The Beginning Farmer

It is been awhile since I have updated the happenings of the farm, but since this is The Beginning Farmer blog I thought I better keep a good record of how the farm is beginning. As usual things have been very busy both on the home front, the work front, and of course the farm front. It seems like we have been doing a lot of family traveling lately which I enjoy and don’t enjoy at the same time, but I’m glad to have the chance to do it. At work I am staying busy planning summer activities for the students and filling in for the Pastor when he is gone (I’m glad we have a full-time guy again!). And on the farm front… well, let me just throw out some bullet points for the past week or so.

• The building is progressing as much as weather is allowing and I think the building contractor phase will be wrapped up pretty soon. The roof is mostly on (needs the ridge vent), all the windows are in, the house is wrapped in Tyvek, and the steel is up on the North side of the house. We are VERY pleased with the way it is coming together and I’m especially anxious to sit at the dining room table or in the living room this winter with a big mug of hot chocolate and look out our large picture windows. If you want more details on the building process you need to check out the general contractor … errr … my wife’s blog!
• Wednesday I took hold of the rare opportunity of somewhat dry ground and expanded the pigs area a little bit. We still aren’t out on pasture yet, but they are doing a great job of tilling up next years garden. Our garden will be huge (48′ x 48′ is huge compared to what we’ve had) next year. It might be a little overwhelming, so we will just plant lots of corn!
• We are again moving our chickens in the movable pen we built last year and I love having them again. Now we just need to get the egg production up from this possibly broody hens who have only had cracked corn for a while. But, eggs are coming.
• This mostly falls into my wife’s category, but the black raspberries are beginning to ripen and she enjoys that. While I don’t like the berries I do enjoy picking them, so that is a bonus for me.
• One of Wednesday’s overwhelming things was that I had to hustle so I could by some used cattle panels. And by “some” I mean about 126! There are just a couple things about them … one, they are still standing so I have to take them down … two, there are a few that aren’t so great. My plan is to take them all down and then separate the good from the bad (there are around 40 that are just leaning against a shed). The bad ones will be cut up and sold for scrap, or I’ll use the good sections for smaller areas. The good ones will probably end up as fencing around the homestead area … no electric to worry about with the little ones around. At $5 a piece I can’t complain.

So, as you can tell things are cruising along. There are a few hold ups (loan people take too many vacations), but we are still excited about what is happening and the work that we are doing.

Today was a pretty overwhelming day in more ways than one. It was overwhelming because I was trying to squeeze a lot of work into the day and we had something pop up that I needed to handle. But, the cool reason that it was overwhelming is because I was able to attend a Practical Farmers of Iowa Field Day featuring Gearld Fry! I only had two regrets from the field day. First of all I regret that I wasn’t able to stay the entire time (I know I missed out on a lot!). And secondly, I regret that I wasn’t intelligent enough to take it all in…

Although I was only there for two hours I could tell that Mr. Fry knew what he was talking about and I that I didn’t know nearly enough. He spent some time talking in the barn and then we went out to the corral where he was evaluating come cows and eventually bulls. I was only able to be there while he evaluated two cows, but it was pretty interesting. Once I have some free time I know that I’m going read and re-read all of the articles on his website … I was that impressed!

While I can’t do it all justice and can’t remember half of what he said (it was very overwhelming), let me just throw out a few bullet points from the day:

• If you aren’t line breeding you aren’t doing the best that you can do. This is a pretty a pretty bold statement and it did prompt a few questions, but Mr. Fry was pretty strong in his beliefs … I can’t even begin expound on this idea, but it was very interesting.
• Butterfat has a huge influence in meat tenderness. And a bald udder is an indicator of high butterfat content. Oh, and there were a couple of questions about genetic testing for tenderness. Mr. Fry said that it was good research, but also said he had no reason to give people money to do testing that he could do by looking.
• There is a dime sized spot of hair on the back of a cow near the front shoulders that can indicate whether or not a cow is pregnant.
• From about August through December (I think I got that right) is when a cows body most wants to get pregnant (you get the idea).
• You gotta get your bulls from your own herd, and I think this is where he mentioned the importance of a paternal herd … I think.
• Bulls need to look masculine and cows need to look feminine.
• Finally, this is the one I liked the best. We need to be studying what our forefathers of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries wrote about cattle, because they had it down!

There is just a little bit of what I heard/learned today, but I would suggest that you check out Mr. Fry anytime you have the chance … oh, and don’t leave early 🙁

Sometimes I feel guilty for doing it, but then I remember how much knowledge there is out there among those that read this blog. So, from time to time I blatantly ask for help and today is going to be one of those days where I need the help of those more in the know than I am.

Quite awhile ago I purchased the domain name www.stoneyfieldonline.com so that I would have it for when I was ready to add a website. At first I tried to use it as the URL address for this blog through some sort of pointing or something with GoDaddy/Blogger, but that seemed to slow things down so I canceled that. Now as a few more things are beginning to fall into place I’m really feeling the need for a true online home for Stoneyfield Farm and The Beginning Farmer blog.

That is where all of you smart computer people come in … even though I’m young and thought I was somewhat computer savvy I have found that I can’t really figure out this website thing. Right now I just want something very basic with a front page and contact information so that I can point people to the website (www.stoneyfieldonline.com) when they inquire about the farm, but I’m having a bit of trouble getting it setup so it works in a somewhat easy way.

I suppose that I should also mention that I have a Mac, but if need be I could access a PC to do the work. So, do any of you know what I need to do to get my website up and going? If you have some tips or suggestions or anything else just reply in the comments or click on the new e-mail link I made on the top right (that is one html thing I could figure out).

This weekend there were some great comments on my post, “A High Failure Rate”, and I thought I would take a few minutes to follow-up on them because they really made me think (that is the great thing about this blog … thanks everyone!). What I have done is taken the quotes (in italics) and then added my comments below. I would love to hear more of what you think on this subject, so keep the conversation going.

(JRG) “I would like to believe in 10-20 years, the 20% of concerned citizens will grow to a larger percentage. The more we do to tell the story of sustainable, local ‘agrarian’ agriculture at every possible venue we can, the greater the likelihood that 20% will grow to become a majority.”

I do believe that you will see the number of people concerned about their food choices will grow. In fact I would say that 2 years ago I knew only a handful of people that cared, and now it seems like I’m finding more and more people everyday … even some people that surprise me.

(Mellifera) “I’d love to hear more about the specifics of people’s business problems, in the interest of not repeating history…”

I’m no expert, but I would say a lot of it has to do with getting too big too fast. And with this I’m not so much talking about small scale sustainable farmers, but commodity crop farmers who try to have an operation with their neighbors. I would also throw out unrealistic expectations as a reason … but Mellifera alluded to that in her whole comment.

(Rich) “I seriously doubt if the odds of success are that low. What are the odds of having a professional sports career? 10,000:1? 1,000,000:1? I would think that the odds of succeeding would be closer to 15% or 20%, still low but not as dismal as 1 in a million.”

I was curious about that also.

(Lance) “I was particilarly curious as this post, and still often wonder if my goals are achievable. Time will tell. Thanks for all the info.”

Lance, first of all I’m glad you stumbled on the on the blog and I hope you stick around and get involved in the discussion. I do think you goals are obtainable … but, it will take crazy work!

(Lance) “It would be nice if there was some kind of official club, at least then it might not seem like I am feeling in the dark so much.”

I am totally with you there! I too felt like there should be some sort of official club, and that became part of the reason that I started this blog. I had read all about how Salatin did it and talked with a few others, but I wanted to know how a young guy with out land (Salatin had land) or money could actually make it work. I searched and searched, but couldn’t find what I was looking for. So … I started the blog and started to chronicle what we are doing.

This morning I stumbled across a new documentary (watch the preview and explain to me why all low budget documentaries have similar sounding music) title, “What’s Organic About Organic?“.  It appears to be an interesting documentary and I look forward to watching it whenever it comes available (hopefully it won’t take as long as “King Corn”).  But, right away in the preview it brings up the question … is the organic thing a movement or just a marketing ploy?  This is a question that was running through my mind this week because I was able to spend some time with my cousin from Washington state who works for the USDA certifying organic farms.

This past Wednesday my family and I had a chance to go up to my Aunt and Uncle’s and visit with our extended family. It is always fun to go up there because that is the families home place and they are doing a great job of keeping it up and bringing back some of the buildings that were breaking down. But, the other reason that it is fun to go is because my Uncle is a tractor collector … specifically Minneapolis Moline and all related stuff.

Above is a picture of my uncle on his Moline Universal tractor. This tractor was produced in the teens and was called a universal because there were attachments for plows, cultivators, binders, and more. Some of the implements that could be used attached in any interesting way. In order to use the plow for example you took of the back portion of the tractor (the back two wheels and the seat) and then attached the two bottom plow and switched the seat over.

A picture like this really shows how far we have come in farming … even for small scale farms like ours.

Allan Nation posted a little snippet from a study on the eating habits of Baby Boomers (43-62), Generation X (32-42), and Millennials (16-32). He doesn’t link to the study, but he does give a basic summary of the findings:

“Baby boomers believe in balanced meals, consumption of fruits and vegetables, and avoidance of fats; but Millennials are the largest users of natural and organic foods. Boomers are far more interested in limited trans fat consumption that the other two generations. Millennials eat more meals away from home than at home while Boomers tend to reserve dining out for special occasions. Only 40% of Gen Xers dine out more frequently that they eat at home.”

It is funny because as soon as I read that quote this morning I clicked over to blogger to start writing this post. The first thing that popped into my mind was that we need to get the natural/local/organic food into more restaurants (both large and smaller local ones). After I had that thought I went back to read the rest of Mr. Nation’s post and saw that he came to the same conclusion.

On the flip side, I think it also points out that we need to continue to educate. I have to admit that I have a passion for helping people be good stewards of their money, and eating at home more often than eating out is one of those stewardship issues. Of course restaurants don’t want to hear that, but I think they will be fine because plenty of people will still eat out. When you combine the importance of eating local and supporting the local economy there are so many benefits.

Is anybody working on getting their food into local restaurants? I recently wrote about a place in North Carolina that is connected with a farm … pretty cool thing.

A slightly late post today. We were at my Uncle’s last night and my wife convinced me (not that difficult really) that since we were at the farm everyday now with the pigs and the building we should have some chickens. Sooo….. I spent extra time at the farm this morning fixing up our chicken pen and getting them sort of settled. I’ll have to do a little more work to get everything in tip-top shape again (since we haven’t used it for a while), but we should have eggs pretty soon. Also, we still have five chickens at my Dad’s … we will bring them back up once we are out there during the day and evening so we can let them roam during the day.

Now, back to the Allan Nation column that I began writing about on Monday…

“The start-from-scratch career path now has a failure rate similar to professional sports. Farming’s problem with kids today is we don’t tell them the truth.”

That is what Mr. Nation reports John W. Phipps (of Top Producer Magazine) has to say about today’s state of farming in the United States. But, Mr. Phipps doesn’t believe that it is totally hopeless for the young farmers of today. He believes there is a place for them in “agrarian agriculture”. That is the term he used, and I’m not too sure I like it … but, oh well …

Anyways, this agrarian agriculture that he is talking about is exactly what this blog and so many that read this blog are all about. Mr. Phipps defines agrarian agriculture as, “Producing for a market that values how a commodity is created (organic, local, free-range, etc.), is labor intensive and sensitive to public perception.” Of course that is something that many who read this blog already know, but it is always great to hear this type of thinking from a “top producer”.

Maybe the tide is turning? What are your thoughts?

It has been a few days since I updated everyone on what is happening at the farm, so I decided today I would take a break from my analysis of Alan Nation’s latest editorial column. Below are just some of the happenings lately:

• As you can see the picture on the left we now have a floor in our house. Having that slab of concrete just makes it begin to feel like it is all coming together and helps give us a better picture of what the real size of our new house will be.
• Since the concrete is down our builder is now able to come back and put on the steel, doors, windows, and frame in the mud room. He said he may be able to start on Saturday, but looking at the forecast I’m guessing it will be closer to early next week.
• Last weekend we made the pig pen a little bigger in order to encompass the entire area of next years garden. They are really beginning to work through the soil and adding some much needed fertilizer! They do seem to respect the electric pretty well now, so I am toying with the idea of putting the feeder pigs out in a electric netting pen … except I don’t have any perimeter fence, so I’m a little wary. Any thoughts?
• Yesterday we were finally able to begin baling hay at my dad’s place. Between the unending rain and trip by my dad and family it has taken awhile. It didn’t go without a hitch, but we have it begun … I’m sure I’ll post more on our baling experiences later.
• And finally, I guess I have neglected to blog about our latest news … Steven did notice … we are expecting our third child this coming November! Just in time to join us on the farm (hopefully we will be on the farm by then…).