Farming in the shade

The first beans have been harvested. Don’t get too excited—these are southern peas that we grew in the garden to have (hopefully) enough seed to plant in the field in a year or two. They’re a black heirloom variety. We hand-pulled them and they will dry on a tarp for a few days. The truth is the rest of the beans are still very green, and the fields have standing water in spots. We’ve had a fair amount of rain over the last couple of weeks. We didn’t track it or add it up, as sometimes we just don’t want to know. More rain is predicted for the next few days. Again, don’t ask us for details, as we are trying not to look at the forecast too closely. At this point we don’t know if we will get a harvest. We hope so. Stay tuned! And if you are the praying sort, we’d appreciate prayers for some warm, dry weather, to finish off the beans and keep them from standing in the water. In the meantime, we will have lamb brats back in stock in the on-farm store Wednesday...

The topic of cheap food has been on our minds lately. Many people value what we do, but there is the inevitable comparison with grocery store prices. We see it at the market. We overhear the talk as people walk away. We discuss it with other vendors. These photos show the extra value that comes with the way we grow food. We are farming in a way that heals and sustains the land. When the soil is healthy, the plants, animals, and insects will thrive and be healthier themselves. When we eat this food, we will in turn be more healthy. We are working toward environmental sustainability. But a farm that is ONLY environmentally sustainable will not last. It must also be emotionally and physically sustainable—farming can be a demanding job. (Not sure we’ve figured this one out yet.) And there is also economic sustainability to consider. You can help with economic sustainability by buying what we grow and raise, even if it costs a little more. And you can buy fr...

Over the past few weeks we have been working the field that we weren’t able to plant with corn due to spring rains. A lot of fields in our area were not planted this spring and are now full of weeds. It is the nature of soil to produce plants. And if we don’t cultivate and intentionally plant certain plants, others will come and fill in. One of the things we can do for the soil on a year like this is to plant different species as cover crops. This both keeps the weeds at bay and allows us to experiment with crops and combinations of crops we haven’t grown before. This field was a pasture/hay field for many years, but next year it is slated to have beans planted. In an effort to get ready for that, we plowed and disced the field. We worked it several times, because established pasture does not go quietly. Once we were satisfied with the seedbed, we planted sorghum and peas in part of the field. The rest is planted with oats, peas, clover and turnips. This will hopefull...

The $450 operators manual we recently purchased for the combine that we’ve owned for 8 years has paid off already. We were able to find the problem and get the grain head hydraulics to work again. The first of the small grains are in the bin. This year we are harvesting four small grains--einkorn (an old variety of wheat), oats, barley, and rye. Much of the field drowned out in the Monsoon of Fall 2018 or the Monsoon of Spring 2019. But it looks like we will be able to harvest some of each of what we planted, and we're grateful for that.  For more on our combine woes through the years, search “combine”. It’ll make you feel better about your life, I promise. 

The problem du jour is nothing new. If you can’t afford new farm equipment (and really, who can?!), you buy what you can afford. And fix it when it breaks. Some of it is pretty specialized equipment which is only used once or twice a year. We try to maintain and care for the equipment after each use and before we fire it up for the next go-around. But we do have a saying for this part of farming: “Stuff only breaks when you use it.” Equipment can look good, start well, and run smoothly, but when it’s time to actually do the work, some little thing will go wrong. Right now it’s the wiring on relay switches in the combine. Right at wheat harvest, of course. With oats and rye waiting their turn. Yes, we have had our share of problems with this combine. The former owner used it hard, and it shows. Some have asked us why we don’t just buy a different combine. The answer is near the top of this post—go ahead, scroll up. I’ll wait. YouTube is good, provided the person making the video actu...

What great weather we’ve had this last week! We had rain over the weekend (and we didn’t lose power like half the people in West Michigan), and then cooler, drier air all week. We mowed more hay, and some small grain. More about that later, perhaps, if our experiment works. Today, in addition to cultivating the beans, we continued plowing the field that was SUPPOSED to be planted to corn. We will plant cover crops instead, in an effort to nourish and rest the soil. Moldboard plowing has fallen out of favor in recent years, but there is a time and a place for it. It’s another tool in our toolbox.  This time of year always includes a lot of tractor time. It’s even more intense this year, as everything is compressed into a shorter time frame by the Spring With Endless Rain.

This has been a hot week! We put up 450 small square bales in the heat Monday night. There was a good breeze—check out the first photo closely to see the flying hay. Wednesday afternoon, after a hot day at the markets, we brought the sheep in from the far pastures. In the relative coolness of the barn, we separated lambs from ewes. It was time to wean the lambs. Today is our annual audit for our organic certification. Wish us well—the certification process involves a LOT of paperwork and good record keeping. In between these main events, we’ve been plowing, cultivating bean fields, and caring for the animals. Wednesdays and Fridays our on-farm shop is open from 1-4 pm. Feel free to stop by for the best selection of cuts of beef. Also, the “buy 10 ground beef, get 1 free” special is still available at the farm store.

We added a sink to the entryway of our house during a spring remodel. So handy for lambing season and watering plants right up by the house and washing up before heading in the house. Today, after my dentist appointment, I stopped by a little shop in a nearby small town. This vase called my name. Those who have seen our entryway will know I have a thing for red and white enamelware. More later on the remodel, perhaps. We continue to cut hay, ted hay, rake hay, bale hay, and bring the hay bales in. All with a side dish of fixing equipment. We run out of steam most nights about 9:00, which just leaves time for showers before we fall into bed exhausted. But we’re still grateful for all the work we can accomplish!

We have spent the last few days planting beans as fast as we can. We put the last of the beans in the ground just before the 4th of July, and with this hot weather, some of those planted first are already poking their little heads out of the soil. We are so grateful! Here are the varieties we planted: Arikara Yellow Black Turtle Calypso Dapple Grey Green Flageolet Hidatsa Red Hutterite Soup  Jacob's Cattle Jacob's Cattle Gold Lina Cisco Bird Egg Marrow Painted Lady Pinto Spanish Tolosana Tiger Eye Valentine Yellow Indian Woman Zebra And we planted a few experiments--a couple of new bean varieties, as well as some lentils and southern peas.  We have been haying as fast as we can, in between pop-up rain showers and equipment failures. The hay is very coarse, but it's hay! It feels very good to be working again, instead of just waiting and worrying. 

See this picture of diversity? Several species are in bloom, while others are still vegetative. The grasses have mature seeds. The red and white clovers are in full bloom. Birdsfoot trefoil has started blooming, and the alfalfa is in bud. Why does this matter? With a monoculture, the sheep and cattle would have a choice of one food source. If it happened to be in a later stage of growth, there might not be enough protein for the animals’ needs. But a multi-species crop gives choice of forage for different stages of nutrition. Next time you’re near a pasture (or in your lawn!) take note of how many different species you see. 

We have recently been encouraged by the kindness of good friends and total strangers, both. Thank you, all, for your comments, shares, good wishes, and prayers. We wrote about our struggles with the wet weather in part because we feel we have a relationship with many of you. We consider you friends, and friends need to let each other know what is going on. We also shared because we know that many of you aren’t familiar with the risks of farming. Each year we take our blood, sweat and tears, as well as most of our remaining money, and we bury it in the ground. We hope and pray that everything works out so that we get all that money we buried back. And we also hope that the blood, sweat and tears fertilize it and make it yield an increase. That increase or harvest is what we convert to money over the winter and the next summer while the next set of crops grow. This money is what we use to pay the bills, fix things, take a small salary, and save a little to bury in the gr...

Well, folks, we have zero acres of corn and dry beans planted so far this year. And no hay cut for the winter feed for our cattle and sheep.  We still have a chance on the hay, but every day that passes means the quality goes down. We still have a chance at the dry beans. But there is the little detail of standing water in the fields. The window for planting corn has closed. So there will be no corn crop this year. We have had crop failures and catastrophes before. Usually one thing at a time, though. We are trying to stay hopeful while still thinking about what Plan B looks like. God is faithful.

This is the time of year that many veggie farmers are offering sign-ups for CSAs. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture (read more  here ), and this membership structure offers a win-win situation for both the farmer and the member. The farmer receives income at a traditionally low-income time of year from membership fees—money that can be used to purchase seeds or pay a greenhouse heating bill, or just keep the lights on and everyone fed and clothed until the next paycheck comes. And the member is assured that all summer long he/she will eat well, usually at a lower cost than he/she would have paid to buy all those veggies individually.  Our farm is quite different from most market farms. We don’t raise veggies, and what we do raise is available off and on for much of the year. We continue to go to the markets all winter, as weather and our energy levels allow. So we aren’t so much in need of a CSA model for timely income. But we look at our veggie farmer frien...

Meet Liesl (a.k.a. "weasel"). She is our daughter's cat, and makes herself at home in our home. She is wild and full of weirdness. But she also knows how to relax. I need to learn about relaxing. What do farmers do in the wintertime? Care for animals. Fill out applications for the upcoming market season. Order seed. Look back at the past year and plan for the next one. Struggle with the cold. Gather everything needed to have the taxes done. Catch up on website work. Relax. And maybe blog. 

A year (or more) ago a customer/friend from the Sweetwater Market eagerly thrust a book into my hands. She said, "You will like this book. Here, read this chapter on beans." So, while I should have been paying attention to my customers, I was surreptitiously devouring Chapter 9, titled "How to Live Well." I was hooked both by the writing style and the author's approach to cooking. I have assembled meals (for better or worse) for most of my adult life. But you could hardly call it cooking. Growing up I spurned my mother's offers to teach me the ways of the kitchen. (Sorry, Mom. I really was a pain.) And that lack, along with my careful approach to most of life, has made me stay in the shallow part of the pool--the place with predictable results. 1 cup of this + 1 pinch of that = something that would fill bellies. I came home from market that day and placed the book on my  PaperBack Swap  wish list. I use PaperBack Swap as a way to slow down my acquisiti...

Last weekend the lambing season of our larger group of ewes began. We breed a small group of ewes early so that we can have a few lambs available for our visitors at Shearing Day. But the bulk of the flock starts lambing in early April. Generally it's a bit warmer by then, although yesterday we had snow... These are the ladies in waiting. (Note: It's hard to get good photos in our dark barn backlit by sunlight.) This is the group that The Farmer is scanning each time he goes out to check for lambs. He looks and he listens. There is a special "baaaa" that we only hear from the ewes during labor and delivery and for the first few days of the lambs' lives. When we hear that, we look harder. We look for a ewe standing or laying off by herself, or one who has her head turned back to look at her stomach. We look for lambs already born. If someone is in active delivery, we don't move her until she's finished and the lamb is cleaned off.  The Farmer wil...

In preparation for Shearing Day, we set the shop up to house all our products and 3-5 demonstrators. This year we had people demonstrating needle felting, spinning and sock knitting. Most of the 500 visitors who came also took the time to walk down the driveway to the shop to see the demonstrators and the wool (and other farm) products we have for sale.  This barn was the original chicken coop on the farm, and a few years ago we took the flat roof off and built a second story on top. You can read more about that process by clicking here for all the "barn renovation" posts.  We sell roving and combed top for needle felters and spinners. Many spinners have not had the opportunity to spin the wool from Polypay sheep. They are pleasantly surprised at the loft and sheen in our wool. Our unique wool socks are popular to give as gifts, and are a full-circle "Made in Michigan" product. We care for the sheep, send the wool to a Michigan mill to be ma...

This year's Shearing Day was warmer than usual. And, thanks to a dry spell, there was no MUD! What a gift. Just over 500 people attended our Shearing Day this year, and I think most of them had a good time.  Here are some of the ewes before shearing. Sometimes I ask the kids what it would feel like to wear the same clothes for a whole year without washing them. The outside of the fleece is fairly dirty, but the inside is very nice and clean! Our shearer worked alone this year, and did a great job. Timothy has a strong back and his own shearing equipment. We hire him to do our shearing, and he travels all over the state of Michigan to shear on a regular basis. He is an award-winning shearer (did you know there are sheep-shearing competitions in many places in the world?) and has traveled internationally to compete and to shear sheep. Want to see the world? Become a sheep shearer. Our capable skirting crew sorted off the wool that was extra dirty or full of h...

This morning it is raining. We are glad for that, as it's been a bit dry lately. But that was good, too, because it allowed us to get the oats planted on time for the first time in several years. We worked the sand field that had beans in it last year several times over a two-week period in preparation for planting.  This is the "new" tractor we purchased last year. We sold two of our older tractors that were pretty tired in order to be able to buy this one.  Oats are drilled into the ground using the implement behind the tractor. Hopefully, the oats will come up thick and in very narrow rows that will eventually blanket the field. We harvest the oats to use as a feed for some of the ewes when they are in the late stages of pregnancy and sometimes during lactation.

We grow Wapsie Valley corn, an open-pollinated variety that dates (at least) back to the mid-1800s and has its roots in Iowa. We have found it to be much higher in protein than the hybrids we used to grow, and this is the corn that we have ground for our corn meal and grits/polenta.  Typically, we harvest the corn with our combine. This past fall, we had what amounted to a monsoon.  Eventually the ground became so saturated that we couldn't use the combine anymore. So we harvested the remainder of the corn the old-fashioned way. A gentle public service announcement: Please do not tell a farmer that his food costs too much. Either buy it, or don't buy it. You probably have no idea what has gone into the production of that food... Save Save