In the Pasture - Sometimes I amaze my self ...

... with my stupidity! WHAT WAS I THINKING? I know better than to calve in January. I teach about this, write about this, talk about this, ad nauseum. But, when I couldn't find a bull at the appropriate time (mid July - early August), did I wait? Did I say "It would be better for the cow, the budget, and me if we skipped a year."? NO! I jumped at the chance to cross May ( our wee Dexter cow) with a young, still fairly light, Angus Bull before he got shipped out. So, now I get to deal with the consequences of my stupidity. (You read about the calves arrival. Our "heroic" effort to save her after she was born in 6 inches of freezing muck on a 20 degree morning.) Now, you get "The Rest of the Story." But first, Jane (that's her name. NOT my choice, but I've given up the naming rights to all critters born here. Her mom is May, because she was born in May and arrived at our farm in May. Logical, I suppose. So her daughter should be Jan, right? Wrong. Jan didn't stick. Jane did. The other suggestion was Robot, which had my second vote after "Stinking-stupid-baby-cow", which I was told wouldn't work because she wouldn't be a baby for long and then we'd get confused with her mother, "stinking-stupid-cow".) is doing just fine. She had her first day out in the pasture. It lasted 15 minutes. When the goats came thundering out it spooked her, she bolted, hit the electric fence and popped right through. May followed without a pause. I got them turned back toward the barn without having a heart attack, and they have been there since. Here she is with May, enjoying some sun in the barn.

Now on to the rest of the story. My stupidity.

In the wild, in my part of the world ruminant animals give birth in June (some in late May, and some possibly creeping into early July.) Further north they give birth closer to the middle of June. Even further North and they ALL give birth within a three week window around the summer solstice. Why? That's when they are most likely to survive. Did they have a meeting and plan this out? Was there a program put out by the Governing Council of Ruminant Creatures helping them plan their pregnancies? NO. The "non-conformists" were systematically eliminated. Harsh? Maybe. But that's how nature works. For hundreds of thousands of years the deer, elk, moose, etc. that cycled in a way that ensured their giving birth within that window survived, and their young survived. They stayed represented in the gene pool. The rest didn't. Now the "rut" can be marked on your calendar. It happens at the same time every year, and the young are born at the same time every year. Why? Because that's when there is the most food available. That's when the mother will be able to eat the extra amounts she needs to ensure that the baby has all the milk it needs to thrive. When we plan our breeding season so that we are calving, lambing, kidding, on grass in late May, June, and early July we give our animals the same advantage. A ruminant will eat 4.5 - 5 % 0f it's body weight every day when it is beginning to lactate. That's a lot of hay to have to feed. They will continue at 4 - 4.5 for the entire lactation period. The more of this they can harvest themselves, the better for you, the farmer. That's where I got stupid. If I wanted milk through the winter I should have had a fall calf. Yes there is some extra hay cost, but not nearly the stress of a mid-winter calf. STUPID. Hope you learn from my mistake.

Life in the test kitchen

WOW! I never realized how hard it is to create a product that captures the flavor you want. We have had some successes, but I'm feeling a bit like Edison in the failure department. I know lots of ways to not make certain kinds of fudge. Most of them are just a matter of getting the right intensity of flavor and dealing with the way the flavoring affects the setting process. It changes the cooking temp but I'm never sure how. (Guess cooking school would be a useful thing at some point.) There are a few that are just giving me fits. Today it was apple pie fudge. If I use real apples, or apple products like cider or sauce there is so much pectin in it that it really does weird things. I won't make it with artificial apple flavor (what's the point), and getting it to have enough apple to be noticed and still set like fudge has been impossible so far. The other one that has me completely baffled is the bacon chocolate. It is an intriguing idea, but I can't quite get my brain around making it into fudge. It probably won't happen before Saturday (the day of tasting and voting and the Coshocton Farmers Market.)

Everything else is going well. The kids did brilliantly in their goat skillathon (a test of goat knowledge that is part of their 4H project). Now we can refocus on Archery for the State Fair next week. JJ won the county 4H Archery project and is going on to the State Fair. We are all quite excited.

Now it is time to sleep, dream of fudge, and hopefully find some answers...

Dancing with the cow

This post ties in nicely with the one I did on Not Dabbling In Normal yesterday. It was a look at dairy animals on a small farm. This is the story of one dairy animal on our farm, and our obvious lack of infrastructure.

When you try to create a working farm on a property like ours (5 acres of mowed grass, a decrepit old barn, and a couple of sheds, with no trees, no fences, no pens, no water lines, no...) and on a budget like ours (pay as you go, make do or do without) infrastructure issues sometimes bite you in a big way.

Today was a perfect example. It was time to give wormer to the mob. I had been using Safeguard twice a year and an herbal wormer on a weekly basis. Last fall that system fell apart. Animals got sick. Animals died. Not good. This year I am using Ivormect Plus (not what I want to use long term, but I have some drainage and health issues to solve first). It requires an injection. Usually this isn't a problem. I can clip the goats to the fence in the barn, straddle them, and give them their shots no problem. If that doesn't work I can put them on the milk stand, and pin them against the wall. The cow is a bit of a different story. Usually I am fast enough to do her just like I do the goats (without straddling her, my leggs arent that long.) She jumps around a bit, and I dance out of the way. Everything is over without much fuss. Then treats all around and we are all friends again. Today I missed getting the needle in first jab. She danced, kicked bashed me with her head, and wouldn't let me touch her. The more I tried the crazier she got. Finally she turned around so she had me between the fence and her neck. She couldn't kick me or bash me too much. I popped the needle in under the skin on the other side and we were done. When I was young (and stupid) I used to go slam dancing just for the fun. Not so much any more. I'm going to feel this slam dancing session for a few days. I don't recomend dancing with a 600 pound angry cow. She always wins.

A squeeze shoot (or even a head catch and a well placed gate) would have made this job quick and mostly painless for eveyone involved. I guess it should move up the infrastructure list if we are going to continue to own cows.

"...when death is on the line."

Kids and knives. Cub Scouts. Shavings and Chips has come around and we are in pocket knife mode. So, how do you teach an eight year old about knives, safety, and political correctness. Growing up we all had knives and guns. No one ever got hurt because we all went through training and lived with them every day. Guns and knives caused real, irreparable damage. That was what you learned when you were eight, ten, or at least by the time you were twelve. If you killed it you ate it. That was the world I grew up in. So, now it is time to help my kids with their first real knives. Knives that are illegal in most schools, airports, malls, stores, public spaces, etc. They are sharp. I spent the past hour with a tissue pressed against a nick on a finger from a carving demonstration. So, we have an adapted knife pledge from the Bear Cub Scout book. Both kids Girl - J and Boy R are doing this program. We went out and got knives today. Not the Swiss Army type, but basic two blade pocket knives. Both kids have the basic safety rules down and have started their basic skills demonstration carving. (I bought a 12 pack of shower size Ivory soap for them to use.) All three of us are sporting band-aids covering nicks from carving demonstrations. Neither feel ready to take responsibility for the knifes we bought for them. THAT is a GOOD thing.
These are REAL tools that they are learning to use and respect. This is the way to safe respectful use as adults.

Zen and the art of deer deterring

The other day, Diana, Garden Master at the Providence Zen Center in Cumberland, RI, contacted me for some advice. (No, I'm not so well known that people from around the country seek out my advise. She found me through a mutual friend, from my days as the Bearded Lady of Grailville.)

The first on her list of problems is deer. They seem to be eating more than their share of things. When people bring up deer problems to me my first thought is EAT THEM. We created this problem by removing all the predators and increasing their food supply (the way we clear land, plant bushes and young trees, create forest edges, and never let anything mature to the old forest stage provides tons of food for deer and increases their population) We, collectively, have the responsibility of dealing with the problem we created. One way to do that is to increase predation. Since reintroducing wolves into suburban America probably wont be view as a good idea, we will have to take on the predator role. That said, hunting and eating them is probably not a good option for an organization devoted to peace, a contemplative life, and vegetarianism. My second thought is usually getting a dog. A dog living in the garden usually does a good job keeping deer and other intruders out. Dogs, to be an effective deer deterrent, need to live in the garden all the time. This requires confining them in some way (usually a fence) and comes with it own level of inconvenience and damage. They tend to dig, tromp, sleep in, and poop on things you wish they wouldn't. Not as much damage as deer (usually), but still quite a bit. They keep the deer away by their presence and by barking (usually all night long). If you live out in the country and a ways away from the garden, that isn't such a problem. But at a meditation center... The sound of one hand clapping might be a good thing to meditate on, but the sound of one dog yapping makes finding peace a bit difficult.

That brings us to barriers, both real and imagined. (I've tried all the scent products, and they don't work.)

Fences tend to be expensive, ugly, and most of them are only somewhat effective. I've tried the double fence, which is supposed to keep them from jumping. It only works when they are coming straight on. If they are coming in at an angle they jump one and then the other. They also take up a lot of space and are a nightmare to maintain. I've tried the single fence with a cantilever top. They works fairly well, and I would recommend them for a large area. Use woven wire on the bottom and light weight electric on the cantilever. The cantilever needs to extend out at least 3 feet and up at least 3 feet. It is probably too much for a small garden, and visually leaves the space looking rather like a maximum security prison. The best fence I've seen for small spaces is an 8 foot high fence made of bird netting. If you put it up right it almost disappears. You have to flag it so the deer don't run into it and get tangled, but once they learn it is there it works quite well. FarmTek sells a complete system for a reasonable price. I have found that deer are pretty selective in what they eat. Many things we plant in the garden they won't bother. Another very effective way to protect things is to use bird netting on hoops over the individual beds that need protecting. This leaves the rest of the space open and more accessible while providing a good measure of protection for the most vulnerable crops. The same hoop structure can be used with floating row cover to protect from flea beetles, caterpillars, and other pests. That is what I would start with. If it doesn't do the job then I'd move up the scale.

We would be interested in hearing what works for any of you other gardeners out there in deer country.