Everything I plan is stacked on layers of utterly unpredictable events and utterly uncontrollable forces. And yet I find that the more planning I do, the better prepared I am for the year. Winter is time for farm planning. This year, I keep returning to Eisenhower’s wartime aphorism: “I have always found that plans are […]
Plans Built on Grass Read More »
Enjoying the quiescence of our winter schedule, Rachel and I have been using this time to make plans for Wrong Direction Farm for the new year. Whenever I do my listmaking, I invariably fill the sheet with all sorts of unachievable goals. Farming is nothing, if not a good way to reinforce feelings of inadequacy for
Farm Goals for 2022 Read More »
I was intrigued to read this morning a new article from ProPublica on the chicken industry. The piece covers two somewhat divergent topics. One topic relates to the sourcing of chicken, the other relates to bacterial contamination rates in certain product lines. We could explore either topic, but the chicken sourcing item is of more
When Your Fancy Free Range Chicken Comes from the Same Place as Walmart’s Chicken Read More »
Rachel recorded this video about how she herds the cattle when she needs to gather them from a large field. As with most other skilled activities, it can look easy and natural, but that’s only the case after one has learned to read situations and developed instincts for working carefully and thoughtfully. It is interesting
Rachel’s Thoughts on Herding Cattle Read More »
I found two stories this week that corroborate my observations about the power of cattle to improve diversity in the landscape. I don’t claim that cattle will always be the solution to any problem, but I do believe that when managed well, they can be the solution to a broad range of problems. Minecraft and
Always Amazed By Cows Read More »
Our high tensile fences in the pastures are strung on wooden fence posts, each sunk four feet deep. Over the years we’ve slowly added permanent fences throughout the farm. We’re inching our way to the finish line, this year adding posts in some of the back pastures. Here’s a video showing the equipment we use
Installing Fence Posts on the Farm Read More »
“You aren’t asleep, are you?” It was 10:15 Sunday night and my neighbor Mike was calling. I knew it wouldn’t be good news. “Your cows are up next to my barn. A big group of them.” And there goes a perfectly good evening… A couple days before, Mike had brought over this year’s group of
The Phone Call We Dread Read More »
I need to become a better communicator about soil. It is a topic that few people outside of farming give much thought to. With its biological and chemical complexity, it is challenging to condense the ideas down to an easily-grasped summary. But the communication problem may not be entirely the fault of the complexity of
Soil Needs Animals Read More »
When my mom and I made the Thanksgiving turkey roast video, I found I had a lot of extra outtakes after editing, and one of those included a discussion of leftovers. So I figured this weekend would be a good time to share Mom’s recipe for a cacciatore using leftover turkey. Here’s the short video
Turkey Leftovers and a Turkey Cacciatore Recipe Read More »
Sometimes the farm life isn’t all pastures and soil. It often involves fixing the farm equipment. We only have one tractor, so we’re not as caught up in engines and wrenches as a more mechanized farm, but we still manage to spend a lot of time with the tools spread out in the driveway. We
Customizing the Tractor Loader: Video Read More »
