls us); we may keep raising broilers for ourselves and friends who love them. We just don’t know. I hold myself open to all the possibilities of the wondrous life that is awaiting to unfold… and take with me countless life lessons learned on this land… farming.

Bastrop County Farm Tour May 1st-- We start it off here!

Download FarmTour Flier May 1 2011

Already over 30 people have RSVP'd to attend this great event organized by Suzie Medford for region 2 of Texas Farmers and Gardeners Association. It's exciting to be a part of what may be the first such tour in our county. Very hopeful that there is this much interest, as there are many small farms in the county and all need to be supported by the consumers here. Without farms we have no food. Without people who prioritize healthy food over cheap food, we have no sustainable agriculture. Here's to the partnership that will build a possible future for us all!

Hatching is Happening Right Now!!

We collected eggs from our sweet Americauna hen, Nala, added gift eggs from Ken Bushong of Buck Moore Feed Store and some brown ones from out home flock Hyline Browns and put them in Ken's incubator on our kitchen counter. (Does a counter in a one room home count as "kitchen"?   :-)

Three weeks later-- they started hatching Sunday night and now on this Tuesday evening there are 6 all fluffed out in a little bin brooder in the corner and another 8 still wet and recovering in the incubator, or "bator" as the regulars call it. Here's a picture of one of Nala's (I bet Buddy is the daddy of this one) just out, still connected by cord to the egg shell behind it, and another one trying to pop out right in front of it.

One little bald character needed help getting out; the membrane had dried onto it, poor thing, and after a whole night stuck then trying to moisten it in the morning, in the afternoon I dribbled warm water into the shell cavity and worked it out, taking a bit of its fluff with the membrane. I am surprised it's alive, really, but once out, s/he commenced to alternative utter crash mode with careening about, just like all the other ones.

 And then the 6 fluffballs in the bin... just started eating since I took this picture with my phone. What fun!

 

Six More Drakes Gone, Six to Go

Well, I did it! With the help and support of two loving, farm-raised friends, I learned the how-to of killing ducks. On the spur of the moment, I asked Logan and Caroline if they'd help me slaughter some of the too-many drakes we had left. I showed them the video on 'breasting' duck, which takes out the scalding, plucking and eviserating processes and given how little other meat is on these young, not-meat birds, seemed the right thing to do.

After the first bird, Logan the one-time science teacher, gave both of us an anatomy lesson by looking over the sliced neck closely, finding the severed artery, the one left intact, the trachea (which you don't want to cut or the bird suffers and which was also intact) and the spinal cord. She carefully felt the next drake's neck as he hung passively in the cone, found the arrangement with her fingers, and cut. Next we decided to use the 'sticking' method I'd seen in another video, holding the trachea so that the knife point entered with the non-cutting edge sliding along the trachea, cutting both arteries easily. Now I felt ready to do it... together Logan and I had taken the time to find the smoothest, best approach and I knew I could do it. The first time Logan held her hand over mine, the next time I did it solo.

For each drake, Logan and I worked together to get him in place-- she opened and closed the pen door so I could focus on keeping a close but gentle hold on the bird I had netted. We walked slowly over to the processing area, breathing calmness and me feeling his racing heart slow. At first I held the legs while Logan cut and Caroline kept the chickens away. We all gave our attention to easing the drake from life, watching his process, sending gratitude, holding his head because the dripping blood bothered him when it touched his eyes or nostrils... staying attentive the whole time... which seemed like a long time... and the birds were not panicked nor seemed in pain at all. It was as fine a slaughter experience as could be.

Once all 6 were killed and hung to bleed out, we began breasting. It took only one bird each to understand how to break the skin and the membranes in order to expose the breast meat and cut out each piece. From there it was easy and much much cleaner than full processing. In two hours, we had killed and breasted 6 drakes, buried the remains and cleaned up.

The twelve breast halves we ended up with were beautiful and more abundant than I expected to see. Caroline researched cooking duck breast online and we ended up salting them overnight. The next day, Caroline prepared them in the crock pot with a lot of onion, garlic and carrot and they came out like succulent roast slices-- yum!

No one took pictures since we were all busy with the process and Sue was at work, but here's a picture of Caroline (the wench) and Logan (the leather man) at the Renaissance Fest the next day. Deep gratitude to both for their fine friendship and sweet visit!

Processing on the Farm-- 3 hens and a duck

Last fall we incubated over 2 dozen duck eggs from our foursome of khakis and mongrels and another couple dozen from a friend who gave us khaki campbell eggs. We raised them in the brooder where they made an incredible mess and I concluded I'll never do that again... brood on pasture, if I do it at all. We ended up with over half of them being drakes (males) and given that the purpose was to increase duck egg production, we planned to eliminate all but 2 of the drakes.

When I told my foodie friend Sonya that we could cook a young drake when she came to visit, she was thrilled. She also said she'd like to "do the whole thing" and start with slaughter. So, when Martha the chef (a new friend met at a farmer rights conference) called about having a class on working with the whole chicken, I told her about our plan to process some drakes here on the farm. I said we could add a few of our older hens to the day's work so that she and I could figure out how to set up the day for folks attending. And given that neither of us had ever slaughtered or eviserated poultry, it seemed like a really good idea for her to join us. Finally, Rachel (another foodie friend who has cooked with Sonya before) was happy to be invited to join the crew, work with us, and make Sonya's traditional roasted duck recipe that evening.

Sonya and I spent Friday scrounging around and we put together a fine slaughter station using an old feed and water sled for pastured broilers, an etched glass shower door panel whose swan image inserted a bit of grandeur to the set up (thanks to Rachel for her bulk trash pickings),  a couple 'found' traffic cones and a brand new fillet knife that was sharp sharp. This and the propane burner and pot (thanks to John) and several buckets to hold feathers and clean up water, and we were ready. We also searched out and organized several helpful YouTube videos on every step of processing, eliminating the gross and unhelpful clips which were sadly abundant and frequently upsetting. We also caught up 4 drakes and 4 hens and put them in a pasture pen nearby with water but no feed... however, there was a fair amount of grass in the pen, which later showed up in the crops of the hens.

Saturday morning Rachel and Martha arrived and we toured them through our set-up, then watched the videos carefully, hoping to gain the readiness to kill along with the skills to do it right. We were ready to start... as ready as we could be given our various natures and lack of experience. Rachel had done this once before, but chopped the head off instead of bleeding out... and a couple of decades had gone by since. She killed the first bird, a hen that hadn't been laying for awhile and didn't seem to be feeling very well ever since her last molt. I brought her over from the holding pen (as I did in each case) and put her in the cone. Rachel's hand was sure and swift and that hen bled out just fine. Our propane powered scalding pot was ready to go, the dipping arrangement worked well after a couple alterations, the plucking not too hard. The eviseration was a whole other thing, with us not knowing exactly what we were looking for, the scooping out process not at all the single movement described in the videos, and all of us concerned about the gall bladder (which by the way, we never nicked or broke this day). We were eventually done and that hen was put in ice water to cool and I went off for the next hen.

Our plan was to each of us do each task, taking turns. I confess I did not kill, although I got pretty comfortable eviserating, feeling for the innards and finding them... never in one scoop however. We all watched as life ebbed from the 3 hens and the 1 drake we processed that day. Sue joined in periodically when she wasn't doing chores or errands, took a few pictures, and was witness to life passing.We learned a lot, shared laughter and a solemn respect for life and the gift of meat given. That evening we enjoyed a scrumptious meal featuring Tuscan baked duck.

I came away knowing that I could kill and that I needed to work with someone who really knew how to make the kill smoothly, and teach me the movement. I learned the set-up and the respectful gratitude has always been there... I just need to learn how to kill... and I will.

Left to right: Martha, Sonja, Rachel and jules... and the killing and eviseration table.

Farming in the Freeze

 

Well, well, the second hard freeze lasting more than a day, and this one following the last by only a week. Ch Ch Ch Changes... to be sure.

For our farming, persistent freezing temps mean breaking the surface of frozen water troughs several times a day (with the large cattle trough building up ice over an inch thick). In one day, the small poultry troughs were frozen solid, at which point we switched to rubber pans we can crack the 'cube' out of them each day to fill again... and again. It means carrying water in buckets to water troughs several times a day. It means adding extra hay and tarps to keep chickens in pastures warm enough and for one flock, it's looking like some of them are catching a cold, so that means adding garlic-infusion and vitamin E to their drinking water and kelp meal to their feed. It means we collect eggs 3 times a day and any eggs found in the nests cold in the morning are not sold but cracked and checked before use... and most are indeed frozen.

It also means having one source of unfrozen water for all of our needs... and oh boy-howdy, are we grateful that line hasn't broken or frozen solid! To keep the one pipe that remains open unfrozen, we have to run the faucet constantly, at more than a drip... but at least we now have a well that provides good water, which is another source of gratitude in our lives.

And so it goes. Put all your warm layers on, go out and work, come in, take off most layers and get warm inside and out. Go out.... yep, farming.

:-)

Donald Link from A Taste of Place Comes to Visit!

What a treat to have a long visit with Donald Link and his crew, filming our farm and daily chores while discussing agricultural philosophy and good food!

I put Donald through the paces of feeding, collecting eggs and filling feed buckets... well, actually, he accompanied me while I did chores and we talked and talked. It was a comfortable experience and I was pleased to have a chance to discuss my favorite topic~ why we raise the Freedom Ranger broilers that we do! I sent him back to Austin with one of our broilers for him to cook... and was thrilled that he loved it!

He also gave us a copy of his wonderful cookbook "Real Cajun", in which his easy-going and place-loving spirit really shines through~ it's beautiful and an inspiration.

Here's Donald- second from left- along with most of the sound and film crew that came along.

The BioPod Experiment Begins

Hmmmm..... what is it? Almost looks like a toilet, except who would want to sit on that 'seat'? A shredder? Don't let the paper fool you. It's a composter... with benefits.

Of course, you might say, composting has benefits~ to the planet (landfill waste reduced); to the soil (enriched by the compost when it's done and the liquid compost tea dispensed from the tube at the bottom); to me, who gets a simple way to toss garbage the chickens don't get, including meat and dairy.

But wait- there's more! But wait, let's take a look at it first.

This BioPod is set up~ you can see the tube that lets me harvest and use the liquid generated by the process of breaking down our waste; there's the circular lid that makes it easy to add stuff (like the paper shreds and veggies in there now) and it's mounted on the full-size lid that also swings up if needed to clean the whole thing out or access completed compost; and behind it is the soldier fly larva collector, which is the extra benefit of this system. The what?!

See, soldier flies love really putrid stuff to lay their eggs on and to grow in and eat and compost through several larval stages. When  they're ready to pupate for the last time and become flies, they want to climb out of the mess and get dry... and inside this box are built-in ramps that aid them in climbing up, and then falling into the collector compartment, where some of them will finish their journey to become more soldier flies... and that's good. Really?!

It's really good... because soldier fly larva excrete pheromones that repel other flies... where soldier flies are there will be a reduction in regular household flies and blow flies, both infamous for bugging people and spreading disease. More soldier flies, fewer bad flies. And soldier flies, when they're flying and mating and laying eggs, do not eat. So, no pesky and dirty flies to bother us... just sightings of a rather cool looking metallic blue, almost waspy looking thing that wants nothing to do with us because we're neither soldier flies of the opposite sex nor putrid, although our garbage might be. Very very cool benefit to this mode of composting, I think.

And the other even better, oh-so-fabulous benefit is that chickens love to eat the larva and they are so good for them! They scratch and find them already, which is fine but now I can server them up as part of the protein component to their diet, taking one of the most expensive components to the feed and replacing it for something that is free. Not only free, but the end product of a most useful and delightful process.

TaDa!

A gigantic thanks to Dave Pennington, who provided the BioPod and a link to you to learn more about them.

http://blacksoldierflyblog.com/ 

and here's a little something about Dave and another of his endeavors...

Aquaponics

and yet another something he's up to

papercrete construction

quite the multi-purpose creature he is, too. Enjoy.... I know we, and our chickens, will.

Ducklings from Our Farm

Oh, they are soooo adorable!

Hatched from eggs made fertile on our farm, from our ducks and drakes, we welcome them and wish there were more. Now there's a math equation for you!

60 eggs taken by Casey to be incubated    minus an unknown quantity that wouldn't be 'good' just cause that's the way it is    minus a whole bunch more because Casey's incubator's thermostat went out

equals 10 eggs that looked like they were going to hatch    divided by half... we don't know why

equals 5 sweet ducklings who came onto our farm on September 19th

minus one weak one we worried about and sure enough was dead a couple mornings later

So, now we have 4... I hear the Sesame Street song in my head "Four, Four, Four, Four, let's sing a song of four. How many is Four?"

Four is enough to be their own flock, their own world... enough to move around like a school of fish, and to move quickly away when we enter the brooder. Few enough to have needed a tiny home when they were new and now big enough to have had that home expanded to more space, two waterers and a larger feeder.

Plenty to love, even if we'd love to have more than four!

  and they gaze adoringly at the alter of water

Chicks Loving Their New Big Home

When last I wrote about chickens, we had new chicks in the brooder through a miraculous set of circumstances (see Life is Good- Chicks in the Brooder). Then we went to visit family and left our farm and babies in the capable hands of Meagan. Upon our return, we had several steps to take to prepare to move 200 chicks from the brooder into one of our 10'x20' shelters.

Let's see: Move the home flock out of that house, which meant moving their new home into place and getting it ready for the 30 chickens and ducks that make up the home flock; Clean the inside of the big house-- stir litter, hose dusty interior down, remove old dangly things that might injure them; Find, clean and hang three Plasson waterers and set up the hose system to have water inside, as well as a sprayer for misting and another hose for an outside trough; Move and repair an old feed sled near the house and add a pallet and wood pieces that turned it into a combo shade and play equipment thingy; Move and clean a feed trough for introducing the new system to them; Move the three hanging feeders that they've been using; Gather 6 crates for moving night.... then, in 45 minutes, we counted, loaded up, transferred and unloaded all 200 chicks we started with.

We had not lost one chick-- all alive and well and in their new home! Yesterday, after setting up a small starter-yard fence and its solar-electric power source, as well as putting feed and water in the troughs, we let the little ones out. They came out eagerly, a few hit the electric fence, yelped and ran back in, the rest ran back in (because that's what chickens do when an 'alert' happens) and a day later, we still haven't had all of them outside... but more and more venture out and fewer test the fence, so we're moving in the right direction. Today they found the water in their trough and are drinking a lot from this source... which is good, since they perch on the Plassons which makes them stop letting in water and then there's no water in the house for them-- silly birds!

It takes a lot of monitoring the first week or so, to make sure all is well and their life is good. We had a visitor today who commented on how good our gals look, which is a joyful confirmation that our efforts pay off. And life is good-- yes indeedy!