The Beginning Farmer

Yesterday I came across an article on the New Farm website titled, “Dairyman wants super-quality raw milk in retail stores“. The dairyman in this case is Jerry Synder, of Sunny Cove Farm, and the “super-quality” raw milk is unpasturized, 100% organic, and pathogen free. Mr. Synder direct markets his milk (along with grassfed beef, organic apples, and maple syrup) from an on farm store that is open Tuesday through Friday from 2:00 PM until 5:00 PM. He runs a small herd, by most standards, of 50 cows on his all grass dairy.

It all sounds great … super quality milk, an all grass dairy, organic beef, on farm sales, the store is only open 12 hours a week, small scale, family operated, and customers willing to pay the premium. But, Mr. Synder doesn’t want to just sell his milk on the farm. He wants to fight the laws and the regulations to allow “super quality milk” that has been super tested to be sold in the stores. Mr. Synder has his milk tested regularly and it tests at levels 1/4 of the allowed limit. He attributes those great results with quality herd management, knowledge of genetics, sanitation, and nutrition.

At this point I have no desire to have a milking operation on the farm, unless it is just milking a couple of our Dexters for ourselves. But, I find this battle going on in New York pretty interesting because Mr. Synder is producing a superior product and is now trying to work within the system in order to take it to a larger market. It reminds me of Joel Salatin’s book, “Everything I Want to Do is Illegal” (which I will read sometime). I encourage you to check out this article and give me your thoughts on raw milk sales. Also, I would be interested in what the laws are in your state. I think here in Iowa it is illegal.

I’m going to try and strike a balance between farming research, commentary, thoughts, ideas, and of course farm building. But, last evening when we went out to the farm to do some work we laid our eyes 25 sticks stuck in the ground! This is a pretty big deal for us because what you see in the picture on the left is the very beginning of our new house. As I have mentioned numerous times we are building a pole building that we will finish off ourselves so these posts are pretty much the foundation and frame of the house. From here things will hopefully go up pretty quickly.

The plan (pending weather and contractors) is to have the building framed up by Thursday (it looks like the weather will hold). Then on Saturday we are going to rough in the plumbing underground so that hopefully (fingers crossed) we can do some grading and pour some cement early next week … after the septic is in I guess. Once all that floor stuff is done than we will be ready for steel to go up on the sides and the roof. Of course we will have a slab floor, which could be cold, but we are going to put a combination of high density foam and bubble wrap under the concrete to help keep it slightly above freezing!

But, the cool thing about this house is that it is a little different and it will have a barn look to it. The building will be red with white trim and have a big sliding door on the end facing our pastures (a little storage). And, to top it all off there is going to be a great view of the pastures below the house. Here are some of the plans for the week:

Finish mowing the perimeter of the property in preparation for fencing.

Expand the pig area (training to electric) with the panels I bought at an auction this weekend.

Fence in the garden (garden fencing and electric fencing).

Get water on the property (should be coming in tomorrow and then we’ll install a hydrant).

Find more berries for my family to eat (I don’t care for them, but I enjoy finding them and clearing out the woodline).

With the rising costs of just about everything farm related (land, fuel, feed, fencing, etc.) I think it is important to look for more ways for the farm to make money than just the livestock or produce. This is something that I have written about before on the Beginning Farmer Blog and it is also something that I have read as much about as possible. The latest little article comes from the June issue of the Stockman Grassfarmer. The main article is from the “Women’s Work” column and deals with samples, but there is a small article on the same page titled, “Charge For Experiences, Give Away Your Products”.

Of course they aren’t talking about charging for a hay ride and then giving away a half of a pig. But, there may be an opportunity to charge for a fall festival and then serve up plenty of burgers, dogs, produce, and whatever else you have … free of course. The idea is that you get people to come out to the farm for something else and then you expose them to the great food that you produce. I like the theory!

One thing that I have learned from my time writing for the Epi-Log is that there is a huge gap between the farmers and many consumers. As many statistics point out most people are quite a few generations removed from the farm and they don’t have much understanding of farm life or farming in general. But, what I have also learned is that there is a desire by many people to get to know the farm better and the farmers also. Maybe this is an opportunity to charge for the experience and give away some product.

An idea that we have kicked around from time to time is Christmas trees. We love the experience of going and cutting down our own tree and have always thought it would be enjoyable to have a tree farm, but with only 40 acres I don’t think we want to use much land for Christmas trees. So, my wife had the idea that we could have a small Christmas tree grove for ourselves and our customers/friends of customers. This way we could have one or two days during the holiday season where we invite the customers and their friends out for a winter day on the farm full of food, fun, and of course Christmas trees. We could charge for the trees, give away some food, and gain some new customers.

Diversifying your farm these days means more than just have a 7-year crop rotation or pigs, sheep, and cattle. Today I think it means you need to come up with more ways to make the farm pay.

So, what is the deal with the food crisis? Is it real … is it something that can be fixed … is it just a scare tactic made up by certain groups … is it caused by our growing ethanol industry … what exactly is the deal?!? This current/impending food crisis is something that I’m hearing a lot about lately on the news and in the blogging world. People are talking about it because of the food shortages in third world countries and because of the rising food costs here in the United States.

Yesterday I ran across the video below on one of the blogs I frequent. It looks like I’m a few days late posting it, but it was still an interesting video because it features the head of Compassion International talking about the food crisis. I love what Compassion does and have supported it various times, but I’m still curious about the food crisis … is it something new in the third world countries, or has it been around and the same for quite a while.

The other thing that pops into my head when I see news reports on the food crisis is what small farms have to do with a lack of food. Should we have more small farms? Should the small farmer sell/rent their land to bigger farmers who can farm “more efficiently“? Can the small-scale farm make a large impact in a food crisis?

Those are all questions that I don’t really have concrete answers for, but I would be interested in hearing what you take on the matter is. One way I do believe small farms can help the problem is through organizations like Gospel for Asia. This organization offers us opportunities to buy farm animals (chickens, rabbits, goats, etc.) for people in developing places so they can produce food for themselves and for sale. This is an organization I love to support and think they have a great model!

One time in 9th Grade Shop Class I built a dog house sized house out of balsa wood and glue. Well, I guess I should say that my group and I built the house. I did get to take it home though … where I’m pretty sure my friends and I smashed it! But, now we are inching ever closer to building our own house. I think if you would have asked Becca and me eight years ago if we would be building and house and starting a farm all at the same time we would have said you were crazy. We have always wanted to live in the country on a quiet road with some animals for fun, but back then something like this wasn’t even on the radar.

We have been married for just over seven years now, and during that time we have lived church owned property for just of six of those years (we lived in an apartment for around 10 months). But, judging by the stack of wood and equipment that we saw at our farm on Wednesday night we are going to be living in our own place very soon.

This is pretty exciting stuff because we are carving our farm out of nothing. I often tell people that we are like the original homesteaders coming to Iowa and building their lives on bare piece of ground, because that is just about what we are doing. Except I think that maybe those early Iowa settlers had a little more building (and farming) experience that I have!

So, have you ever built a house … or even more specifically have you ever built a house out of a pole barn? That is what we are going to be doing for the foreseeable future (with the help of family) and we would love to have any tips or hints that you have!
**A little update on our boar: After talking with our builder yesterday we found out that they were at the farm until a bit after five on Wednesday and he was still in his pen when they left. They did mention that he was panting heavily, but he had plenty of shade and water and even cool mud. We got out to the farm around seven that same evening so he couldn’t have been out very long at all. Basically he was able to bend up the cattle panel between the fence posts (spaced 4 feet apart). I think there must have been something medically wrong with him, but we will never know for sure. Still hard to swallow…

Well yesterday was the day of good news. The farm really seemed to be changing into a bare piece of dirt into something! But, today I have less than exciting news … in fact it is news that I didn’t really want to share. I was at the farm yesterday morning at about 6:30 AM to feed the pigs, then again at about 10:00 AM to show the builder where we want the house, and then we went out as a family at around 7:00 PM to see what progress was done. That was when I noticed that the new boar had escaped…

Apparently he got his snout under the fence and just went at it until he was out. Of course it is probably not the first time a boar has broken out of pen, in fact it isn’t even the first time a boar has gotten out of a Book farm pen (our family has hogs off and on for a long time). So, right away Becca jumped in the truck and I jumped on the tractor to begin the search.

I didn’t have to go far because only about 250 yards from the pen I found him laying in the ditch … dead. Becca drove up and down the road for about 30 minutes looking for any sign that he was hit, but didn’t find anything. I followed his tracks up the ditch to the point where he went in (it is about a 6 foot drop at about a 60-70 degree angle), but couldn’t find many tracks through the pasture because the ground was pretty hard.

The first thought is that he got hit, but I couldn’t find any sign of that on the road (no blood, no hoof prints, no breaking marks, nothing). After that I guess there could have been any number of things, but by the time we found him and got him out of the ditch it was so late that I didn’t think we could get him posted and it would be too late today. It really looks like he just laid down and died … maybe?

This certainly is a learning experience and something that I will have to keep with me for the future, but it is also part of living on the farm. I will learn from it and move on…

That could probably be the motto of the Midwest lately with all of our rain/flooding. And usually that phrase is used in conjunction with bad news. But, today I’m using it for good news … it just seems like everything is coming on all at once and it is really starting to pour!

After church on Sunday I spent the afternoon starting on the fencing for the pigs. Then Monday morning I got up pretty early to finish up the fence, fix a flat tire on the truck, unload our hog hut and feeder from the stock trailer, met my dad at the farm to get his mower, mow about one acre of the field for our building area, plow the garden, till the garden, and on and on! Bright and early Tuesday the pigs arrived and I got them settled in and then went back to the farm in the afternoon to put up a single electric wire around the inside of the hog fencing. It was a busy few days, but there is not a lot of activity out at the farm.

That is all good news, but the best news came this morning after I got home from feeding the pigs. I had just sat down to type my blog post when I received a call from our builder. He wanted to go drill the holes for the posts! So, I had to hop back into the truck and lead him out to the farm. Unfortunately we couldn’t stick around and watch them work, but we are planning on going to look at our holes later this evening.

It is really exciting to see so much work getting done at the farm because we have spent so much time planning. Hopefully in a week or two we will have our home framed up in addition to the pigs, the garden, and the equipment that is already there. Now, if we could just get the electric company to put in a temp. service (not likely) and finally get the water guys out there we would be good to go.

Sorry for the late post today. As you can see from the picture below we had a busy/early morning. I will update this post later this afternoon with more details!

Here are some of the details on our new pigs. A few weeks back I saw an ad on Craigs List for “pastured swine”. This of course caught my attention, but even better was the fact that they were only about 12 miles from our place! I called the farmer and told him I was interested in a few of the feeder pigs … but, found out he was really wanting to sell the 8 pigs, the sow, and the boar. I went down to check them out hoping that I could just some feeders.

Well, once I go there he mentioned that he really wanted to sell them all and that he had some people coming to look at them. Normally I would have just said thanks, but I can’t … but, I really like the fact that these pigs where a Hampshire and Tamworth cross. As you may know the Tamworth is is listed on the ALBC list as “threatened”. I drove away that day and began thinking about the different possibilities.

Finally I figured out a way to get it all together and those piggies showed up on the farm today. So, as of now we have halves and wholes of pasture raised (soon to be back on pasture after learning the joys of electric fence) Tamworth x Hampshire pork. These should finish this fall (October/November) and should be plenty tasty (I know I can’t wait!).

If you would like to throw out a name for our new Tamworth boar you can check out my latest Epi-Log post and offer up your suggestion.

It has been awhile since a farm update, so I thought I would fill you in a little bit and then share some of the plans for our busy week.

The Update:

• Not much as progressed on the building front, other than spending a lot of time on the phone (thanks Becca) trying to get everything lined up.
• Hopefully we will close soon on the building loan, if all the lenders ever take a break from their vacation to work.
• Our Dexters seem to be doing okay, but I’m not impressed with the grass that is in the new pastures we are using this year. We set up some new fence at my dad’s farm and I really can’t wait until they get to our place.
• I started putting in some new fence for the pigs that will be coming soon … more on that in the plans.

The Plans:

• My dad and family are going to be gone for the next two-and-a-half weeks so I get the mower that they are testing. This is going to be a win/win for both of us. He gets some hours on the mower (thus some money) and I get a lot of mowing done that I have been waiting to work on.
• This week I plan on getting the rest of the fence posts pulled on the farm and the last of the brush cut out of the fence lines. Then we will be ready to tackle the fencing.
• Yesterday I got most of the fencing done for the new pigs (expect pictures tomorrow) and will finish a little up on Monday. This is just a temporary spot until we get all of our exterior fencing up, but it will be cattle panels with electric running inside … plenty to keep them in.
• We are going to get the house location staked out so we can hopefully have some electricity at our place once they start building.
• Finally, I plan on messing around with the garden out at the farm. Getting it ready this year has been impossible with the weather, but maybe we can transplant a few things and start a few things also.

A lot to do and it is only going to get busier, but we are mostly enjoying every minute!