Pig - Breeding successful, only time will tell

With the box’s arrival at the office last week came several comments and jokes from my colleagues.  Was I going to play soft music, did she get a nice dinner first, and EWWW were among them.  I hadn’t gotten a call back from the veterinarian and although I joked back, I was genuinely concerned about how well this was going to go.  I had done the research and it didn’t look all that difficult, but I was still worried that I had just thrown a couple hundred dollars out the window.  That is certainly an amount of cash that this farm and its caretaker cannot just toss.

Saturday morning I went to the farm store and looked up and down the aisles for lubricant.  Well they don’t sell swine lubricant in anything less than a one gallon jug!  Not knowing whether something for people would work just as well on a pig, I have plenty left over.

I had decided to wait until Little man’s father got home in case she didn’t want to stand still.  I didn’t want to worry about where Little man was while I was attempting to ‘work’ on the business end of a 600 lb. sow.  Allegedly if the pig is truly in heat, they will stand board stiff when you put weight in the middle of their backs as if they were prepared to take the weight of a boar.  If my calculations on her heat cycle were correct, I would have nothing to worry about.

Little man gave her a sweet muffin while I went behind her, cleaned her up, and lubed the inseminating rod.  She stood almost completely still.  When she decided I didn’t belong back there Little man’s father leaned in the middle of her back – she stopped moving completely. 

Like many other things on the farm that I have never attempted before, I was amazed at how easy it was.  All the contingencies had been pre-planned and thankfully didn’t need any of them.  Saving a a few dollars by not having the veterinarian out to the farm was an additional bonus.  If Pig doesn’t go into heat on the 26^th, then we will know that it took.

Got milk? Not from this farm for a while!

I posted to Facebook yesterday about dairy goats - as I look at my grocery cart and see so much of my cart filled with diary products, I wonder if I should get a lactating animal to offset some of the costs of dairy at the store.  Being the thorough researcher that I am, its off to the library for books on the subject, talking to friends/neighbors/mentors, and perusing the internet reading stories and looking for advice before I take on such a big adventure.  Each time I think about adding a cow, (July 2012 and this week) I look back at the following answer which I found a couple of years ago.  As much as it could be valuable to our farm - until I am ready or able to make this kind of commitment- there will be no dairy cows/goats. 

The cow is not going to supply you with milk for less than you are paying at the grocery store.

Besides that, think about getting 3-5 gallons of milk a DAY from the cow....what are you going to do with all that milk?

As a little experiment, I sugest doing this. Buy yourself some books on home dairy cows, and buy yourself a little stuffed cow.

Do this for one month straight:

1. Go out every morning at 5AM, and get your stuffed cow out of the pasture. Lead your stuffed cow to where you are going to milk her. Now sit on a stool for 30 minutes with your stuffed cow, and read your books. This is the minimum amount of time a beginner would spend milking. It does not matter the weather, or if you are sick, or have an important meeting. NOTHING else happens before the cow is milked!
2. Now put your stuffed cow back in the pasture. Take your buckets of invisible milk (you didn't forget the buckets did you?) inside, and get them properly cooling. Just putting them into the fridge is not good enough. Your books will tell you all about how to properly handle the raw milk.
3. Now you can change clothes, shower, and get on with your day. Be sure you are home at 5pm sharp! Go out and get your stuffed cow again, and repete the entire process.

I'm sure you think I'm being a smart a$$, but I'm not. Honestly doing this is going to give you some idea what an impact on your life a cow is going to have. She needs to be milked twice a day, 12 hours appart, NO MATTER WHAT. You can be sick as death with the flu....cow still needs to be milked. Doing this exercise with your stuffed cow, is only going to give you a tiny fraction of the work a real cow will involve....but it will be a reality check, when you find out you cannot go on vacation, to a school function with your children, or work overtime....because the cow need to be milked.
 
I'm going to answer a couple of the questions you asked:

Vet care....you need to learn how to give shots, and worm the cow yourself, as well as trimming her hooves.

If you need a Vet present for the cows delivery, send her off to market to be butchered. No I'm not kidding, and no I'm not a cruel person. She is going to cost you WAY more time, money and trouble in the long run than she is worth, if she cannot deliver a calf all on her own.

A lot of family milking cows are only breed every two years. Milk production drops offf some in the second year, but you probably do not need 3-5 gallons of milk a day anyway.

A good family milk cow, who's well cared for will live 20-25 years. A commercial dairy cow is lucky to see her 5th birthday.

In all honesty, if you want milking animals, serriously consider looking into dairy goats. They will give a much more reasonible amount of milk. Another plus with dairy goats is they cannot kick your face off (yes, I mean the skin of your face clean off and laying on the ground).   I've seen (in person) a farriers face kicked clean off, and laying on the ground (by a horse). I've seen a woman who's lower jaw and cheek bone on one side were nearly gone (totally caved in) from a cow kick.

My Great Grandmother spent 12 hours in a manger, holding the horns of a formerly friendly cow, who very suddenly decided she wanted to kill her. It was 12 hours before some got home. Are you physically strong enough to do that?

By the way, you do not have to pasturize your milk like another poster stated. Raw milk is delicious, and very healthy for you. It must just be handled correctly, so bacteria does not grow in it.
 ~Garnet

Homesteading/Farming over 20 years

Original post found here in the answer section

Fruit trees

Earlier this week I was gifted with an unplanned day off from work – I forgot that Town Meeting Day is a state holiday in Vermont.  The weather was an unseasonably cool 10 degrees with a light breeze, but the sun was shining.  I headed out to the backyard with my big snow boots, pruners and loppers and had at them fruit trees.  There are hundreds of how to prune your tree guides out there so I will not regurgitate the how.  Fall and winter are the perfect times to prune your fruit trees.  Pruning keeps the trees healthy and improves their overall quality and productivity.  People have known this for years, but it was only last year that I saw the results first hand.

The spring after I moved into the family farmhouse my father sent us three fruit trees.  Pathetic looking little things, they arrived as bare root twigs in a cardboard box, barely protected from the elements with small little plastic bags tied around their roots to keep the moisture in.  I thought he was nuts for ordering fruit trees since we have forty or more varieties of apple tree on this farm, but who am I to question.  I dutifully dug three holes and planted three, lifeless looking twigs.  Fertilized and watered and protected from pests the little twigs sprouted a few leaves and a couple of branches the first year.

After that I didn’t pay them much mind.  I sprayed them a couple times a year to keep the worst of the pests at bay, but it seemed to be a losing battle with the Japanese beetles.  Dad was up to visit in the fall of 2011 and asked me if I had ever pruned these trees?  I confessed that I hadn’t dared because I didn’t want to kill them.  We discussed whether they had flowered, what if any fruit they had produced and what pest problems they were having.  He took a couple of branches off the first tree, told me to repeat the process on the next two and we should have a better showing the in 2012. 

The flowers that spring were gorgeous and plentiful.  Then there was the late frost; all of the trees had already budded and begun to flower, it hurt the apple industry significantly that year.  Dad said they looked good but that I wasn’t being aggressive enough.  Last winter I armed myself with knowledge – books, magazine articles, the Internet and advice from actual, real people.  Some of the older locals told me I was nuts trying to prune them trees they had been neglected for far too long, they don’t have a chance of good production any more.  I told them that Dad had sent me some baby trees a couple years ago; ‘Now why’d he go ‘n do that?  There plenty o’ trees on that farm.”  In talking with several folks I found someone a little closer to my age and a little less set in their ways to tell me that being a LITTLE more aggressive would be good.  The worst thing I could do is have a bad year and then I knew that I had to a lot more gentle the following winter.  We had a bumper crop of plums, only 2/3 of which I lost to some kind of worm in the middle.  A sad crop off apples – four I think – but they were big, beautiful, delicious baking apples.  And no pears – this is the tree that I thought I had over done it – I didn’t go far enough.

I am still learning and am sure that someone with more experience would have done a much better job, but it worked last year, we’ll see how well it works for 2014.  This weekend I am mixing up a batch of homemade dormant oil spray to see if I can eradicate them pesky worms.  The few plums we had last summer were juicy and delicious, this year the bugs will not get so many!

2014 Planning

This is the time of the year when the planning for the farm begins/continues in earnest.  As we close December I look out at all the things that didn't get done.  The roof never made it back onto the greenhouse this fall; many tools and flower pots now sit under three to five inches of snow, two inches of ice and today's predicted two to four inches of new snow.  The same holds true for the lawn tractor, some tractor attachments and so much more.  Too many good tools and equipment now sit under snow and ice because we did not make the time to get them under cover.  Clean up projects remain on the list which should have been completed this fall but will now wait until Spring.  Attempts and efforts were made at the end of November and earlier this month, but too much remains outside.  Returning to full-time, off-farm employment in September brought fall preparations to a complete halt.  With high temperatures next week forecast to be below zero, it is looking like reclaiming these items might be a ways off. 

I could sit here and lament about all the things that weren't accomplished or I could pull up my big girl panties and take steps to ensure that it doesn't happen again.  Choosing the latter, I reached out to my local library for a book by Cynthia Bombach.  The Complete Homestead Planner takes all of the tasks and chores from around her homestead and breaks them up into a month-by-month to-do list.  An electronic version of this book is readily down loadable on line but I am an ink on paper kind of girl.  In New England ice storms like the one this past week I don't need to worry about a battery dying.  At the very least I hoped it might be a starting point.

What it did do was make me think about the whole farm.  This past year I have been putting out fires which I started for myself by taking on too many projects and not having a firm grasp on the time each would take especially with Little man in tow.  Laying things out over the span of a year and incorporating tasks into a monthly to-do list has allowed me to see, on paper or computer screen, the big picture.  Looking at some months, I can see that there aren't enough hours in the month to accomplish all that is listed there.  Some of those jobs will need to be reallocated.  This book was also written with heartiness zone 5-6 in mind.  Northwestern Vermont is located in zone 3-4 requiring a few changes in planting dates, seed starting dates, winter tire change-over dates, etc.

I could have done what Bombach did in her book all on my own and for that reason I would not recommend purchasing this book.  A trip to or request from your local library would be sufficient to get an grasp on what you need to look at for your farm or homestead.  There is also a lot of repetition in here as some chores you need to tackle monthly if not more frequently.  And, this is definitely not a how-to manual, it is exactly what it says, a planner.  A handy guide for beginners, those thinking about jumping into homesteading or farming from their perches in the city or someone like me who has let too many years of grand ideas get the best of her; this is certainly not for the established farm or homestead where things are running smoothly.

Over the next month I will refine the list for our scaled down farming ventures, incorporate some projects that require immediate attention and delete some that are not feasible given my time and budget.  As I look over my 2014 plan I realize that if I had sat down and created a business plan before planting thousands of Christmas trees or increasing the number of chickens in my flock, I probably wouldn't now be stepping back, reeling in and starting over. 

Lesson learned!

Sleep escapes me

When I came home from work, very early this morning, I knew that sleep would escape me for several hours to come.  I sat in my big comfy chair with a book from the library hoping that sleep would soon follow.  Farm City by Novella Carpenter proved to be far too interesting.  With each chapter I found myself thinking of new farm projects and several phone calls we received this week from folks wanting more rabbits than we can provide at this juncture.

2:15 a.m. and sleep still escaping me, I put down my book and stepped outside.  The only noises were the rustling of the wind through the too tall grass desperately requiring attention from the lawn mower which was only repaired minutes before leaving for my off farm job, and the peeping of the frogs.  The smell of moist, freshly turned earth from the garden and the farmer down the road who will plant corn in the meadow in front of the house filled the air.

On this quiet, warm, spring morning while most everyone slumbers, I soak in the sounds and smells of life waiting to spring forth from the ponds and pastures.  Have I mentioned lately how lucky I am to be able to live this life, on this farm in northwestern, VT.

Book smarts vs Real-life experience

As we delve further into our farming adventure, DH and I often disagree on the best way to accomplish a task.  He has a lot of real-life farming experience, although much of it was MANY years ago (I tease him about being older than me all the time).  My farming experience is very limited and I rely on the books of people who are experienced in the various aspects of this life at which I am attempting to be successful.  From things like butchering our first rabbit, to what to feed the pigs, to the plans for the greenhouse and shed, I rely on other people's experience to help me forward. 

DH reminds me that he spent many of his early years on the farm and he never needed a book.  Some of my favorites are the books from Storey Publishing.  They present a wealth of information in an easy to understand fashion.  Their guide to raising rabbits has been an invaluable resource as we embark on this new adventure.  One thing I need to remember is that all of the information is not applicable to every situation - we butchered our first rabbit and it didn't go exactly as planned.  So we live and learn - some of our own real-life experience.

I will; however, continue to rely on the manuals and narratives of others who have and continue to successfully live this life.  DH was extremely fortunate to have his early farming ventures presided over by men whose experience couldn't be sufficiently captured in two or even four agricultural manuals.  We are now two generations removed from those who worked this land before us.  Neighbors and acquaintances educate us and provide invaluable direction for both our rabbit and pig endeavors and I continue to read every manual, manuscript, poem, allegory, blog post, and internet article I can get my paws on.

Great Book Source

This journey into farming has been an exciting adventure; one which I hope to experience for several years to come.  Each day I learn something new (this morning - don't try to drive through a four foot snowbank and expect to get traction on a half-thawed dirt driveway).  Much of my learning this winter has come through books.  I recently posted a review on a great book by Gene Logsdon and now am here to report that I have found a great publishing company.

It didn't occur to me at first, I was simply looking for books, websites, blogs, etc. which would help me learn to do all the things I want to do to facilitate a more self-sufficient lifestyle.  If I can make a life a little easier by selling some of the excesses, that would be great too.  I came across a used copy of Making Your Small Farm Profitable by Ron Macher not too long after I moved back to Vermont and was renting about two acres in a neighboring town.  Next came a country wisdom bulletin on chickens.  Then it was Building with Stone by Charles McRaven.  Most recently it was a book from the library Storey's Guide to Raising Rabbits.

WHAAAACK!! - Like a smack on the back of the head from Gibbs in NCIS it came to me - the publishing company on every one of these books is Storey Publishing.  If you are looking for research on country living - I would suggest these guys as a great place to start!

Soon, until then...

The farm is hibernating, waiting for some sustained warmer weather to burst forth with new growth.  Two year old Christmas tree tops just peek out from their cozy white blanket, teasing the deer with the bounty they hold inside their buds.  Keeping the snow machines out of the tree fields has proven slightly more difficult than keeping out the deer so fencing may be in order this year for both human and animal alike. 

We have been making progress on a few pre-spring projects; getting organized two weeks ago has certainly helped in that direction.  Like many people this time of year, our thoughts have turned towards spring and summer.  I completed revisions to fliers and contracts for an August pow-wow we help with in Dummer, NH.  The seeds have been added to the inventory.  Crop planning and tracking is the next step; right now I don’t know which crops are doing really well for us and which ones we should stop working on altogether.

Educational opportunities abound and are pretty the underlying theme for project planning.  I have learned either weed killing spray or mulch is required as we do not have enough time keep the grass in check in the Christmas tree fields and weed the gardens.  Our attempts at remaining as organic as possible will probably dictate mulch in the garden over herbicide in the trees.  Changes will be required over the summer as water from melting snow which drips slowly off the garage roof has managed to infiltrate the chicken coop.  Fencing is also in the planning stages as we lost some of our squash, corn and other vegetables to wayward chickens not to mention to resolve the deer and snowmobile problem.  Lists of tools, supplies, fertilizers, nails, staples, sealers, etc. that have been scribbled on scraps of paper are starting to come together into project outlines.

I am beginning to ‘see the light at the end of the tunnel’ with the scanning project.  As I sat at the computer this morning, DH snapped a couple of pictures of the wildlife which has ventured out from the woods.  Whether they are running out of food in the woods or they were just happy with the momentary availability of the lawn poking through the snow, it is neat to see them just a few feet from the house.  The cats don’t quite know what to make of these big birds on the lawn.  Two of them watch, perched on half of their favorite chair which only now can be enjoyed as so much of that paper has been scanned and recycled.

Great Read & Time for Sugaring?

One of the blogs I follow is that of a determined young woman in Jackson, NY just over the Vermont line.  She is becoming a sheep farmer.  27 yrs old, single, a graphic artist and author, away from family, but surrounded by friends; she is a farmer.  She purchased a small farmstead this year.  She tells of her wins and her losses learning experiences, appreciation of the little things and of each new adventure she has taken.  Jenna writes of an inspiring book which my sister gave me for Christmas this year.  Gene Logsdon’s The Contrary Farmer.  His writing is delightful and his common sense, practical, albeit ‘contrary’ approach to small farms is refreshing.  He reminds us that there was a time when farming was done by hand and by hoof.  There was no need to spend tens of thousands of dollars on equipment when a little people power and a little time was all it took to get the job done.  Highly Recommended!

Jenna and Gene remind me that it is the little steps that get us to where we want to be.  Every step in the journey has learning experiences and more importantly moments which require savoring.  It has been four and one half years since I have been back on the family farm.  There have been trials and tribulations, but in the end I can say that I am content.  Some days it is difficult to get motivated and there are days when the wind is howling and the snow is blowing that I want to stay cuddled warm within the covers, but the chickens, cats, dog, husband and I all need feeding.  Today teased us and started out nice and warm with southern breezes tipping the thermometer to just over 40 degrees this morning.  As I got ready for bed this afternoon, the winds has increased and the rains were falling.  I thought about the sap buckets and taps which DH had washed earlier this week which were still not on the side of the trees.  Tonight as I was leaving for work, the temperature had fallen below 20, the winds and snow were blowing and the weatherman forecast tomorrow’s high at 13 degrees.  The end of the week is predicted to be perfect weather for sugarin’, daytime temps into the 40s and nights below freezing.  Those taps will be in tomorrow or the next morning early!  If we can make maple syrup for all of our household needs this year, next year we will plan on cleaning up some older sugar bush and building a small evaporator for farmers market syrup in 2012.

Research Storage Project

In an effort to clean out my house of the never ending amount of clutter I have managed to collect in my 36+ years on this planet, I have been scanning anything I do not need to save a paper copy of.  Certain things, your car title, birth certificate, your children’s crafts, need to be saved.  Other things, like the one year of utility bills, bank statements, etc. that you need for taxes or proof of purchase for warranties, can all be scanned into electronic format and easily purged with a stroke of the delete key at the end of the year.  Earlier this year I had a computer hiccup which crashed Windows Vista.  My scanning project got put on hold.  It is amazing how much stuff I save!  Windows 7 now installed and updated scanner software drivers downloaded, the project is back on track.  Each morning of this new year I am trying to spend one hour tackling the mountain of paper that I have managed to save.

Besides the monthly utility bills and receipts, I have collected a small library of research on my dream. Magazine articles, publications, lists of books which I would like to read, something someone said to me which might be relevant someday – all squirreled away in a file for future reference.  Reviving a farm which has been retired for forty years is no small project.  My grandparents, who had successfully run this farm, have now passed.  My father and his brothers who worked on the farm into their late teens have all moved on to other pursuits in life.  Local farmers are emptying their haylofts, selling their milking herds and retiring or looking outside the farm for employment.  Intimate resources are becoming few and far between.  Books, magazines and the internet have become invaluable learning tools for me as I take this journey.

This past summer I was given an incredible gift of research.  My mother-in-law’s good friend moved from her longtime home and cleaned out years of publications which she had saved.  I received the seven taped, brown paper, grocery bags with trepidation.  I placed those bags into the van and started to close the van door when my husband told me to hold on, I turned to see two old vegetable crates full of more taped bags and some loose magazines.  At the time, I accepted the ‘gift’ with a forced smile thinking that I would be piling yet more paper into my already overstuffed bookshelves, adding more stuff that I could only hope to get to someday.  There are few occasions when it is nice to be proven wrong; however this was one of them.  The scissors trembled as I cut into the first bag – Organic Gardening – the WHOLE BAG.  Giddy I skimmed through the top few issues saved from 1993.  A wealth of information.  DH walked in and grimaced, ‘Oh, boy.  I have lost you for the next several hours.’  I removed two issues and placed them in my bag to take to work and read during slow times.  The next bag – Mother Earth News – this time DH was smiling, I can’t say happy exactly, but at least smiling.  Another bag had a selection of saved information from another gardening magazine and saved pamphlets from Better Homes and Gardens.  Six months later, I have gotten through all seven bags, but am still working on the vegetable crates.  Maybe when I am done I can have an entire electronic library on how to choose, care for, harvest, preserve, sell or simply enjoy everything that can possibly be produced from the family farm.

If I were to keep all of that paper, I would need several lateral filing cabinets.  All this research has only reserved the first few hundred megabytes on my hard disk.  I may eventually hit a gigabyte, but for now I have plenty of room.  I back up the computer every month onto a portable hard drive and store that in the safe.  My shelves remain crammed with books on farming, raising trees, making cheese and various other farm related subjects.  And there are those magazines which contain far too much useful information to tear out each and every article, but that’s why some ingenious individual created the bookshelf in the first place.