Farming in the shade

This flat roof coop has been a chicken coop, a storage barn, a wood shop, a weaving studio, and maybe more. Most Independence Days at dusk we pop popcorn, apply bug spray, prop a ladder against the barn, park our lawn chairs on the roof like bumpkins and watch the fireworks in all directions. It's a family tradition. Gotta be there to really appreciate it. Over the last 6-9 months, we've tossed about the idea of updating and enlarging this barn. We discussed the possibility of an apartment for farm help, a bean storage room (climate-controlled), and an updated space for a small farm shop. We finally decided to go for it, and over the summer have tried to squeeze in a major renovation project in our already-too-busy days. Fortunately, we have lots of family members who can think of nothing more fun than troweling, sawing, and hammering. The flat roof had to come off. The addition is completely UP, as in a second story. As the roof came off, some of the boards were...

After the big storm , we had three different tree services come in and give us bids. The verdicts of the first two were identical: chop and grind. The third service saw more hope. Repeated trimmings and fertilization might pull the trees through. I was game, but The Farmer's pragmatism won. There really wasn't much left of the front tree, and the best part of the back tree was intertwined with the power lines. After trimming away the broken bits and trimming away from the power lines, there would be very little left.  So chop and grind it was.  If it weren't enough to lose three perfectly healthy, very old trees (and one hollow one), we suffered more damage as they came down. The healthy ash tree at the edge of the driveway was a casualty of this tree's fall. And our farm sign was slightly damaged in the process as well. The tree service guys took out both the broken and another diseased ash tree, for free. Our sign is still maimed.  Slowly, the...

The clouds this morning were interesting enough to snap a picture of. Apologies for the lack of quality of the picture--it was quite early, and still rather dark.  We are receiving regular rains, now, which is so much better than too wet or too dry. The beans are coming along nicely, but we had to till under the vast majority of our single corn field. This spring's relentless rains didn't allow us to adequately prepare the field for planting. The weeds took over, and some of the corn didn't even take root due to the extreme wetness. So instead of 3 fields of corn, we have 1/5th of a field. Corn is a cash crop for us, as we feed very little to our animals. So things might be a little tighter for us next year, when there is no corn to sell. Farming is an exercise in trusting God. We have never had a perfect year. Good years? Yes. But they are sprinkled in among the not-so-good years. There are no guarantees in farming, or in life. I guess the trusting that comes w...

Today we had the third tree guy out to assess the damage and give us a bid. The other two tree guys are wonderful at what they do--but they suggested we take all the damaged trees down. That is not what I wanted to hear. How will it be Shady Side Farm without those big silver maples? So I called a third tree guy. We are waiting to hear back from him. We are also waiting to hear back from contractors, who are apparently busy with other things. We are busy with other things, too, so they don't get reminded much. So, even though the yard is mostly cleaned up, the house still looks like it was in the center of a minor battle. And our crushed grill was called into service just yesterday. We had to prop it up on a block of wood (former landscape timbers) to keep it level. I can't decide if the fact that we are so desperate for grilled lamb brats that we would use a destroyed propped-up charcoal grill is pathetic or comical. Carry on, soldier.

95% of Michigan's farms are single family operated and/or family partnerships. Of the few farms structured as corporations, 99% of those are family-owned and involve multiple generations and family members. For instance, our farm is structured as a corporation. We do this because it's the best idea for our situation, tax-wise. Our farm has one paid employee, and several unpaid volunteers. So, while there is a lot of talk about "corporate" farms, be sure you understand that corporate doesn't necessarily equal huge and faceless.

This year has been almost perfect for our rye crop. Plenty of rain in the spring and early summer, and then dry at harvest time. We harvested the small field in a couple of hours, reaping around 200 bushels total. Enough for seed for future cover crops, and perhaps a bit to sell. The combine makes harvesting so easy compared to the stories I've read about cutting and stacking sheaves and operating threshing machines. The combine cuts the plant off about a foot above the ground, and pulls it in. The grain is separated from the shaft of the plant (straw) inside the machine. The grain goes in a holding area in the combine, and the straw is deposited in windrows behind the combine. When the grain holding area is full, we empty into a nearby gravity flow wagon.  The straw is good for animal bedding. Soon after harvesting started, we started up the baler. Two people are all it takes to fill the wagons with straw bales, but a few more are helpful to put them up in th...

Friday started out uneventfully enough: send The Farmer off to market, move sheep, mow thistles in pasture, bag beans, cultivate. Late in the afternoon, The Farmer returned from market and parked in back, as there was a contractor's big pickup truck in the drive. Eventually, the contractor left, and The Farmer pulled the car around and put it in the garage. A couple of us got busy replenishing his bean supply for the next day. The shepherd girl was cultivating the bean field using the tractor, and suddenly the fire pager went off with an emergency. The Farmer/Firefighter roared off in the van which had been parked in front of the garage. It started raining, and we laughed watching my father-in-law carry a large bag of beans across the back yard trying not to get them wet. Soon, our daughter ran across that same back yard, soaked from being out on the tractor. Suddenly the wind picked up. We huddled in the garage, and I quickly reached for the button to close the garage door. ...