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...