One week and counting...

As the title of this post states, this is my last week here on the farm. I'm wrapping things up and trying to have fun in the process. I've been plagued with rashes and infections but still managing to work at full steam through them. I currently have a bad strain of poison ivy. One of the other people here has the same thing. I had poison ivy that I got over a week or so ago and woke up this morning with a swollen left eye. Natural remedies have worked to a certain extent but I think, for my rash, I'm gonna go with Western medicine. I got a shot in the butt on Sunday morning ('roids!!!!).

I mentioned the poison ivy...I got it while working at our orchard when the UMich people were here. Our orchard is 700 trees large. We have nothing but pecan trees. They're separated into 3 sections: the upper, middle, and lower orchard. Pecans produce bi-annually. If a tree produces this year, it won't produce a good nut until two years from now. When we have on years we get close to 15000 pounds of pecans. On off years we may get 100. This is normal for pecans. There's a lot of testing that goes on when looking for pests. There're pecan nut case bearer moths that get into the nuts and make them infertile. All around Texas farmers test for these, using a white grid to see how many appear on it, and report back to the state where the spread can be tracked. It is important to kill the moths within 3 days of them burrowing to prevent contamination. I went for two days and weed whacked around irrigation poles. In the Fall the pecans are harvested. In the Winter, the orchard lies dormant until April. Now our pecan intern is going full steam ahead on getting the orchard ready for this Fall's harvest. Getting the weeds down and spreading fertilizer are two things that have been done recently. Apparently last year we only had one half of the trees produce due to a late frost. The frost only affected the upper orchard meaning that, now, the upper and lower orchard will be producing on alternate years (which would mean only looking after half the trees at once). The middle orchard hasn't been taken care of over the past few years so it's not producing very much. This is mainly due to the sheer amount of trees we have there.

A few weeks ago we went swimming at the orchard just before a storm rolled in. The orchard is set on the Brazos River. We ventured down to the river front to find a sift flowing current and a ton of mud. We mad a rope swing and swam across the river. The current was so strong that by the time you made it over to the other side you were at least 100 feet down from where you started. Swimming back across was even harder. We left the orchard in time to watch a major storm float across the sky and feel the cold front sweep in.

The garden is transitioning from winter to summer vegetables. We have tomatoes, peppers, okra, melons, squash, peas, and corn either in the ground or coming up. The garden crew's been working on getting the tomatoes and peas trellised. The finally finished Friday. It is important that tomato pants have outside support because of how heavy they get. If the fruit is on the ground it is easy prey for insects and pests. Something interesting about corn that I didn't know is that each plant puts out 1 or 2 ears of corn (if you're lucky). There's so much effort put into growing it and it's found in almost everything...it's surprising that we chose this plant to working with. Okra is something that grows so quickly that we have to harvest it every day to prevent it from getting woody.

I've got a rabbit that I'm taking home with me. It's a long-haired mixed breed. Her name is Marshmallow! I've gotten really attached to the rabbits since I've been here. We're expecting two of our rabbits to give birth any day now. I'm afraid it's too hot but only time will tell. They're so soft and have more of a personality than most people would think...they're just not the smartest creature in the world.

My chicks are doing well. They're getting to be quite big for 10 week old animals. We have a grab-bag of breeds. It's interesting to see how fast each of the breeds grows. Some are more suited for meat while some may be better for egg laying. I'll post some pictures on my next post.

My plot is starting to bear fruit, finally! We have corn, peppers, tomatoes and chickpeas coming in. Chickpea pods are huge! Our lentils didn't make it. Since they were grown using store bought lentils I'm not surprised. I hope that some of everything is ready before I leave next Saturday. I'll be doing a container gardening class when I get to school to help students learn how to grow their own food even in their rooms.

We had some cool classes these past few weeks. We had a 3-part class that covered on-farm trials. Neil Rowe Miller, the farm executive director, talked about the experiments he's done in Haiti, Uganda, and Central Michigan. Haiti and Uganda were tailored to seeing what western farming techniques could be used to help increase their yield. In Haiti they farm on sloping hillsides. This can lead to gullies and land slides. Neil went there and helped them setup barriers that would promote soil buildup to build terraces. These flat terraces would then be easier to farm and hold moisture better. In Central Michigan, Neil worked with farmers to determine if more nitrogen on corn would increase the yield. He used a GPS receiver and a sprayer that changed nitrogen flow every 30 feet. He found out that the weather conditions affected the crop more than nitrogen levels. We also had a class on looking at fecal samples. We went to a community college nearby and diluted fecal samples to determine if the animals have any parasites. We found that some of our animals had a lot. It was a pretty cool experience overall.

A few weekends ago I had weekend duty which meant a day off! I biked into West, Texas, a small Czech settlement about 10 miles up the road. They're known for their bakeries. Most everyone sells cinnamon rolls, kolaches, and meat. Some high school students had come to volunteer and gave me the low down: Gerik's is where it's at. I decided to give it a try. I was not let down! I got four kolaches and a cinnamon roll. Oh man, all I can say is that biking back to the farm was much harder than biking there!

My time here at the farm is coming to an end and I can say I don't regret anything that's happened so far. I'm sure the next week will be the same way.

Farm Day 2010!!

This post has been a long time coming. A lot has happened at the farm since my last post: farm day, graduation, rabbit kits, and NASST!

Farm day is basically an open house for the citizens of Waco to come and visit out farm to see what it is we do as well as have a chance to buy wears from friends of the farm. It was a very intense day. We had 900+ people come by. We started setup at 8 AM and went until 4 PM. We had a petting zoo, milking demonstrations, farm tours, lunch (made by us), camels, hay rides, childrens musical time (A La Ryan Pickop), and a stage with bands constantly playing. The day started slow with a few farm friends at the beginning. We all had jobs that we were in charge of doing. I got picked for town crier in the afternoon (I was in charge of walking around and telling people before tours, hay rides, and milking demonstrations started). By about 10 we had a good amount of people wandering the premises, hay rides were already backing up, and the days heat was just getting started. We had vendors selling headbands, herbal remedies, knives, magnetic bracelets (the kind that cleanse your body), herb transplants, bread, and natural dies. We also had several groups that came out of or are supported by the farm including the Heart of Texas Urban Garden Coalition and the McLennan County Hunger Coalition.The pets were bust being molested at the petting zoo (our goats managed to get into the rabbit manure) and the bands were playing. I had tabbed up Hey Jude and I'm a Believer (by Smashmouth) before hand but didn't think I had anyone that would want to play with me. Jessie Miller (the farm executive directors son) is going to the University of North Texas for music and agreed to play with me for each song.It was the first time that I had played in front of an audience ...it was exhilarating. After playing a wrong note or two you just go with the flow and have a good time. It was a pleasant surprise, even to myself, for the day.

For lunch we had burritos and cookies. the cookies started being made 2 weeks before the event! We had about 400 cookies made. I was in charge of making 12 batches of zucchini bread muffins for breakfast. We had left overs of both bread and cookies which was most welcomed by most people. One of our farm friends brought all sorts of mini bread loafs. Some of the flavors included apple sauce, banana nut, and chocolate pecan. We got leftovers a few days later and they were all delicious.I had a good time being town crier. Part of the job includes being obnoxious to get people to pay attention to you. I was just that. After farm day we always go to Bangkok Royale,a local Thai restaurant. It was a nice way to end the day. We had about 30 farm folk there and had a friend of the farm serving us. It's pretty amazing to see how much of an impact we have on the local community. I saw some of our neighbors I never expected to see come out and see what we're about.

Two weekends ago I attended Spring Commencement at UofM and finally concluded my undergrad degree. I'm glad that I waited to come back as our speaker was President O'Bama. The whole weekend was a crazy blur. Sitting in the Big House listening to the President speak was a once in a lifetime opportunity. As much as some people may hate him, he is a damn good orator. He spoke about the current state of politics among other things. From the second that I stepped on campus I had friends by my side. It was as if I'd never left. I ran into people that came to the farm with me and ASB people that were at the farm only a few months ago. I'm feeling good about my choice to go back in the Fall.

Something that has happened is that I'm in charge of everything cute on the farm: rabbits and chicks. One of our rabbits gave birth on farm day and another gave birth 2 days later. We currently have 4 rabbit kits (baby rabbits) alive and kicking in the cages. One of the does has 11 kids....this usually leads to many deaths. Most rabbits can handle 4-5 kids at a time. The kids feed once a day and can't eat any greens for a few weeks. Only recently have our kits started to eat grass. They fit in the palm of my hand at this age and are very VERY soft. I've decided that I'm keeping one and bringing it to Michigan as a keepsake of the farm. I'll post a picture of the one I choose on the next post. Something to note when dealing with chickens is if you have 5 hens to every rooster, there is an 80 - 90% chance that the eggs will be fertile. We gave a number of eggs to local schools and had them incubate them. We recently received them and had about 79 chicks. I volunteered to take care of them. They're turned out fine so far. We're down to about 55 now due to 2 deaths and about 20 being picked up. If you keep chickens in a coop for 3 days you can let them out during the day and they'll know to return at sun down. I recently moved them into a larger coop (they're about 5 weeks old now) and am currently waiting to let them out once they know where they sleep. It's pretty interesting being in charge of all of these animals to see what each one needs, how independent they are, and how fast they grow. I can now say I feel ready to take on the farming world!

Brad and I recently expanded our garden. We now have tomatoes, corn, chickpeas, lentils, and peppers planted. It's a race against the clock if I will get to eat anything that's been planted. Our CSA shares are going crazy. We have 65 members now and the best garden anyone has seen around here. Hannah and Kelly have done an amazing job of keeping our garden in check. Kelly recently left but I'm sure the quality will remain the same.

A lot of random stuff has happened in the past month. I have finished my work with the Census but will be working for the farm a little bit. I will be participating in our after school gardening program. Neal Curran, a recent intern at the farm, is getting married this weekend so a lot of the farm is leaving. This is where I come in. We go to several middle and elementary schools and help them maintain a garden. With everyone gone, I will be taking some people's places. The NASST group from UofM (the same group I cam with last year) is on the farm. This means this week is my one year anniversary of first coming to the farm. I can remember my first impression of the farm as we saw the WHRI sign lit up off of Spring Lake and pulled up to the ed building with Swathi wandering over, on Cinco de Mayo, to give us a quick tour. Everyone here loves the UMich groups, I know why. They always take initiative and seem to be very outgoing.

I have one more month here on the farm. If you haven't come to visit, this is your last chance. There's plenty of room to sleep and we have food for you to cook with. My last day is June 12th. Catch me if you can!

Spring has sprung

Well folks, it's been a while since my last post. I've been keeping plenty busy....we've has ASB groups and visitors galore, I've taken on some new responsibilities, and Farm Day has come and gone, but that's for another post.

Right after my last post I ran the Baylor Bearathon, a half-marathon that winds through Cameron Park. It's known as one of the toughest halfs in Texas due to the hills. Let me tell you, it lived up to its reputation. The event was actually canceled the morning of due to lightning. It was in the 30's and raining when the race was supposed to begin. After they announced the cancellation, they gave out t-shirts. I got my shirt and felt like I was cheating myself by not running the race. I had trained for 2 months and wasn't going to let some cold weather get me down. I wandered around asking if anyone would be running the course. I found a veteran (he's actually run every Bearathon) and we were on our way. Without him, I would have been completely lost. The chalk they used to mark the course was washed away and there was no one out to direct runners. We finished the race in 1:49:00, better than my goal of 2:00:00.

One of my favorite parts about living here is the visitors that find us. We had a group of people from Jesus People USA (JPUSA) come by for a few days. JPUSA is a Christian living community in Chicago. The guys that came were really awesome and had lots of skills to share. One was from Canada, one is a Chicago native with a strong love for bikes, and one has lived with the Hopi Indians and grew up in Kentucky. They fit right into our community as they're used to it. There was another group that came from Wichita, KS. They live in an intentional community called the Orchard. An intentional community is a group of people that share a common belief and decide to live together. They all read "The Irresistible Revolution" and decided to try it out. The Orchard currently consists of 3 couples but they're looking to expand and let more people in. They're thinking about starting a community garden so the garden is where they spent most of their time. Each group learns from us but also brings their own knowledge; it's a very symbiotic relationship.

We had our last ASB group come through from Cornell College in Iowa. They were a very active group, taking chances when they could to take responsibility; in the mornings they took care of rabbits and fed chickens. As far as the college is concerned, Cornell is interesting in that they're on a block class system. They take one class for almost 4 weeks, have a long weekend, and start a new class. Apparently they're one of three schools in the world that works on this schedule. It was fun getting to meet them.

My garden has been growing and is now producing! I should note that this is an experiment for both my partner and I as we haven't ever grown anything on our own before. We have harvested radishes and now have potatoes, carrots, beets, and turnips all poking up through the soil. Neither Brad nor I had ever seen a potato plant before so we were struggling to know what to and what not to weed. Our beets aren’t having the best of time coming up. We have about five that made it and the rest are surrounded by ant beds. Ant beds in your soil say something about your soil biology. It is bad if the bugs and bacteria you want aren’t fighting off predators such as ants. In order to stop them we used neem 45, an organic ant repellant. It smells awful and looks like snot….no wonder they leave. We have carrots coming up but they’re not very big. I talked with one of the garden interns and was told that carrots will grow as deep as you water them. In English, this means that the more you water them the larger they will become. Just getting the surface wet is not enough. Also, when measuring how moist your soil is, you test at the first inch not the surface. With all this being said, we will definitely be watering a lot more.

Speaking of gardens, we had our first CSA harvest last week. The garden was off limits for the weeks leading up to this so everything was nice and full. We invite our CSA members to help harvest to see the work we do and become familiar with where their food comes from. One of our members, Roy, took us up on it. Having extra people is always helpful as we have 61 people to harvest for. We harvested spinach, swiss chard, beets, kale, and some herbs. As great as it is to have customers, my favorite part is the leftovers. Wednesday lunch is always green.

Last week there was an interesting group that rolled through Waco called the Equality Ride. The ER is a bus of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) people that are traveling around the US to universities with a negative outlook on LGBT people. As I've mentioned before, Baylor is a Baptist university. On Monday night there was a pot luck that I attended with a lesbian couple that live here on the farm. I met a lot of really cool people including a Jewish girl that attended Baylor for 4 years and is now a guy. There was a transgender panel after dinner that allowed a minority in the world to discuss issues that plague them. It was interesting to hear how each one feels about the social implications that comes with their life. Surprisingly, only one said that they constantly question why there're in the body they were born into...most of them thought about it for 10 minutes and moved on. Tuesday they gathered at Baylor and talked to students about any issues they wanted to. That afternoon there was an off-campus 'rally' where anyone was welcome. It was rumored that student groups would come and be obnoxious as to distract them from their agenda. This didn't happen. There was one student that came out. This is a big deal in general but at Baylor this is even more daring. If you come out, you are sent to a psychologist to be made straight and can even be kicked off campus. This can happen to LGBT allies as well. All of the other LGBT students sent their responses via email that was then read by an ER rider. What kind of a world do we live in where people can't express themselves in a country as 'free' as ours? At any rate, it was very cool to hear from people that are comfortable with their sexual orientation. They are about half way through their ride and I hope they can bring peace to campuses that fight the LGBT community.

I was looking for a part-time job out here and finally got one with the Census. I am a clerk on the weekends at the Waco office. It's fun working with people who have not yet been brainwashed by the government (meaning they're understanding). I've also been learning how to knit. This is a very useful skill to have. I'll be posting about Farm Day soon. It's good to know that Spring has finally arrived.

The shittiest week yet

It seems like every week on the farm is full of surprises. This one was no exception. I became a man...for the second time. Thursday started out like any other day: I got up, went for a run, took care of the rabbits and went to breakfast. At the end of devotions we divvy out jobs for the morning. Almost immediately the farm manager looks at me and says , "Chase and Neal, you're on composting toilets." Oh shit, literally. If you remember, we don't have any toilets with running water, and thus have no septic tank. Eventually, when the composting toilets gets full, they must be emptied. This is where my next two days were spent. There were many a joke to be made about how shitty the job was. Although this is the least glamorous thing I've ever done, I am now officially part of this farm.

Two weeks ago we had a group of students from UofM come for their spring break (you can barely call it 'spring' as it always starts in February). As an alum, I took them under my wing and showed them 'the ropes'. I taught them how to lasso, hold rabbits, and I learned how to balance things on my chin (thanks Ares). I must say, they had the exact same reactions with every thing that they witnessed as my group did when we came before. There is a whole program we do called 'living on the other side' with groups that come for a weekend or more. Note: for most people, coming out here in the first place is considered the 'other side'. Some of the events we do include the 13 cent breakfast (in which you have 13 cents to buy breakfast with and the prices go up based on demand), dinner on the other side, and a hunger banquet. Dinner on the other side is supposed to simulate what it would be like to cook in a third-world country. The group has to walk half a mile to get water and wood, work for the vegetables (usually picking a vegetables for the farmer before they get to keep some for their meal), and killing and skinning a chicken if they want meat with their meal. The stove they cook on is called a Lorena Stove, an improvement on the 3-rock stove in which a pot is balanced over 3 rocks. Something that they find out is how the smoke builds around the stove, a common problem in the third-world. Dinner starts around 2:30 and is usually done by 6. It shows how important food is to those who don't have it readily available. The hunger banquet is a simulation where a three caste system is used to represent the upper, middle, and lower class of the world and the type of food they eat. The upper class gets spaghetti, meat sauce, juice, tea, coffee, clean water, fruit, and ice cream, the middle class gets beans, rice, and semi-clean water, and the lower class gets a few spoons full of rice and dirty water. 60% of the world falls under lower class, 25% falls under middle class, and 15% falls under upper class. It's a very visual way to see how the world is divided. It's also fun to see how far people take the simulation meaning who eats immediately afterward and who waits until the next meal in continuing with the simulation.

On Thursday we had a class on cropping systems. There are a lot of variables that go into selecting which crops to plant and if you want to intercrop. Some factors include soil texture and physical properties, drainage, weather patterns, and day length. Depending on what you are planting it may require soil that drains quickly as not to drown it or need more sunlight (the latitude determines the length of daylight and seasons). Intercropping is having more than one crop in a small area that work to complement each other. For instance, corn takes up a lot of nitrogen and peas (legumes in general) are nitrogen fixing (meaning they take nitrogen out of the air and store it in their roots for later use). As the peas grow, they can also climb the corn stalk allowing for more surface area to be exposed to sunlight. There are all sorts of combinations that can be done. An interesting concept we learned about is relay planting. This involves planting something, letting it grow, killing it, and then planting new seeds immediately to use the nutrients left behind by the previous plant. This causes the second plant to grow faster than it would otherwise due to the extra nutrients. Several intercropping methods include alley cropping and SALT systems. Alley cropping uses the space in between larger plants, or the alley, as room for smaller varieties that will benefit from falling leaves. SALT stands for sloping agricultural land technology. This deals with how wide rows should be to account for sloped surfaces. If you're planting on the side of a hill and it rains, if your rows are too wide, the soil can become loose and slide without being stopped. SALT includes making buffers to stop these slides by using other plants to catch the land behind it. Intercropping on the whole can help to prevent pests and disease by dispersing any single type of plant and essentially hiding it among other varieties and can reduce soil erosion as different plants have different amounts of and sizes of roots.

This last weekend my stepbrother Danny got married. I must say, it was pretty exciting to be at a non-orthodox Jewish wedding. We did the hava nagila but nothing more....and there was mixed dancing. I wish him and his wife the best.

This next week we have a group coming from the University of Texas - Dallas. I hope this group is as much fun as the Michigan group was. I'll leave you with this thought: If any animal deserves a wide load sign it's one of our goats, Phoebe. She recently kidded but pre-kidding this is what she looked like.
Farm Day is coming up! This is essentially an open house where a lost of the locals come and visit. There's hay rides, bands, and speakers all day. This would be a good time to visit if you're close by and wanna come. It's on April 10th.

Food, Inc.

Real quick post:

Last night the farm watched Food, Inc. It was my first time seeing it. For those of you who haven't seen it, please take 2 hours to educate yourself on the food system that we have in the US and how it's affecting the world. I'd be more than happy to discuss the film with anyone as I have strong opinions on most of the issues that were brought up. In case you are interested, the Polyface Farms with Joel Salatin share most of the practices that we do here at WHRI.

Remember, you voice your opinion by what you buy.

The great plague of 2010!

The great plague of 2010 is over for most...except me. I'm currently sitting in the dorm watching the Labyrinth, quite possibly the best movie of the 80's. Within the past week, everyone was either throwing up from the flu or sick with a cold. I thought I was going to make it out alive...until I got hit. I had quite possibly the busiest weekend duty of the year and I'm sick (I took this weekend for someone that was sick during the week).

Any who, this has been a trying time for some of our animals. A few of our rabbits had babies, none of which survived due to lack of care from their parents. I'm currently in charge of looking after them so as the baby-daddy I feel some obligation to care for their well being. Our farm doesn't want to keep many male goats as we only need one to impregnate all the other females. We recently has a male goat and tried to sell it. Since we couldn't sell him we ate him. Must say, its weird eating animals that you knew. Also, one of our dry goats has an injured leg. When I say 'dry' I mean non-milk producing. Just like humans, when goats are pregnant, they produce milk.

Last week we got 3-4 inches of snow, something to rival a Midwest snow storm. We had a snow ball fight (which I pwned the Texans at) and also, on the same day, got a box of chicks! It's pretty amazing, they look like a bunch of peeps running around. They're being raised for a wedding in May. The pecan intern proposed to his wife on the orchard (which I'm yet to visit) in November and as a gesture the farm is raising them. These chickens are broilers, the kinds used in factory farms. They grow very quickly (full grown at around 8 weeks) so they will be ready for the wedding.

This last week one of the older couples left the farm and is headed back to Indiana. Something I learned from them this last week was hot to use a stick welder and a fire cutter. If anyone has an pyro instincts, these are the tools for you. The fire cutter uses acetylene and oxygen to heat up metal and then literally blast through it. The stick welder is a little more old fashioned but still awesome non the less. I thought it would be more complicated but it works on the principle of grounding whatever it is you're welding and completing the circuit through a stick of metal. Pretty sweet stuff.

Last weekend I helped one of the office assistants clean her father's garage. Little did I know he polishes rocks for a living. This guy had at least one ton of rocks! Most looked like standard rocks but some looked like orange sherbet, lava, and most of a petrified palm tree. It took most of a morning to move and arrange the rocks. We also had the take an entire rock polisher table and load it into a truck for scrap. May not sound like much, but it was a pain.

One thing I'm looking forward to using here is the solar dehydrator. You stick fruits into it and, as the name suggests, a few hours later they are dehydrated! Apparently there's a pear tree that no one owns that buds in the summer. We go over with the farm truck and collect as many pears as can fit into the bed. 'Tis a sweet time to be on the farm.

As this is spring time, we have several groups coming over the next few weeks. We had a church group on Saturday and an Alternative Spring Break group from UofM that's here now. I'm looking forward to reminiscing on old time...as in a few months ago. It's weird not having any sort of formal break but I guess being out here is break enough.

More on this later, I'm off to rest up for the week!

Love is in the air!

It's been a cold couple of weeks here on the farm, even for anywhere outside of Tejas. It actually snowed here last night (yes, it was legit snow). One of the guys here made his first snowball ever...he's thinking about freezing it until July and eating it. We'll see how it turns out. This last weekend me and another volunteer had weekend duty. This entails us looking after the livestock and store here on Saturday and Sunday. Because of this, we both get a day off so I'm using mine today.

This is a slow time for the farm but we're still managing to come up with things to do. There's been a lot of organizing of the barn, kid barn clean out, and garden work. With all of the rain the garden has been flooding so trenches to drain the water are needed. This is to ensure that your crops don't drown. The barn is about 100 feet long and 30 feet deep with stuff that the farm has accumulated over the years. We have a tractor and about 5 accessories that can be hooked up to either haul, tear up the soil, or bundle hay. There's also feed, fencing supplies, wood, a small bike repair shop, saws, drills, pipes, lawn mowers....you get the point, there's a lot of crap. We actually bundled some tarps and put them in the rafters. I got to climb to the top and wander around like a monkey (man I miss climbing). The animal pens need to be cleaned out once a year so we finished this task. It involves removing the hay mixed with poop and other animal goodies to make way for a clean floor. I'm sure the animals would thank us if they knew how

With the joyous Hallmark-driven holiday of Valentine's Day around the corner I figure I should share some love stories that are circulating around the farm. For the past few weeks now our goats have been kidding. I posted a picture of Billy Jack on my previous post. Since then, we've had four new kids born. One of the does had triplets (one of which didn't make it) in record time. Apparently she went into labor and had the kids out in about 15 minutes! One of the new kids is named Cookie and is black and white spotted. Goat kids are awesome to play with. They will treat you as their jungle gym if you give them the chance. Another great love story unfolding here is between a rooster, Bruce, and hen, Lady.

Bruce

Lady

We have a hand full of chickens that have learned how to get out of the gate so they wander the farm as they please. Back when Lady used to return to the coops Bruce would wander over and help get her out every morning. They would wander around near the barn and sit with each other all day long. It is a classic Milo and Otis story. Now Lady roams free and is always with her 'honey'. The last tale of love involves the rabbit folks. A few of the rabbits on the farm are preggers and are expecting anytime in the next few weeks.
Today we're putting out the first nesting box. Rabbits use these boxes to create a nest using straw that we give them. We hope that one morning we'll awake to some baby rabbits. In case you've never seen a rabbit eating, they look very content with life.

One reason that we have to rabbits is for compost. The rabbit cage hangs mostly over an area of grass that is fertilized with their compost. The cage that they are in has a fine mesh that allows their feces to drop through where it sits. The earth beneath the rabbits is full of worms. These worms work to compost the feces and turn it into brown gold also known as compost. We then take the fresh soil and throw it onto the nearby grass. The grass is then fed to the rabbits creating a sustainable circle. It's a very easy way to teach young kids about composting.

In my last post I talked about the broken chick tractor. We have since devised a new design that will allow precipitation to run off so as to prevent excess weight being put on the structure. The chicks are happy because they have new perches that work to keep them off the ground and give those that stay on the ground more room. When they were in the barn after the rain, they were suffocating each other on a daily basis (not the best thing to wake up to). The new design can be seen below.

With life comes death. One of our does, Saxon, has had a disease called mastitis. Mastitis is a disease of the breast tissue that causes swelling and pain. In her case she got it in one of her udders. For the past week she was separated from the herd to prevent the spread of the disease. She would cry in pain all day long. Yesterday we decided to take her life, putting her at peace. She will be missed.

On Mondays and Thursdays we have class related to an aspect of the farm. Monday we had a class on soil. It sounds boring but it was really pretty interesting. We learned about the amount of worms, bacteria, fungus, and other creatures in the top 6 inches of an acre of soil as well as what role they play in the production of soil. One interesting fact is you can have up to 1000 lbs of worms in this area (keep in mind that this same area has 2 million lbs of soil total). One cool thing we saw was a picture of an earth worm dragging a leaf down to digest it below the surface. They dig tunnels and secrete the nutrients through their skin. Their tunnels act as a way for larger insects to move around in the soil more easily. We have the second part of the class in a week or two. The idea is to be able to apply the information to the farm or in your own garden. It's pretty informative stuff.

This past Monday we had a going away part for one of the live-ins. She is going to Zambia to do environmental work with the Peacecorps (which was started at the University of Michigan!). To celebrate, we decided to have a pirates and viking party.
We played full-size Battleship and had a dance party. We used four bed sheets as the grid (one for where we've already hit and one to show where ours were) and verbally said which grid we thought the 'ship' was in. Instead of ships, we had truths or, mostly, dares put down on the mat that were given to us by the opposing team. If you got a hit, the other team had to pull a name and that person would have to follow whatever instructions were on the card. Some of these included putting a shirt on a really smelly goat, getting a fecal sample from the same goat for medical purposes, standing up every time the farm director walks in the room and saying, "Ahoy, Captain!", and, one of mine, writing a story in the suggestion box including the words Billy Jack, well pump, Jesus, my name, and diarrhea. Needless to say, it's been a pretty entertaining week.

I've always heard about ear candles but had never seen one....until Tuesday. Two of the girls here decided to try it and see what they could get out of their ears. The idea is that the candle needs oxygen to burn and draws some up from your wear pulling our the wax. As the candle burns you're supposed to cut off the charred remains. The first girl decided to lie down on the couch with the candle at a slight angle out of her ear to allow us to catch the charred pieces with a cup of water. The instructions say to have a damp towel around the head and to sit up right.
The candle burned and eventually was put out. The second girl did the same thing. Everything was going well until one of the charred pieces missed the cup...and landed in her hair. When everything was said and done, she had some charred hairs and a small burn on her neck.
Kids, follow the instructions or you'll get burned!

This weekend I'm going to Austin. As nice as it is being on the farm, I need some non-agrarian stimulation. With no car and the weather we've been having I haven't been able to bike around town. Also, with the cold we've been worrying about the animals more than we would normally. I will end by restating the open invitation for anyone to come out here! It's like nothing else you've ever done and worth the trip over any distance. Peace, love, and goats.