End Consumers, Beginning Producers

Where to purchase new underwear is what tops the list of things I have been anxious about this spring. There is so much going on at the farm and with our little family, but for some reason, certain news stories linger in my conscience and pervade my thinking as I prep beds and plant and weed.

Lately, I have been thinking about workers who show up unwillingly to stitch clothing in unsafe conditions.

Its a kind of slavery I don't see, I only hear about on the radio and read about on my computer. The kind of slavery that kills 1,200 in a Bangladeshi factory collapse last month. I get filled up with this story, and against John's advice, here I am sitting down to write a blog entry, because its been ages since we updated you all... As I was getting ready to write this, John asked me what I was planning to say. 

We spent the better part of an hour discussing the global tangle that is capitalism as we know it. It was exhausting. He suggested that I might like to write about this topic so I felt better about it, so I might feel like I'm doing something about it. All I could think about was where I would go to buy us underwear. "Hmmm where can I buy (new) underwear? Where did these socks come from? What humanitarian price did I pay for this computer? What was on my grocery list this week that involved workers in unwilling conditions?"
I am overwhelmed by the enormous distance that separates the "end consumer", and the "beginning producer."
Can you imagine meeting one of them on the street?
Who are you? 
What options do you have? 
Let's talk.
Instead, I am one among millions of end consumers; I know who we are, and I know that all together we are steered by economy,  convenience, and tremendous momentum.

I'm not sure why I want to talk about slavery or worker's rights or factory safety except to say it overwhelms me, depresses me, confuses me. Usually, I revert to the tangible in moments when clarity is sought. I hope that is not a weakness, but I would love to head out to the greenhouse, check on things, organize the seedlings, make a list (maybe decide wearing underwear is overrated).  

And then....

Once the underwear issue quiets in my head, I let myself get excited about the season ahead. Flowers blooming. Smells of lilac competing with the smells of manure being spread; both optimistic, heady, and rich (farmers out there will get it, if not our patient neighbors!) 

Oh and there's this:

 I have been chomping at the bit to share this news ever since we hatched the plan in the winter. Drum roll......This year, we are opening a store in Portland. Together, with the good folks at Aurora Provisions, we are partnering to bring our products to the city.

The Details:

FLORA*BLISS an Urban Farm Stand will open this June inside Aurora Provisions

Our focus will be on Cut flowers, Organic Produce and General Farm Goodness 

Our Produce and Flower CSA shares can be delivered to Aurora and Credit CSA shares can be used there.

We have been preparing... the van: thanks to Will from Better Letter Hand Painted Signs.

We picked up some rusty, enameled, and/or galvanized containers for display.

...And we've been planting extra!

In the last week, as the store space has started to take shape, I see old barn boards from our renovation projects getting loaded into the pick-up to be counters and walls and shelving.  I see old sinks resurrected that will fill vessels with water for flower arrangements.  I wash old metal bins to hold tomatoes and berry boxes and garlic scapes... (If you know our farm, you know I like the old stuff. Maybe its because juxtaposed with a bright bouquet or a head of cabbage, it accentuates freshness. )

Anyway this flurry of activity around the store is so exciting for me. I look forward to seeing the smiles of customers as they walk out with their arms loaded full of flowers and produce, from our farm, onto the city streets.
A well-wisher taking a bouquet to a friend at the hospital.
A family filling their salad bowl with arugula, radicchio, lettuce, and chives.
Adding more heft to Aurora Provision's deli case offerings...
John thinks this is my brain coming full circle. He reminds me that we are also part of the "beginning producers" as well as the "end consumers." Closing the gap between the two worlds is part of the reason we've chosen this work. The store space in Portland will be an embodiment of the close link we have between producer and consumer. 

Who are you? What options do you have? Let's talk.
Its a complicated world, even when you try hard to play it simple.
I'll let you know when I make progress on my underwear purchases.

Blessings on the meal-

Stacy

Spreading

In the Spring, one of our favorite jobs is spreading. On new fields we spread lime, langbeinite, and bone meal. On all fields we spread trace minerals mixtures like greensand and silica ore. Sometimes (based on soil tests) we spread tiny amounts of boron, or sulfur.

 On selected fields we spread compost made from seafood wastes, leaves, and straw. And we spread composted manure from horses, chickens, and our own cows.

Its fun to watch the manure spreader rip through a load of organic material, and there is satisfaction in feeding the billions of micro-organisms which process the minerals so that our plants can become healthy and vibrant.
"Spreading" however is a complete misnomer. In fact, one step before this material arrives on the farm, it had to be gathered.

Gathered from the horse farm down the road, or the poultry farm (stinky!)

...or gathered by the efforts of hundreds of neighbors and landscapers in the case of these leaves (thank you!!!)
The sacks of mineral additives are a little more mysterious, and more concentrated. I am always curious about where these materials come from, and of course, why. It turns out that many of the mineral mixes come from ancient marine deposits.

Fossils of trillions of microscopic sea creatures lived and died and collected into vast underwater valleys which deepened with the passing of eons: an incomprehensible timescale. The cliffs of Dover, England are the remnants of but one deposit.

Of course those creatures, themselves were "gathering" minerals throughout the course of their lives. The sea had also been a gathering force, being fed by the scavenging of rivers and streams which flowed steadily, drip by drip over the stones of the Earth.

(That's right, John's been listening to science pod-casts again! Radiolab, one of the more popular podcasts had a great piece on the plankton which contributes to marine deposits.) Hey, tractor work can be dull without listening to something a little bit more expansive than the one little field I'm working on.

Gather, spread, gather (or rather harvest.) That's what we do.
--John

PS from Stacy:
This is John evaluating all the different soil tests from all the different fields and wondering....always....what does it all mean? A little chemistry, a little alchemy, a little magic; reading soil tests and translating the results into how much and what types of materials to add to create the optimum growing conditions for so many different crops is truly the logic problem that can all the difference. The cerebral farm work of winter.

Open House

Come on out to our annual spring open house. Learn more about everything we do here at the farm, including our CSA program, summer camp, weddings and flowers and the Scarborough Land Trust.

Bless the fields with us and help us plant 350 trees and shrubs!

We'll start the afternoon with the Maypole dance, we'll learn songs to sing while we plant trees and then we'll get to work. Bring a shovel and some work gloves, bring a smile and wish us a fertile year.

We are so excited to welcome back Bennet Konesni and Edith Gawler and Ellen Gawler to lead us in song.

Its sure to be a day to make your heart sing!

Calving

The last week has been a complete blur. Kind of like the perfect storm, sometimes a lot happens at once. Including a stomach flu, the arrival of our crew, an annual feast with a bunch of great folks we affectionately refer to as Eastover, and....the best of all....the birth of our new calf. 

Philomena Peach, who we call Peach, was born here on the farm a few seasons ago. Peach has always been a little spunky. She was the first heifer (female) calf to be born on the farm. Thus, this is the first cow we have trained to be a milk cow. And, my friends, it would be an understatement if I were to say this has been easy. But, let's start with the highlight...the birth...and then I'll tell you about milking.

Peach's due date was the 25th and she conveniently calved on her due date. Cows have about a nine month gestation. The similarity between  humans and bovines ends there as calves are born with the ability to stand and nurse within the first hours of life outside the womb.

Peach was artificially inseminated. This essentially mean that some dude (cause I can't imagine anyone but a dude) collects semen from a very special bull. Then, packed in liquid nitrogen, the special stuff travels to the farm and gets "placed" into our cow's cervix at precisely the right moment of time, when she's in heat. The insemination process does include an armpit deep dive into the cow to get those sperm just where you want them. 

You get to choose your papa from a catalog of choice bulls with names like Zebulon, Braveheart and Gannon. Gannon was our choice....his semen was what was loaded in to the tank that day. Why not just set her up with a bull you ask? Very good question.... prior to 1940, the majority of deaths on farms with cattle were due to being gored or trampled to death by a bull. This statistic makes me question the sanity of the dude collecting the semen, but helps us to justify the use of such product and the service of the kind folks who show up when you call them to inseminate your cow in heat. There aren't a lot of bulls to be had. Most male calves are castrated and are then called steers, raised for meat. 

Lucky for us, all went well, Peach settled with a calf on the first attempt at insemination. We haven't always been so lucky. We spent the winter months, while the bustle of the farm was quieter, luring Peach out of the pen and into the stanchion so she might get used to the feel of the space and trained to the routine. We rubbed her udder, loved her up, plied her with treats and introduced her to the sound of our small bucket milking machine. 

 

The weeks leading up to her calving, we checked on her religiously. We dried off our other dairy cow, Clementine (I assure you the fruit names were not intentional). We had timed the insemination so that Peach would calve as the weather was warming up. The morning of the birth, we separated the other cows and our one old sheep from mamma as things seemed to be heating up. I had been out to the barn a handful of times that morning and then I packed the car to run some errands and head to town for a meeting and for our scheduled school carpool run. When I went out for one last check, there was a bulging bag and just the tiny tips of little hooves emerging. This is the preferred presentation for calves. Like any farmer in the 21st century, I grabbed my iPhone and starting recording the birth, while simultaneously calling John on the speaker phone, telling him the exciting news and asking for my coveralls and boots. The baby came fast. No midwife needed. My dear friend subbed in for my carpool duties for school and my afternoon meeting was re-scheduled.

The calf was quick to stand and nurse and mom was vigilant. It was heartwarming, to say the least.

The afterbirth was slow to come. I started to get worried and headed to my favorite place for all things cow, the Family Cow ProBoard. Some years ago, when I stopped practicing as midwife, I took a job as a labor and delivery nurse on the night shift to bridge our financial gap until we got the farm business to a more stable place. When all my patients were sleeping and all my charting was done, I would keep myself awake by pouring through every post on this web site. I was taking a crash course in cow as we had just bought our first dairy cow when I left my full time midwifery practice....a retirement gift of sorts.

Blessed with the honor of attending the birth of many fine babes, I have learned the art of letting mom show me the way. If we all trust, and are patient, the right thing almost always happens. My job was to be there in the event that it didn't and to help make it right. The challenge is to find the trust, know the patience and hold everyone in the light. Only having attended a small handful of bovine births....I wasn't so knowledgeable, the trust was coming more slowly. Once I had read all I could about cow placentas, I went back out to find the afterbirth sitting in the bedding, intact, healthy and delivered by mom without any interference by me. In fact, I suspect she was sick of having me meddle in her affairs. 

And then, it was time to for the first milking. 

Let me just say we have been battered and bruised by this dear cow. But, knowing how hard being a new nursing mom can be, the empathy runs strong. She's a kicker. But, we persevere, and each day, twice a day, we suit up and head out and hope for the best.

Sometimes in life, someone offers a little pearl that sticks with you. Luckily, this pearl had arrived a few days prior to the calving when we ran into a long time dairy farmer and neighbor at the tractor dealership. Tie up one of her legs, a front leg, that way she won't be able to lift a leg to kick you because she'll be off balance... was the suggestion. Well, I'll be damned if we didn't get the one cow who can stand on 2 legs. This girl can kick even with her leg tied up. It's been a week and we're still at it. She keeps coming out of her pen each time on her own accord to be milked. She seems attuned to the routine. We start out gently, we see if she's ready to lighten up on the kicking. She kicks every time. Then, up goes the foot and we hold her close to the wall and methodically try again to get all the milk out so she doesn't get mastitis. It's far from elegant. 

This is the first week with our crew. Usually, we have a sweet cow to teach them how to milk. But, this isn't quite the cow to teach them, yet. Maybe next week. 

We're optimistic, but than we have to be. Why else would be keep farming.  

Blessings on the meal (or maybe the beloved fresh cream in my coffee and the wonder of birth)

-Stacy

Job Description: Greenhouse

The greenhouse in late winter can be a haven of warmth and a visit into the future season of growth while the weather outdoors is still ignorant of the impending springtime. A layer of plastic is all it takes in the day-time, especially when it is sunny, but at night, or when the weather is -like today- a snow-storm, the job of the greenhouse is more of a struggle.

The greenhouse's strategy in doing its job well begins with wood. Lots of firewood which feeds a furnace. The furnace's job is to release energy from the wood in the most efficient manner possible. Since an efficient burn is a hot, fast burn, the question remains how to hold the heat at a moderate temperature for a longer period.

The burn chamber is surrounded by a huge water tank (2000 gallons) to act like a heat battery.
The furnace is in the ell of the barn, and the distance between it and the greenhouse can be a snowy, cold, trek.

The greenhouse works hard to maintain a surreal spring within its thin plastic envelope.

 A relatively small volume of the hot water from the furnace gets piped out underground to the greenhouse where the heat is released into the air through a radiating fan, and through a network of pipes running directly under the plants.

The heat from the bottom allows seeds to sprout quickly and healthily even though the air temperature is pretty low. These artichoke plants were born into 72 degree soil.

The Greenhouse is the hardest worker on the farm tonight as a late winter storm rolls through. It provides protection for fragile life: the same as a warm overcoat; but it's impossible to witness without a sense of expectation of the coming easing of the cold season into spring. 

--John

Holding on to late winter

Lately, I've found myself having Pavlovian moments with my laptop where I try to touch the screen for what in retrospect seems like an embarrassingly long time, only to remember that not everything is touch screen yet. I'm getting trained to it. I have these lovely midwinter dreams, on nights that precede a morning when there are no commitments, only the promise of coffee. In my dreams, I can move things around the field by touching the image on my window from the comfort of my down and flannel nest. I can move rows of flowers, transplant trees, pluck weeds.

I think this all comes from being tethered to technology all winter. Its so bittersweet. Between indulging in far too much BBC drama, I check Facebook and become incensed by some conservative acquaintance who posts about their gun rights.



 I've been reading articles about guns, gun laws, gun rights. I'm trying to see both sides. We have a gun. I've shot it once. I hit the can. It was thrilling. We've used it to put down a sick animal. It's killed a few groundhogs. The old saying goes "Havahart and a .22".  But it also scares me. It's powerful. The responsibility weighs on me when I think about it for too long. But then, I see a plane or I'm in the car or I hear a piece about cyber-terrorism and I think about limits. If our forefathers and mothers wanted us to have the right to bear arms, where is the limit? Can I own a drone? Can I own a computer virus? Maybe I could use a hot air balloon as a weapon. Sometimes, when I'm driving, I have a moment of panic realizing just how deadly my car could be.

We are a creative people. Once, my friend Nicole told a story about how, even in her gun free home, her young son would bite his toast in to the shape of a gun and point it at her. BANG. Weapons have appeal, to some, guns are sexy. The taboo of them draws. They get locked up, they are kept a secret in a household by some. Others display their full rack for all to see in the back window of the Chevy Silverado.

I think about how we find our way through this conversation as a society. Lists of things run through my head....registration, insurance, taxing bullets, shooter's ed....before you can get your gun license. Then, I start thinking about how I wish there was an NFA (National Flower Association) that advocated for more flowers. Flower in schools, flowers in the arms of homeowners, flowers given, dried petals held in secret places reminding us of another time, lavender in a sachet sewn in to the hem of a skirt...concealed flowers. I'd be a founding member. I'll climb in bed with the NFA any time there is a solicitation....under my down comforter, dreaming away another snowy night.

-Stacy