Farm Report

Ok, so I'm going to call this the 'farm report' and let you know, from the front lines, everything about the goings on regarding farming for this twenty-seven year old apprentice. I think its fitting, given that we all have our own perspectives to offer and intertwine with others, for me to write about my experience and elaborate on what I see, hear, feel, smell, and taste, among other things, which develop my perspective here. There is so much I want to share with you. I am learning beyond my expectations and I want to stop worrying about a context though I will try and make the stories interesting. Hopefully their ingredients will come together to make sense.

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Lambing season is over. Sorry you missed it. Apparently I did too. I wasn't even present to one birth! I did have my share, more than fair, of cleaning out 'jugs' once the mothers and their young were ready to move back out with the other mothers on pasture. Dan and Susie planned it to coincide with the return to pasture and it was wonderful to see these fiber sheep in their fresh natural environs with their young. I'm glad its over, however, my boss is less grumpy and Susie has gotten more sleep.

We are scheduled to slaughter 12, maybe more, sheep for Greek Easter the week after next and I am both nervous and excited. Its nice knowing whats coming, but hard because, well, you know I don't like taking life that much. I don't let my boss' toothy grin fool me, I know he doesn't either. It is income for the farm, however, and I feel relieved; that worry can ease a little. I am a little surprised that financial matters concern me enough to feel that close, but my boss insisted, from the start, that I concern and know about these things since this job was about knowing how to do what needed to be done so that it could continue if he wasn't there...

Chickens! We have 'em. One hundred pullets, give or take a few. We got 'em through the P.O. And set 'em up in an industrial brooder, one of the few industrial implements on the farm. It houses chicks on five levels, skyscraper fashion, with feed trays on two sides and water trays and sliding doors on the others. It's an old brooder, gotten cheap through my bosses scavenging ways, and does its job of warming chics during these cold months well. If anything its a far cry from my far-flung dreams for chicks, but those come with their own problems as well... These chicks will be poultry, not egg laying, and will soon be pastured with turkeys, coming May 25^th, once their feathers grow enough to keep themselves warm. Out in field they will follow the sheep somewhat in a controlled grazing succession, fertilizing the pasture with the nitrogen rich excrement and keeping the bugs down with their appetite.

All those changes mean a change from winter to spring and a change from feeling like a construction worker to a farmworker. What's been needing fixing has been fixed and now its just one farm job after another until we're in full rotation come summer, when all the kinks are worked out and things can run smoothly. I like this feeling and have found more independence from my boss. I now know how things're generally done, which frees up some time so my boss can attend to selling the 30+ cases of racks taking up space in his freezer.

I cannot wait to share with you what I'm learning about food as Susie is a wealth of knowledge and has lent me a stack of Wise Traditions to read and learn from. I also want to share with you my thoughts regarding 'Five Years From Now', 'History', 'Mark's Meat', 'Home Butchering', 'Delivering; or the other fifty-percent of my job', 'On the Road', 'Permaculture', 'The General' and 'Chickens and Ducks'. These are topics for next time, however, as it is getting late and as my little sister, Jaia, says, “I'm Seepy”

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