An open letter to young farmers, from a middle aged new farmer.

Dear young people, young farmers in particular,  

 

I recently heard that young Jenna, of Cold Antler Farm, is holding her second (or maybe it's the third) "AntlerStock" which is a festival of sorts, like the one held in PA by Mother Earth News.  It will be held on her farm in upstate NY, and feature experienced homesteaders giving clinics on everything from gardening to heating with wood to raising chickens to making soap to tending sheep to spinning yarn.  Readers of her blog are planning to hike in from all corners of the country to attend, an impressive accomplishment for one so new to farming.

Sadly, while her farm produces plenty of eggs and garden veggies to make omelets, and she has several humanely raised and processed chickens in her freezer to grill for dinner, she can't offer any food to the attendees, because the USDA is cracking down on the farm-to-table movement. 

To feed her own food to guests, the food she personally eats every day and feeds to her friends and family, she would have to construct a full USDA inspected and approved commercial kitchen. 

People, she's at the point in her career where she needs a cord of wood and a stack of barn building lumber simply to exist for the next several months.  To say that this is a horrifying situation is a monumental understatement. 

Jenna, I apologize for those USDA regulations.  You didn't vote for the yuckapucks that made those laws, my generation and the one before me did.  I apologize to you, and everyone like you who is struggling to start a business in this over regulated country, my generation was asleep at the wheel. 

Happily, some of us have opened our eyes and are fighting back. I just hope it's not a case of too few arriving too late.

You wonder why this is happening.  I think it's easily explainable.  The corporations are afraid of losing their power, their profits and their market-share.  And the legislators that those billionaires prop up in Congress would go down, too, so they are acting out of their own fears by passing bad laws protecting corporations and not people.  The kids of my generation grew up hearing "Money is power." and "Go big or go home." The measure of our success in our elders' eyes was simply what college did we graduate from, what title did we hold at which mega corporation, and how much money were we making.

In retrospect, it's pathetic, and I am sorry we have left you a more difficult world to live in.  For my part I will fight to fix what I can.

Humbly,
Stephanie J.
HasliVal Farm

Status check a-la-Jenna

Hi, I am Stephanie and I suffered all my life from what I now know, thanks to Jenna, was a bad case of Barnheart. It was a long and winding road that got me here, mostly filled with half hearted attempts at 'normalcy'.  College - marriage - kids - houses in the burbs...  But I was always happiest at the barn with my horse, and trotting down a wooded trail with the sunlight sparkling through the trees was heaven on earth.  The universe kept sending me people along the way that were making me go, "Hummmmm?"  I remember the first time I stayed in a home that was heated with a woodstove.  It was in Galway NY and it was BUTTA$$ cold and that 250 year old house felt SO good.  These folks were lovely upper middle class people with real jobs and yet they chose to heat with wood.  HMMMMM?  And the people up the road at the Waterwheel shop made their own cheese.  It was so good!  I did not know people could make their own cheese.  HMMMMM  Then I went to PA and had the opportunity to see the Amish and meet raw milk farmers and pick blackberries right off a bush that you could actually eat and not get sick. (I grew up in TX, not everything that looks like a berry here should be eaten!)  The milk straight from the cow was an experience I will never forget, kindof like my first kiss. 
Eventually I worked my way back to TX and landed in a nice suburban house less than a mile from my parents, which made them very happy. My neighbor was a veggie gardener, and I just wanted to grow a little garden of my own and have a couple of chickens so I could get a tab self-reliant.  (The socialist republic of Benbrook had other ideas, btw.)  That was it.  I had no idea where to start, so I went to Half Price books and picked up a couple of books to help me learn backyard sustainability, and one was called "Made From Scratch".  This was after I had killed off an entire batch of illegally kept "Rainbow Layers" and when I read that your dogs had eaten your chicks, too, I no longer felt alone. And you kept saying you were GOING to have a farm and you were GOING to be a shepherd and there was a reference to your blog.  I looked it up and you were there, still going on and on about becoming a farmer, then within a couple of years DANGED if you hadn't gone and done it.  I followed your blog through 2009 and 2010 and was working through my own fears right along with you.  I wanted to live on a farm, but everyone I knew thought I should live in the suburbs, but the animal control nazis were banging on my door, and everyone seemed to ba against me, except for your blog which kept telling me it COULD be done, and one dear friend who lived on 3 acres just outside town.  She also happens to be a real estate agent.  You see where this is heading.  By March 2011 I finally thought, "If a 20-something can up and do that, so can I, and I better do it now before I get too old to set the place up." (I am 47.) The For Sale sign went in the yard and Debbie and I started looking at farms.  There were family hysterics and funding gyrations that I won't go into, but then one day my mom looked at me with this weird look on her face and said, "You're really serious about this farm thing, aren't you?"  I just shrugged because I didn't want to fight. She floored me by saying "What can your Dad and I do to help?"  60 days later I closed on a 3/2/2 home with a makeshift barn on 5 unrestricted acres in a nearby town, one with a great school system for my kids and close enough to civilization that my parents are not afraid I would die before the paramedics can get to me.  :-)  That was a little over a year ago.  I have since witnessed my first goat kiddings, sheeps lambing, raised 3 batches of broilers, and installed a 30x60 garden that is a learning place in progress.  The peach tree bloomed and fruited in spite of the drought, and I have plans to expand the 'orchard'.  Parker County Peaches are life altering, but that's another post entirely.  So this is long, and meandering, but you asked.  Thank you for all you do, and I planted the seeds from Annie's last week, so thank you again for helping make that happen.  You're a real inspiration and I look forward to many more years of Barnheart treatments. 

It's dinnertime:

30 Broiler chicks from Ag Extention agent = $45.00
9 bags of non medicated grower feed @ $15 ea = $135.00
7 bags of shavings for bedding @ $6.00 ea = $42.00
1 day processing equipment rental = $60.00
8-ball zucchinni locally grown = bartered for one of my life altering Parker County peaches (don't scoff till you've tried one)
onion from the garden = $0.05

The knowledge that everything I had for dinner was locally, sustainably and humanely grown = PRICELESS!

Making arrangements to barter some of the the meat for firewood = BONUS!

Jenna asked what our dreams are.

Jenna - You are so sweet to ask.  I do enjoy reading your blogs and books, they keep me going when my boots spring a leak.  I am also glad others are blogging on their travails, many of them/us inspired by your courageous plow-ahead git-er-dun even if it ain't purty, attitude. 

Like you, I am a bit of a plugger.  Nothing fancy, just quietly freaking my middle class suburban family out by chucking the HOA lifestyle to live in the country on 5 acres that are unrestricted. (Like your 'right to farm' areas.)  I am trying a little of this and a little of that seeing what works and what was only a good idea on paper.

Dollar, our horse, is a retired racehorse that I can ride, but isn't so good with kids.  I don't really have the acreage to have more horses, and the kids have not expressed 'horsey' tendancies so the horse is simply decorative for now.  He has a good attitude so I feel confident I could teach him to drive should the need arise and he be required to "pull his weight."

I have goats and sheep, may stick with both, may not.  With goats, I am not sure the milk is worth the destruction they leave in their wake, though they are good learning animals for the kids to start milking and showing.  Goats are sturdy and quite interactive, but won't break your leg if they kick you.
 
Sheep I enjoy, but they are not as interactive as the goats, and I am not a spinner (yet).  I sheared part of my first sheep and may rethink THAT little idea.  I only managed to get half her back done, and she was nicked all over like a 12 year old who borrowed Dad's razor to shave her legs without telling Mom.  We got in a tussle and she hiked herself up and sent the clippers flying, breaking the teeth.  The guys at the Blade Repair place just looked at me with sad faces.

We have a cow.  A Jersey named Daisy.  She is supposed to calve this Summer and the plan is to let her raise 2-3 dairy calves and only have to milk once a day.  I'll let you know how that works out for us.  :-)

However, chickens are a go! I have processed 2 batches of meaties and while I loathe their smell, the carcass is TOTALLY worth their freakishness in life. We have laying hens, too and happily I have several 'customers' that I keep out of the grocery store egg aisle.  Chickens are easy to raise and smart enough to sleep inside the barn.  Turkeys, not so much, the coyotes can have 'em.  Ducks have been prolific, and are a riot to watch waddle about, but I have not actually cooked one yet but my son likes them so they will stay for the entertainment value if nothing else.

The garden is plowed up and some seeds and plants have been planted.  Again, a little of this and a little of that, to see what works and what doesn't.  My daughter planted corn, my son planted 'salsa'.  I planted asparagus.  Please oh please let my off-grid future be FULL of asparagus!

Woodstove is installed, so we are bound to have mild winters from here forward.  :-) The spot on the horizon is definitely OFF grid, solar and wind powered, bartering raw milk which I can produce on my flat, windy 5 acres for firewood that I can not.

And someday, waking up and not packing up for the office, knowing I will spend the day tending the creatures and gardens, but not throwing up because there's a bill I can't pay, looks pretty good to me.

Things I have learned so far - Farm Version

Wood stove heat is the nicest heat since radiator heat. 

EVERYTHING wants to eat your chickens.  (When they can't get to your ducks.)

Goats make a sound that will wake the dead when they go into labor.  They also produce a startling amount of 'birth goo'.  And you really have to have an understanding boss when you call in late because you have to take another shower to the the goat 'birth goo' off your body and out of your hair, and find come clean clothes.

When processing a chicken, if you place the chicken on the cutting board, breast side down and grab the lower leg firmly to sever the joint between that lower leg and the drumstick, as you press the knife into the joint it will cause the chicken's foot to curl up around your gripping hand and make you scream like a girl. You will then drop the chicken and the knife and run hopping from the room shaking the dead zombie chicken foot grossness off your hand screaming, "EEW EEW EEW EEW EEW!"

A baby goat bleat makes everything OK.  As does the sound of horse hooves galloping up the hill for his evening grain.

Never put an egg in your pocket thinking, "It'll just be for a second, and I won't forget." because it won't be, and you will.

February already?

How does this happen?  It was just Holiday and now I am looking at lambing season in short order.  There SHOULD be 7 pregnant ewes here at HasliVal Farm.  We shall see.  We ended up with 3 goat kids, one set of twins born on Christmas morning and a surprise doeling born on the 28th.  They are absolutely hysterical, bouncing and ka-PRANG-ing all over the yard.  Their favorite game is to play King of the Sheep on poor old Spring.  She is a good natured old soul, and takes their antics with resignation.  Spring does not get around as well as she used to, and I fear she will be heading to the Rainbow Bridge sooner than later. 

The woodstove is working better than I ever imagined it would.  It is sinfully warm in the house, and I have not even made a significant dent in the cord of wood stacked on the front porch.  It takes about 3 logs in the morning to get the embers cooking again, and that seems to last the day until I reload in the evening with another 2 rounds of 3 - 5 logs each.  13 logs heats the house for a day.  Of course it has been quite mild this Winter, but if that changes I am ready.

I also learned an expensive lesson this past month.  DON'T leave hay out in the rain under an old tarp.  Old tarps leak.  Moldy hay can kill a horse, so about 2/3 of the load was lost.  I had a sad moment and then had an epiphany:  When God rains on your hay, salvage what you can and make raised garden beds from the rest.  So now I have another load of hay being delivered (and stacked inside the barn), AND 3 large raised garden beds.  Now I just have to set up the beds with dirt and chicken proof them and the growing season can begin!