Farming in the shade

Now that most of the sheep are out on pasture, The Farmer has begun cleaning out the barn. The bedding is packed down very solidly, and so the first step is to scoop it out of the barn and bring it outside to place it in the manure spreader.  Once the spreader is full, he turns it on, and the spreader spews it everywhere, breaking it up into smaller pieces. Stand back! He loads it into the mixer wagon, which beats it up some more. He opens the side gate on the mixer wagon, and the compost travels up the conveyer into the invessel composter. The composter slowly turns and aerates the manure and straw, allowing it to heat up and do its thing. The constant turning of the drum makes for a high-quality, consistent product. After 3 or 4 days in the composter, The Farmer takes the compost out of the drum and piles it up outside. It then ages for about a year before we sell it. All compost is not created equally. Our compost is made from sheep manure and straw beddi...

We've been composting at Shady Side Farm for about 15 years. We were composting before compost was cool. Though, to be honest, compost has always been cool. If you'd like increased soil fertility, biology and organic matter levels in your flower beds, your veggie gardens, or on your farm fields, please consider using our compost. This manure-based compost has been aged a year and is ready to use right now. The Farmer will be available for two Saturdays in April to load your compost and explain how to use it, including application rates. Tomorrow is the first Saturday, April 4, from 9 - 3. We will also host a Compost Day on April 18, from 9 - 3. Compost is available in (your own) 5-gallon buckets or by the loader scoop in your truck or trailer. Email us at shadysidefarmmichigan@gmail.com for directions to the farm or answers to other questions.

What do farmers do in the wintertime, anyway? Pay taxes. Fill out organic paperwork. Order seed and nutrients for the spring planting. Attend commodity and board meetings. Rest a little. Take a vacation (unless you're an animal farmer). Milk cows for other farmers while they take a vacation. Knit socks. Weave rugs. Go to year-round, indoor farmers markets to sell food and fiber. Fix and rebuild broken things. This morning, as we left a breakfast meeting on social media (yes, really), The Farmer got a phone call. He tossed me the keys, and I drove home so that he could talk without distraction. You see, The Farmer is a mini-expert on composting. And people get to know that, and call him. And all the things that he's learned over the years, he gives freely to others. This morning, as I drove, listening quietly to him tell an Amish farmer why windrow composting would probably be his best option (it was because of the straw bedding), I was grateful. All those people who poured know...

After the delivery truck leaves, it's time to push the sawdust in, out of the weather. The Farmer starts making a ramp by going up and down the pile of sawdust repeatedly. It takes a while, but eventually, something like a ramp starts to form. Then The Farmer starts scooping up the dust and moving it way back in there, using the ramp. He tries to keep it away from the connecting door (to the right of the skidsteer in the photo) between the sawdust holding area and the main part of the compost facility. It's hard to open a door that's got a large pile of sawdust against it. In the interest of safety (since I don't want anyone to worry), The Farmer is in a skidsteer with a rollcage. He's got a seatbelt on, and even ear protection. He's as safe as he can be, considering what he's doing. Farming has long been in the Most Dangerous Jobs list, and we don't intend to add to the statistics.

Every month or so, we take in a load of sawdust. Sawdust is an integral part of our compost production, and so we purchase it from a local pallet manufacturer. They have to truck it all of 4 or 5 miles to get to our farm. Can't get it much closer than that! The trucks they use to haul sawdust come with a walking floor. Slats on the floor move back and forth to push the sawdust out of the box trailer. The trucker pulls ahead a little as the load comes off. When we first built our compost facility, we had no concept of hauling in sawdust by the semi-load. At that time we were getting wood flour from a local furniture manufacturer by the dumpster load. Quite a bit smaller than semi trailers. But the truckers are good, and can maneuver very well even in tight situations. A quick sweep job (might as well get everything you pay for!) and the delivery part of the job is done. More later about what happens after delivery.

We don't have cable TV, but if we did, I think I'd be a big fan of Mike Rowe's Dirty Jobs. I like how Rowe has brought exposure and (even) honor to those who have important but often overlooked jobs. Besides, it's much more fun to WATCH a dirty job than to DO one. One of the stinkiest jobs on our farm has to do with manure. Manure happens. We compost nearly all of it--some through the invessel system, and some we windrow compost. After the sheep are let out to pasture in the spring, the winter manure pack is piled up in the sheep barn in a long pile. Every few days, the pile must be turned/moved, and water must be added. Air and water are important parts of the composting process. A pile just left to dry out will stagnate and stop composting. You can see the steam coming off the pile in the photo below. What you can't see is the smell! Turning the pile is about a half-day job for two people. One gets to play with the skidsteer, and the other stands with a hose, spr...

We know it's spring when the load limits finally come off the roads and we can get a couple of semi trucks in for loading out the compost. Here the driver takes advantage of the wait time to check his oil, maybe? We rent a loader from a excavator friend and The Farmer gets to play with it while he's loading. Not worth owning one ourselves just to use it a couple of times a year. Must be the oil level was okay--now the driver's going for a walk. Nice day...

We recently shipped out more compost. It's important for us to have the holding pad empty in the fall. The pad needs to hold all the winter compost until the load limit restrictions come off the roads in the spring. The weather forecast is for a long, snowy winter. Even without a long, snowy winter, there's no chance of shipping compost out until spring. Too muddy to drive the trucks back there. It's one more way we're getting ready for winter.

I don't have time this morning to go into the advanced math (and science) that goes into composting. But it really can be as simple as the formula above. And, if you don't have manure and sawdust, you can substitute other things. Nitrogen (green stuff) + Carbon (brown stuff) + Time = Compost. You might have to fiddle with the C:N ratio, and add air (turning) and/or moisture, but you'll get there from here. Here's a load of carbon being brought to the farm. For years we've used the sawdust from a local furniture manufacturer as our carbon source. It's been (essentially) free, and a great option for us AND them. Companies like to talk about zero level waste streams and the fact that they're involved in green initiatives. But with economic hardship comes necessary cost cutting. One of the direct results of this cost cutting is bits of white plastic throughout the sawdust. Now tell me--who would want to use compost with plastic in it? After lots of discussion, w...

All year long we make compost. It cures or "finishes" on large piles on a gravel pad out back. Every spring and fall we ship it out so that other farmers (mostly sustainable-type farmers) can use it on their crop land. The Farmer rents an excavator for the day and gets to play with some really big Tonka toys. The drivers cover the loads (we ship out in double-bottomed semis) and head out. Another sure sign of spring.

I've been waiting to blog about our composting operation until I have good photos. Most days--all of them, so far, in fact--it doesn't occur to me to run out and take photos of the composting process. Recently, however, our farm was featured in a magazine. And there are some pretty good photos along with the article. So I thought maybe I'd just link to the magazine article and let you look at the photos there...