The Week That Was: July 14th Edition

Well, we had an eventful beginning to the month, but (thankfully) it has slowed down a bit. I feel like we are in the calm before the storm - next 3 weeks are a maze of harvesting, puppy visits, and goat pickups. But by this time next month, we should be much more settled and looking forward to a nice vacation before fall rolls around.

1. Puppies! We have 4 puppies left and 3 folks who are coming out to see them in the next week. If they work out, that leaves just one (I am guessing it will be Twinkletoes, but I just don't know why, he is adorable and sweet and so very interested in humans!). And the number of folks who mention that they love Bernese is astounding - especially from people that I didn't think were "dog people".
2. Berry Season is upon us - Strawberries started 2 weeks early for us and were blown by the 2nd week of June. Then we waited - then right around July 4th this is what happened: our early season highbush blueberries started (perhaps a bit early), "Pixwell" gooseberries were already peaking, and the July raspberries kicked in (they seem more prone to mold and rot, sonot our fav variety for freezing, but good for cereal topping).
3. Broccoli can really take the heat - well, at least hybrid broccoli can. We missed our window to seed broccoli this spring, so we bought "Packman" instead. We are on the 4th cutting now (small side sprouts, not big heads), but our above average temps + humidity should be killing the broccoli. But it isn't.... woot.
4. Next year's planning is already here - we have already made a preliminary breeding schedule for our goats, we have made our plans for fall seeding in the greenhouse (that should take us into January when the cold really shuts down the plants), and finally we have starting to pick out next year's plants to buy in (more strawberry plants for up front - more Honeyoye and Surecrop).

Song of the Month: Don't Fence Me In

Although it is thought of as a cowboy song, this one has an interesting history. The kernel of the song came from a poem written by a Montana poet and Transportation engineer. The poem was chosen by Cole Porter as the basis of a song for a musical that was never produced - it sat on the shelf for 10 years before it was added to a Roy Rogers film from the mid-1940s (source: Wikipedia).

This month we have been singing it after Michelle (our girls' riding instructor) asked us to find lyrics for it. This is the version the kids like the best - I prefer the Ella Fitzgerald version from the late 50s, myself.

The Week That Was: June 27th Edition

This is a new idea I had while weeding - rather than tell you about the cool aspect of one thing we are doing (because nobody, and I mean nobody, needs heavy detail on lambs-quarter removal), I thought this pseudo-list would give a better feel for the week on the farm.

We'll see how it goes :)

Notable things that happened this week:

1. Eric Turned 40 - As our friend Sharon detailed in her blog post, her husband (and the coolest astrophysicist you will ever meet), Eric turned 40 and celebrated on the day before Summer Solstice with a get-together at their farm. Very nice and laid-back and if the calves hadn't needed to get fed their goat-milk, we would have made it through dinner :D
2. Turning Round Bales into Gardens - OK, it isn't exactly Ruth Stout soil-building (a great woman and pioneer of modern gardening, link is worth a read), but we did have a 1st cutting round bale literally rooting in the June sun/rain/murk. With the help of a couple of dry days, a pickup truck, and some (well 2) strong backs, we managed to pull the alternately moldy and dry hay apart. Then said workhorse pickup dragged 3 heaping loads to mulch the front gardens (sweet potatoes, corn, cukes, pole beans, herbs and the future strawberry expansion) and the back gardens (chiles and peppers). We sneezed for a day afterward, cursing the mold.
3. Re-vegetating the Landscape - the gardens around the house had been suffering from too many weeds, too many dog paths, and not enough flowering plants. We spent Sunday before Eric's party on a fruitless search for potentilla. Then a night of research gave us a tight list of possible shrubs and we were off to the spot we should have aimed for from the get-go: our friend John's "Botanic Barn" on Rt 7 in Brunswick. Easy-peasy. We have come a loooonnngggg way from what the backyard looked like 8 years ago. Another 2 or 3 years and we will have an awesome low-maintenance flowering/fruiting mix.
4. Counting the Baby Mammals - It began with Bri asking why Daddy had nipples. A classic question for every Zoology or Evolutionary Biology class. Then the examples spread and so did the questions. "Do bucks have 2 nipples too?" "How many nipples does Taran (male dog and father to the current Bordernese litter) have?" "How many nipples does the buck calf have?" That's when I realized that we have a lot of baby mammals around right now - 25 goat kids under 8 weeks, 9 puppies under 3 weeks, and 2 calves under 5 weeks.

One thing leads to another...

Busy, busy winter and spring! We built a new run-in shed, fenced in an additional 2 acres, took in a horse, found the horse a new home, got two baby calves, helped birth 26 goat kids, brooded 25 more chickens, and had a litter of 9 puppies. Not to mention the garden. We are wiped! We have been itching to fence in the 2 acres for years, especially after the "great pig escape", but last year we were offered a beautiful horse - Remy - and we finally did it. We slogged through slush, ice, and snow and got everything finished by the beginning of February... only to find out that Carol's dream of raising horses was just that - a dream. I found that horses don't actually fit into my permaculture view of the world (at least three purposes for everything). Anyway, Remy found a much better home with lots of kids and horses to play with.

Now I knew the goats couldn't keep up with the 2 acres, so why not cows. We had just finished buying a 1/4 cow from one of the local farms around here when our friend Sharon had a blog post advertising some smaller sized calves bred and born on pasture. Raised organically, bred for milk, beef, and for grazing...everything we wanted. Now we could expand cheese-making in the future and use goat milk this year to nurse the calves.

The calves have been a lot of fun. We got a boy (who will later end up in the freezer) and a girl (who will end up as our family cow) who were just about a week old. They are now three weeks old and doing great. The girl (shown above to the left) is named Queen Nadine (from a great kid's book with that title) and her loyal companion is Sir Loin (shown above to the right). They have thrived on our goat milk, but I am pretty sure they think they are goats.

We are looking forward to watching these guys grow and creating a four pasture rotational grazing system. We hope to use the grazing and browsing power of our ruminants to reclaim our pastures. The pigs allowed us to seed in a lot of great species - which are definitely doing well, but we need to encourage their growth.

So what else is new?? Of course we have tons of goat kids running around the pastures... several wethers are still available and you can see them here. And our beautiful Cassidy (aka Cassie) has given us 9 gorgeous puppies. We know that at least four are staying within the family, but the rest are for sale as family farm dogs. I can't express how awesome Bordernese (Border collie/ Bernese Mtn. Dog crosses) are. Unlike any other dog I have ever known or raised - gentle, loving, intelligent spirits.

Find out more about Cassie, Taran (the father), and the pups here...

Homemade Copper Boluses

Copper is a vital nutrient for goats - what would kill a sheep would only be an appetizer for goats. This comes from goats eating shoots and stems where sheep prefer grass (in fact, a goat on grass-only won't get enough copper). The shoots have more copper (any shoot that will bend has elevated copper, sticks don't have enough) and giving goats brush or shrubs to eat will give them enough.

We realized within a month of getting the goats that they needed more copper - Luna started gnawing on the barn wood, a sure sign of copper deficiency. We started reading about copper needs, toxicity, and supplements.

For four years, our daily top-dressing of copper came from a recipe from Pat Coleby's "Natural Goat Care"

• 4 cups of copper sulfate (from feedstore)
• 1 cup of dolomitic lime
• 1 cup of kelp powder

This works very well at 1/8 teaspoon per goat (50-80 lbs) per day - we got good results even with the darker coat colors. But we couldn't sure that everyone was getting the appropriate dose since we let the does move around between the food buckets during feeding time. Another solution. Boluses? Boluses should last 4-6 months and would make one less thing to add to the food bowl in the morning (and yes, that is less doe screaming, yea!).

Our copper bolus journey started when Laura at Dawnland Farm sent us a link to putting the copper inside a marshmallow (here). We had read about copper boluses as effective long-term solutions at the excellent Saanendoah webpage about copper, dosing, and soil charts (here).

from Saanendoah.com

We tried the marshmallow trick - but the marshmallows were hard to keep closed up. Even fresh ones weren't quite soft enough to fold back up on themselves. And then while some goats may love to eat marshmallows, ours forced us to push them into their mouths and then hold their muzzles shut until they finally swallowed them. (Think of giving a cat a pill - same principle with sharper molars).

So, we went with gelcaps - we load them up by hand with the copper (we use Copasure 12.5 g bolus for calves, unload and reweigh out dosages for the much smaller goats). And that works much easier.

Plus we time them to last 4 months (a good bet to stay on the low end of 4-6 months since our hard water means less copper is available) and we stack wormer, copper, and hoof-trimming into one session on the stand.

Goats in the News: Kidding Season Edition 2010

Well, our weather has turned to the decidedly Spring-y. Time to start cleaning out barns, coops, and nooks and crannies where rodents have nested over-winter.

1. How the CAE (Caprine Encephalitis) Virus Infects and Affects Dairy Goats - A Dairy Goat Journal written by the author of "Goat Biology" (which is fantastic). This is very important this time of year because CAE+ does are out there. And they can spread CAE to their kids if they nurse or get unpasteurized milk. One of our goat friends brought home a beatiful buckling from a historically CAE- herd, but a herd that never tested for CAE. And of course, after being in the new herd and being tested, it was discovered that the buckling was CAE+ and the breeder was incredulous. The damage to the breeder's reputation and our friend's CAE- herd was done. Caveat emptor!
2. Australian Meat Goat Prices Rise 30% in 1 Year - apparently the rising price of mutton is pulling along its less common cousin. Imagine what that could do in the US if beef prices rose. Kiko and Boer prices would skyrocket. It is important to remember that in Australia almost all livestock is grass-fed already - little CAFO or confinement.
3. Oscar Nominee Farmiga May Thank Her Goats - A NY Post article about Vera Farmiga who is in the hunt for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Her main life is being a farm-wife in Ulster County, NY - moving the firewood and knitting the goat cashmere from her goats.
4. Radical Homemakers Live the Good Life on Less (review) - this is a book review of this same title by the editor of Grit Magazine. Doing more with less on a farm is hard, no denying that, but the cost of not doing it are... higher. Life is more, even with less. Trust us :D
5. Goat Fans in the Urban/Suburban Area - USA Today article about the growing group of urban goat enthusiasts and their planning regulation issues. To quote from the article, "'If you can have a 250-pound dog in town, why not a miniature goat that can produce milk?'she says. 'It's just common sense.' The Planning Commission hasn't made a recommendation yet."

Cleaning Your Water Supply

I don't know what you use as your water source for you and your animals - I did a quick Google Search and found nothing on giving livestock filtered water. In the words of Cypher in "The Matrix": "Nuh-thing."

Now, you can find lots of info on why you should drink filtered water in urban, suburban, and rural areas (especially when rural areas have animal-source E. coli in the groundwater). And a recent study in Alberta found that 70% of rural residents were drinking filtered water in the house.

In rural areas, the risk of the E. coli exposure is the greatest since most folks out here use shallow and deep wells for their water supply. We have been here 8 years (as of the end of the month) and haven't chlorinated the well since the home inspection (they did it for us for free, awesome guys).

Here's the general outline on what you are doing (please read the links carefully, I only paraphrase and your well setup will vary (especially note the chlorine needed for different size well casings, depth of water column, indoor water tank, etc).

Links:

• Chlorination of Drinking Water - from Cornell Coop Extension (good stuff starts on page 3)
• Disinfecting a Domestic Water Supply - from NMSU
• Shock Disinfection with Chlorination - from Wilkes University, nice table of non-bleach chlorine sources and dosage calculations.

1. Set aside time to do this - make sure you have water already set out for the livestock and humans for 12-24 hrs. Ahead of time!
2. Open well head and pour in bleach/water solution - you want lots of water to rinse the bleach down in so that you don't lose most of it to the walls (chlorine is wicked reactive and will start reacting with the walls (iron and chlorine hate each other). Rinsing gets the chlorine down where it should go.
3. Chlorinate the whole water system - here you are pushing the chlorine through the system until you get enough at the outlets. This includes the water heater, the indoor tank, toilets, and all faucets (indoor and outdoor). Basically you let them all run until you smell chlorine (mine took about 25 minutes to get a strong smell). Cornell suggests a cute trick - cut the chlorine needed by using a hose to drain some of the chlorine from outside faucets back into the well casing. You can't skip this because if there is bacteria in your well casing, it is also throughout your indoor pipes.
4. Re-chlorinate the well casing - with the same amount of bleach a second time. Let this stand for 12-24 hrs to give the chlorine outside and inside time to do its work.
5. Finally, drain the chlorine from the system - after the 12-24 hrs run a hose outside to drain some place special where a little chlorinated water won't hurt or erode too much. Can't run this down the drain to a septic tank! The chlorine will nuke your bacteria and slow decomp in the tank immediately.

It is important to do this more often than we did :D It certainly doesn't kill us to drink coliform bacteria - it may actually be important to maintain our diverse intestinal ecosystem.

But a yearly water test (we used a LaMotte E. coli test that was $13 at Ben Meadows) will go a long way towards making sure you chlorinate when you need to and minimize exposure to drinking coliform bacteria.

Song of the Month: Across the Universe

We are almost done with the snow - February was a long, snowy month for everybody here (7th straight day of at least flurries today). The animals are getting stir-crazy and if I never slog through slush again... let's just say that March is Mud Season and I would like to move onto Mud at this point. Mud takes your boot, but at least you can lift your boot out of it easier. :D

Anyway, the song that Carol is learning on the piano... the kids keep singing around the house (even Eiley) is the Beatles' "Across the Universe", but we like the Fiona Apple cover of the song. She makes the words easier to hear.

Enjoy this lilting jaunt through a gray day in northern England.

NAIS bites the dust (finally)

NAIS was a federal program that proposed to keep track of all animals that moved (farm to farm, farm to market, farm to slaughterhouse). It began with a good premise: keeping track of all animals so that disease could be back-tracked before it spread too far. The mad cow (BSE) scare of 2003 was the starting point for this program.

However, the food scare problem never came from the smallest producers - it was the factory farms. The program was worded without input and done so poorly that it forced all producers, even hobby breeders to register and track all animal movements. My 13 roosters going to slaughter. Individual goat purchases. The horse we bought. And those tracking devices were my cost - tattoos wouldn't be enough, we needed tags with digital transmitters. $5-10 per goat. According to the USDA's own comments, about 92% of small producers opposed the NAIS.

Yesterday the Secretary of Agriculture announced that the current proposal was going to be scrapped (NYT article, NoNAIS post, and Business Week article). Some new framework with similar concerns but focused on interstate commerce and some measure of lower priced labelling would be worked out in the coming months. Transparently.

Now that is my kind of birthday present.

Song of the Month: Baby, it's cold outside

Not much more you need to say here - it was cold, then mild enough to melt all the snow and then COOOLLLLDDD up here. V'ry cold. So here is our song, at least for now as sung by Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting.

Time to go haul in some more firewood.

Goats in the News: January 2010

It should be a quiet month here on the farm - breeding season is pretty much over (there is a buck in with the herd batting "cleanup" right now, but everyone appears settled). Time to start pouring over the seed catalogs, planning the fruit bushes to buy, etc.

But this edition of goats in the news has some actual timely, useful stuff. Trust me.

1. Done with your Xmas tree? Feed a goat with it! - Trust me, ours appreciate the tree a lot, especially now that there is very little green in the world.
2. Keep a herd of goats on 1/2 an acre? In town? - Maybe this guy will win his zoning board appeal, it helps that he has so much public support. Watch the video.
3. New, fast test for Barber Pole worms - Should help folks who use the FAMACHA test for barber pole worms - this is a diagnostic test that we can't do here, but it does light up the barber pole eggs super-fast. Great for separating barber poles from other worms.

And finally, how could I pass up the chance to show the trailer for "The Men Who Stare At Goats". The goat part is the best bit and doesn't last long. Sigh.

Happy New Year's Day 2010

And to celebrate, we have U2 singing "New Year's Day", live at Red Rocks in 1983.

"All is quiet on New Year's Day
A world in white gets underway
I want to be with you
Be with you night and day
Nothing changes on New Year's Day"

Guess nothing really changes... on New Year's Day!