May 2014 Farm Tour

 

Get yer boots and yer helmet, it's time for a farm tour!

Finally made a point of taking the camera with me to chores the other night so you could all see the goings on around Barnyard Organics these days.

 We start in the brooder where Sol is happy that the sides are just the right height for him to have a good vantage point (and easy for the bigger caretakers to step over without too much stumbling around).  Mark's sister, Sarah was kind enough to hatch a few eggs from our layers and we got a few cute and fast little brownies in amongst the fat yellow fuzzballs.  They are getting a bit more attention than their monocolour counterparts, but I think they're going to survive the mauling and 'loving'. 

 Next we head out to the cattle where we feed Rosie and Duffy, who are both nearing a milestone of sorts.  At some point soonish, Duffy is going to be heading to the Happy Hunting Ground in the sky (ie. our freezer) (Mark thinks we should sell tickets on Parliament Hill to an organic meal featuring grilled Duffy).  And Rosie is to be dried off in a week or so to prepare for her next calf, due in August.  We're not looking forward to buying milk and drinking a lot less of it, but this is pretty decent timing for having one less chore (milking) to do.  And then fresh ice cream in August will be pretty great too! Here's to hoping I have enough butter in the freezer!

 Next onto the pigs, who are happily rooting around in last year's pig pasture, but needing some expansion.  They seem to be a lot more interested in grass than last year's pigs, so we're opening their pasture up a bit this week to give them more grazing opportunities.  Nancy is a particularly good forager, although that may be out of necessity since we think Miss Pig Gail Shea is greedy at the feed trough and eats more than her fair share.  Nancy is the least photogenic pig we've ever had and makes snapping a picture nearly impossible.  I refused to indulge Gail's narcissistic tendencies by posting a picture of her on here. Just trust me that she's huge, happy and healthy (well, as healthy as overweight pigs can be anyway).

 Here is one of the roosters-Mr. Johnny Cash if I'm not mistaken(-who looks all black when he's inside).  He nearly always stands on one foot and Thayne enjoys the trick of telling everyone the rooster only has one leg, so he wanted me to get a picture while we were going by.  Both our roosters this year are especially friendly (or at least NOT aggressive) and are gentle enough with the hens that none of them are showing signs of missing feathers or scratches, so they are on the  'keep' list for now.

 Next we head out into the pasture where we've finally gotten the chicken shelters out!  The big one, "the Palace", is for the layer hens and is designed to be more stationary- only moved once a week or so, while we let the hens out of the house during the day. 
The other houses each have about 45 chickens in them and are so far working well again this year.  The kids and I are mostly in charge of moving them twice a day and keeping them in feed and water.  To be honest, I've become a bit redundant, as Lucy can drive the 4-wheeler, Thayne pulls the cable out, Wilson runs the winch and they can all run the water hose and pump.  I guess I'm just the muscles who lifts the feed.

 

Finally, last stop is the egg washer.  Right now we only wash every other night, because it's only the eggs from our 40ish hens, but once the hens out on the pasture start laying sometime in July, it'll likely be a daily operation.  We're setting up the empty room in the Dead End as the egg washing room where the eggs can have their own fridge, etc.  Keep your eyes peeled for info on the egg CSA to come soon!

Having my first feed of asparagus tonight for supper, which is the sure sign that a new season is here.  After a winter of eating almost exclusively pork and a small bit of chicken, along with mostly root vegetables, quinoa and rice, I am so ready for some fresh chlorophyll and things picked within the last few days.  For all the complaining I did about seasonal eating, this long winter, the anticipation and arrival of these summer flavours is what makes it so good!

Well, I must be off to help finish up some sunny day projects around the farm and house.  Right after I help build a road in the sandbox for the 'manure spreader' to get through to the 'gravel pit tunnel', whatever that important piece of infrastructure is.

I hope this finds you enjoying some summer flavours of your own!

-Sally

Condescension

It looks like "condensation" eh?  But this post is not about the temp inside the chicken barn (although it is admittedly not as fresh as we had hoped at this point in the year, when we had anticipated having at least the first batch of chickens out on pasture.  As it stands, they will hopefully get out tomorrow and then we can start moving everyone around and spreading them out as they should be, according to The Plan.  The Plan is bound to fail at some point, as plans often do, but so far it is a carefully orchestrated illustration using Excel and colour coding to figure out which batches go where, when.  And with my CSA full (YAY!) it will be important to stick as close to The Plan as possible to ensure harmony at all stages.  I'll keep you abreast of how The Plan works out as the summer goes along.

But, no, this post is about science. Again.  I know one of my last posts was about my distaste for science and how I have an increasingly hard time trusting it, when it used to maintain a very intentional pillar of integrity.  That post was me struggling with the statements from scientists who dismiss anti-GMO commentary as baseless and stupid and lacking in scientific proof.
This post is me identifying exactly what it is about that that really pisses me off.
And it's condescension.

It was while listening to a scientist on CBC last week discussing vaccines. The scientist was, as they all are, frustrated about the lack of vaccination that is happening these days.  I am not anti-vaccine by any means, but the way with which he presented his case, made me want to be contrary to anything he said.  He spoke with an air of being above the rest of the common people, stupid enough to not know better.  He was so patronizing and all-knowing that the host had a difficult time providing a foundation for a decent discussion. 
I've heard a similar rhetoric in scientists on the pro-fracking side of the debate.  It's as if those who are opposed are just too stupid to know how to think critically and are not even worth considering.  It's so frustrating to not be heard, but even more frustrating to be talked down to and then dismissed.

I went to a really interesting talk last week about Genetic Engineering that was touring the country.  The main speaker was a retired Ag Canada scientist who was a genetic engineer and now spends his time spreading his concerns about GMOs.  Well, actually, he's not necessarily anti-GMO, but anti the pesticides that make them work.  Specifically, glyphosate or Round Up as it's known.  It was a fascinating talk and I learned new things that make me even more concerned than ever before.  Mark asked me on the way home what I thought and besides being energized about my convictions, I was kind of saddened by how brow-beaten the scientist seemed. He wasn't the jerky, over-confident scientist I've gotten used to expecting. He presented his information factually and in a way that we could all understand but lacked the enthusiasm and excitement that a well-styled, PR'd, script-reading, shiny, fresh-faced and convincing young lip-service chemical/seed company rep would bring to an ag conference.

I mean, I think I get it.  The scientists I often hear on the radio or read online have been picked as spokespeople for a reason and have been dealing with stupid questions from journalists and the public and are tired of uninformed people making inaccurate assumptions about something they've dedicated their life to.  It's irritating as a farmer to have non-farmers make negative assumptions about how we handle ________(insert farm-related item here), so I kind of get it.
But, I also recognized that people are concerned for a reason, and if I'm going to convince them of my way, I'd better figure out a way to reach them.  If that means spending time on a blog (hahaha!), then so be it.  If it means having time-consuming tours, so be it.  If it means spending more one-on-one time with my customers, so be it.  If it means not talking to people like they're stupid and a waste of my time, that's a pretty simple way to handle it.

I've removed myself from FB because I was noticing a bit of an addiction happening, but I've kept the farm Twitter feed going.  I follow a lot of pro-GMO profiles because it keeps me informed (and keeps my blood pressure alive) and today they were all touting a graphic from the magazine The Economist, in an article criticizing Vermont for taking a stand on requiring labeling of GE foods.

The title "Odd priorities".  Did it need a title?  Would it be less effective without the title?  It would be less negative and annoying to those of us who find it a very misleading factoid.  Without the condescending title, it would just be another lame graphic showing a very narrow and shortsighted view of the whole picture.  But the title gives it a sense of superiority over the people stupid enough, and maybe evil enough to get worked up over what is clearly a miracle for all those malnourished children.

I won't spend any of this post addressing the actual content of that graphic, although that would be good fodder for a separate post.  I just wanted to let it be known that if the scientific community was truly interested in furthering its agenda, it would be better off losing the annoyed, condescending tone and actually listening to the concerns of it's doubters, addressing the questions and talking TO people, not DOWN to people. 

The best conversation I've ever had with a scientist was at a side table at a drunken wedding dance in which we talked for 45 minutes about the Rotavirus vaccine.  Neither one of us convinced the other one that we were right, but we heard each other, shared each other's concerns, presented our opinions and had a great time. 

Maybe I should just have some drinks when I talk about GMO's, glyphosate and labeling laws.  Or at least have some drinks when I am listening to scientists talk about them. 

May this find you perhaps having one as you read this, enjoying the greening up of the grass as spring slowly, slowly creeps her way into our world for another year.

-Sally




 

Farm Update- May 2014

In an attempt to get myself back in the habit of posting at least weekly, this one is just a farm update, rather than a rant on any particular topic.
Firstly, my favorite new farm toy finally arrived the other day and has met all the expectations I had for it.  Out of Ohio, from Gibson Ridge Farm, we bought a 'portable egg washer'.  (Note this is not our video- there are far too many tiny hands involved at our place to ever get a video.)

Currently it sits on top of the double sink in the Dead End, although we're tossing around the idea of setting up it's own sink in the extra storage room of the Dead End that was plumbed for a sink.  Once we have all the new layers in production, it won't be so easy to take over the front room of the packing area.  Anyway, as with all new things, it's fun and it's a fight every night over who gets to do what.  The best work team is Lucy as egg-putter-inner, Mommy taker-outer/inspector, passer-to-Wilson who is the basket man and handles putting the eggs into the basket, to be taken home to get carton-ed up.  Thayne is a keen observer who is not happy unless he is the MIDDLE of the action.  So far, Sol is content to watch from his wagon, but I'm sure that's to be short-lived very soon.
Anyway, our previous washing method was that I would sort through the eggs and pack up the ones that didn't need washing right away, give the dirty ones a short soak and scrub.  Eggs have a protective coating that gets washed off with water, so that's why I've made the effort to not wash any unless we have to.  But with the washer, it's so easy and quick to just put them all through that I can't justify handling them an extra time to decide who needs washing and who doesn't.  Also, the water stream is negligible.  It's more of a drip than anything, but enough to help clean the ones that need it.

Mark is taking advantage of yet another miserable, cold, rain day to work on the moveable pen for the layer hens this summer.  We've tossed around so many ideas for the structure that I'm not even sure what we're going to end up with, but at least he's taking care of the basic frame for now. 
The meat chickens are growing well (as they do) and CSA shares are selling steadily.  I haven't sold quite as many as I hoped to so we're looking at possibly going to a Wednesday Farmer's Market this summer.  It's so hard to tell how much we might sell at a market, so I'm nervous to commit, stop selling shares to ensure we'll have enough, and then not sell enough at the market.  So for now I'm still pushing CSA shares and hoping to get a few more before we have to make a decision about the market.
The big benefit of attending a market this year though, is that it would likely help me increase my shares next year.  

Evidently, given the weather, we don't have anything in the ground yet (nor does anyone else in the country).  Calgary is under snow and in talking to Ontario friends today, they don't have anything planted yet either.  Misery loves company, right?
I guess Mother Nature is showing her might and given what we've all thrown at her over the last couple decades, I'd say she has the right to.  I've recently learned a bit more about hydrolic fracturing and also attended a talk about GE Foods and Round Up so can't blame ol' Mama Nature for being a bit pissed off.

In other farm news, there's not much.  The pigs are outside and the cattle are in their corral, although not out in the pasture yet.  The chicken barn is starting to get a little crowded, since normally we'd hope to be putting some outside soon, but that obviously won't be happening, so we're brainstorming ways of spreading everyone out a bit more while still being able to get water and feed where it needs to go. 
The boys and I build a little sandbox for the birds the other day and it was such a big success we're in the works for another, bigger one.  The hardest part was, and will be, finding nice dry soil to put in it.  ha!

Well, it's good to be back.  I'll be sure to include photos next time and start building a rant for you. :)

May this find you clinging to the sounds of the spring peepers as a sure sign that spring is indeed coming!

-Sally

Food Security Network AGM

So, remember me?  It's been so long since I've posted on here that I feel a bit intimidated looking at this empty white space I'm expected to fill.  But I have great intentions of getting my blogger groove back on.  I've gotten myself off Facebook so have lots of grand plans for all the freetime I'll be enjoying that was previously eaten up by whatever it is that Facebook saw fit to feed me all day.
But to ease my transition back into this, I'm going to cheat a little bit.  I'm going to copy and paste my notes from my recent keynote address at the PEI Food Security Network AGM.  It was a great group of concerned individuals from a variety of backgrounds, across the PEI, coming together in the name of food security, locally.  If you haven't already heard, 2014 is the year of the Family Farm, so I was asked to incorporate that into the theme of my talk. 
I started out with a little visual tour of the farm, using photos and sharing details of what we do, how we do it, etc.  I am going to leave that part of out of this post, since it's not news to you, and because it's kind of the foundation for nearly all the talks both Mark and I do, so you can find out nearly all of it by reading this blog, or checking our website.  So the notes below, start after I've done the first 13 slides of farm description stuff.  I'll toss in some pictures now and then so you can really pretend you were there. :)
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So that’s my farm.  What kind of farmer am I?  I guess I usually say we’re organic grain farmers.  But we could also be called chicken farmers. Or egg farmers.  Even cash crop farmers.  We’re also a family farm.

 It’s easy to get caught up in the imagery of ‘family farms” and “small, local agriculture”, but we all know those are subjective terms. What is a family farm?  I’m sure the McCains and the Irvings consider themselves a family, and they have a farm, right?  And small farms here are a lot different than small farms even in Quebec, let alone on the prairies.  So let’s forget about trying to label certain operations as small, or local or family operated, and let’s focus instead on what we are producing.

What does an egg farmer produce? What does a potato farmer produce?  What does a dairy farmer produce?

Now what does a family farmer produce?

The kids and I spend a fair bit of time on the farm.  We don’t accomplish much of substance. In fact, from a managers perspective, we probably make it worse most of the time.  But I still consider myself a farmer.  And if you were to ask me what is that I’m farming I’d probably say…”chickens”.  But in my head I’d be thinking “farmers”.
Like any crop, you give it a good start, feed it well, work hard, pray a lot and hope for the best. But you don’t know the results until they’re grown up.  Maybe my yield will be terrible.   Maybe my crop will look good all along and then be a crop failure.  Maybe I’m not actually a very good farmer farmer after all.  That remains to be seen.

All farms produce some important, usable product.  There is perhaps no more important product than farmers.  To produce and grow farmers is an art that has been lost. The exodus we’ve stood by and watched as farms have gotten bigger and more ‘innovative’ and ‘efficient’, as farm kids move to urban centers and get secure jobs, with regular paycheques, proves that we’re losing the ability to grow farmers. 

When big farms are so mechanized that the farmers themselves never actually come in direct contact with the animal or the crop and rely instead on technology and the knowledge of those ‘experts’ outside the farm itself, it is no longer growing farmers. It is growing a business.  Perhaps a very successful one.  Perhaps one that grosses a lot of money and maybe there will be a young person who is excited by the possibility of making a lot of money, but it is not growing farmers. 

 

And, from experience, it takes a lot of work and resources to grow farmers. Thinking of the effort my parents made to grow farmers, I now recognize that it is not something that happens by itself.  It takes great patience to help a little girl train a big steer to want to be led around the farm yard by a rope.  It takes hopefulness to give your best ewe to your daughter for Christmas so that her next batch of lambs can be registered under her name, to start her own flock.  It requires nerves of steel to let teenagers run tools and machines. 

 

From personal experience, there is little more frustrating than being under pressure to get a job done, and watching tiny fingers try to figure out the intricacies of opening a bag. Or being eager to get home after a long day, but taking the time to sit in with the pigs and figure out personality-appropriate names. Two weeks ago we had 300 chicks arriving the next day and were working hard to get the brooder room built and insulated after a winter of letting it fall to the bottom of the priority list.  And it was patience-testing to watch three kids under 6 take turns running the drill, stripping screws, reversing the bits and dropping the heavy drill, but were they ever proud of the job once it was (finally) done. It probably took nearly an extra hour from what their father could have done by himself, but for an hour that was forgotten by us by the end of the day, it was an hour they may never forget. 

The lesson of life and death is one that family farmers in particular, appreciate with a depth not found on other farms.  With kids, it is a necessity of life, filtering and understanding the connection between birthing something, growing something, killing something and eating something.  It’s not an easy lesson and some are harder than others, but it’s one that isn’t found on non-family farms.  Having the appreciation for life, and the solidarity of hurting over an unexpected death or particularly difficult end-of-life decision creates a bond between the farmers in the family.  

 
And I’m not talking only about kids.  I recently ran a workshop at our on-farm poultry processing facility for individuals interested in learning how to process their own chickens.  In the pre-amble we talked of our experiences with various poultry and as happens with farmers, the chat grew and expanded and everyone ended up spending far beyond the allotted time, just sharing in the challenges and successes that come with family farming.  There was an unspoken, shared mood in the killing room as we came to terms with our role in the circle of life and one that I think can only be found on a truly family farm. 

The gift of mentoring and apprenticing on farms is a beautifully visible sign of growing farmers.  As an apprentice gains confidence over the season and begins to notice, for themselves, subtle changes in the plants or better yet, the soil, a farmer is grown.  And in turn, as the mentor begins to feel they can, with confidence, hand over significant responsibilities to the apprentice, their own load is lightened and they know they have begun to grow a farmer.

It is not a responsibility to be taken lightly, growing a farmer.   Have I gotten away from my main point? Family farming?  But no.  For we all know that is nigh impossible to farm by oneself.  Farmers are by nature, team players.  They want partners in crime and sometimes those partners in crime, lead to more tiny partners.  Thus, we have farm families. 

Given that this is the Food Security Network AGM,  I would suggest true food security relies not on increased food production, technology and efficiency, but on an increase in true family farmers.  We are increasingly fed by businesses and managers, but our food sovereignty will rely on farmers who will in turn grow more farmers and families.

And there is no one in particular to blame for the lost art of growing farmers.  Smaller and smaller margins have resulted in farmers having less time, fewer resources and shorter patience for the time-consuming task of teaching and sharing the love of agriculture.  I strongly believe the low cost of industrial food and a disconnect to the eater has had a direct impact on farmers’ ability to grow farmers.  So let’s vote with our food choices and support farming family farmers so that we can ensure truly sustainable food production for the future.

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So that's that.  I would like to acknowledge that last photo which is a still from Mille Clarke's film Island Green, which coincidentally played after the AGM I spoke at.  And no matter how many times I see it, it makes me cry with its sheer beauty everytime.  And at the same time invigorates my sometimes tired spirit.

May this find you enjoying the smell of drying, spring earth and anticipating the first chirp of spring peepers.

-Sally

Inspectors, Acadia, Babies, oh my!

It was a BIG day here at the farm. 
We got a call yesterday afternoon from the health inspector who was in the area this morning and wanted to stop by.  After some initial freaking out, we decided this would be a valuable learning experience and since we had made it clear that we were still waiting on a compressor for our cooler, we felt pretty confident in everything else. 
Turns out, we're awesome and he was super impressed!  He seemed to be making an effort to put us as ease right away and it was sort of like an organic inspection in that it was more a matter of him offering suggestions rather than just 'writing us up'.  It was great and we're feeling pretty proud.  I posted a photo tour over on the Chicken CSA blog. 

Then, Armour showed up with a special delivery to the farm, for ME!  Mark had sent a sample of this year's Acadia wheat off to Speerville and they reciprocated with 5 kgs of flour in a fancy bag with a lovely logo.  I immediately set to work to make the first batch of bread with our home-grown heritage wheat, bred especially for the Maritime climate! Even more exciting, Acadia has proven to be agreeable with some gluten intolerances, which we all know is a growing concern for many. 

Here is the Beast at work.  This cleaner is a work of art.  Seeing it in action feels like performance art that is also extremely functional.  Watching all the belts moving and the pulleys turning and hearing the grain falling and sliding and running out, it's so complicated, but not so complicated at the same time.

And here's the proud wheat farmer posing with his fresh flour sitting in a tonne tote bag of Acadia, ready to go!

 Here's my baker's helpers checking out the rise in the new flour.  Beautiful!

A very satisfactory 'bed lunch', as my sister always called it.  Warm Acadia bread, butter & molasses.  I predict solid sleeps tonight with bellies full of that, and the chilly air coming through the windows. Lots of quilts and familiar books, cold night, sunny days and busy bodies, make for my favorite time of year.

A couple more kid shots for those of my family members who read this pretty much soley for those:

 This photo seems to have caught Sol at a funny angle, since it doesn't really look like him, but I thought he slightly resembled Rex Murphy so I wanted to include it.  All he's missing is the crazy eyebrows. haha!

 And here he is, already loving the jolly jumper.  Hard to believe he's that big and strong already! It's a good thing we slow down our development as humans, since going from newborn lump to jumperoo king in 3 months is pretty serious business and I don't think adults could deal with that themselves.

I feel winter air on its way.  The chicken CSA is down to it's last two pick ups, which means we're gearing up for pork!  It's been so long since I had bacon, I can hardly remember what it tastes like.

I've got a bit of a rant coming regarding a blog posting that's gone facebook viral lately among the farming community.  I'm sure it won't be popular with many, but I'm tired of the 'we're doing the best we can' line, when in fact very few of us are doing the very best we can.

Anyway, more on that later.

Hope this finds you making lots of warm soups, maybe piling wood or packing away summer clothes.  Fall is here!!  YAY!

-Sally

Moral Dilemma

I'm having an internal struggle.
In the midst of my struggle I'm thankful that I have this compassionate husband, a healthy family, this beautiful farm, a solid faith and a place to lay my head.
However, tomorrow morning at 8 am I am going to make a call that I never expected to make and that is making me question all the efforts that I've made in my life to keep my family and myself from poisonous chemicals.  That's an awfully dramatic way of admitting that I am hiring a pest control company to take care of an infestation in the house, but in my state of irritation and exhaustion, it FEELS dramatic.
From where I sit typing this I can hear the beetles falling down the lower steps of the basement, their hard shells clacking on the hardwood.  Mark just came in the front door, cursing at how many are on the entry way steps.  I just came out of the kitchen from getting a drink of water and they skittered at my feet and I could hear them running around in the heating vents under the cupboards.  This morning when Mark took the milk bucket down from its hook in the front closet, which hangs away from any wall, there were 18 of the non-flying beetles in there.  The only place they could have come from is the light fixture directly above the bucket, which means they're in all the walls throughout the house. 
So what's the struggle? 

They're common ground beetles and according to everything I can find online, they're harmless.  They're actually beneficials and the main recommendation for when you find 'the odd one in your house' is to scoop them up and put them in your garden to control pests.  So they eat other bugs, but don't bother people.  It's true that we haven't seen a single earwig all summer, which is something I never thought I'd say, but at this point I'd take the odd earwig over these invaders. And they are definitely scared of people as they scurry away at top speed at the rumble of even the lightest footstep.
They only come out after dark and are attracted to light, so the front step is nearly alive with the shiny black shells.  So despite to invasion after 9pm, there is ZERO sign of anything during the day. 
Again, what is the struggle?
Well, since they're harmless and they're not around during the day, if it weren't for my socialization by society that bugs are inherently gross and dirty, should I really be paying someone to come in and kill them?  What would have been done in the time before chemical sprays?  If they're not REALLY doing any harm, what's the big deal?
The big deal is that they're gross.  They crunch under my feet in the middle of the night when I'm up with Sol.  They don't belong in here and are not in their natural environment.  Even if I could manage to make myself comfortable with them, I couldn't expect that out of anyone else which means I couldn't have people over to visit anytime after supper, which means I'm letting some stupid insect decide my social calendar and abilities, which is just demented.
So, where is the struggle again?
The struggle is that for the past 6 or 7 years I've dedicated a good chunk of my life to ridding my surroundings of synthetic chemicals.  I use all unscented soaps. I buy hippie toothpaste that makes me shiver, but has no fluoride. I look for organic cotton when buying linens and baby clothes. I spend a significant amount of our income on ensuring I buy organic or non-GMO only food.  I avoid eating meat I haven't met. I spend a HUGE part of my day preparing food that we've either produced, grown or at least prepared with confidence in it's chemical-freedom.  We've spent our entire farming careers learning how to farm WITHOUT chemicals.  We've got such a strong belief in the philosophy that a soil without chemicals can be so much healthier and productive, which in turn makes for healthier plants, animals and people.
Yet, I am going to invite a chemical into my home, throughout every room, that is capable of killing a hard shelled insect on contact.  And not only invite it, but pay for it and make way for it by moving all the furniture away from the wall so that the sprayer can get in every nook and cranny.  And then I'm going to leave for a couple days and then come back and go back to life as normal; eating my organic food and washing with my scentless soaps. 
The pest control guy, knowing that we run an organic farm, made sure I understood that he would be using an insecticide and wondered if I had tried glue boards.  I remembered last night as Mark and I tried tag teaming with me ahead, killing all I could see and him behind vacuuming them up, we must have killed 200 in 20 minutes.  Within 15 minutes you couldn't tell we had done anything at all.  How would I stick a glue board to a light fixture on the ceiling.
No.  I know this requires chemicals. And I know that chemicals have their place.  Hell, I'm not an idiot.  Technological advances have made for longer, better lives and chemicals have played their roles all sorts of important milestones in health, agriculture, you name it.  But here I am, after working so hard to keep chemicals out of my home, throwing out the welcome mat, eagerly, frantically, to have them come in and make my life 'normal' again.

Can you appreciate my struggle or is your skin still crawling with my description of their crunch under my bare feet?
Don't fear.  I am making the call, forking out the dough and obliterating the damn things.  They are going to spray one chemical on the outside of the house and another on the inside, all around the baseboards and 'wherever you think they're getting in m'am'.
I've always liked bugs and found them pretty interesting.  Following my plant science diploma at AC I actually had a few meetings with a couple advisors and profs about a masters and subsequent career in etymology.  So I usually don't mind insects and their various habits.  But they've crossed a line and my tolerance level has reached its max.  (That is not suggest that this is an ongoing problem that I'm only now addressing.  We've always had a couple of the critters in the lower level of basement bathroom, but it was just a couple and never much a problem.  This invasion just occurred suddenly last week and has gotten worse by the night.)
Anyone out there with a similar issue, ever?  They're not carpet beetles, despite Google's attempt to convince me otherwise.  It would seem that a ground beetle invasion in the house is actually incredibly rare (lucky me), but they can congregate outside of homes and that is apparently bothersome to many.  I'd be quite happy to leave them alone if they would just stay outside.  Too bad.  They have brought the wrath of a tired woman down and will suffer the dire consequences.

Off to try to sleep. Hope this finds you free of any unwanted guests, six legged or otherwise.
-Sally 
 

Business versus Lifestyle

Back when June seemed like a good time to have a baby, because "everything would be in the ground, but not ready for harvest", I think we were thinking of farming in the "lifestyle category".  Reality however, is that April-November is very much the height of the "business category" of farming and having a new baby in June is a terrible idea.  When I had Lucy in November and felt house-bound by the weather for the following 4 months I thought THAT was a bad time to have a baby.  Wrong.  I'd take the relative ease of November right now, in a heartbeat.

I have this personal internal struggle with agriculture and this pull between it being strictly business or a lifestyle.  I know that it's really a bit of both, but what a difficult balance to achieve.  I think there's added complication by the fact that I grew up on a farm, different to how Mark grew up on a farm, so we have a different perspective on where that balance lies. 
It's easier to justify the insanity and pure exhaustion that is this summer when we put it in the 'strictly business' pile, insisting that we need to remain competitive, innovative, daring, successful and most importantly profitable.  But then that makes the necessary 'lifestyle' parts of it seem frustrating and annoying when they should be the fun part of the farm.  Like chasing that damned cow around the pasture at milking time because she doesn't want to come in, after a long, hot day.  Why do we keep that cow?!  When you compare the time and resources that go into that cow, to some of the super-efficiencies we've implemented around the farm in other respects, it sort of throws everything up in the air and makes me wonder what the hell we're doing. 

I'm sure sometime I'll look back on this time and appreciate how much work we put in and the foundation we were laying for better days ahead.  I hope that more than the exhaustion and frustrations, I can remember the kids faces as they laugh at Gail getting hosed off and rolling in the mud, or them snuggling up to fuzzy yellow chicks, or them covered in grease as they 'fix things' in the barn.  Because lately it seems often the tiredness weighs much heavier and eats up far more of our lives than the fun. I often wonder how I can create a love of farming in the kids when I hardly look to be loving it myself and am often not making it very fun for them.   

So for starters, we're implementing some changes when it comes to our direct marketing:

• Our farm business hours for feed, meat or anything requiring our presence at the farm are like most agricultural retailers; 8-4, Monday-Friday.  If you show up at 5, we won't be there and we won't be happy to be called over there.  This does not apply to eggs- my egg customers know the scoop and I'm happy to see them nearly anytime.  This does not apply to my CSA members either, who also know the scoop and how to serve themselves accordingly. 
• If you want a quantity of feed, you should put in an order at least a week in advance.  Even if you have put in an order in advance, please ensure you come during the afore-mentioned hours or make arrangements that do not require our assistance at pick-up.
• If you have vague questions about organics in general, GMO's, what 'pasture-raised' means or just want to chat about the farm, please direct your questions to our email so that we can either respond directly or set up a time to discuss your questions.

 One of our ways of dealing with the fluctuations of an emerging market like organics, is to be a diversified farm with many avenues, but having many avenues makes one wonder how much simpler life would be with only one or two to rely on.  What would life be like around here with no livestock?  Or if we relied on one cash crop like potatoes?  Or if we didn't have to market our own products?  Sometimes I wonder what it's like to leave your job at 5 and not think about it again till the next day when you show up.    Or have specific weeks of designated vacation in which life switches from one trail to a very different, relaxed trail.  Or even follow a TV series every week.

Also, just in case you didn't know, I've been writing two other blogs this summer (which is partly to blame for my quietness on here).  One is for the Chicken CSA which is going great (the CSA, not the blog) and the other is a food blog for the veggie CSA I'm a member of.  I provide recipes each week, using the veggies provided by my favorite vegetable farmer, Jen Campbell of Jen and Derek's Organic Farm.  
I'm really excited about the CSA, and loved meeting my first group of members last Saturday in Charlottetown.  The initial set-up of registering people and filling the spots was a pile of work (way more than I expected), but hopefully it'll all fall into a routine after these first few weeks.  Our processing facility is nearing completion, with the electrician at work as I write this.  Our contractor has been doing a fantastic job and we're so looking forward to getting it going.  Having our equipment all set up and ready to roll each week will make a big difference to how we're doing it now, having to start from scratch every week.  The new chicken houses are such a huge improvement over the old ones, I can't wait until Mark has time to renovate more of the old ones to the new model (hopefully this winter along with the rest of the items on an increasingly long list).

Well, rather than venting on here, I should go compose a post for the food blog and draft up a note to my CSA members.  The cool breeze coming in the window is certainly making bed look inviting, given the last couple of hot nights here.

I hope this finds you sleeping well after gratifying days.

-Sally