Farming in the shade

The bean harvest of 2014 was not great. So last summer we rotated between three farmers markets, and didn't have too much trouble moving the small quantity of beans we needed to market. The bean harvest of last fall, however, was much better. We continued to rotate between three markets all winter long (some of them outside!). But early this summer, we realized that we needed to work a little harder to move all these beans. We added two new markets to the mix, and now we need a Franklin Planner (an old-fashioned kind of scheduling app that uses paper and a pen) to keep us knowing where we are coming or going. With the great help of our parents, we cover five markets. The Holland market is an every Saturday market. The Fulton Street market (GR) is an every other Saturday market, as is Sweetwater Local Foods market in Norton Shores. New to the mix this year are Kalamazoo (every other Saturday) and South Haven (as often as we can get there--generally every other Saturday and mo...

Yesterday we moved the cattle from one pasture to another--a total move that had to be close to half a mile. It was a hot day, one of many hot days this summer all strung together in a row. If you've ever picked a field of green beans, or hoed a field of pickles, or followed a potato digger, lobbing the freshly-unearthed taters into a nearby receptacle, you'll know what this summer feels like. You look up from what you're doing and think, "Didn't I make any progress at all? The end is still so far off..." And then you realize that once you reach the end of your row, you will turn around and start back across the field to where you started. That's what this summer feels like. Are we there yet? We watch the weather, hoping for a break in the heat, or the relief and refreshment brought by rain. People comment to us: "This is what we wished for in February!" And they drive off to their cottage or the beach, while we move our animals and pra...

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,      and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,      the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,      the Spirit of counsel and might,      the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.  And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. --Isaiah 11:1-3 Save Save Save Save

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...

Spring is here, finally. For a few days we skipped over spring and headed straight for summer. But now we are safely back in spring. The barn is overfull of sheep. The cows are nibbling the sacrifice pasture they've wintered in to death. (A sacrifice pasture is one that will be tilled up and planted to something else, so you don't really care that it gets overgrazed and ruined.) Speaking of ruined, we like to give the pastures a head-start on the animals. Spring growth is phenomenal, but the pastures have to be to a certain stage before you turn the animals loose on them, or they will be stunted for the season.  This pasture is not ready yet.  This pasture is getting close. We will let the sheep out this Friday, April 29, at 4:30 pm. If you'd like to stop out and watch this annual rite of spring, feel free to come. We are at 13275 Blair Street in Holland, Michigan.

The lambs have been coming in fits and spurts. It's been a good year, but not without some losses. Where there is life, there is also death.  About three days ago we had a burst of babies, and one lamb was not accepted by his mother. The Farmer has tried several different scenarios, including grafting this lamb onto another ewe. Sheep aren't very open to the concept of adoption. If it's not their lamb, they don't want anything to do with it. So this little one has been a bottle lamb. The Farmer made sure it got the colostrum--the first milk--that all lambs need to live. Since then, it's been drinking lamb formula out of a garage sale baby bottle with the hole in the nipple cut a bit larger.  This morning a yearling, a first-time mom, needed help with delivering her single stillborn lamb. The Farmer assisted with the birth, and realized that this was the perfect opportunity to graft the bottle lamb onto this young ewe. But remember, sheep aren't real...

The past few days have been rather mixed , weather-wise. Very little of our mixed weather has been pleasant. But when babies are ready, they come, even if the weather is not great. Some of us believe that babies come especially when the weather isn't great.  This little guy was born a day before the snow. At least he had a chance to get acclimated to his new surroundings in two steps: 1) Outside world, decent weather. 2) Outside world, snowy weather. But this little guy--calf #2--was born during the snow that came this past weekend. This picture was taken during a lull. We got more snow after this. His mama had the sense to drop him on a pile of hay, fortunately. Since then, we've had sheep delivering lambs left and right. Fortunately for them, they are in the barn. This ewe is delivering her first lamb of the year. And about 30 minutes later, she has finished delivering all three of her lambs. This is a busy time for The Farmer, but he tends to clear...