Fecundity

Under normal circumstances, we don't spend much of our time across the creek in the so called "River Field." Most of the crops in the River Field are low maintenance storage crops: potatoes, winter squash, cabbage, carrots. Our hope is that we can do our bed prep and planting in a day for most things, come out maybe once more to take off row cover or weed, and not have to check in on our plants again until harvest. Plenty of other things on the near side of the river keep us busy trellising tomatoes, weeding, or harvesting for weekly distribution. Lately, however, the river field has been the busiest spot on the farm and the site of a great deal of entering and exiting of life.

First, the potato beetles arrived. The inaptly named Colorado potato beetle (actually an invasive exotic from Mexico) is a major pest in New England. Potato beetles go through two full life cycles every year before burrowing into the soil for a long winter's nap. Along the way, they eat every green potato-looking leaf they can find. Whether they arrive is never a question, the only uncertainty is when. This year, whether due to lingering cool, damp weather, an overabundance of beneficial ladybugs, or good farming last year, the potato beetles were a full 2 weeks later than usual. This beetle-free window allowed our plants to grow big and strong, strength that they will need in the coming weeks. But, as we knew would happen eventually, the beetles finally emerged. And thus we added a new task to our daily repertoire--scouting for and squishing potato beetles.

In truth, I actually kind of enjoy the process. We walk slowing through the rows, scanning the leaves intently for the coppery color of adults or the smaller red-thoraxed enstars (babies). When we find one, we stop, squish it crunchily, and then examine all neighboring plants for additional enstars or the neon orange eggs on the undersides of leaves. There is something meditative about the narrowed focus and the slow walk, even if having bug guts on your fingers seems rather un-Buddhist.

Playing beetle Terminator is not the only allure of the river field, however. We've also been checking each day on a killdeer nest hidden in the middle of one bed of potatoes. We first noticed the well camouflaged eggs from the mother bird's frantic display. With their shrill call, killdeer always sound a bit panicky, but as we ventured near to her nest, the mother amped up the drama with pitiful calls and a Tony-winning performance as an injured bird. Finally, one day last week, Don called us all over to observe the new hatchlings, which froze like little fluffy stones in their nest as they sensed our presence. Mama, of course, would have none of it, and was doing everything in her power to distract these bipedal beasts from her brand new hatchlings. Within a day, she had taught her young ones how to run, and by the next beetle scouting mission, they were already racing around the field on toothpick legs.

And now, even more new life has entered the picture. Last weekend, our two beef cows, Lucy and Lukey, birthed two gorgeous bull calves. We named the first almost albino calf Albert, and his young brown speckled cousin Rusty. For the first few days of life, calves are less skittish than usual and mama cows for some reason permit humans near their babies. Taking advantage of our brief window of compliance, we shanghaied both calves this morning and quickly "elastrated" them by slipping rubber bands around their testicles and thereby bloodlessly castrating them. They'll sing a lovely soprano now, we hope.

Dirty Words

What is the difference between dirt and soil?

The difference is first and foremost our 5 cows--Lucy, Lukey, Leche, Maya, and Chloe. All winter long, our cows spent their nights in the barn, leaving us with an abundance of rich manure ideally situated for convenient composting. As soon as the snow melted and the pastures became knee-deep in fresh grass and covercrops, our bovine beasties began chafing for fresh greens (who can blame them?). Last week, we pulled out the mobile electric fencing and led our eager cows onto the first of 3 field of rye grass. These fields will lie fallow this year, allowing the earth to rest before another strenuous year of growing. Fallow fields are not devoid of activity, however. The rye grass added nitrogen to the soil, and like all grasses, sent down deep, aerating roots. Now that our cows have mowed the grass, we can reseed the fields in a summer crop like oats, which will be fertilized by the cow's manure.

But that manure needs spreading, which is why we have our chickens. Our 83 Golden Star laying hens have finished their winter vacation in the barn and are now hard at work cleaning up after the cows. Truth be told, they're much happier (and thus more pleasant to work with) now that they can take dust baths, catch bugs, and run in circles around their pen. Every day one of us moves their covered wagon-esque shelter one length farther in the cow-grazed field. After about a week, we'll move their fencing to a new patch and begin again. All the while that they are scratching through cow patties and scruffing up the soil, the chickens are adding their own fertilizer, which will show up in bright green growth in our next covercrop.

Meanwhile, back at the barn, the pigs are turning the cow's winter manure (and shortly the chicken's too) into compost. Pigs love nothing better than rooting for buried treasure, so we hide pockets of dried corn deep in the bedding and manure. The pigs dig it up, grow happily fatter, and move our composting operation along at a brisk pace. Our compost piles then age in the sun for about a season, until what once was waste becomes farm gold.

Through the additional labor of millions of earthworms, trillions of bacteria, nematodes, and fungi, our land becomes something more than a medium for growing plants.

It is soil, not dirt.

Truth breaks in, with all its matter-of-factness

The best test for an occupation is this: do it for 3 days on next to no sleep, under stress, in the dank gray despondency of New England spring. If, on the third day, even as you realize that you have to put down your best milk cow, you can notice that the weather has cleared and the first peeping frogs are singing a serenade to spring, you are where you should be.

Taking advantage of the short break between Colombia and Caretaker, Andrew and I returned to Sidehill Farm the first week of April to visit with dairy farmers Paul and Amy. We had visited Sidehill in December as part of my grand farm-touring extravaganza and were eager to return for more stories, maple yogurt, and dairying advice. Before we arrived, Paul and Amy warned us that they were in the midst of calving season and that the farm's schedule was therefore highly unpredictable, and we eagerly promised to help with anything the farm had to offer.

As we drove up the mountain, the last of the morning's fog burned away to reveal muddy roads and new spring growth. We pulled on rubber boots and went looking for our hosts. We found Amy and Paul looking harried and slightly dazed--Paul was overseeing the final steps on a batch of yogurt and loading a van for deliveries as Amy lured a young calf to the barn with a bottle of milk.

The aforementioned calf, nicknamed, amusingly, Ross Perot, had caused quite a stir with his birth. Though he went through the motions of nursing--making sucking noises and nosing around his mother's udder--he was ultimately unable to work out the complicated logistics of eating. Due to his ardent (but unsuccessful) efforts, this had gone unnoticed for several days, with two critical effects. The calf, Ross, had endured a hungry first week and was now dependent on humans for food. Even worse, his mother, Belle, formerly Amy and Paul's best milker, had contracted coliform mastitis in her unmilked udder. Cows are generally rather hardy animals, but after springtime calving and winter's drying off, their immune systems dip, leaving cows vulnerable to normally harmless bugs. Mastitis can range in severity from a mild, short term infection to a life-threatening systemic inflammation. The stress of carrying excess milk, coupled with her propensity to lounge in poop during her off hours, had left Belle incapacitated with a particularly vicious systemic infection. The vet was optimistic that she would pull through, but recommended that someone "strip" her (ie: milk out the infection) hourly. So Paul had spent the last two nights sleeping in the barn with a sick cow, while Amy juggled all of the normal start of the season tasks, a yogurt plant inspection, and the biggest vegetable distribution they had staged in months.

They explained all of this wearily over a lunch where coffee featured like an entree. Most of the chaos seemed to be dying down, though, so Andrew and I (who are greener than greenhorns in the dairy cow department) soon found ourselves picking up fencing and helping in the greenhouse: everyday sorts of tasks. We caught up with Amy as we worked, and the stresses of the milking barn retreated under the warm rays of spring and the satisfying feeling of completed tasks. At 7, we returned to the barn to bring in the baby calves for the night (this nocturnal separation leaves the mothers with milk for the morning milking).

Belle had deteriorated. She was lying on her side, taking labored breaths, and her teats were turning blue from the infection. After a brief discussion, Amy and Paul decided to call the vet for a final house call. While they waited, both farmers stroked Belle and spoke quietly to calm her. Together, we pushed her into a more natural position and propped her there with a bale of hay. The vet came, matter-of-fact, business-like. He confirmed Paul and Amy's diagnosis, that Belle would not make morning and that to leave her tonight would only prolong her pain. He injected her with a syringe that slowed her breathing and brought her great head to the barn floor. His work finished, the vet went home.

We paused for a moment to collect ourselves and take stock of the new situation. We now had a 1,000 lb dead cow in the barn, at a right angle to the door. Cow-moving equipment is not something that most farmers keep around. Two hours later, after some very tight tractor work and several simple machines, Paul had removed Belle to her final resting place of pasture, where he was covering her with compost to speed her return to the grass. Now worried that the other young mothers might be similarly undermilked and vulnerable to mastitis, Amy decided that a late night milking was in order for two cows who were still in seclusion with their calves. Ross needed to be fed. And the other calves still needed to come in. It was 9:30 at night and Andrew and I could help with none of this.

So we did the only thing that we could do, made dinner, and kept it warm. Sometime around 10:30 Amy and Paul finally allowed themselves to stop.

When someone asks me what farming is like, I ought to describe this long, layered day. Farming is ingenuity and satisfaction, compassion and resolve. It is contains great gaping spaces for beauty if you can allow yourself to look up, smell the evening air, and find the strength to work on.