Weathertop Farm

The Week That Was: July 14th Edition

2010-07-14T11:56:00.004-04:00

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.

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".
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).
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.
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

2010-06-30T15:13:00.000-04:00

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

2010-06-27T12:03:00.004-04:00

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:

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
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.
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.
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...

2010-06-14T18:25:00.029-04:00

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

2010-04-18T12:49:00.005-04:00

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

2010-03-15T17:48:00.002-04:00

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.

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!
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.
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.
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
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

2010-03-07T13:42:00.004-05:00

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.

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!
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.
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.
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.
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

2010-02-28T10:58:00.002-05:00

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)

2010-02-06T09:16:00.002-05:00

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

2010-01-30T16:39:00.002-05:00

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

2010-01-11T18:31:00.002-05:00

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.

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.
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.
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

2010-01-01T13:48:00.002-05:00

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!

Song of the Month: A Marshmallow World

2009-12-31T21:31:00.002-05:00

For our final "Song of the Month" for 2009, we give the song that haunts us here at the Herrington Manor. Dean Martin sloppily sings his way through "A Marshmallow World" from some holiday special from the early 1960s.

It is funny what constituted singing and production values back then :D

Of course, to round it out you could also watch this version with Dean and Sinatra from a few years earlier - the back-and-forth is worth it. Plus the dancing, we gotta have dancing (and yes, it is safe, they are heterosexual!).

Goats in the News: December 2009

2009-12-20T11:53:00.003-05:00

Sorry for not posting more, but we have been consumed with the paddock expansion (fenced in 2 acres around the wetland). Fencing in November and December started out well and then got coooolllldddd.

Anyway, here are some articles that we liked from the past month.

Feeding Bucks - article from the current issue of Dairy Goat Journal. The goat owner-author here doesn't do things quite like we do, but she does detail other ideas and the pros and cons. A must read for anybody who keeps bucks.
Goats for Fun, Food and Profit - article from the current issue of Grit magazine (cover story!). More of a general view on all goat breeds, not much specific stuff, but still interesting to read about other goat folks.
Meet the Milk - this is a blog posting from our (famous!) friends Sharon and Eric. Those fabulous goat pics are some of ours - we miss them, but they are at an awesome farm now - and it is great to see how goat personalities play out with different farms. Funny!
Netherlands to cull 35,000 Goats - article from the BBC, they are trying to stop the spread of Q fever (a bacterial disease that moves from goats/sheep to humans). They are killing all the pregnant females and have banned pregnancy till next summer. Wow.
Goats Uncover Cemetery - who knows what that browsing will uncover :D

Song of the Month: A Horse in the Country

2009-11-29T17:58:00.000-05:00

This is a Cowboy Junkies song from one of their less well-known albums (Black-Eyed Man, 1992). Basically a sad song about somebody in a dead end town, dead end life, and with change on her mind.

But for us, this is the song we sang while building the run-in shed. The song we sang while augering the fenceposts. Lining up the fenceposts. Hanging the fence. You get the idea.

Margo Timmins' voice is a thing of beauty. The arrangement is pretty good too, but we always come back to her voice. Wow. Plus on cold fall days, this is how our minds turn to winter's dark thoughts.

Two Views on a 6 C Rise in Temperature

2009-11-18T13:39:00.003-05:00

Anyone who lives and works with living systems has to be paying at least some attention to the discussion of global climate change. This week a report from the Global Climate Report looked at the past decade's trend in carbon dioxide emissions.

In the past 10 years, the rate of CO2 release has increased by 29% - so not a 29% increase, but the year-to-year value is increasing 29%. This past year CO2 rose by 1.84 ppm (parts per million), but with this data, we would expect it to increase next year by 1.84 ppm x 1.29 = 2.38ppm next year.

Following this trend across the century, we end up with a 6 degree Celsius rise, according to the IPCC scenarios. 6 C is a lot of change - almost 10 degrees F. Definitely on the high end of the worst IPCC scenario.

2 Scientific Views of this study

It is difficult to establish a trend based on a single decade, especially with the inherent troubles with making a computer model of the whole atmosphere. More here on this view.
Any way you cut it, this points to the trouble with any rise in CO2 emissions - the trend shows that the greatest increases are taking place in the developing world (LDCs) as they industrialize their economies.

Which is right? Both, I think. We can't go "2012" on the data, yet we cannot allow the trend to continue. If a 2 C rise is the goal, then this trend shows we must cut our emissions even more aggressively.

Goat Humor!

2009-11-14T21:05:00.002-05:00

Choosing For Breeding: Teat Size

2009-11-06T11:27:00.003-05:00

This is from our Little Milkers website - it is one of four essays about heritability of traits in goats. Carol researched the genetics and actual heritability of major traits. This is the first of four articles summarizing the parts that are key to our breeding program this year.

The goal of any breeding program should be continuous improvement of traits - we should be seeking out the best possible matches for our does. That means not finding a buck, but picking the best buck to match against each individual doe. Not just rolling one buck into the pen, unless that buck is batting clean-up at the end of the season.

This week we have going back and forth about teat size - how big? Bigger teats are easier to milk because they contain more milk and so speed milking.

Heritability is a genetic term that means "How easy is it to change a trait in the offspring?" This is a double-edged sword because we want to change the less-desirable traits (small udders, teats that point outward, etc) and then keep the more-desirable traits.

Udder and teat location traits have moderate heritability (> 0.40)
Teat dimensions have high heritability ( > 0.70)

Those heritability numbers above tell us that teats are conserved and these are less likely to change, the doe will control that closely. Moms will give their daughters their own teats, but they are less likely to pass on their udder. It could be smaller or larger, meaty or butter smooth, etc.

Tetris' udder - a vast improvement on her mom (teat size!)

So one of our goals this year is to boost teat size for 3 of our senior does - Wiggy will be getting the job to try that out. But like all things, it is not perfect. Wiggy did a great job with improving Mina's udder in our retained daughter Tetris. Same was true for Zelda on teat size.

But we cannot count on him to repeat this exactly with does - this is what makes breeding time exciting.

A Cautionary Tale of Genetic Engineering

2009-11-03T11:34:00.002-05:00

NPR carried this story last week - researchers that added in a gene for resistance to a virus found something interesting.

The fear with genetic engineering is that there could be "genetic drift" - the genes spread from the target. So the project added a gene (that is commonly added to squash) to a wild squash.

The added gene showed resistance to the virus.
But those plants were healthier and therefore attracted more bacteria.
And ultimately fared worse because the bacteria ate them!

Not saying this is a nail in the coffin for any genetic engineering, but it does point to the fact that genetic engineering is no more of a silver bullet than conventional genetic breeding programs.

End of the Month Song: "The Doctor's Theme"

2009-10-30T11:13:00.003-04:00

This is from the new "Doctor Who" - one of the most haunting solos, makes my skin go prickly to hear it. Just fabulous.

Plus it is nice and airy and melancholy, just like the end of October is.

Enjoy.

Harvesting Walnuts

2009-10-25T12:59:00.004-04:00

So the previous owner planted 4 English walnut trees out front - probably cheap-y $1 saplings from the County Extension. Planted at least 2 years before we bought the land, so they got their first big years of growth when spring sprang for us in 2002.

Now, 7 years later, the nuts have finally started to fall. These walnut trees have had some hard years, the windstorms (and last winter's ice storm) have whacked most of the trees' upper branches more than once. But still they formed enough to get our first (small) crop of nuts.

Here's what we did with them:

More tips and resources

U-Minnesota Cooperative Extension - "Harvesting Walnuts"
NewHomestead blogpost about walnuts
Finally, how to shell walnuts! (freezing and hammering)

Song of the Month: The Geeks Were Right

2009-10-02T13:06:00.004-04:00

OK, this one is a bit more techie than our "down-home" bent in early song choices. It does mark the distinction between our "looking forward/looking back" thoughts as harvest comes to a (thankfully over) close and the day-to-day focus on Summer.

The Faint, "The Geeks Were Right"

First heard this as a background song as Adam processed evidence during an episode of CSI-NY, these are the 2nd verse lyrics that sold us on the song:

"Egghead boys with thin white legs
they got modified features with software brains
but thats what the girls like, the geeks were right

When I saw the future the Geeks were right"

Why Goats Shouldn't Have Horns?

2009-08-16T09:31:00.003-04:00

OK, beyond the question of how the wire got bent down close enough to loop up one of the horns, how exactly did this work out?

Did the buck survive this?
Was this the oddest thing ever to happen to a goat? Nope - it's the flying sheep video from Monty Python!
How on Earth did they call this one in to 911? "Um, there's a goat in trouble. It is hooked by its horns up on a telephone line." "... right..."

Living in Upstate NY

2009-08-07T11:17:00.005-04:00

What is it like to live in upstate NY? A very different world from most people's impression of the cosmo lifestyle of NYC, that is for sure! But what is it really like? Well, I think it is pretty much like living in central VT, most of NH (at least the northern 2/3) and all of Maine. What? You don't live there. Well, that's because few people (relatively speaking) do. So here is your postcard of the somewhat insane (and certainly surreal) world of Upstate NY.

These two videos are from Saturday Night Live's satires of our NY governor, David Paterson.

Video #1 - "I want somebody from upstate... somebody with a game-y arm or big gums and tiny teeth." "What do I have against New Jersey? Unfortunately, a southern border!"

Video #2 - On our current junior senator (Gillibrand) and her 100% NRA approval rating - "C'mon, Upstate is like 'Deliverance' with snow tires."

Muscovy Duck-apalooza

2009-08-03T10:17:00.006-04:00

We started with Muscovy ducks last summer - got 6 ducklings from one of our local friends (not bad at $3 each, half the mail order price without the shipping!). Once they differentiated into drakes and hens, we kept one male and two females overwinter. The other three were packed into the freezer for winter and very careful consumption!

One of the hens became the roast duck centerpiece of Carol's birthday (recipe and pic here).

Now, we are one year into our duck project and here are the things we have learned.

Muscovy will sit chicken eggs, but because she will set 20-30 eggs in 3-5 layers, chicken eggs must be near the top or the hen will inadvertently suffocate the newly hatched chicks.
Muscovy ducklings are small enough to easily move through 4-inch goat fencing all the way up until 8 weeks old. Mom hen flies over the fence and the ducklings slip through it to follow her.
Ducks' poop is very wet - wetter than chickens - and so they need more clean bedding when they stay indoors. They actually will be sitting then stand to poop and sit down just slightly ahead of where they pooped.
Ducks are very messy with water - especially problematic with the hen and her 5 ducklings that live with the goats. Goats do NOT like dirty water at all. Ducks say, "Feh, water schmater."
Muscovy are pasture trimming monsters - they will eat greens all day long - sometimes they just sit down into it and nibble a circle around themselves.
Muscovy do fly - although their wings are not as strong or large as other ducks - but they love to roost! They are treefowl more than waterfowl. This leads to wonderful pictures like this one:

Song of the Month: Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall

2009-07-31T14:19:00.009-04:00

This is a new feature for the blog - our idea here is what song most closely ties into the mood or theme of the month. We'll pick and post one at the end of each month.

July 2009 - "Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" - Bob Dylan

Easy one to guess, right? July was one of the wettest months ever for Albany, NY, according to the Northeast Regional Climate Center - my county received between 200-300% of the normal July precip total. Hard rain feel several times, but pretty much every day had some precip, even if it was light.

click here to see full size version

Dylan tells stories about the origin of this song (pre-Vietnam, even pre-Cuban Missile Crisis) and in typical Dylan fashion the song has lines and phrases that leave a lot of listener latitude on applying. He says that it is not specifically about a nuclear war, but just the End. Perhaps even he didn't want to nail it down for us, leave it to our febrile imaginations to adapt it for every dangerous moment.

In any case, here it is sung by Dylan in 1964:

And here it is sung by Edie Brickell and New Bohemians (our fav cover version)

Bucket Math

2009-07-29T12:00:00.001-04:00

OK, I will admit that those two words in the title do not go together all that well - buckets are solid, tangible objects and math is abstract. For us, the number of buckets in rotation tells us something about where we are in the year.

To wit,

Winter - we keep 12 does, 4 bucks, and 20 chickens over the winter. The does get 3 buckets of hot water, bucks get 1 hot, and the chickens get 1 hot. So 5 buckets in the morning. Then 2 more in the evening with the evening hay. So we need only 7 buckets that day.
Spring - as the does get more and more preggers, the water goes up to 4 buckets in the morning, this is especially true on those odd days in April that are warm and humid. No evening buckets, so we stay at 6 buckets till kidding season.
Summer - with no pigs or turkeys, the chickens stick at 2 buckets (chicks + hens) for the day. The boys seem to need 1 1/4 buckets, so they now get 2 buckets. And the does + kids (12 does + 20-some kids) move up to 6-8 buckets, depending on how hot it is. Now we are up to 10-12 buckets.
Late Summer - today was the last pickup (aside from our buck Cody if a buyer picks him) of goats. We are back down to 12 goats in the doe area (7 seniors and 5 juniors) and 4 bucks in the back buck pen. We are back down to 10 buckets per day. Whew.

At the end of the day, we like to keep 2x the number of buckets, so one set is cleaned for the next morning.

This is how the infrastructure creeps up - all the small things that are almost impossible to account for ahead of time. Adding an extra doe or buck has a cost (their price) and then the estimating the other costs becomes fun. One more doe needs - an annual CD&T, feed, hay, minerals, sundry medical supplies and her annual blood testing. Those are the costs that are really hard to nail down - blood testing is easy, but feed and hay depend on the goat's size and age, the weather's effect on the pasture, and how many babies she is or may be nursing.

Bucket math is the guide - becoming a good guesser is the point of the game.

May is the longest month - and words of wisdom

2009-06-14T18:07:00.004-04:00

Well, it is... at least May is the longest month on our farm. We get the harmonic convergence of three different time pressures:

goat kidding season - 23 kids in 23 days in 12 kiddings
gardening begins for our zone 4 garden - 80 tomatoes, 180 peppers, popcorn, sweet corn, blah blah blah - took four days to weed it, seed it, and plant it.
everything else green really begins growing like mad - the orchard needed some work after the deer put the smackdown on it, the ornamentals always need work, and let's not forget the fence expansion (more later on that one).

But we managed to expand the garden out front again (added another 600 sf of raised beds with the help of a Mantis mini-tiller). And planted another wind-row of hemlocks (200' of the buggers, hope the woody adelgid lays off 'em for a bit).

So now it is mid-June and we look back and say, "What on Earth did we do all last month? Or last week for that matter! Where do the days go?"

This is followed by much gnashing of teeth and rending of lists.

After 10 years of doing it on and off (farming with animals), we have come to these important (and self-obvious) words of wisdom

There is no such thing as "nothing to do", just things that "can be put off for the afternoon." A corollary to this says something like "there are no days off", but that may be too depressing to imagine.
Having a "to-do" list is a self-propagating beast - just having it will allow it to procreate and lengthen with almost no input from you. Writing it on a scroll that continues to roll down is probably your best bet, that way you won't run out of room to write it out.
There is almost always a tipping point in farming - beyond that one you have increased the complexity and interactions so that your outputs (and inputs) will increase dramatically. Usually it is worth it - for us it was branching out into goats 3 years ago. Their management now is the focus of our animal-side of the farm. They produce kids, milk, and mulch and consume our creativity (planning breedings, choosing goats, diagnosing symptoms!).
No matter what you do, it can never be perfect. Or maybe even look orderly on a day-to-day basis. It is always work, "uphill, both ways." But oh, is it worth it.

Goat Birth Story: Foggy Foggy Nights

2009-05-07T17:26:00.005-04:00

Now Zelda's breeding never should have happened.

Zelda is a Celeste x Wiggy daughter - Wiggy was supposed to give more attachments to Celeste's pretty solid frame and decent udder. For even more udder atatachments tho, we looked around and our friend Ann-Marie bought a buck we wanted but couldn't bring ourselves to invest in - Piddlin Acres Maestro. Maestro gave fore-udder extension, gave more capacity and made some very solid does. We traded stud service with Ann-Marie and waited for heat.

She came into heat on December 6th.

Now, the afternoon of the 6th was dark - sun was setting around 5pm. Snow was melting on the ground on a milder than average December day - so there was moistness in the air that was just this side of San Fran in the winter. Damp and cold.

As Zelda set out, it should have been no more than a 30 minute drive to Ann-Marie's. The fog was so thick that headlights bounced back after only a few feet - highbeams were useless. Nobody was on the road - so our top speed was 15mph. 15.

A harrowing 75 minutes later, Ann-Marie and her brother were standing at the end of their driveway, waving flashlights like airport workers landing an airplane - without them, Zelda may still be driving around Grafton!

The kicker - 21 days later, Zelda acted like she was in heat again. Gil-galad mounted her, nuzzled her, followed her. All the classic symptoms pointed to a real heat. Which meant that the 3 good mountings from Maestro failed. Sigh. "Next year," we said. "We'll try again next year with Maestro."

Then Zelda suddenly came into labor- a couple of hours later, she had a new baby. A girl. A Maestro daughter - everything we hoped for too. An elegant, fine-boned, very feminine daughter - a definite improvement on Zelda.

Now we wait for her daughter's udder next year to see what Maestro brought.

Goat Birth Story: Atari The Surpriser

2009-05-07T17:11:00.006-04:00

So, we went with pen breeding this past December for 9 of the does - all to Gil-Galad. The Great Pig Escape of 2008 wrecked our plans of two breeding groups, spread out by 4 to 6 weeks to make it easier to keep up with the births. The pigs thrashed that goat paddock and we couldn't keep the buck/doe group over there, no pasture!

So on December 5th, we rolled him into the "herd of 9" and waited for those does to come into heat. Those first few days were a bit crazy - several does acted like they were in heat a single day and we were trying hard to keep up with who Gillie was hanging close to.

Imagine our surprise when Atari ("Faline" is her herd nickname) went first - 5 days before we thought she should be due - and a full five days before anybody else! Even those we thought bred on the very first day.

How surprising was it? Carol was sure somebody was going to birth... Erica was first up and was acting all weird. Moody. Anxious. Checked on them at 9:10am... no active laboring... went inside to shower and dress the girls. Back out at 9:30am and there is Atari cleaning up a pretty little doeling!

The girls named her solo doeling "Caramel Cupcake." Don't ask :D

Scything My Way Back to You, Babe

2009-04-23T21:25:00.004-04:00

I love this video - this woman is going to show you how to scythe a tough meadow. Wow. This is a beautiful example of what you can do with the appropriate tool.

Plus she gets a workout and doesn't spend a bit of energy in the process. Gotta figure there was lot less energy spent making the scythe plus accessories... and it works just as well. Better if you figure the scythed grass could be used as bedding instead of being chopped into 4 inch pieces and left on the meadow.

Pig pasture... here we come!

The Pregnant Goat Code of Honor

2009-04-07T12:37:00.005-04:00

This was stolen from a top secret goat double agent - she was passing it around to all the does in the barn. Learn from our mistakes, these are their strategies to drive goatkeepers MAD!

Doe Code of Honor

The doe's secret code of honor is as old as goats themselves and is the species best kept secret. No doe shall ever kid before its time. (Its time being determined by the following factors):

1 - No kid shall be born until total chaos has been reached by all involved. Your owner's house must be a wreck, their family hungry and desperate for clean clothes, and their social life nonexistent.

2 - Human birth helpers must reach the babbling fool status before you kid out. Bloodshot eyes, tangled hair and the inability to form a sentence mean the time is getting close.

3 - Punish them for technology. For every bell, beeper, camera or whistle they attach to you, kidding must be delayed by at least one day for each item. If they use an audio monitor, one good yell per hour will keep things interesting.

4 - Practice procrastination proactively. If you hear the words, "She's nowhere near ready. She'll be fine while we're away for the weekend," Wait until they load the car, then begin pushing!

5 - Owner stress must be at an all time high! If you are in the care of someone else, ten to fifteen phone calls a day is a sign you're getting close.

6 - Timing timing timing. When you hear the words "I can't take it anymore!" wait at least three more days.

7 -You must keep this waiting game interesting. False alarms are mandatory! Little teasers such as looking at your stomach, pushing your food around in the bucket and then walking away from it, and nesting, are always good for a rise. Be creative and find new things to do to keep the adrenaline pumping in those who wait.

8 - Remember your friends' honor and shame. The honor of all goats is now in your hands. Use this time to avenge all of your barn mates. Think about your friend who had to wear that silly costume in front of those people. Hang onto that baby for another day. OH, they made him do tricks too! Three more days seems fair. Late feedings, the dreaded diet, bad haircuts, those awful wormings can also be avenged at this time.

9 - Let the weather be your guide. If you have fulfilled all of the above and are still not sure when to have the kids, listen to the weather forecast on the radio that has been so generously provided by those who wait. Severe storm warning is what you're waiting for. In the heart of the storm jump into action! The power could go out and you could have the last laugh. You have a good chance of those who wait missing the whole thing while searching for a flashlight that works!

10 - Make the most of your interrupted nights. Beg for food each time someone comes into the barn to check you. Your barn mates will love you as the extra goodies fall their way too.

Remember, this code of honor was designed to remind humans of how truly special goats are. Do your best to reward those who wait with a beautiful doeling to carry on the Doe Code of Honor for the next generation of those who wait

Spring Sprung Early

2009-04-05T17:41:00.011-04:00

So, the mild March weather (which was actually about normal, just a little drier according to the NWS) has got us in the spring mood.

Spring newsy notes:

1. Spring Peepers came early - first peeper was on March 16th, about 10 days earlier than any spring since we got here in 2002. Northern Peeper showed up 5 days later, also about 10 days earlier than we have seen. Don't know the peepers - hear one here.

2. Seeding has begun - we lost the hoophouse spinach crop to very cunning chickens, but we planted the flowers, tomatoes, peppers, chiles, and broccoli. Broccoli sprouted and went out to the hoophouse to get some au natural sun and harden off.

3. Seeded sugar snap peas, spinach, and lettuce in the Main Garden - Seeded these out in the big garden using one of Carol's b-day gifts - an Earthway Seeder.

Took us a couple of rows to work out how to use a row seeder to do square foot measurements. Jeavons would be horrified, but it worked out pretty well.

Our big tip - don't bother covering over any openings in the seeding plate - they don't always fill up. It works for us now - especially if the soil is very fine.

4. Chickens in the Front Garden! - We moved the ladies and Featherfoot the rooster into the remains of last year's garden out front. They needed to give the chickenyard pasture a break while we reseeded it. And the front garden needed some scratching to break up the grass, weeds, and mulch from last fall. Only 2 of the 24 hens got any "happy feet" and now one lives with the goats and one lives with the ducks :D

5. Finally, the kids have gone Spring Crazy - it ain't easy being a kid with variable weather. Thursday they all lost it and went face paint crazy. All three ladies got spring-y!

Eiley first as a butterfly

Brianna as a Swan Princess

And then Carol left and right (by the ladies)

News of the Week

2009-03-29T14:18:00.007-04:00

Growing Your Own Chickens On the Rise - a small town works out how small a property can keep chickens. A sad thought is that we are forced to undo 50 yrs of zoning laws to return to the "old days" where chickens were kept cleanly and safely on rooftops and small backyards.
Space storm alert: 90 seconds from catastrophe - Seems like even the Sun is thinking we aren't preparing very well.
If Mother Nature had a Dow Jones Index - Natural Capital is a way of estimating the economic costs of environmental services. Like, how much is a tree worth? Thomas Friedman (him of the Flat Earth view of globalization) has lately come around on the issue of environmental collapse and renewal. (Personally, I think his mustache may have short-circuited his pro-free market beliefs)
Shelf-life of Supermarket Foods - A database you can look up any food and storage type and you can see how long it well last. Look here for the canned food recommendations.
DIY Soda Bottle Hydroponics - why not try something that is tropical or too long for your season? Here's soemthing that would fit on your deck easily.

All the Goat News Fit to Print: March Edition

2009-03-14T21:13:00.004-04:00

Now that Spring has thought about springing here in upstate NY, time to start thinking about fun things - like Goats Goats Goats!

Life Too Quiet in Winter? Try Farming! - article from Martha's Vineyard Gazette about the farming community getting fired up for spring. And summer. And fall. Doesn't seem like we have any down time...
F.D.A. Approves Drug From Gene-Altered Goats - NYT article about genetically modified goats that express a human blood protein in their milk. Just milk 'em and then centrifuge the milk to remove the new pharmaceutical. Wow.
An Interview with the World's Best Weedwhacker - An older Mother Earth News article, up close and personal with a caprine challenger. C'mon, that's cute. You know you want to read that. And it's short.
Are You Ready to be a Livestock Addict? - HobbyFarms article that has some nice considertations for the beginner but also some great species-by-species breakdowns of pros and cons. And maybe even making money!
New Hope for Attracting Large Animal Vets - help save our animal food production!

An End to Winter, but the beginning of Spring?

2009-03-08T15:11:00.008-04:00

After our "animals on roofs" excitement, we are slowly lurching towards spring. It isn't the end of winter - last March brought 2 18" snowfalls and then a hailstorm on May 20th that devastated the tomato and pepper transplants. Cautionary excitement is the key, as Alan Greenspan may someday say about gardening.

This week's highlights

Mud Season Begins - It rained last night - Carol woke up and asked, "What is that noise?" By my count, this is the first rain we have had since the November ice storm - 4 months ago. All snow since then. More rain tonight and so flood warnings are up all over NY. Not an issue for our roads or basement, but it sure does make the paths a slog.
Reclaiming the "Pig Paddock" - after the Great Pig Escape of 2008 (quite a rhymer there), they were sent to a comparative "Attica" and then spent 6 weeks obliterating the super-secure northern goat paddock. It is about 1/8 acre and they tilled the beejesus out of it - I believe they unearthed rocks not seen since the glaciers retreated from here. We spent Saturday flattening it out as best we could and then Carol re-seeded it with the pasture blend. Not totally flat, but the slope, muddiness, and narrowness of the gate eliminates any tractor or mechanical flattening.
First Kiddings on the Horizon - we are 8 weeks out from our first kiddings, so we are sharpening the hoof trimmers and stocking up the BoSe for the ladies. That will be in 2 weeks when we can both take a day to get it done in one fell swoop. Our kiddings spread over 7 weeks (13 does), but they will mostly cluster in the first two weeks of May. Gotta recharge the kidding supplies and check out Hoegger.
Whether Weather Will Cooperate - the recent warm weather has been enough to unfreeze the top layer of soil so that I can close the hoophouse door - it had frozen open when the icestorm came and we couldn't budge it without taking it off the hinges. Now we can plant out the spinach seedlings (all 200 of 'em) and stop buying store spinach. About 2 weeks behind last year, but it was so wickedly cold that even if the door were closed, we couldn't have grown anything. That'll be next weekend (seedlings will be 3 weeks old and have their second set of leaves) and then we'll start tomatoes and peppers in their place under the lights in the house.
Time to Move the Chickens - The higher number of chickens (last year's August chicks are just now starting to lay) and the 3 Muscovy ducks have shredded the chicken yard - the long fall didn't help - so we are going to get them off the yard by moving them out front to last year's new block garden (60 x 30). Fence them in with temp electric fencing and figure out a Egg-mobile from one of last year's chicken tractors. 8 weeks should give a re-seeding enough of a time to grow before they return. And in return for dry feet, those lovely chickens will till and fertilize the front garden for the squash, beans, popcorn, and sunflowers!

Looking back at 2008

2009-03-02T12:00:00.002-05:00

It has been a while since I have found the time to write in the blog – I just don’t make it enough of a priority. As I finished up my bookkeeping from last year, finally updated the goat pages, and was trying to figure out changes for this year I figured I could use the blog to organize my thoughts.

1. Pigs are great tillers and delicious to eat; however, our clever pigs figured out how to escape from the temporary fencing. We think they found a way to dig under the black (uncharged) line of the fence and push the entire fence up. We always checked the charge; I just think one of our girls was extra smart. Anyway, the three pigs took a long walk (for a week) and we had to post signs all over the place. In the end, it was just knowing and calling the farmers in the area that allowed us to get our pigs back.

Moral of the story: pigs are easier to raise in permanently fenced areas that are divided by temp. fencing for rotational grazing.
Future projects: fence in all the pasture areas with permanent fencing.

Unfortunately, until we raise the capital for the fencing we are not going to be raising pigs. We are hoping the tilling and re-seeding that happened last year (see pics here) will be enough to get our pastures in better shape.

2. Turkeys are not the brightest animals. Unfortunately, we experienced heavy predation on our turkeys over the course of a week. We set out traps and the predators disappeared and haven’t come back. As it appeared the turkeys literally went up to the predators and allowed their heads to get pulled off. This is the only explanation, since there was a corner that was completely protected from predators where they could have hidden. All of the dead birds were not found anywhere near the corner.

Moral of the story: wild animals have as much right to eat our animals as us.
Future projects: keep our dogs outside a lot more!

3. Muscovy ducks are awesome! We plan on raising many more of these hardy guys this year. They fend for themselves, do a great job foraging, get along well with the chickens in the winter (since they are sharing the same area), and taste yummy.

4. A good dog is worth its weight in gold. We lost our wonderful Caille this summer right after a canoe camping trip. She had lots of fun while camping, but came home really sick. After three days we had to put her down. It was tough! I had been looking for a third dog for a while and with Caille gone Mira was getting very lonely. I found the dog I was looking for (Cassidy) and she is everything I want in a dog – very loving, smart, willing to work with the animals on the farm, great with the birds (doesn’t ever try to eat them), and willing to learn. This past week she even figured out how to climb onto the top of the barn (what a freak!).

Moral of the story: Caille will be missed!! Although the goats were really good about following us out to the pastures, they weren’t the best at going back home. The birds were very difficult to move without a dog to help.
Future projects: Train Cassidy to herd our animals to make rotational grazing much easier.

5. Rabbits may be our next project… We need to find a way to raise more money on the farm in order to make this a sustainable adventure. At this point we don’t feel like we have the space to expand our goat herd. Once we have a new barn and fence in the pastures this will be our highest priority. It is pretty difficult to make money with chicken, pigs are escape artists, and turkeys like to get their heads cut off. In the end, we think ducks and rabbits are places to expand. Only 2009 will tell us whether this is a good idea.

Moral of the story: it is tough to make money while farming
Future projects: rabbits???

-Carol

This is what farm life is really like

2009-02-27T08:43:00.002-05:00

Just notice where his mind is, what he talks about is what he thinks about. And all farmers talk about is what is going on with their animals. It consumes us. In a good way :D

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Tom Selleck

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

The State of the Small Farm - 2002-2007

2009-02-26T12:36:00.001-05:00

Before 1950, farms were everywhere - small to medium sized and run by families or extended families. By the 1980s, farms were large, capital-intensive ventures - and the loss of those was a serious problem because it led to obvious decreases in food production here in the US. As agriculture became more and more technological, it forced more marginal farms to the edge and beyond. But that was the cost of paying the absolute lowest price for food, right?

So, when we started the farm, we almost immediately got a survey to complete for the USDA about the farm size, crops, and numbers. That survey became part of the periodic Census of Agriculture and last month the New York Times reported on the results.

1. There are more small/tiny farms - more than 900,000 of the 2,200,000 farms had less than $2500 of gross income. Tiny tiny tiny with very different needs and very different crops than the big boys of farming.

2. Tiny Farms Fit Tiny Niches - Tom Vilsack, ex-gov of Iowa and the new Secretary of Agriculture, acknowledged that there was a more diverse marketplace today, due to those smaller farms meeting niche markets better. But there needed to be more support for those farmers.

3. Less than half of the 2.2 million farms make a profit - so the remainder rely on off-farm income to subsidize the farm. That off-farm percentage is up 10% since the last Census in 2003.

4. The Northeast is doing OK and doing terrible - This blow-up of just the Northeast shows the county-by-county view of net 20 or more farms gained (green dots) and net 20 or more farms lost (orange dots). Sucks to be in New York, great in VT and NH. What do you bet most of those losses are dairy farms?

You can read more:

US Summary
NY State Summary
Rensselaer County Summary (more NYS counties here)

Animals on Roofs

2009-02-21T12:21:00.007-05:00

Our animals may be losing it - they keep climbing, climbing, climbing up onto the roofs. I think the winter is starting to get to them.

First to go was the junior rooster - Squawky.

Then Cassie started a' climbin'

Why Can't WE Feed Children So Well???

2009-02-18T16:59:00.003-05:00

So, there I am cruising to work on President's Day - enjoying the pleasantly empty roads as most folks had the day off. And then, this story comes on NPR

In Paris, Culinary Education Starts In Day Care (audio plus transcript)

Quotes of Note here:

"In Paris, hot meals are prepared on the premises of each of the city's 270 public day care facilities. Nothing is mass produced, ingredients are more often fresh than frozen..."
"Most of the kids eat nearly everything."
"Presentation is very important. Before tasting, they look. So, when you see somthing nice, you want to eat it."

Woof. No wonder our kids prefer Lunchables - that's what we eat at home, at the day care, at the cafeteria. I guess we train our "Slow Food"ers from Day One.

Goats in the News: February 2009

2009-02-07T09:32:00.005-05:00

Nigerian Police Hold Goat for Attempted Robbery - No comment. Just read the story and you'll start looking at your goats in a whole new way.
New York State sees 13% growth in dairy goats in 2008 - US overall up 4%, but the the Empire State pops with new ones.
Dairy Goat Journal "Keep or Cull?" - it is early, but it is already time to start thinking about how many you are going to keep. This is a short article with a few contradictory thoughts, but worth reviewing for everyone.
Fainting Cans of Grain - A blog about a Nigerian Goat. ROTFL funny. I wish I had time to be clever and witty too - good for Farmer.
"Talking Goats in Trees" - YouTube. Trust me, listen carefully.

Meet Your Meat: Antibiotics

2009-02-01T15:16:00.008-05:00

Interesting article in the Feb/March 2009 issue of Mother Earth News that looks the problems of continuous use of antibiotics in confinement-style animal raising. Read the whole article here.

Historically, we have been close to animals, so many contagious, human diseases have close animal ancestors (pertussis from pigs, flu from birds, TB and the cold from cattle)
Oceans of Concentrated Manure, filled with antibiotic resistant microbes (pic)
And finally, the problem impacts nearby (and even regional) farms that don't use antibiotics:

'The costs associated with continuing industrial farm animal production are enormous. If it’s allowed to continue, industrial production as currently practiced could eventually eliminate a lot of other farming options (in addition to making a lot of us sick). As one Midwestern organic farmer explained to me, it’s simply not possible to raise pigs organically if you live too close to a confinement facility: the pathogen pressure is too intense. “Iowa has become a sink for pig diseases,” he said. "They’re just in the air, and you can’t avoid them.'

Know what your choices mean for your planet. And for your animals - the ones you eat and the ones you buy. Choose wisely - choose humanely - choose your farmer well.

112 Bales and Snow

2009-01-28T11:20:00.005-05:00

Today it is snowing. Again. According to the National Weather Service, Albany has had 16 days of measurable snow out of 28 days so far. Looking at the window right now, it is snowing big, fluffy flakes.

Snow is a mixed blessing on the winter farm. It insulates the garden and trees, so roots can survive a bit better than without the snow. It also keeps mud season down to a reasonable 6 weeks in March/April. But snow does make the animals more "coop-bound" and they do get a little nutty. As of today, we have had snow on the ground since early December (right after T-giving). That snow has made moving around feed, hay, and water tougher too.

Down by the barn, you can make out 2 blue-tarped "chicken tractors", buried in snow and with a nice "snow hood" on top. These are stacked full of 2nd cutting haybales we bought en masse. 112 bales came in two loads one morning in late December.

Our Hay Man is Paul Molesky - he is a retired teamster who hays and runs his 70 cows on grass he can't harvest for hay. No waste there. Our relationship with Paul is pretty special - I found him 3 years ago through a notecard ad posted at the Agway. He had decent prices on hay, but we were nickel-and-diming, 12 bales at a time is all I can fit in my truck. He grows around 6 thousand squares bales of 2nd cutting, alfalfa, and some blends.

As our herd grew in the past two years, our needs have increased too. We are still small potatoes as customers go for Paul (maybe 250 bales per year for 17 dwarf goats), but he looks out for us. Paul had been talking about more calls from far way asking for hay - not pressuring us, just conversationally. This year we decided we were going to buy a hundred bales before Xmas (and then after the big Ice Storm it became after New Years) to take us through birthing season - 2nd cutting gets harder and harder to find. The last thing you want is a doe near the birthing date who gets cranky as you change her hay to 1st cutting.

Paul called us early one morning and said, "How about today?" Sure, and after all the fuss of unloading and packing bales into nooks, crannies, and piles as tall as the barn ceiling, we did it.

After the fact, we realized that Paul had sold us the very last of his 2nd cutting bales. He also sells to a new horse farm that eats up bales as quick as you blink - but he looked out for us.

That is what we are losing today - personal connections to the people that support our gardens and small farms. We depend on Paul for hay, on Agway for feed and minerals, on other goat farms for new genes, on heirloom seed companies for reliable seed, etc. The more we care about the people who work with us, the stronger our connections are. The better we all are.

Yea, Research I Can Get Behind

2008-06-20T18:52:00.003-04:00

Genetic Scientists Develop Sheep With Brain Of A Goat

Five for Friday: Taking A Breath

2008-06-20T12:48:00.008-04:00

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

2008-06-08T11:37:00.002-04:00

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?

2008-06-06T23:56:00.001-04:00

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

2008-06-06T11:48:00.001-04:00

Broad white breasted turks are messy and stupid compared to Slates.
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.
They eat a lot of feed too - much more than a comparably sized (older) chick.
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.
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

2008-06-04T17:51:00.014-04:00

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

2008-06-04T11:01:00.001-04:00

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

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

2008-06-04T10:31:00.006-04:00

"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

2008-06-01T10:36:00.003-04:00

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?

2008-03-28T18:02:00.004-04:00

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

2008-03-25T21:30:00.005-04:00

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

2008-03-24T11:12:00.003-04:00

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

2008-03-23T13:57:00.004-04:00

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

2008-03-21T12:14:00.005-04:00

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

2008-03-09T12:31:00.004-04:00

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

2008-03-05T21:29:00.002-05:00

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

The Shape of Goats To Come

2008-02-23T21:04:00.010-05:00

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

2008-02-13T22:39:00.005-05:00

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

2008-02-13T22:32:00.002-05:00

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)

2008-02-09T20:59:00.000-05:00

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

not a top tier breeder,
not in a region with established Nigerians,
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

2008-02-07T23:30:00.000-05:00

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?

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?
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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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

2008-02-03T16:29:00.001-05:00

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

2008-02-02T17:16:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-28T13:19:00.000-05:00

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'"

We are tied to it 24/7/365 and that is fine by us. "Perfectly sufficient, Siegfried"
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.
If it is possible, all animals will escape right within your sight - brazen buggers scaling the braces for the corner post.
Siegfried is right - Kidding time is the best season of the year.
Everyone cares for animals, at least a little.
We are all potential "Mrs. Pomphrey"s with an overly loved Tricky Wu.
We have buried our animals in a place we can visit.
Animals are often the main topic of conversation at the table.
We love them, we eat them, we respect them.
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.

2006-11-28T15:45:00.000-05:00

Boys in a box...

Boys now in the icebox... until we make room in the freezer and the canner.

2006-11-28T15:43:00.000-05:00

Don't hate me because I am beautiful, hate me because I photograph well even while napping.

2006-11-20T21:30:00.000-05:00

That's right, he is chromosomally just a boy

Ty was his shelter name, Eiley named him Beau. We couldn't agree upon a name, so we chose Ty-Beau. Or Taebo. Or sometimes TyTy (Bri) or Bobo (Eiley). Or in the middle of the night,

Upstairs: "Daddy/Mommy waaah"
Downstairs: "What's wrong?"
Upstairs: "Cat on the bed!!!"

So here he is, Mr Patient, himself. At 6 mos old, he is willing to be carted around repeatedly. Very Percy like.

What was that? Can I chase it? And playful as only an older kitten would be.

These wrappers make nice chase-y toys too. And super-tolerant of the kids poking him, carrying him, playing with him, etc.

2006-07-18T00:08:00.000-04:00

This piece of seaweed was very beautiful and very hard to leave behind - but Bri left it in the ocean to live out its life. And hopefully in a few years she will scuba dive and see its offspring.

Sand and water all over my face?!*!&! - I am as surprised as you!

This lobster meets the other lobster and the one that has a claw left wins, right Dad?

Ah, a bright future in minimum wage cashier work awaits them.

This climbing helment doesn't quite fit me. Yet.

Yes, I like putting my hands in cold water!

2006-07-02T23:19:00.000-04:00

Here it is - the new home of the chicks - bumped up from the chicken tractors to a hoop coop - made from 16 foot cattle panels.

Chicken wire all around to hold them in (held on with zip ties), tarp over the top to keep off the rain and sun (held on with bungie cords) And bungie cords to dangle the food and water. Now that is genius.

But wait, there's more! The door is a clip setup from those clips that fit inside cabinet doors - you know, the old cheap ones from the 1970s. But we had to come up with a way to stabilize the door laterally, the "poor man's door" of chicken stretched across the opening wanted to pop back. So, Carol screwed in some bottlecaps to keep the clips clipped. She is soooo smart.

2006-06-28T20:53:00.000-04:00

Download this photo in high resolution

These two names - can you pick them out from a sea of random letters? - these two names are the first words (other than Brianna) that Bri spelled on her own.

She asked before breakfast to organize the letters into color groups again. Then she asked to spell Lola. We got as far as the L by sounding it out and had to go find a Charlie and Lola book.

Then we sounded it out more and checked the letter choices, one by one, against the book cover. There was Lola.

Then, she wanted to spell Charlie - with less of the book's help. Our challenge was to find another L after she used two of them for Lola. Hooray to Carol for repurposing the 7.

Cat... bah. Dog... naw. How about Mom or Mommy? Nope. Ditto for Dad. My daughter spells Charlie and Lola.

Dick and Jane are eating their hearts out this very night.

2006-06-14T22:09:00.000-04:00

There he is, Mr Big Stinky...

There he is, Mr Escape Artist...

2006-05-29T12:31:00.000-04:00

2006-05-29T10:38:00.000-04:00

Mina hiding in the goat, reaching upward to nibble some hay from the hayrack.

Chambray on the milk stand. Not the most cooperative milker, she is stubborn and too smart for her own good. She should fit in here just fine :D

2006-04-14T20:41:00.000-04:00

From Dawnland: Phoebe, Doe #6

This is really not a great picture, but that on the right is Phoebe, the buck on the left is her brother. Phoebe's mom is Dotty, whose main claim to fame is a goofy ole' picture of her "smiling". Dotty is a great dam with a mixture of Goodwood on her pa's side and some crazy milking standards on her ma's side.

Phoebe's dad is Tabby L.

2006-04-14T20:37:00.000-04:00

From Dawnland: Jonquil, Doe #5

Jonquil is SweetPea's newest daughter - we loved Sweetpea from the get-go and when we saw that the doeling that was born and retained by the breeder we did the sad "cross another name off the list" face to each other.

But when Dawnland offered Jonquil to make room for does coming in from another herd, we jumped at the offer. This pic shows Jonquil about four or five days old. She takes after her mom in color and conformation. Bit early to say much about what she will be when she grows up. Maybe an astronaut. Capronaut?

Doesn't matter, she is cute enough!

2006-04-14T15:03:00.000-04:00

From Dawnland: Luna, Doe #4

Luna is a cross between Mona Lisa and Water Tabby - two amazing lines - we wanted a baby from this same cross this year, but couldn't get anywhere near. So we got the next best thing, one of their does from last year.

She is long and well-proportioned, the line of her back is also pretty nice. And best of all, she is very 'dairy', which means her skin has this certain pliability which goat people like.

Won't know that b/c she hasn't breed yet, but when she does her milking should be awesome

2006-04-14T14:58:00.000-04:00

From Dawnland: Erica, Doe #3

Erica is amazing - she has another great lineage from Caesar's Villa, a NC Nigerian farm that has some nice milkers and show goats too.

Her mom is a 7*D, which means she comes from 7 generations of recognized milkers. Woof.

She is nice and wide with awesome bones up front, good for easy birthing and with her dam's milking, she should be a great doe.

2006-04-14T14:55:00.000-04:00

From Moonspinner Farms: Nekoda (Cody), Buck #2

This is our second buck, Nekoda or Cody, who is scary cute looking here. One of the things we were told to watch out for was "don't fall for a cute buck with nice coloration, look for a good buck and then look for cute".
Cody is both - he has an impressively high judged score of his conformation and his up-and-down black just is too cute for words. He passes his coloring on to his kids easily too. Very nice.

Like Amador, he has an impressive lineage. But compared to the others, he is an "outcross", which is bafflingly some of the breeders we are buying from, but we are biologists and inbreeding is not the goal.

2006-04-14T14:47:00.000-04:00

From Dawnland: Amador, Buck #1

Here is Amador, this pic is when he is a few months old, today he is just 2 yrs old. He is our "Rosasharn" buck, which means he is in the line/style of Rosasharn (which is the most famous and oldest of the New England Nigerian Dwarf farms). Rosasharn bucks are smaller-boned and leans towards being longer but more compact than a typical buck.

Apparently, tho, he is a super-sweet buck and his lineage is crazy-good.

2006-04-10T23:07:00.000-04:00

From SM3Pines: Chambray, Doe #2

Chambray is a three year old doe who doesn't quite fit into SM3Pines future breedings, so Stacy offered us Chambray too. She has a pretty cool background - look at her pedigree, the letters in red are good things.

Chambray is a little more timid than Stacy's other does and misses out a bit at the feed trough, but from this pic of her preggers, you can see she does put on the weight pretty well. For some reason, we are both drawn to her.

We are going to go out to SM3Pines in late May to pick up Chambray and Mina and bring them home.

Wait until you hear about our options with Dawnland Farms' babies. Instant herd, just add cash and it can be yours! :D

2006-04-07T11:27:00.000-04:00

From SM3Pines: Mina, Doe #1

A doe was born!

This is a picture of Wilhemina, Mina for short, born at the SM3Pines farm in Canandaigua. Little thing, isn't she, just a couple of pounds and Stacy tells us she was born yesterday morning. Still a little wobbly on her feet but Stacy said that sorts itself out in a few days.

Love those moonspots, don'tcha? We do too.

Our two other crosses we were following didn't work out this spring - one doe had twin bucks and the other is a yearling that will breed this spring for the fall. And we need at least one other doe at home to keep Mina company.

Stacy is willing to part with another of her 3-yr old does, Chambray, who just isn't quite show quality. A good milker, but not perfect looking. We are going to work it out and bring Chambray home too. Should be right after Bri's b-day in early June! Time to finish our rearranging of Barn Thing, v7.0 and get the fencing up for the close paddocks.

Now, we just have seven more crosses to watch over the next three months :D

2006-03-27T21:39:00.000-05:00

Time to put some seeds in soil

It is still about 8 weeks from our last frost, but that means it is time to start those tomatoes and peppers.

So, here at Weathertop it is a family affair, some of us make the soil blocks, some sort seeds and some decorate the trays with stickers!

Here is Carol and Eiley sorting out which stickers mark the tray (this is how we map each of the five trays, but the kids think we are just down with stickers too).

2006-03-13T21:31:00.000-05:00

This is what it looked like to begin with:

And this is how it looks now

2006-02-13T21:03:00.000-05:00

And here is Muppet - curly hair and all. Did we mentin she is saucy and manipulative... someday she will turn 2 and it will get worse. Ai!

2006-02-13T21:01:00.000-05:00

Remember when she didn't have any hair at all for the longest time. Now we need a weed-wacker just to find her eyes. I think she might need to visit a hair salon :D

2006-02-13T20:57:00.000-05:00

Extreme Closeup on Brianna "chirpy" Chickadee-dee-dee

2006-01-23T20:34:00.000-05:00

Eiley says, "Cheeezzzittts....Cheeezzzittts, please"! Now make it whinier in your head and you have the situation.

We got about 6 inches of the nicest snowman-making snow you could ask for. A bit too much for the road-crews so we had a nice family day b/c Jamey was not willing to drive in this sticky slop.

But it was awesome sticky snow for snowmen. And unlike last year, the wind wasn't howling, just sheets of sticky snow (as Eiley's curl will attest).

2005-12-01T23:47:00.000-05:00

Chickens and Rooster, oh my...

2005-12-01T23:45:00.001-05:00

Cuddle Time - Cute Cute Cute

2005-12-01T23:40:00.000-05:00

HMMM - Are they dangerous or just cute in jammies?

2005-11-17T21:00:00.000-05:00

Why, o why, do I put up with these yammering humans?
Shove that stuffed animal in my face again and I may just... lean back and ignore you more.

2005-11-15T20:58:00.001-05:00

Taking a page from the Beatles songbook, here is "A Day in the Life Of Eiley"

Yow, Sister is a monkey! (with a toy warthog in her hand) We played hard, good thing the Romper Room has lots of cushy things to bounce off.
It was a nice day, so I went outside and ate a plastic animal while Mom and Dad cleaned and cleaned and cleaned the romper room.

And then Sister and I both decided to set up our "beds" outside
on the lawn while Mom and Dad finished up lunch

It was a good day. Bad nap after that, but a good day :D

2005-11-14T20:35:00.000-05:00

Kids and Cats: Or How Pancho/Fellini Learned to Love the Kid-Bomb

He left for 2 days and then returned: the prodigal (spayed) son. Now, he has to face the combined affectionate wrath of two kids under the age of four. He may survive.

Percy looks away - "the horror... the horror"

2005-11-14T20:30:00.000-05:00

Is Percy a mouser? Oh, Yes!

This is Percy coming back after a routine sortie outside. Yeah! Of course, it was from the front yard, not the barn, but give it time, I sez.

2005-11-09T21:52:00.000-05:00

Cats Cats Cats

We got cats again - we are in desperate need for a mouser out by the barn. Once we decided to do it, it seemed like options came pouring out of the woodwork. Holly found us a cat at the Petsmart, John/Jen's friend rescued strays from the streets of Troy, Don's dad had a cat that needed a home...

Ultimately, we decided to go to the shelter and found two. Yes, two. Cats not kittens. These names came from the shelter, they name them like we name hurricanes. No questions asked, please. We are trying to work in new names, but Bri is sorta set on them.

This is Fellini. 1 yr old, male, ready to mouse, I think. He took several swipes at the dogs to establish who is boss. Naia cowers behind us now. Mira wants to play. Caille doesn't know what to do when he starts growling at her. Yes, growling with his mouth closed. Sounds like a vacuum cleaner, resonating through the floor.

This is Percy, 3 yrs old, male, ready for your lap, but without the clawsy "making biscuits" thing. He is currently hiding under our bed, but he did enjoy hanging out on Bri's bed. Until I started shoveling out the food for the dogs. Apparently, he knows that sound.

I would have posted some more pics, but it was darkish in the house and the camera treats low light situations as a reason to go arty, blurry, out-of-focusey unless I use the flash. And neither cat likes the flash - "run away"!

2005-11-07T17:10:00.000-05:00

This is the main area that we store kids' toys now. The bookcases were supposed to be for our overflowing book problem, but they got repurposed pretty darn quick to basket holders.

And they make pretty awesome towers for our "castle" - the dollhouse. The white shelf gives a flat surface for las ninas to climb up and reach the third floor. So much for using that third floor for hiding the "third floor choke-ables". At least no one has fallen down off of it yet. Yet.