Yea, Research I Can Get Behind

Genetic Scientists Develop Sheep With Brain Of A Goat

Five for Friday: Taking A Breath

The past 8 weeks have been pretty trying - we have been going all-day, everyday with old projects (rotational grazing of the lawn and pasture, meat chickens, garden starts, and goat birthing season) and new (turkeys, selling goat kids, pigs, ducks, new front garden). So here is an all-encompassing "Five for Friday"

1. Pigs Pasture Pretty Perfectly - pigs are now on their fourth 40' x 40' patch of pasture. They spend just 7 days per pasture patch and do a good job at ripping out the roots for about 50% of that area. The remainder is "pooping ground" that they don't disturb and some space that they probably just don't like. Carol reseeded the previous patches this week, minutes before a soaking T-storm rolled in. More about that mix later. Here they are sleeping it off:

2. Turkeys Are Poop Machines - the turkeys are 4 weeks old today and have been out on pasture for 2 weeks. They aren't supposed to get that kind of outdoor exposure so early, but the hot spell in early June brought us up to the 90s. Now it is in the 70s, but they are big enough. Big enough to eat, poop, and grind up beaucoup lawn. I can't tell if much of it is being flattened by poop or grazing. We are moving them (15 turks on 96 sf) every 3 days right now (they are eating 2 quarts of 22% feed per day, the graze supplements that).

3. Selling Goats is Sometimes Frustrating - this is probably true for almost any business, but we have had our first case of a customer backing out, pre-deposit. They dithered about the deposit, all the while raving about the opportunity. When the deadline came, we received an email citing $ concerns and a phone message citing vacation concerns. The answer probably lies somewhere between, but they strung us out for 2 weeks - next time will be easier, just more legal about the deposit policy. Here are the kids, walking the tight rope, err, tight plank and you can't see it, but they "SPROING" off when they come to the end of it.

4. Milking Goats Actually Do Make Milk - Carol is milking 11 does right now (6 seniors and 6 first fresheners, 1 senior begins milking Monday). We are running out of quart jars! The pigs have gotten some of the extra whole milk (today they will be getting some whey) and we have made some thin yogurt and our first cheese today. It isn't a special cheese (the cultures and cheesemaking equipment are coming on Tuesday) - it is panir and will tasty in some Panir Potato Rounds on Sunday night (shush, don't tell Carol).

5. My Girls Will Be FarmGirls - Just look, this is their favorite post-dinner pose. Precious.

Climate Change in the News

• NPR "Talk of the Nation" - Climate Change (already) Affecting US Water, Agricultural and Forests. Duh. 12 minute story.
• NPR again, Is It Better to Eat Locally or Eat Differently? 12 minute story that looks at local vs transported food, conventional vs organic, grass-fed vs grain-fed. In the end, eating lower on the food chain is better than eating higher, regardless of how it is grown.
  
• Falls Church News-Press: Why is energy supply so iffy these days? Newspaper commentary by Tom Whipple about the little-seen electrical grid troubles (Zanzibar power outage in its second week). Just adding in renewable or nuclear power and replacing coal/natural gas may not be the solution.
  

What We Should Be Doing Today?

He:
She: What is wrong?
He: I am thinking about all the things we have to do...
She: It's a short list. Really short.
He: What?
She: A short list of many things.
He: So, not infinitely long.
She: Right.
He: Really you can boil it down to just two things.
She: What?
He: Survive and reproduce.
She: You are such a biologist.
He: You too.

Chicks, turkeys, ducklings, pigs, hens, and goats, oh my! Oh, and the garden too!

What We Have Learned So Far: TURKEYS 1

1. Broad white breasted turks are messy and stupid compared to Slates.
2. Turkeys are very quiet compared to the baby chicks. Precocious too - at 1 week, they are already trying to jump up and out of the brooders.
3. They eat a lot of feed too - much more than a comparably sized (older) chick.
4. We went with newspaper bedding for the first few days - then went with second cutting hay as a bedding/supplement. Much better, especially with messy turks. And they eat a bit of it, prepping them for mowing our lawn for us.
   
5. Carol's new style of brooder works really well for ducks, turks, and chicks.

from Poultryhelp.com, we don't have our brooders over carpet!

And this weekend (at 9 days old and with temperature forecast to be 90-92 F), they are going out onto pasture, a la Salatin.

The fashion show

What Darcy, Mike, and Barbara missed on the next day. Can we say the girls were a little excited about their girlie clothes. I have no idea where that came from, I was always a tom-girl.

What We Have Learned So Far: PIGS 1

We got pigs two weeks ago - three gilts (intact females) from a man (Mr. Larsen) that I met around the corner from our butcher (Eagle Bridge Smokehouse). We had to wait longer than we wanted, but when we got them, 11 of the 12 goats had birthed. I guess that was a good time to start another set of animals!


We set up the pigs inside of temporary electric netting from Premier1. The rule-of-thumb is that pigs must be trained to electric fencing. Mr. Larsen had the pigs on a 12" single electric wire, so the girls knew about it. But to be sure we could train them to the white fencing, we put them inside of one of the goat paddocks for a week. They tilled the beejesus out of the ground under their shelter (the pigloo) and some of the fenced area (about 20% of their 40' by 40').


What We Have Learned

1. Pigs really, really do till very well. Make sure you have pasture seed mix to lay down after you move them.
2. They can be friendly enough that you can reach down and pick them up by their rear hoofs, one pig at a time.
   
3. They can scream a bloodcurdling shriek when scared. Amazingly loudly. Make sure the neighbors know you are not practicing vivisection on them.
   
4. Keep them a little hungry and they will do a little more tilling for you.
5. They don't eat oranges or orange peels.
   

References to Pigs

• Monty Python's "Holy Grail" on Youtube - "Camelot, good pig country that." (right at 3:20)
  
• All around the world we luuuvve us some pigmeat (WikiP on Pigs)
• Finally, how "pig in a poke" and "let the cat out of the bag" are related to each other. (WikiP on pig in a poke, in multiple languages!).
  

Durin's Day and Toys

"The Keyhole on Durin's Day"
by Anke Eissmann

There is a passage in Tolkien's "The Hobbit" where a very special day (Durin's Day) that is computed by a calculation of when the last moon of autumn is in the sky just as the sun sets at a particular peak.

But the chief dwarf notes, "It passes our skill in these days to guess when such a time will come again."

Yesterday, we went to the box store to buy a replacement CD player when the Strawberry Shortcake CD player crapped out after just about 2 yrs. It still plays the radio, but the CD player often takes forever (or never) to recognize the CD. So as we stood in front of the two choices, Bri asks me:

Bri: Will this one break?
Me: Of course, all things break in time.
Bri: Why?
Me: I don't know. They just do. It is just a question of "can we fix them?"

And that is when I realized that toys today are like Durin's Day to the dwarves - it passes our skill to repair most of them. We have the will but not the skill to fix small lasers, electronic circuits, etc. So we toss them out. Bah.

And this is what happens to all our unrepairable toys:

The guilt is palpable!!!

Goat Kidding Stories

Selene - When first-timers prolong labor until everyone gets bored.

• Carol is sitting inside of the "kidding hut" (what will become the pigloo when the pigs arrive 3 weeks later). It is about 40 F, the wind is howling, and Carol is huddled up inside with Selene, a first-time mother-to-be. She has a flashlight, a blanket over her legs, a hat, and a heavy barn shirt on. And she is still cold. Carol has been singing to her. I have been inside grading finals - coming out every half an hour to check on her.
• Around 11pm I come out and sit down outside and hang out for a few minutes. Eventually... Carol started passing the time by doing shadow puppets with her hands :D They don't tell you about this in goat books, but it must happen.

Erica - the big baby on your lap. Emphasis on big.

• Erica is a big goat. A big dwarf goat. This is her third breeding season and she hadn't carried a kid to term yet, so this was our last best chance.
• We weren't sure about her being pregnant, because she is, ummm, "well-conditioned" as Molly at Fiasco Farm would say. But when her udder began filling in about a month ago, we had a good feeling. But how many were in there?
  
• So last week, on the day when Erica began to show signs, two other does popped before her. Moonlight (a first-timer) and Johnny (a second timer). Still nothing from Erica.
• About this time, Carol begins to formulate the thought that Erica is holding back on the labor. We keep Erica separated, she is "gooing" and upset and pacing.
• That night Carol stays out with her... singing and passing the time in the pigloo. Finally, Carol gives up on her around 11pm.
• Next morning, Erica is anxious and waiting. Waiting for Carol to come in. When she does, Erica starts labor contractions. She fights/clenches back the contractions. She gets really anxious. She lays down and places her neck and head on Carol's lap. "Pet me. Soothe me. This really hurts."
  

Mina - Her second set of kids would be different than the first, right?

• Last year, we knew something was up, but she didn't show any good signs, so we sat down to lunch. Three minutes later we hear her screams from the barn... come running down... and there is the first kid with her nose sticking out.
  
• This year would be different. We had separated her, but she didn't show any signs. Maria and her kids were visiting and we had just sat down to begin lunch when... Mina's screams came from the barn! We come running and there is the whole head of a kid poking out! Third time is a charm.

not Mina, but this is the idea.

Five for Friday: Spring?

1. Snow? Yup, it snowed about 4 inches last night - wet, heavy stuff that is slowly oozing into slush as we speak. The sun over the next two days should make some slippery morns and slushy evening chores. Lesson: It is still March in NY.


2. Seedlings - I over-estimated our pea and broccoli seedlings' hardiness and didn't cover them in the hoophouse. On Monday night, the temp outside dipped down to 20-something F and they got tagged. Leaves collapsed, about 75% of the broccoli's stems just twisted up and disappeared. Reseeded those with "Nutribud" (a Seeds of Change variety) and the open-pollinated "Green Goliath" (that I found at Wal-Mart!). Peas look OK - their stems are still upright (see above pic), tho the leaves are roughed up. They have both been covered with 4 mil plastic sheeting since then. I'll pull that when the sun comes out tomorrow. Lesson: Tho the sun may shine and the air is 68 F, the nights are still cold.

3. Sick - Me and Bri are fighting some throat-sinus-mucus thing. Her ear clogged today and it made those bubbly sounds, as bubbles popped in the mucus trapped in her ear. Only, remember she is 5 and hasn't had this happen before. Weirded her right out :D Lesson: Explaining ear anatomy using your fingers, hanging in mid-air, may not make sense to a child.



4. Buds - Tulips have crowned and there are tiny green nubs sticking up above the soil surface. We haven't timed this in the past, but Carol thinks this is about right. Give them two weeks to really put up some leaves and then they will bud up. Lesson: Even tho this is March in NY, not even bulbs can ignore 45 F days.


5. Chocolate - We made some chocolate yummy bars (well, they ended up as bits, really) for C's b-day tomorrow. I am posting some pics and explanation then. It was quite the experience. Lesson: The kids can do a lot, just not exactly what you expect them to do.

Fava Beans Up Up Up

Fava beans (broad beans in Europe) are very tasty, large beans that grow in the cool part of the spring. In cooler, milder climates they can grow over the winter and so can be fall planted. Here in upstate New York we plant them in very early spring (around the Equinox).

• Growing fava beans - we used this a guideline and then went with 1 per square foot.
• Why grow favas - they are a vetch, so most grow them as a green manure and plow them under. Or wait and get some green fava beans.
• Fava plant showing the branching - so pretty!
  
• Fava flowering clusters along the stem

This is a pic of our two week old fava beans starts - variety is "Aqua Dulce" from Bountiful Gardens. Very nice, vigorous as h*ll, they need warmth to germinate (more than 70F), but we just put them under the cool tubes and they popped up pretty fast. Hardening them off this week, planting them out this weekend with some plastic protection.

I love the branching and extra leaves that are sprouting lower down the stem. Very interesting - they like to become "shrub-like" and about 3 feet tall. We want them for the beans... to make some super-yummy food like this:

And Now For Something Completely Drier

The great question of global warming is, "What happens to my home? Will it be warmer in the winter, but not the spring? Less snow? No snow? More rain, less rain?"

The answer is complex, but our best bet is that over the past 20 years, most of North America has seen more of the extremes (drought, flood, snow, rain, heat, cold). This unpredictability is pretty much the norm for any chaotic system going through a phase change.

Brian Fagan (an anthropologist interested in cultural records of global warming in the warmer "Middle Ages") was on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart last week. It wasn't terribly detailed regionally, but that is in line with our chaotic change issue. It is interesting hearing how he worked the analysis for a lay audience with no background in medieval climatology. This is truly where the rubber meets the road.

Design for chaos.

Kid Quotes

Eiley: (Carol blew up a new balloon when her's popped) "I am happier now than crying"

Brianna is waiting outside the bathroom door to tell me about her balloon's adopting a toy as a baby

• Daddy: "Are you waiting for me?"
• Brianna: "Yes, I am being patient."
• (time passes)
• Daddy: "Is waiting right outside the door really being patient?"
• Brianna: "Yes, a little patient. But not really patient because I am going to tell you right now."

Five for Friday

1. Who says kids don't know what they are saying? I mean sure, ours babble all-day, everyday, but there are glimpses of brilliance.

• Eiley: "What is for dezzewww-ut?
• Ma: "Errrr, say errrr... dessert!"
• Eiley: "What is for dezzurrrt?"
• Ma: "Err, like Grr... Grrr.. Grrr"
• Eiley: "Dezzerrd. Dezzerrrrt. Dezzewwwurt. Uh,... that thing after dinnuh?"

2. Spring must be somewhere out there - Before Carol started her APEX project last week, she pushed us to trim hooves and prune the fruit trees. Like many of our projects outside in spring, it was overcast and hinting about rain. Since we finished that, it has been in indoors week upstairs with the kids - all cloudy, snowy, windy and coooold. Nothing to report:

• Pussywillows were budding up - nipped right in the bud.
• No hellebore activity yet.
• Looking slim on the spring peepers making their traditional "coming out by C's birthday" announcement for spring. The ice is too thick on the wetland.

3. St Patrick's Day Feast - we had this a day ahead so we could have a proper dinner. Corned beef fresh from Eagle Bridge Smokehouse, boiled veggies, and soda bread. Came out delicious, the beef was killer. What else would you expect from grassfed beef? Best quote:

• Brianna: "Today we are celebrating the day that they drove out all the A'gains." (this is a reference to our talking about St Patrick banishing the snakes from Ireland being an allusion to his breaking the Pagan hold on Ireland - the Pagans adorned their arms with snake tattoos.)

4. Goat Kiddings for 2008 - It looks like we have 10 or 11 pregnant does (out of 12). Not sure about Tasia and she is only 30 or 60 days in, she is such a peanut anyway, she isn't showing much. Almost everyone else (including all the juniors) appears to be carrying it heavy and low. Even Erica has got a pouchy udder.

5. Animalia 2008 - I think we are still on schedule to bring in feeder pigs in April (we need them for some tilling of May beds) and this will allow us to use their electric fencing for the turkeys come August. That ought to be exciting.

Spring Has Sprung

We planted out something alive! Yes, seeds that had germinated - so it must be official - Spring has sprung. Planted out 144 2-week old spinach seedlings (4 per square foot) on Friday into the hoop house.


Soil was about 44'F after being under red plastic mulch for 2 weeks. It was a nice day - about 45 F outside, 70 F inside at 4 feet aboveground. Nice and warm for our little friends.

Then March reared its ugly head again. The next day it poured a bit over an inch and sheetflow into the hoophouse watered the mulch for us! Luckily, the worst of it washed away mulch in the shadow of the hoophouse endwall. Today it is below freezing again and the wind is howling. Good thing we anchored the roll-up sides tightly before the wind came :D

In other March news, mud season has got us down - "we've only just begun,... to sliiiiiide". Weeks to go, snow possible, but I think it will be a mild spring, but wet. We'll see.

The girls are super excited that spring is coming - "is it spring yet, Daddy?" "When is Mommy's birthday?" (that's our version of the beginning of spring as the spring peepers come out right around her b-day). "Not yet, honey."

Top Ten Reasons You Know You're in a Coma

1. The World begins making sense - the arguments are logical ("We really can use biofuels to stop global warming")
2. You have nothing you need to do right now.
   
3. Children actually talk at normal volumes in your presence.
4. Your pets begin listening to you.
5. March is suddenly the shortest month of the year. And Mud Season disappears.
6. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart runs out of things to make fun of.
7. You don't have to agonize over your choice of three wishes from the genie.
8. The Doctor Who quote "Everybody lives, Rose! Just this once! Everybody lives!!" seems odd - doesn't it always work that way?
9. You actually don't worry about the small things.
   
10. The voices in your head suddenly stop. And you hear faint sounds of an ICU in their place.

The Shape of Goats To Come

The irony of being a farmer is that when you breed any animals, you automatically raise yourself up to the level of "breeder." You are now asked to make assumptions about the genetic fitness of the two parents and then it's time to play the "Breeding Game"


Breeding is always exciting - you have to think simultaneously about the past, the present and the future, Christmas Carol-style

• The Past - What have offspring of each animal looked like in the past? Never bred before... oh, now you have to look at that animal's parents.
• The Present - What are they like now? Good characteristics vs bad. Which characteristics seem likely to persist for this breeding? What good traits will be swamped?
  
• The Future - What will we do if the offspring don't look good at first? Or after 1 year? Or 2? How long can we wait?

In other words, you need to keep in mind the heritability of the traits, your breeding strategy, and which animals to keep and which to sell. We have written some long explanations of how we have made our decisions - none of them easy and, given the nature of genetics, none of them truly able to provide predictable results. Click here to find out what strategies we use.

It really almost always comes down to hope. The probabilities are always just that - and since our understanding of the dominance/recessive setup for dairy goats is very low... well, we really don't know what will happen with any individual breeding. The best hopes then go to the "best of the best" breeding at the top farms (or small farms that are lucky to start with outstanding genetics) - those outcomes should be better on average which makes those offspring pricier. Are they better tho? The breeder lists a $600 doe kid for sale - is she twice as good as my $300 one? Or is she 10% better? 25%? Were the outstanding genetics in that breeding heritable, were the traits influenced by the environment, did chance produce an offspring that ends up with recessive, undesirable phenotypes?

It is not just the breeder that sets the price, so do the buyers by putting more value on certain breedings and trusting the assessment of the breeder. Experience helps here, but probability should confuse the issue as well. Art, not science. It is always a great idea to start with the best genetics - it is figuring out which animals have the best genetics that is the challenge.

Here are two daughters from the same kidding - Moonlight and Starlight. Which one do you keep? Why? We can't keep both... and they change as they mature, just like humans. Perhaps they will look better (or worse) when they freshen and have an udder to examine. How many times have breeders sold kids only to buy them back a couple of years later! Click here to learn more about our strategies (imperfect as they are).

Confessions of the crazy goat lady

So it took an extra year and a half but I started selling goats. Now, keep in mind that I did absolutely nothing to try to sell the goats in that year and a half (still sold a couple somehow). Anyway, now that I am actually trying to make a decent living off our goats and farm products, I have realized it is going to be incredibly easy. So then, of course, my mind starts thinking about selling the best goats and creating the best genetics, etc. so we can sell each goat for more and make more money and more money and more….

A little aside…

It really reminds me of the first couple months of my first daughter’s life. I remember wanting her to smile and wanting her to walk and wanting her to talk and there was this sort of edge to other parents that I decided to take within myself. Will mine be the first? Will they be the best? Will we SUCCEED?

OK, I was completely psycho and I like to think it was the hormones. After a couple months of watching this happen in my mind and becoming more and more disgusted with the way I was looking at the world, I decided to become a normal decent human again (thank goodness – maybe it was just the hormones).

Now my mantra is just… learn to be happy, learn to be confident, follow your dreams – even if you want to just live on the streets (don’t laugh, had a friend who gave up everything (he had A LOT) to live on the streets in San Francisco). He did this for a year, found himself, and decided to make a change in the world. Found his dreams, found his happiness, and learned confidence. I don’t want to make light of living on the streets – there is a MAJOR difference between deciding to live on the streets and being forced to live on the streets by your circumstances.

OK, so back to the goats…

I have been watching the same ridiculous pattern creep up in my brain – I must SUCCEED. It has been a week now and I have watched my brain change from this decent human to this other thing that thinks about more land, more goats, more animals, more money. Last night I realized why I was getting disgusted with myself again. I was literally going from feeling good and successful to completely horrid and depressed within a couple of minutes.

I DON’T want more. As a matter of fact, all year I have been pushing to see how little I can live with (still, admittedly, I have a lot) to make sure quitting my job won’t influence our everyday life. I can easily live with less and it really is liberating – less junk to take care of, less traveling to the store, less money spent. I plan on reducing our consumption more and more until we are closer to zero (haven’t worked out gasoline yet, though).

So if I know I can live with less, then why should I try to sell each goat for more money? It feels like I materialism at it’s extreme. Here I have awesome animals perfect for sustainable survival, yet if I sold them for more money I would be excluding a large number of people that would use these animals for the most decent purpose (not just to make money and show that they are the best so they can sell them for more), but people that would raise the animals with love and respect to survive on their wonderful milk, cheese, etc.

I will break even and hopefully make enough money to buy the food I can’t grow (I am not ready to live without chocolate or tea – especially chocolate), the heat I need in the winter, and the clothes on my back (almost always from thrift stores). However, I will NOT

• Sell $800 animals that may or may not have the same outstanding genetics of their parents (meiosis is a chaotic and random event). It could even have worse genetics than both parents because of the level of inbreeding. In this throw-away society, I think we forget that we should always get the most for our money. Animals should be bred to have the best genetics, the best conformation, and the best production no matter what. So why do we charge more money for this? Materialism is a sick state of mind!!!
• Create a “brand” name that people will pay more for, just because of the name. The fact that this level of branding has shown up in the agricultural community really makes me wonder about the “intelligence” of humans. Food is food is food is food and as long as it is raised in a sustainable way and shows respect to the creatures that we rely on for survival, then all is well. I am willing to pay more money for fair trade, organic tea raised in sustainable ways, but I am NOT willing to pay more money for the tea just because it has a specific name associated with it. It reminds me of the way people shell out money for clothing or cars.
• Sell goats that are not dairy level goats for lots of money just so I can make up my costs. Someone did this to me once – when we first got into goats – and I have learned my lesson. If I find that my goats are not dairy-level, I will be completely up front and sell them as pet quality. Why should I pass my mistake on to others, it is dishonest and will only hurt everyone in the end. I would rather take the loss so that I can live with myself and others will know that I am trustworthy.

-Carol

Happy Birthday Jamey

Another year – they really need to start slowing down. The girls made their own birthdays cards (without any help) and were incredibly proud of themselves :D All in all, a great day and didn’t involve any gifts that couldn’t be eaten or drank – a requirement for all gifts around here. Actually, Jamey ended up with some wonderful tea, some tequila from a very small distillery in Mexico, and a gift certificate to brew his own beer. Ahh, nothing that we can’t get rid of without a trace (even the tequila bottle makes an awesome vase).

I am hoping we can keep this trend going – I haven’t told the grandparents yet, but it would be great if we all pitched in and got the kids Great Escape season passes for their birthday – no new toys, nothing to throw away, and still lots of fun and excitement for those little monsters.

Halfway There (and so it gets confusing)

It was a "happy/sad" day - Carol posted an online ad on Craigslist for Phoebe and her two boys and got a couple of nibbles (ironic term given that Phoeb and her sons are notorious nibblers). The first prospective buyer came today and she bought all three. I mean, woohoo, the three go as a family (Phoebe is the lowest dominant adult doe and her boys are pretty constant companions) and the buyer seems very nice. Phoebe did not really fit in with the other goats. But she and her boys had the sweetest personalities in the barn.

Phoebe

Sad side - so far, we really haven't found anyone (OK, Eric and Sharon are the only ones) who are interested in goats for any real "home dairy" or sustainable living reasons. Hell, we have found two people interested in eating any goats we butcher. There have been several interested in pet goats, yes, there have been several folks there. But not really on the dairy side. That is a bummer because that is why we started doing it. Carol thinks this may be our lot in the "dairy goat hierarchy" since we are

1. not a top tier breeder,
   
2. not in a region with established Nigerians,
   
3. and not breeding a full-size goat (that people expect to milk).
   

Still, we have more web presence than any other Nigie breeder in the Capital District, so maybe we can elevate the breed and bring out some backyard dairy folks.

- jamey

This Week's "Top Reasons" List: Why I Love Our Meat Chickens

We had chicken tonight and as I sit downstairs, I smell... broth? Oh yeah, I am simmering the carcass plus some onion, celery, and salt upstairs. Completely forgot about it. But that smell reminded me of how grateful I am to have chickens. Egg layers are cute, maternal, year-round... but the "boys" are only here for 12 weeks. Why do I love them so?

1. Making up their nickname - .We raised Delawares last summer - all boys - nicknamed the "Del-eats". The year before that, the Black Australorps were all "Kenny" since they died at the end (Southpark joke). No word yet on this year's nicknames. Suggestions?
   
2. Chicken Tractors - Those industrious lads mowed all the lawn in the orchard and around the playground for 8 of their 12 weeks. And probably nailed a bunch of the caterpillars under the apples. Free landscape services!
   
3. They bake into such nice dinners - 3-4 lbs after slaughter and when I bake him at 350 for an hour, he doesn't drip enough fat for gravy! Lean boys that are super-moist. Yummy!
4. They taste of something alive - not some marinade or brine they were injected with. No seasoning needed here and the broth stands on its own.
5. Chicken mobs! - There is something to be said for watching one of the boys find a worm/root/leaf, get all "cluck-a-cluck-a-cluck" and half the rest coming storming over to see if there is more.
   
6. They have legs to stand on - Nice blogpost over at ScienceBlogs about a UK study of broilers and how many had trouble walking (about 25%) or standing(about 3%)! Our boys seem to walk pretty well when I brought the feed, even the "hopper" who got his leg caught under the chicken tractor one morning when I moved it.
   
7. Breaking Even Isn't Hard to Do - Raising 25 boys to 12 weeks came in around $175 (bought chicks, bought feed, no straw, paid $3 per for slaughter). And at $7 per 4 lb roaster, we are cheaper than supermarket's "Nature's Place" chicken and ours are healthier/tastier/lower carbon. And actually live on grass, unlike those poor "free-range" chickens with a pop-door onto a concrete yard at the factory farm.
   
8. Lack of Weird Feelings About Their Past - We don't get our chickens from a factory like this one - I am so scared by this image, that I am completely overlooking the pink uniforms.
   

Deda Chicken Processing Plant, Dehui City, Jilin Province, 2005
(Photo: Edward Burtynsky)

- jamey

Change, glorious change

So many changes, so much time. I finally got the website for the goats up and running (Nigerian Dwarf Goats at Weathertop Farm) – phew!! I thought it would never happen, but perseverance pays off. Part of the motivation was my decision to quit my job this June. This will be the final year I work as an online teacher, while trying to run a farm and homeschool the kids. I was getting completely worn down and it just isn’t worth it, so I now I get to focus more and more on what I am going to do on the farm and with the girls. Ahh, and there will be so many changes. The short list:

• Create paddocks with hedgerows around the wetlands - which means we need more animals to keep up with the rotational grazing…
• Get pigs, turkeys, and ducks
• Increase the number of broilers to 50
• Create path in the forest
• Put new gardens in the front into full rotation
• Figure out mushroom harvest, which should begin this year
• Start digging the pond in the backyard
• And hopefully dam the wetland

Not nearly as many things as we have done in the past, but with the marketing needed to sell the products we are making I am sure I will stay busy.

Even more changes...

Well, since the lawn won’t be suicidal any time in the future… grazing power

The time has come to dump that stupid, gas guzzling beast of burden that causes me no end of frustration! Most people think that lawn tractors are one of the marvels of technology, but I truly think it is just another dumb contraption that makes us work harder to get nothing done. I mean two days later the grass is grown again and, though I agree it looks nice mown, there must be something else to our shallow lives than a putting green. Therefore, I have finally made the decision to get rid of our lawn tractor. We have two acres of grass directly around the house, but it has slowly been converted to orchards, gardens, paddocks, etc. I am going to take the remaining lawn that we have and use it as part of our rotational grazing with our pigs and poultry. I would let the goats on the lawn, but there are way too many shrubs and trees that they would devour – love them, but don’t trust them.

When we get the pigs, we will also be getting rid of our dishwasher. Why let all that wonderful leftover scrapings go down the drain when the pigs would LOVE to eat it. This has got me thinking about what other appliances I can do without. I know I can’t get rid of my refrigerator - I need to dig a root cellar before that will be possible. I am not willing to give up my washing machine yet, especially with kids! However, that silly energy consuming contraption next to the washing machine has found its last days in my home. Why on Earth do I need a dryer? All summer I use the outside lines, but if I got rid of the drier I could set up inside clothes lines in the same place. DUH! Why didn’t I think of that in the first place. And think of all the noise I won’t have to listen to anymore.

So no job, no lawn tractor, no dishwasher, no dryer, more animals and more gardens… It sounds like an awesome summer.

- Carol

When the Groundhog Doesn't Like the Sky's Look

So that poor Groundhog (version 12.0?) saw another stretch of winter. And this on the day that we had rain and melting ice here. Gray gray gray and no vision of the Sun at all. Guess we have to agree with him, no shadows possible here.

According to this article at CNN from 1998 (they had the Internet in 1998!?!), the National Climate Data Center has Phil's accuracy rate at about 59%. Could be a little higher or lower, but that is darn close to 50/50 in my book.

How about for us? Including last year, which was a decidedly late spring (our snows began in March and several feet later, we slumped into April), Phil is 50/50 for 6 years (2002-2007).

Farm Weather - Overcast, 40 F, no precip

Our Farm Life is "All Creatures Great and Small"

Well, perhaps not so flashy and without cows (and arms stuck up cows' bums).
So, "10 Reasons of Life is Like 'All Creatures Great and Small'"

1. We are tied to it 24/7/365 and that is fine by us. "Perfectly sufficient, Siegfried"
   
2. We are learning new veterinary skills all the time (for example, our goats do not like paste lumps of herbal wormer - but they will swallow liquids easily)... what do you do with lumps of leftover wormer? Hmm.
   
3. If it is possible, all animals will escape right within your sight - brazen buggers scaling the braces for the corner post.
   
4. Siegfried is right - Kidding time is the best season of the year.
5. Everyone cares for animals, at least a little.
6. We are all potential "Mrs. Pomphrey"s with an overly loved Tricky Wu.
7. We have buried our animals in a place we can visit.
8. Animals are often the main topic of conversation at the table.
9. We love them, we eat them, we respect them.
   
10. We have a wonderful view from the pastures to put it all in perspective.

We just don't get all the sausages for breakfast yet.