Tiny Farms

A Farm Bill update from our partners at National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition:The House of Representatives is poised to take a giant step backwards this week – away from the kind of future we want for our food and farms and toward unlimited subsidies for mega-farms and corporate agri-business and reduced investments in sustainable farming.With your help last month we made some big progress in getting farm policy back on track in the Senate and now it’s time to ensure the House of Representatives does the same. An amendment with common-sense, long-overdue farm subsidy reforms is on the table right now – as is an amendment to support local and regional food and farm efforts.Here’s what you need to know: - Rep. Fortenberry’s (R-NE) amendment #93 puts a cap on commodity subsidy payments and closes loopholes that allow mega-farms to collect unlimited payments. - Rep. Pingree’s (D-ME) amendment #176 (with Reps. Fortenberry (R-NE), Gibson (R-NY), and McIntyre (D-NC)) costs nothing and would improve policies to spur small business development and create jobs in rural America by strengthening existing credit, rural development, and research and extension programs that support local food efforts. This week, with these amendments, we may finally have a shot at getting a better farm bill in the House of Representatives – one that supports fresh, healthy food and ensures real reform to corporate and mega-farm subsidies. The House will start voting tonight – make a call today!Calling is easy – just dial the number for your representative* and leave a message like this one below with the person who answers the phone (if your Representative is already an amendment sponsor, make your call a thank you call!):??“Hello, my name is ___ and I’m a constituent and a voter (and tell them if you’re a farmer!). I would like to leave a message for Representative ___’s agriculture staffer. The message is: I urge the Representative to support two key amendments during farm bill floor debate this week: Fortenberry #93 for subsidy reform and Pingree #176 for local food and economic development. Congress needs to get our farm policy back on track by reforming subsidies and investing in a more sustainable future. Thank you.”*To find your representative, click here. Then call (202)225-3121 for the U.S. House switchboard operator.

Sorry about missing last week. I was selfishly enjoying some relaxation time in the middle of a pond on a kayak...yes, Michigan was berry berry good to me.So where is this raw milk struggle in Illinois?A recap.November 2102 IDPH decides they need to have rules about sales of raw milk even though there have been no illnesses related to fluid raw milk produced on an ILLINOIS farm. They organize a group of folk and have a meeting. January. They meet again. Someone suggest they maybe want to include an actual raw milk farmer. I get invited to joinFebruary. I attend the 3rd mtg of this work group and discover they have three pages of proposed rules out together by those who do not make their living producing raw milk. In fact the majority of the work group is comprised of government officials and big dairy employees. The proposed rules are very slanted against raw milk production , consumption and sales.February. I sound the alarm and start calling all the raw milk farmers I know plus the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund and we get to workMay. The BIG meeting in Bloomington. With the Dairy Work group now (finally) being comprised of equal number of pro and con raw milk folk real discussion with IDPH begins. We counter all the proposed rules and are well supported by over 125 general public attendees all opposed to the new proposed rules. Physicians, lawyers, retired heath care personal give moving testimonies in favor of not limiting raw milk sale in Illinois. IDPH appears to be listeningJune. Conference call with IDPH. The agenda not only ignored what the new Dairy Work Group members asked for in May, it now includes even STRICTER proposed rules especially in the area of milk testing. The farmers unanimously refuse to accept the agenda and refuse to move forward. A request is made to start over from scratch and IDPH agrees. Note: very few anti-raw milk work group members bothered to attend this conference call.June. The Pro-raw milk members of the Dairy Work Group submit a brand new agenda to IDPH for consideration at the July 11 IDPH sponsored mtg. It remains to be seen ( as of this writing) if that new agenda will be accepted. If indeed it is, I'll share that agenda with you.In the meantime journalist Tom Kocal Of The Prairie Advocate News continues to hold IDPH feet to the fire in regards to the Open Meeting Act of Illinois which they claim they do not need to follow., by registering a complaint with the Attorney General He has also filed Freedom of Information Act requests related to the FDA grant IDPH accepted which IDPH has not been open and forthright about. In other words WHO is behind the drive to severely limit raw milk sales in Illinois and why?So, just 7 months ago it looked as if IDPH wanted to say HALT to raw milk sales in Illinois but now, due to aggressive involvement of Illinois Farmers, Consumers and Media, and several of our state representatives who are as opposed to the addition of non-sensical rules as we are, those wheels have significantly been slowed. But we are not fools. Government has a way of feigning public interest while at the same time generating extreme and escape free restraints on American Farmers. So we remain acutely aware and prepared for what we may have to do next if indeed the atmosphere of "working together for a common goal" goes sour.

This is my doing. We were walking across the dam when I saw this log floating in the water. We get plenty of flotsam washed into the lake, especially this spring since it’s been so rainy. Most of it is natural runoff from the hillsides that form the Central Valley where my lake sits. The log above, however, was clearly cut with a saw. That would have been my doing, and I suppose I would have believed it was far enuf above the water line to be safe from getting washed in. But I was clearly wrong. It’s a chunk of cedar, which means it’s not going to get waterlogged soon. That leaves two possibilities for its future. Either it will get lodged in the overflow drain and I’ll have to remove it the next time I clean that (every visit lately) or it will get washed over the spillway and perhaps make its way into the pecan plantation. A third possibility, however, would be for me to keep it as a pet, they way I watched Peregrine float around the lake for years and years. This log is smaller than Peregrine, and I might lose it in its trips for a while, but that would be part of the adventure. Of course another possibility is that I’ll pull it from the water and put it on the next campfire I have. I’ll have to let you know.

June has been rainy and on the cool side this year. I think that has contributed to a paucity of blooms. Or, it could be that the gardens at the new house are just a bit behind the gardens at our former house. Or maybe both. By mid-June, I am accustomed to seeing peonies, poppies, and irises–what I like to call the three grandes dames of June–in full bloom. Instead, only the irises are blooming, and they are just getting started.This iris was planted by the previous owner, so I don’t know its name, but it sure is pretty.‘Berlin Tiger’ is a hybrid where one of the parents is I. pseudacorus.Occasional contributor Craig Levy gave me ‘Berlin Tiger.’ Apparently it has a complicated parentage.‘Jaybird’ Siberian iris is true blue. I don’t understand why it’s not more widely available.I confess to feeling a bit disgruntled. At first I thought it was just a case of young-garden-itis. After all, almost everything was planted just last year, and there’s still a lot more bare dirt than I care to see. But looking over other GBBD posts for June (such as the one I linked to above), a lot of plants that usually are blooming by now are merely on the verge of blooming. But here’s a few more: Pinks, a bit of lupine, and Phlox pilosa form a vignette in the slope garden.I got the Phlox pilosa from Gail of Clay and Limestone, who calls it Practically Perfect Pink Phlox.This native rose is virtually thornless. I am not sure which one it is.The native rose above grows in both the old garden and the new one. It has red stems and almost no thorns (prickles). I suspect it is Rosa palustris. Other blooms For the record, here’s what else is blooming: Rhododendrons–a white and a pink by the house, two pink in the Slope Garden Siberian irises–a lighter blue, the heirloom one, and a taller, deeper purple that I brought over Coral bells–just getting started, here and there Red weigela Garden heliotrope (Valerian) Deep blue columbine Crimson corn poppies Bleeding heart Geranium ‘Tiny Monster’ Clematis a deep purple and a lighter one Cynanchum ascyrifolium That’s a pretty paltry list for June! Inspired by the words of Elizabeth Lawrence, “We can have flowers nearly every month of the year,” Carol of May Dreams Gardens started Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. On the 15th of every month, garden bloggers from all over the world publish what is currently blooming in their gardens, and leave a link in Mr. Linky and the comments of May Dreams Gardens.

The aquaponics system is nearly completely set up! Last night, Chris began planting the towers with little starts he has been nurturing under grow lights in his basement.Each zp-start tower has a vertical slot into which two layers of rather coarse fiber growing medium are slid. A felt-like polyester fabric is sandwiched between the layers of growing medium to wick the water, which I presume would flow through the medium very fast otherwise.Then the seedlings are sandwiched in and slid into the slot.This morning when Chris stopped by on his way to work the seedlings (assorted lettuces and basils) he planted last night looked very happy to be out of those confining starter trays and stretching their leaves and roots.Already overnight, the seedlings had begin to turn and grow upward. As they get larger and heavier, gravity will counteract the upward reaching and they will grow more sideways.Here is a view of the growing tower system in the greenhouse so far. Eventually towers will hang along the entire center aisle of the greenhouse. It will shade some of our growing area, but hopefully we can still grow some plants such as lettuces there. It is all an experiment!When the plants in a tower are ready to harvest, the entire tower will be removed and set up in the produce section of a store. Customers will clip off the still growing bunches of greens (about as fresh a you can get!) When they are all harvested, Chris will switch out the towers for new ones and replant the harvested towers. He expects to have produce ready for sale in July!You can follow Chris's progress at his website and blog, Fresh With Edge.AS Chris was working on the aquaponics system, Rog was working on installing gutters along the south side of the barn for a water catchment system. It will provide water for the pond/aquaponics/greenhouse and even better, prevent so much water from draining into our sacrifice pasture (see previous post about mud!) Before hanging the gutters, Rog had to cut off a strip of the metal roof with a sawzall, working on a tall ladder. I could not even watch this scary procedure!In other gardening news, Cadence's squashes and melons in strawbales have sprouted. They line the west edge of the greenhouse and the idea is to train them to grow over the edge onto the ground outside the high tunnel. Planting them in the strawbales is our strategy for dealing with such unbearably wet, heavy soil this spring. As cool as the spring has been, we thought they would also appreciate the added warmth of the high tunnel.We have now had three days of warm, sunny weather (knock on wood) and the tomatoes are responding exuberantly. I think they have at least doubled in size in those three days.MIraculously, the potatoes did not rot in the saturated ground and also look healthy. (So do the weeds.)The raspberries are smothered with buds, just beginning to flower. Fingers crossed for a bumper crop!This morning at 8 a.m. when I took this photo, the bushes were already buzzing with honeybees working the berries.Which reminds me, I must do a little beekeeping this afternoon.P.S. Thank you to all the wonderful folks who stopped by yesterday to visit the farm, shop in the store and at the artisan booths, listen to music, and/or eat pizza with us!And special thanks to the musicians - The Nodding Wild Onions, Cadence and Israel, and Jon Sievers!

So, I was told that my account of the Color Run was “very detailed.” I take that to mean . . . boring. I’ll try to keep this one more brief. I ran a 10K on Fathers Day that was tough. The humidity, it turned out, was 93 percent, so it was like swimming and running at the same time. But anyway, the account: Two members of the running club I am in were going to be at the Fathers Day Run, so I was already intimidated even more than I usually am about these things. Both of these guys run like rabbits while I plod along. We were all running the 10K part of it (there was also a 5K), and we assembled at the starting line. I told them to run on without me, which they would certainly have no trouble doing. This was a horn start (rather than running over starting mats) so the clock began when the horn sounded. Fortunately, I was only about ten feet behind the line, so that didn’t matter much to my overall time. I deliberately started out slow, knowing I had to shepherd my resources to last more than six miles, also knowing that the energy of these kinds of events can seduce me into starting too fast. The start headed downhill a short distance, but then we had to climb a hill to the first turn where another hill awaited. (I had driven the course the night before, so I knew what was coming. I’m still undecided whether this is a good tactic or not.) The first water station (again, no Bud Light) was at mile one, which was just before the second turn. Again we went down a nice, shady hill before slamming into another long uphill grind. The next water station was at mile two, which was at the top of this hill. From here, though, it was mostly downhill the rest of the way to the finish line. I was down with downhill. It wasn’t a particularly hot morning, and the sky was overcast, but the humidity was awful and I was sweating until my eyes were stinging. Also, my shirt was beginning to chafe in a couple of places I’m not going to talk about on this humble blog. (Yes, I applied Body Glide liberally that morning.) I kept plugging along and made the last turn with about a quarter mile to the finish arch. (The course was a square on suburban streets.) Libby and #1 Son, Seth, were on the sidelines there to wave and cheer and take humiliating photos of my sad and wretched self. And then I reached the turn for the last hundred feet toward the finish arch. And I did not turn. I did not turn but kept going because I was running the 10K, and that meant I had to run the square course TWO TIMES in order to complete the 6.2 miles. So all that I had suffered was only prelude. Because I’m a slow runner, there were few other people still on the course by the time I was repeating it. I passed a few walkers, and I was passed by a few others, but the lot of us were thin, and I was pleased to see all of the cones still set up and the police at every intersection keeping us safe. (The first 10K I ran was not like this. They were literally shutting down while I was still on the course.) When I made the last turn with the quarter mile left to my finish, I spotted a woman not too far ahead of me that I decided I would pass just to keep myself motivated. I plugged along and gained on her, and then I reached her just at the point where Libby was again on the sidelines, cheering my forward. But as this woman runner and I made that final turn toward the finish, she hit the afterburners and bolted ahead. I did the same, but there was no contest. She was clearly better at shepherding her resources than I. Still, I came in fast and fine, crossing the timing mat and feeling pretty good as I grabbed the water bottle held before me. Most of it went down the front of my shirt (not intentionally either), and that did not help with the ongoing chafing problem. But i finished and staggered my way to the tents where all of the vendors were. I found a place to sit and was about ready to pour the rest of the bottle of water on my head wh

Welcome to the Friday Farm Fix, a sporadic series where I share a random sampling of what's been happening around the farm during the past week (sometimes actually on Friday). Just joining us? You'll find all the previous Friday Farm Fix posts here and here. Haying round two: cutting the far end of the hayfield. I was going to just blow off this week's Friday Farm Fix—seeing as how it's already Sunday afternoon—but while sorting through the past week's photos (so many!) I realized there were some things I wanted to capture and remember, like all that really tall and thick hop clover in the front field. It feels like something out of The Wizard of Oz out there. Picking the first spring green garlic (so good chopped up in tuna salad). Fearless Jasper working on his junior stock dog badge. And, most importantly, that we put up 26 big round bales of hay. Or, more correctly, that my hunky farmguy Joe put up 26 big round bales of hay. All I did was make lunch, deliver gallons of ice cold fresh mint sun tea and snacks, and drive the truck with the flatbed trailer back and forth when we brought the bales into the haybarn. The only time I even touched any hay was to help move a bale that had rolled down a slope and onto one of the windrows of raked hay. I practically feel guilty. Putting up round bales is a whole new thing for us, and I'm hoping to write a separate post with more about it, but since I was also planning to put up a separate post about our first 2013 cutting of hay (in square bales) a few weeks ago and still haven't, I figured it might be now or never. Something I did finally get around to posting this past week is an update on my garden blog about everything that's growing in my organic kitchen garden right now. We've been savoring the last of the beautiful lettuce, lots of green onions, and the first of the spring onions. Also on the menu this week: 29 more photos and the rest of the weekly recap below (hover your cursor over each image for a description). . . Click here for the rest of this post »

Run a TOR relay. If you have a 24/7 connection with more bandwidth than you normally use, this is a way to make the world a better place at effectively no cost. TOR is an acronym for The Onion Router. Onion for layers and layers. Your browser will meet the server you want to talk to on some random machine thousands of miles from either. The system was originally written by the Office of Naval Research, and is now maintained by a private foundation with major funding from the NSF. The mission was to create an environment that people in China and Iran could use to get information to the outside world. There are many on the net who claim that that TOR came from the CIA so of course there is a back door. If it did come from the CIA, I’d probably agree. But it was the Navy, and they know they’re up against China and Iran, I don’t see them hanging a yank out to dry. It’s also open source, so I think it’s clean. Anyway, if you want some 420 from the Silk Road, or to read the latest dish on Wikileaks, the NSA can notice that you sent a message to to TOR and TOR hit Wikileaks. (If you hit a site inside TOR I question their ability to trace.)  But, if you totally legally relay a megabit of Tor data, second in and second out, your personal traffic is simply not visible. Note, if you run an exit node the feds can have a provocateur go fetch some child porn to crucify you with. If you merely relay, they have to crack TOR and admit it in order to get you. I honor the folks who run the exit ports, but I”ll stick to relaying.

It is a rare thing for a farmer to get off the farm for any real extended time period, especially a livestock farmer, especially, especially the dairy livestock farmer.But due to the very hard work of a young man and his mother who did our chores, we made it happen.Michigan. Cool, forest and lake filled Michigan. Canoes and kayaks, ponds and rivers, killer mosquitoes that were seen carrying around baby rabbits and of course...time with family.Family.What one word in the dictionary elicits more gut retching feelings of love, devotion, angst, disappointment, pride and passion than that one word?Family.The true test of a families worth and strength is in times of trouble such as serious and life threatening illness, death, marriage and the most frightening of all...the family vacation.It is always perfect in the beginning. Shared meals, group events, friendly teasing, evenings of chatter and camaraderie. A time to catch up on each other's jobs, and lives. Time to laugh and relax and enjoy. But as can happen when a large group of people is together for more than 3 days (the old fish and family rule) things can go sour.It is never planned or intended but it happens. Perhaps a verbal disagreement or a clash in behavior rights and wrongs. The group may divide and actions are misconstrued, feelings are hurt, wounds are inflicted and one might very well end that family time with the raging and over-whelming feeling of "Never Again"But what a loss that would be.Families are not meant to be carbon copies of each other. Conflict is unavoidable. But how a family handles this noise of togetherness, the times of discontent is its true measure. Few families bother to come together anymore at special times like Christmas, Thanksgiving, Birthdays, let alone the summer house tucked into the cool woods between babbling water sources.It is too hard, they say, too much work. Uncle Martin is such a bore. Aunt Agatha is so bossy. Cousin It is so hairy. Grandpa Festus is too lazy.But the bottom line is effort. No family is without it's issues but real families are worth fighting for. We can take the low road and refuse to speak, share or gather together because of some perceived mis-deed or we can reach out to those we've hurt, apologize, ask and RECEIVE forgiveness and move on.There is perhaps not a single home anywhere which does not display a easily purchased, often trite sign about the value of family but there are few who are willing to do the tremendous heart breaking work it takes to remain a solid, loving , despite all odds, willing to take on any invader, REAL family in these very self centered "I-Have-The-Right-Me-First" times we are submerged within.Perhaps it is true in this world that there are few things worth fighting for. I myself believe Family is one of them.

I am sitting here writing this post, and relaxing with a well-earned glass of white zin and a few crackers with hummus. I just removed these very muddy boots after spending the entire afternoon dealing with the Quagmire, the deep muddy area at the intersection of our upper and lower pastures and sacrifice pasture (which, I hasten to add, means the grass is sacrificed, not the cows.) Oh man, my back and elbows are tired.The entire sacrifice yard is a mucky mess (not e the green standing water), but this is the very worst spot, between the gate and post. It is the place where I sank in deeper than the top if my muck boots a couple weeks ago and wondered if I would be able to extricate myself, and where the poor cows have been sinking past their knees. Yesterday when I moved the cows to the front yard after a couple days' sunshine, Cadence and I were horrified to see LaFonda sink up to her shoulders in this spot! She could get hurt - or even stuck, and then what would we do? So last night I made the cows stay in the front yard all night, not wanting to risk them sinking in the quagmire.Today was nice but a storm is forecast for tonight, I wanted to deal with this somehow and allow the cows back to the lower pasture so they can access the loafing shed if it is a severe storm. First, I removed a section of fence so they could get to the lower pasture without having to walk through the gate and deep mud. I had researched online what to do to resolve the problem of deep mud inthe sacrifice yard - the most definitive answer was to clear away the mud, put a layer of geotextile material, and then layer sand or other ground over it. This was not the best solution for us because who knows when this earth will ever dry out enough to layer geotextile fabric over the pudding-like surface? Another idea was to cover with deep mulch - I had already dumped several 50-lb. bags of wood chips on and they just disappeared into the depths. Yet another suggestion was to add organic material, and since I had a big pile of half-composted chicken bedding nearby, this is the strategy I selected. Last month, Cadence and Israel did the spring cleaning of the chicken coop (as a Mothers Day gift!) and because the wheelbarrow could not make it through the muck, had piled the winter bedding (fine-shredded pine, straw and chicken manure) along the south side of the pasture fence. So, for three hours I moved the pile, scoop by scoop, to the muck. All in all, I put about a foot deep of half-composted chicken bedding into the mud and stepped it in.I have a few scenarios of what might happen next:a) as the chicken bedding decomposes it will leave little air pockets which will allow worms and/or roots to establish and create openings for the water to flow through the heavy clay for drainage, b) when the sun comes out and dries up the water, the heavy clay soil with fine pine bedding in it will bake into some sort of adobe-like material and harden, allowing the rain to run over the top, not sit on the surface, c) the bedding will just disappear into the clay and not make any difference,d) the pine beddig will absorb water and expand, causing the area of the ground to get higher and essentially dam the drainage from uphill and exacerbate the problem. Being an optimist, I choose a or b, but I respect the law of unexpected consequences, so it could be none of the above. I realized as I was shoveling that we may have actually inadvertently caused the quagmire to be worse when we hired our neighbor to scrape away the mud layer and pile it in the southwest corner of the loafing shed yard. Perhaps that contributed to the pooling of water at the gate that would have otherwise drained gradually down the slope. In a more typical season we probably wouldn't have had an issue but in this year of unrelenting rain, having heavy, non-draining, clay soil is sure challenging. It would be helpful to have a civil engineering degree to be a farmer.I clo